‘I can’t do that,’ said God.
‘Yes you can. Give me the cancer instead!’ he cried.
‘Don’t you see?’ God smiled. ‘Six months ago it was you who had the cancer. Your mother insisted that she took it instead.’
‘Change it back.’
‘What’s done is done.’
‘I can’t let my mother sacrifice herself for me.’
God sighed. ‘Do you want your mother to watch her only son die? What will happen to her then?’
John gazed through the hospital window, fists slowly unclenching.
His mother’s eyes had already closed.
‘Thank you,’ he whispered.
Snow began to fall.