This is her town now, bathed in pale January light, populated with students and bright, vivid women, the occasional interesting man. She hangs a string of white lights around her kitchen window and buys a tall, leafy schefflera tree for the living room that she replants in an orange-glazed pot. She talks on the phone and watches television in the evenings, drunk on coziness and midwestern domesticity. At some point she begins to sweat during the nights, waking up to a damp nightgown and clammy sheets. It develops into an Iowa head cold; she can barely breathe but it’s nothing to her, a sniffle with a headache. Herbal tinctures from the health-food store, fruits, vegetables, good heavy bread, lots of soup. The cold recedes eventually and she’s left with chapped nostrils and a large lump on the right side of her neck.

Fear moves into the little house with her, taking up residence in the back of her closet along with the down comforter that she can no longer use. The night sweats get worse, forcing her up and into the living room, where she knits to keep from touching the lump. She can’t tell if it’s sore or if she’s just prodding it too much. It’s definitely big. Linda is worried, although she’s also reasonable; it could be a residual effect from the cold.

The doctor is circumspect, steepling her hands and furrowing her brow. Aspiration is called for, a long needle into the neck like something out of a Boris Karloff movie. She’s the bride of Frankenstein, she’s the girl in the thin nightie cowering as the monster peers through her window. Mostly she’s Katy and Sarah’s mother, and they rally again, Katy on the telephone, talking of boys and clothes, her voice alive with fear, and then Sarah, who’s been living in the general vicinity, on her doorstep.

She walks with Sarah in Hickory Hill Park after the procedure is done. The trees are denuded still and the sky is like milk; their faces are raked by the damp wind but there’s nowhere else to go and so they walk and think, not speaking. It’s two years exactly since this all began. On the way back to the house, they hold hands like schoolchildren. Before the kettle can boil, the telephone rings; the doctor wants to see Cheri in her office.

Cancer in the lymph system, metastasized from the breast. Statistically speaking, two years at the outside, with aggressive treatment. Without it, much less.

They are sitting in upholstered armchairs in front of the doctor’s desk, like applicants denied a bank loan. Sarah leans forward from the waist and sobs uncontrollably, her face on her knees, hands clutching her ankles. This is how she cried as a toddler when it was bedtime and the party was still going on. This is my daughter, Cheri thinks. My other daughter is Kate.