She presses her hand over his chest, and grabs his, clutching it over her own heart, forcing him to feel the pulse running through them both.

'I know you're real, Gene. And I know that you're him and he's you. You have to be. If you're not real, then I'm not real.'

Because she's dead, too. She doesn't know if the bullet took her in the hold of that barge, or if she died later, after sending Molly away to live with her father. She doesn't know where reality ended and the dream began, but it doesn't matter. It's real to her. He's real.