The more she learned about diabetes—how serious, how dangerous it was, how it could affect her eyes, feet, everything in her body—the more upset she became. These days, even after seeing the nurse-dietician at the hospital, she hardly knew what to eat or how to cook and found it increasingly hard to get a grip on a whole new way of thinking about food. And exercise! The doctor said that was very important. She walked some, but the length of Cove Road was hardly what he meant, and when she signed on at a gym, all those fit young women leading other fit young women in aerobics or yoga made her want to never return, and she had not.

“It’s going to be all right.” Bob ran his hand across her arm in a gesture he probably considered soothing but that, at that moment, had annoyed Grace.

The sonogram had been painless, so when her doctor said that the test revealed no arterial blockages, Grace relaxed, until she heard his next words.

“But what we found is that your kidneys are functioning at forty-four percent of capacity.”

The doctor had perched on the edge of the examination table. A chart of kidneys, bright with veins and arteries, hung like a photograph on the pale gray wall behind him. The seriousness of his words bounced off Grace’s consciousness. Had Bob not accompanied her to his office, Grace would have denied the truth, as she was wont to do.

“If you were twenty-seven years old,” the doctor continued, “I’d be concerned, but since you’re, what?”—he checked her chart—“seventy-two…”

“Why are my kidneys functioning at only forty-four percent?” she had asked.

“We all lose kidney function as we age. I’m not worried, so long as we keep that function at forty-four percent. Your new blood pressure medication will help protect your kidneys.”

But at night, lying in bed, Grace wondered what else was silently deteriorating deep within her body. She prayed and tried unsuccessfully to meditate and visualize herself whole and perfect and wondered if her efforts were too little too late.

It was Amelia’s, and then Hannah’s hurried footsteps in the hall, and the closing of their front door, that roused her from self-pity and from her bed. Grace grabbed a robe and hastened downstairs, hoping to catch them, but too late. Through their kitchen window she watched her friends enter Max’s house, and for a moment she considered following them.