Moira, Nate, and Josh were already in the infusion center, a large room that held six reclining chairs with IV poles and bags of clear liquid hanging from them. Each chair had a television that could be pulled out of the arm, like on an airplane, equipped with headphones and a wireless video game controller. There was another boy at the far end of the room, maybe a year or two older than Josh. He was completely bald. His mother was reading a homeopathy magazine while he played a video game.

Josh’s eyes lit up when I entered and he smiled, a tiny, feeble curl of his lips. I pulled him into my arms, my heart pinging with those agonizing sympathy pangs mothers get when they see their child in pain.

“Hi, sweetheart. How are you feeling?” I murmured.

He sighed faintly. He was so weak. Even before starting chemo, the cancer had been eating him alive. I would be glad when he got the reprogrammed T-cells injected next week.

As long as I had the money to pay for it, that is.

Josh sniffed and swiped at his nose. One of the side effects of chemo was a mess of flu-like symptoms. Josh’s eyes were red-rimmed, his skin pale and cold, making him look even smaller and more vulnerable than he should.

“My tummy hurt this morning, but I’m better now. Grandma made me some soup, and it was yummy. I have these things in my mouth that hurt, though.”

He opened his mouth, and I peered in. The moist pink skin along his gums and under his tongue was riddled with white-edged mouth ulcers.

“Poor baby. Those look sore.” I handed him a bottle of water, feeling impotent and useless, and stroked a hand over his silky hair only to have a tuft of it come off in my hand.

I met Nate’s eyes, seeing my horror mirrored in his face. Tears flooded my eyes. I clasped my hand over my mouth and turned away so Josh wouldn’t see my reaction. The antiseptic smell in the room burned my throat as I stared at the hair in my palm.

This was hair I’d washed and brushed and cut since Josh was an infant. And soon he would have none.

If only I’d noticed the bruises on Josh’s small body sooner. Would his chances be better now?

I thought suddenly of when Josh was a baby, the early stages of my pregnancy, when I’d been so terrified about that paternity test. How I’d had to go back into the hospital when I’d unexpectedly started bleeding at twenty weeks. How I’d gone into labor three weeks early, and he’d been born underweight and yellow. How he’d broken his leg jumping off the top of the slide when he was just three. But it had all been fine, everything normal and ordinary and just, magically, fine.