“What? What did your mom say?”

Rachel laughed when she thought about how cool her mom had been when she heard the news. “My mom looked at him and said something like, ‘Well, I didn’t know you still had it in you.’ And then she said, ‘Which suitcase do you want? Take your pick.’ I haven’t seen my mom look so happy in years!”

Carolyn thought about how strange this was. She loved her dad with all her heart, and couldn’t imagine feeling anything but tremendous pain if her mom and dad split up, but she was happy for Rachel because at last it looked as if she would have something that resembled a normal home life.

The next several months were peaceful in the McKenna household. Terry had graduated from high school and was working full time and contributing most of her paycheck, and Rachel’s mom worked at the A&P where Route 6 crossed 44. Rachel got a part-time job after school at the same A&P, to help make ends meet. The truth was that Ted tended to drink away a good portion of what he earned, so even though they had a little less money in the house, they were managing. The one good thing her father had done was pay off the house when he inherited some money a few years back, before he stumbled off to Minnesota. Everyone was enjoying no longer waiting for the other shoe to drop. But then it did.

Rachel noticed that her mom had seemed distracted for a few weeks, and then she took a day off from work, which wasn’t like her. That night, she just sat at the kitchen table by herself and stared off into space.

“What’s the matter, Mom?”

“Oh, nothing. Nothing I need to bother you kids with,” she said, but Rachel persisted.

Finally her mom told her she had been to the doctor because she was feeling tired all the time, and she had something called lymphoma. All the kids gathered around the kitchen table, and she told them the doctors had assured her she would get well, but was going to have to go for some treatments.

The next day, Rachel went to the school library, took down the K–L volume of the World Book Encyclopedia, and looked up the word she would come to despise. She slammed the book shut when she learned it was a form of cancer that was most often fatal.

So her mother began chemotherapy, but she seemed to get sicker and sicker as time went on instead of getting better. Finally she had to quit her job. Terry and Rachel sat down with their mom and told her they had come to the decision that Rachel would work at the supermarket full time.

“How are you going to do that and still go to school?” her mom asked.