I stand and take a deep breath, as if everything is finally beginning. I approach the door, and Dr. Cortez doesn’t stand. I know she is very new at this—her face is in her hands. I reach down and my fingertips graze her small shoulder, and I squeeze her collarbone reassuringly. I’m surprised at how fragile it feels, like an eggshell.

“Thank you, Sarah,” I whisper. “You have always been forthright with me. I know you’ve tried many things. And I appreciate that. This will get easier. Telling people. Don’t worry.”

She reaches up to squeeze my hand, but her reach stops somewhere short of her shoulder, short of my fingers. I walk away, breathing, each step a deliberate effort to keep going.

Outside, the late September air is soft and warmer than it should be.

I’m Afraid Not

During my walk home through the city, I reassure myself once again that I don’t have to tell you about the diagnosis. The asphalt smells hot, and there is a distant beeping, perhaps from the road crew paving the next road over. The lunch hour has passed, and office workers have returned to their desks. The schoolchildren have not yet been released. The rest of us run our errands. Groceries. Post office. Doctors’ appointments. It strikes me as strange that, besides the doctor, I am the only person in the entire world who knows what I know, that my end is near.

Anytime to three months.

I imagine traveling back to my hometown, entering that strange little peninsula of Nysa from the west, the dank smell of the river as we cross the bridge before driving Cat Tail Road through the woods, passing the Steward farm on the left, driving through all those cornfields. It’s nearly fall now, but some of the corn will still be standing, lining the roads like high walls, and some of it will be cut down to dry stubble, leaving behind lines like a labyrinth. All the way to town. Maybe I’ll even take you to the cabin on the shore of the lake. How much will I tell you about what happened there forty years ago? How much will I leave out?

How much do I even know for sure?

Anytime to three months.

I glance at my watch. My house is there on the left, and it observes my approach. I know that somehow the house knows about my anytime to three months. The morning paper leans against the front stoop—I was so distracted by the knot on the side of my head and the doctor’s appointment that I was knocked out of my normal routine, forgetting to collect and read the paper after I walked you to school this morning. I pass the house, our house, and I turn left at the next alley and walk the five long blocks down to your elementary school.

That’s when the first shadow of doubt creeps into my mind. I’m not sure I can keep this news from you. You are very perceptive for eleven-almost-twelve.