“It’s pretty much what you see. She’s going to have to be in a wheelchair all the time soon. She can hardly walk, and she falls a lot.” She had fallen out of her wheelchair just that morning in the safety of her bedroom. Audrey was wondering when they would have to move her to the only downstairs bedroom, Will’s old room, because she couldn’t negotiate the stairs. “She still tries to do as much as she can for herself, but she’s lost a lot of muscle control in her hands this year,” Audrey said as gently as she could. She knew it was hard for her brother to see Ellen like this.

“She’s lucky she has you,” he said in a choked voice. They’d been told that eventually even her breathing would be affected, and a cold could kill her if it turned into pneumonia, which it easily could.

“We just have to do everything we can for her, for as long as we can. In a year and a half, I’ll have finished nursing school, and I can be home with her all the time.” Now that she was in it, she loved nursing school, and everything it had taught her, about more than just caring for her mother. It felt like the right calling for her, just as flying was for Will. She had discovered a passion for nursing, unlike Lizzie, who still wished she could become a doctor, not just a nurse. But Lizzie was enjoying school too, more than she’d expected to, and her friendship with Audrey made it even better for both of them.

“You’ll tell me if you ever think I need to come home to see her . . . if . . . if she gets really bad . . .” Will said. Audrey knew he was afraid of her dying without him seeing her again.

“Of course,” Audrey said, and they hugged each other, knowing that one day, maybe not too far off, they would each be all the other had. It was heartbreaking to think about.