ROUND ONE ENDS, ROUND TWO BEGINS

They got a pattern down. Instead of going on a trip that summer, Mike used his vacation time to help ferry Sue back and forth to the hospital. Harry Phillips, understanding Mike's problem and very sympathetic toward Sue, worked with him, allowing him to work at home when he could, leave early if necessary for Sue's hospital visits and doctor appointments; and he even called now and then to see how Sue was doing.

Their neighbors helped as well. When it just wasn't possible for Mike to take Sue to the doctor or the hospital, her friend Jane stepped in and provided transportation. Another neighbor's teenage son mowed the Bradys' lawn once a week, refusing any payment, so that Mike could devote more time to Sue. Get-well cards poured in; Sue's cousin, Gene, dropped by often with his family; and Mike's parents and siblings stopped by often as well. Patricia and Gordon would bring their little Katherine, and Sue delighted in the child, telling Patricia she was lucky and confiding in her about Mike's suggestion of adopting a little girl one day. "When I get well" was a phrase Sue uttered so often that it was the first string of words Bobby spoke.

By Christmas of that year the doctors had given them some hope. The surgery had been a success and the radiation treatments seemed to be working. The Bradys celebrated the holiday with particular gusto, and Sue was more than happy to sit for a family portrait with Mike, Greg, Peter, Bobby and Tiger, taken by Alice. Things felt normal; Sue was able to get up, walk around, hold Bobby on her lap and even give Alice a little help with Christmas dinner.

By the time Greg turned eight, with Peter about to hit five and Bobby nearly two, the doctors pronounced the treatment a success and Sue cancer-free. "If you remain cancer-free for five years, you'll be considered cured," the doctor explained to her. "Every day you're free is a day closer to total cure, so be optimistic."

That was hard to do when, shortly after Greg's birthday, he, Peter and Bobby all came down with chickenpox at the same time. Greg had to be kept out of school, and Tiger turned out to be a solace to the boys, trotting tirelessly back and forth between Greg's room and the one Peter and Bobby shared. Sue commented cheerfully to Alice and to their pediatrician, Dr. Cameron, that it was a nice change to be dealing with something as mundane as the chickenpox.

"Oh, I don't know about that, Mrs. Brady," Alice said dubiously. "I remember when I was six and went through it myself. I think I was the most miserable kid in the universe."

"I'm sorry, Alice," Sue said instantly. "What happened? You must have had terrible spots."

"Oh yeah," Alice said, nodding. "All over the place. Wasn't an inch of my skin that didn't have some big red welt on it. I itched so much my parents went bankrupt buying oatmeal for oatmeal baths. Between a tub full of oats and my wrinkled skin, I felt like a big spotted raisin."

The boys cracked up with delight at that image. "Boy, I'm glad I don't itch like that," Greg said.

"You won't as long as you follow my instructions," Dr. Cameron told him, grinning. "Here, fellas, have a lollipop." He handed out lollipops to each boy, and at Sue's prompting they called thank-yous to him on his way out.

"But that wasn't even the worst of it," Alice went on when he'd left.

"What could be worse than having hundreds of huge, red, itchy spots?" Sue exclaimed.

Alice looked up, with an exaggerated look of sad outrage on her lively, expressive face. "It was the middle of summer," she mourned. "I didn't even get to miss any school!" Greg's mouth fell open and he gasped with total, heartfelt sympathy, while Sue started giggling.

‡ ‡ ‡

That fall Sue happily saw Peter off to kindergarten; Alice now walked him to school alongside third-grader Greg, and that gave Sue time to devote to two-year-old Bobby. During that school year Bobby and Tiger grew especially close, since now it was Bobby who accompanied Tiger on romps around the backyard while his older brothers were in school.

Then, a week or two before Halloween, Sue went in for her usual checkup and came back out feeling as if the floor had fallen out from under her. Her doctor didn't like what he had seen in her womb, and he wanted to put her through testing. Sue, seeing a hysterectomy in her future, cried again, upset at the utter injustice of it all, wondering if it was ever going to end.

Mike nodded stoically when he heard the news. "So it's just the second round of the fight, honey," he said. "You beat it last time, you'll beat it again. Don't give up, okay?"

"I just wish I could have…had a chance…" Sue began mournfully.

Mike tipped her chin up and gazed into the brown eyes she'd passed on to Peter. "Don't think of it like that," he coaxed gently. "Look at it a different way. We've got three great boys. You had the chance to be a mother, the way you told me you wanted to be when we got married. And you're the best mother in the world to those kids. They love you, don't you know that? And I love you even more."

Sue cleared her throat and hugged him hard, then declared, "I've set a goal for myself. I'm determined to see Bobby start school when he's old enough."

"Atta girl," Mike said, grinning. "That's the way to think. Now let's get started reaching that goal."

‡ ‡ ‡

Sure enough, it was uterine cancer. Sue had the hysterectomy, and then once again underwent the grueling, exhausting round of chemo treatments. Again, their neighbors rallied around, and Harry Phillips gave Mike the same leeway he had during the first battle. Greg turned nine, Peter six and Bobby three; Gordon and Patricia surprised the family with news that they were expecting a second child; and Rick shocked them all when he at long last introduced Sharon Stilwell, the airline stewardess he'd spent months tracking down and then more months persuading to go on a date, to the family as his fiancée.

Patricia, Sue and Sharon hit it off right away, and one late-summer day Patricia asked Sharon point-blank, "Tell me, what do you see in that crazy brother of mine, anyway?"

Sharon grinned, seeing Sue trying not to laugh. "Don't hold back, Sue, I don't blame her for asking. I used to wonder what my sister-in-law saw in my brother. Siblings can never understand how anybody can fall in love with their brother or sister, but it happens. And it turns out that, underneath the playboy exterior, there's an amazing romantic. When he finally won me over, he worked on keeping me interested, and one day I just woke up and realized I was in love with him. It means I'll have to give up my job when we get married, but Rick's persuaded me that he's my Mr. Right, so it'll be worth it." She smiled. "You two seem so happy to be moms, I can't wait to try it myself."

After supper that evening, Sue looked at Mike and said softly, "Now I have three goals. I want to be here to see Bobby start school, Gordon and Patricia's new baby, and Rick and Sharon's wedding."

"You'll make it, honey," Mike said confidently. "I know you will."

This time, though, Sue was more fatigued, for longer, than she had been when she'd fought off the ovarian cancer. She sometimes had the feeling that someone had twisted her tight and wrung her out like a wet washcloth. There were days when she didn't have the energy to get out of bed. Sometimes she slept the entire day away, and barely awoke long enough to say hi to her husband when he crawled in beside her for his own night's sleep.

The doctors stepped up the chemo treatments, but their effects were weakening, little by little. Rick and Sharon moved up the date of their wedding to New Year's Day, and when it was discovered that Sue's cancer had spread farther than the doctors had thought, and that she had cervical and intestinal cancer that wasn't responding to the radiation, they held it in Mike and Sue's living room so that Sue could be there to achieve at least one of her goals. Patricia was due to give birth in March. "Hang on, Sue," she said, grasping her sister-in-law's hand and squeezing. "Just a couple more months and you can see Junior or Janie here."

"Tell me about the names," Sue said.

Patricia understood. "Andrew Christopher if it's a boy, and Andrea Susan if it's a girl. The Susan is for you." She smiled, and Sue's eyes filled, and they hugged each other. Unnoticed a few feet away, Mike turned aside to hide his own tears.

It was the first acknowledgement anyone had made that Sue's condition was serious enough to warrant considering that she might not make it. Mike could see now that Sue seemed to have accepted that she wasn't going to defeat the disease this time, but he simply couldn't stand to give up hoping for a miracle. It was too difficult for him to face the idea that Sue might die.

At the same time, though, he didn't know what to tell the boys. He didn't want to upset them, but he also knew that he couldn't risk giving them false hope. All they could do was wait for the official verdict from the doctors, and they would deal with it then.