I came down with a virus the week after New Year’s. We’d gone to Vermont for Christmas, showing off the new Bree Emma Harrington to her extended family. A week there had exhausted both of us, and when we got back we both came down with a typical winter cold. After a week and a half of sneezing and coughing Grace finally recovered, but I continued to ache and cough and occasionally flare up with a fever. Convinced it was just a bug, I weathered it and kept my distance from the baby and Grace. After three weeks it was still there, and Grace convinced me to go to the doctor. He prescribed a killer antibiotic and sent me on my way.

The giant pink pills seemed to do the trick, and I was back to myself within a week. Unfortunately, I was sick again within a month with the same thing. The doctor prescribed another megapill that again seemed to work for a while. Within a month it was back.

Tests, tests, tests. I gave up what seemed to be a pint of blood for a whole smorgasbord of tests one Tuesday morning; three days later a nurse asked me to come in the next morning to discuss the results, adding, “It might be good for Mrs. Harrington to join you.” I fought the temptation to worry and fret over the test results. How bad could it possibly be? Cancer didn’t seem nearly as frightening now that we’d gone through it with Zoe; I felt I knew that routine pretty well. I was pretty sure tumors didn’t present like the flu—what else was there? Surely my imagination was getting the best of me. It wasn’t going to be that big a deal.

Zoe and Todd took Bree for us the next morning. It was a beautiful April day, two weeks from Easter, and the Jacarandas were blooming. Despite the aches I’d become almost accustomed to in my head and joints, I was feeling pretty good.

Dr. Patton had been recommended by my agent; he was not only an excellent physician but also discreet and trustworthy—the bulk of his patients were industry folk. His office was located a block off Rodeo Drive, and we were ushered into a mahogany-paneled office on the third floor as soon as we arrived.

That was the first clue that things might be worse than we thought. Not the standard exam room, but his personal study. I forced myself to relax. Grace’s hand was shaking in mine as the doctor entered.

I’ll never forget that room: thick beige carpet, red overstuffed chairs, a color-loaded Cézanne on the right-hand wall, the sunlight coming in the window and illuminating a stack of medical journals on the floor in a corner. The room was burned into my memory the moment Dr. Patton’s deep, grandfatherly voice delivered the diagnosis: HIV.