“Hey, wait.” Renee reached out, grabbing her arm. “Something’s wrong, and I know it. You can talk to me! You can tell me absolutely anything. This is and will forever be a zero judgment zone. You know that, right?”

Bree flinched. “I’m fine, okay? I am completely fine! Would you stop worrying? It’s suffocating, Renee.”

Renee shook her head and held her ground. Bree wasn’t turning the tables and playing the victim. Not now.

Instead, she held up the stack of mail. “Every time I drop by, you seem like you just woke up from a nap. It’s like you’re in this eternal stupor, which isn’t you. Plus, your house is getting messy. All of this forgotten mail had piled up on the counter and was in danger of spilling into the sink. Are you on more than Xanax?”

Bree swallowed. “I found a lump. In the shower.”

“Oh my God. No. Shit. No.” Renee felt like she might throw up. Instead, she pulled Bree into her arms, holding her as tight as she could, breathing in the faint lilac of her shampoo. “Why didn’t you say anything?”

“Because I didn’t want to scare you.” Bree began to cry into Renee’s shoulder. “Jill said I should but…but…I didn’t want to upset you.”

“Are you going to the doctor?”

“Yeah,” Bree said. “I have a mammogram next week. It was the soonest they could fit me in.”

Neither had to ask what the other was thinking.

Fuck cancer.

Their dad had a pack-a-day smoking habit so it wasn’t such a shock when his chronic cough eventually got a stage four diagnosis. But when their mom went, it had started just like this—she’d gone in for a routine checkup when her doctor discovered a lump on her left breast. She’d been so brave, assuring her daughters it was probably benign, and yet it hadn’t been. And the cancer had already spread.

“She didn’t even have a chance,” Bree whispered. “It was in her brain when they caught it. Her freaking brain.”

Renee was crying now, too. “I still can’t wrap my head around it, how one day we were planning a trip to Vermont and then a week later, hospice. It wasn’t fair. This isn’t fair.”

“I hate this so much.”

“I know, honey. I do too.” Renee stroked her sister’s hair, the way she used to when they were little girls. “I swear I will be with you every step of this journey. I just wish you would have told me sooner. No one should shoulder that sort of worry alone.”

“Jill knows,” Bree murmured. “She’s been the only one. Until you.”