He lowered his head and swung his legs some more, and then I was called in.

My favorite nurse, Carla, was on duty. When she saw me, she crowed like I was her long-lost lover and gave me a smothering hug. Her frizzy hair was in a ponytail. Behind the glasses, she had the warmest eyes. Though I knew better, and though being embraced by Carla brought tears springing to my eyes, for a minute it seemed as if everything was going to be all right just because it was her giving me my chemo. Mom held my hand and rubbed my shoulder and exchanged smiles with Carla while she accessed my port and hooked me up and fussed with the valve, peering at the bag with a practiced eye.

Some of the kids I knew were there, Sandy and Rita, the dancer who’d lost her leg, but it was Torrence I couldn’t get out of my mind. Tracks across his scalp. Covering his smile with both hands. Wanting to tell me things. Give me things. At least when I was ten I was carefree because I had no idea what was going to happen. At least this part didn’t hurt, like getting IVs did; with chemo the ugliness came later. I smiled at my mother and made a mental effort to welcome the liquid in. Some other girl was lying on the bed in my place. I was soaring over the hospital and the peaks of the trees and the traffic going around and around in circles. Above and beyond and away.

•  •  •

When we were leaving the hospital, I thought of Torrence again, though he was nowhere to be seen. He might have been there just for scans. We passed as always the stained glass windows of daisies and daffodils, the framed photographs of beaches, bridges, and peacocks. They don’t let me out until my counts are up, but still the first week home is awful. Disappearing Girl. Monster Baby. I wondered if Torrence’s mother took care of him when he was sick, or if he had a grandmother, because if you ask me, his sister would be chewing gum and waiting for the minute she could leave the room. It was possible Torrence didn’t even have a mother. I couldn’t bear to think about that.