She felt like a naughty little girl sitting before the table looking at meals her daughter was killing herself to make—old favorites that now tasted like a combination of forty-weight Texaco oil and sawdust. It was a relief to get back to the couch and work crossword puzzles. It was hell imposing on her daughter but she was frightened. Terrified! They were her blood. They had to take her. Oh, to come to this!

The son-in-law worked swing shift and he cheered her in the morning when he got up and made coffee. He was full of life. He was real. He was authentic. He even interjected little pockets of hope. Not that he pushed macrobiotics or any of that foolishness, but it was a fact—if you were happy, if you had something to live for, if you loved life, you lived. It had been a mistake for her to hole up there in the mountains after John died. The Will to Live was more important than doctors and medicines. You had to reinvigorate the Will to Live. The granddaughter was good for that. She just couldn’t go the meditation-tape route, imagining microscopic, ravenous, good-guy little sharks eating the bad cancer cells, et cetera. At least the son-in-law didn’t suggest that or come on strong with a theology trip. She noticed he read the King James Bible, though.

She couldn’t eat. There was a milk-shake diet she choked down. Vanilla, chocolate fudge, strawberry—your choice. Would Madame like a bottle of wine with dinner? Ha, ha, ha.

Dilaudid. It wasn’t working, there was serious pain, especially in her chest, dagger thrusts—Et tu, Brute? She watched the clock like a hawk and had her pills out and ready every four hours—and that last hour was getting to be murder, a morbid sweat began popping out of her in the last fifteen minutes. One morning she caved in and timidly asked the son-in-law, “Can I take three?”

He said, “Hell, take four. It’s a safe drug. If you have bad pain, take four.” Her eyes were popping out of her head. “Here, drink it with coffee and it will kick in faster.”

He was right. He knew more than the doctor. You just can’t do everything by the book. Maybe that had been her trouble all along—she was too compliant, one of those “cancer” personalities. She believed in the rules. She was one of those kind who wanted to leave the world a better place than she found it. She had been a good person, had always done the right thing—this just wasn’t right. It wasn’t fair. She was so…angry!