“Do what?” My father looked at Anna, pulling his robe around himself protectively.

“You told me you were dying!” I yelled at my father.

“No, I didn’t.”

“No, he didn’t,” Anna chimed in behind him.

I was going crazy but decided not to fight it. “Okay, fine. You didn’t.” I got up from the floor and stamped the tingling away from my feet and legs.

“Remember the pee I was telling you about the night you were busy?” Anna said pointedly.

“I wasn’t busy, I was going to the Oscars.”

Anna waved my explanation away as if it were smoke in her eyes. “I got your father to the doctor to have the pee-pee checked. The pee was fine. Dark from vitamins your father was taking. But when the doctor had him there, they did a physical, and thank God from the bottom of my heart because they found a little tumor in your daddy’s behind.”

“Anna, please.” My father pulled his robe tighter and headed in the direction of his study. Daddy couldn’t bear conversation of this sort.

“What happens now?” I asked.

Her face became somber. “Now, your father begins radiation.”

I could see the fear in her eyes. And that made me afraid too.

I put my arms around her. She wrapped me in a hug, then held me away from her and combed my hair from my face. Suddenly, I was exhausted, much too tired to drive home.

“Anna? Can I spend the night?”

Anna looked surprised but happy. “Of course,” she said. “You can stay in your room.”

“I’m not sure I remember how to find it,” I teased. I hadn’t stayed overnight in the Mausoleum since I was seventeen. Anna rang the elevator, and we ascended to her bed chambers. I trailed after to her sweet-smelling, cedar-lined dressing room, the size of the apartment Nicole and I had once shared.

“How are things going with Brett?” Anna asked as she rummaged through a drawer.

“Great actually.”

She held out an array of different nighties to pick from. I chose a striped flannel Lanz.

“When are you going back to work?”

“I don’t know. I’m in no hurry.”

“You want to have a baby?” She cocked an eyebrow.

“Oh my God, no. I mean, yeah sure, but not for like ten years.” I took off my shirt and jeans, pulled the nightgown over my head.

“Brett doesn’t want you to work.”

“Of course he wants me to work. I just haven’t found a good script.”

Anna looked at me, her eyes narrowing. “What about the Reiner film?”

“How did you know about that?”

“Penny called me.”

“Oh great, so much for client confidentiality.”

“She’s an agent, not a lawyer. Penny says they won’t wait forever.”

“Well, I’m turning it down.”

“Why?” she exclaimed.