Tully looked up through a blur of tears. “Dr. Hilary Carleton is here to talk about inflammatory breast cancer, and to educate you about the symptoms: the rashes, the localized heat, the discolorations, the puckered skin, and the inverted nipples, to name a few. She’ll remind us all that we need to look for more than just lumps. The doctor has brought a woman with her—Merrilee Comber from Des Moines, Iowa—who first noticed a small scaly patch near her left nipple . . .”

The show rolled forward as they all did, on the wheels of Tully’s personality. She interviewed guests and showed pictures and reminded her audience of millions not only to get yearly mammograms but to watch for any changes in their breasts. At the end of her broadcast, instead of her usual We’ll talk tomorrow tagline, she looked into the camera and said, “Katie, you’re the best friend I have and the best mother I know. Except for Mrs. M., who is good, too.” Then she smiled at her audience and said simply: “This will be my last show for a long while. I’m taking time off to be with Katie. As all of you would.”

She heard a gasp following her announcement; this time the sound came from backstage.

“This show is, after all, just that: a show. Real life is with friends and family, and as an old friend pointed out to me a while ago: I do have a family. And she needs me now.” She unclipped her microphone, dropped it to the floor, and left the stage.

On Kate’s last night in the hospital, Tully convinced Johnny to take the kids home, and she took his place in the room’s other bed. She pushed the bed across the linoleum floor until it practically butted up to Katie’s. “I brought you a tape of my last show.”

“You would think that’s what a dying woman wanted to watch.”

“Ha ha.” Tully put the tape in the machine and hit play, then crawled into her bed. Like a pair of eighth-grade girls at a slumber party, they watched the taped broadcast.

When it was over, Kate turned to her. “I’m glad to see you’ll still use me to bump up your ratings.”

“I’ll have you know that was poignant and powerful. And important.”

“You think that’s true of everything you do.”

“Do not.”

“Good comeback.”

“You wouldn’t know good TV if it bit you in the ass.”

Kate smiled, but it was as washed out as her complexion. With her bald head and sunken eyes, she looked impossibly young and fragile.

“Are you getting tired?” Tully said, sitting up. “Maybe we should go to sleep.”

“I noticed that you apologized to me on air. In your own way.” Her smile expanded. “I mean, without admitting you were a bitch or actually saying the words. You meant that you were sorry.”