By day seven, she understands air travel will be impossible, unendurable, because of her weakened state. A new plan is made for Wayne to rent a van and drive all of them to Detroit—Cheri, Linda, Sarah, and Kate. None of the others can be present at her actual death, of course, since it’s illegal, but still, they’ll be taking her there, nine hours away. Cheri feels momentarily frantic at the idea of this, her loved ones having to participate in her fate, but she can’t hold on to it. Too sick, too busy grasping her own thin hand, pulling herself along. Almost overnight, she feels herself beginning to detach from them, not because she wants to, but because she needs her own full attention. This is simply part of what happens.

Linda comes over in the evening to wait with them, a little blast of refreshing cold entering the house with her. She brings food as well and leans against the kitchen counter as they eat, chatting, then busies herself as best she can by sweeping up the fallen leaves from the schefflera tree, folding clean towels, petting Ursa. When she goes home, they resume the vigil, tiptoeing around the house in their sock feet, staring for long moments at the television or at their own spectral faces reflected in the dark windows.

Wayne shows up a few days before they are to leave and sits with Cheri awhile, making quiet small talk until she tires and then saying goodbye, squeezing her hand momentarily before he stands. Sarah and Katy call to him from the backyard, where Ursa has chased one of the cats up a tree. They are near tears, both of them walking in circles, trying to coax the cat down in high urgent voices. Wayne climbs a few feet up the tree and lifts the cat off a branch, manually detaching each claw, hands it down to Sarah. When he glances back, Cheri is standing at the kitchen window, waving thank you.

On the last night, Linda makes sandwiches for the trip, egg salad with lettuce, while Wayne plots the route using a road map and his computer; Sarah and Katy, after a dinner of yogurt and leftover soup, place the cats in bed with their mother and watch as she pets them and they purr, as Ursa puts her nose up on the covers and gets her ears combed and her face kissed; they listen as she reminds them: I love you, my chicas, never forget.

And Cheri, on her last night, weeps with relief when she’s finally alone, suffers about five minutes of teeth-chattering fear, calms herself by imagining the faces and whispering the names of all her past dogs, then lies quietly with the pillow pressed to her chest, watching the interior images that click on and off like slides.

Near dawn, she sleeps for a while and dreams of gathering Easter eggs: a violet one nestled between the white pickets of a porch railing, a pink-and-green one camouflaged in the grass next to a wire fence, an azure one balanced perfectly and precariously on a water spigot.