Allison pressed a few buttons on the back of her camera. She rested the long lens on the stump of her right arm, letting the camera dangle down from the strap around her neck. She picked it up in her left hand and rested it on the plane of her right forearm to snap a photograph of Kathleen, Sean, Flynn, and me.

"Simply fabulous," she announced, staring at the viewscreen.

"I like the other camera," Kathleen announced, skipping next to Allison with the large camera bag knocking against her hip.

Sean groaned, hefting the large box back into his arms. "The other camera is the size of a small child."

"Well, do you want a photo of you and Flynn that's super incredible, or do you want amateurish snapshots?" Allison countered, focusing in on the shadows cast by one of the academic buildings on the SIU campus. The latticework of light and dark on the concrete looked like a strange, ethereal lace, she took two photos standing up, and then one squatting down.

Flynn poked her husband and snapped, "Super incredible. Shut up, you, just haul the freaking camera like you're told."

Allison laughed, reaching into the side of her bag and grabbing a small notebook. "Okay, yesterday, I got the picture of Bucky's Dome, and the photos at the wine festival were really nice. Today. I want to get one scenic shot of the Tea House, and then I'll do the one of you two there. Tonight, I'll shoot a roll of film on my SLR of you two, then one more of Kath, and then one of May." She wriggled her eyebrows at me. "I have an idea for you, if you'll go along with it."

I frowned, watching her study me with wicked eyes. "What is this idea of yours?"

"All will be revealed," she cackled, stuffing the notebook away. "Hey, you promised us boating at this afternoon, dude. Boat me, Sean!"

"Boat me," he snorted. "I forgot how you take nouns and torture them into verbs, Al."

"Yeah, yeah, verbing weirds the language, I know," Allison stuck her tongue out at him, slinging her stump behind my neck. "How you feeling, May? Need a rest?"

Kathleen spun around and took my hand. "Yeah, we don't want you overdoing it like yesterday." Yesterday, where I threw up and had a dizzy spell at the wine festival. What had Sean said as he and Allison carried me back to the car? Limits, Mary Anne. Know your limits. You have cancer.

Unlike the three of them, I thought, staring at my friends' faces. No: Allison and Kathleen still had cancer, it was just sleeping. Hopefully forever. I took a deep breath and smiled. "No, I'm okay—though I really need to sit down soon. Are we close to the garden?"

"Totally," Flynn said, pushing her sunglasses higher on her nose. "Hey, Kath, while Al is setting up the camera? How 'bout you, me, and Sean play a bit of Frisbee?"

Kathleen nodded, the rows of her braids dancing together. "I will totally whip him again. May, I kicked his butt yesterday in Frisbee golf, it was so pathetic."

"Oh, Kathleen, you better watch it—Logan said he's gonna own you at that when you come down to visit us," I warned, shaking my finger at her.

She curled her fingers towards her body. "Bring it on, says I." She pulled an elastic band off of her wrist, snagging the braids in a ponytail. "Actually, I really like golf golf. Daddy and me and Stuart and Tiger went golfing last summer? And Tiger said I was really good."

"Oh, well, when I was playing baseball with Derek Jeter, he said I totally could play shortstop for the Yankees," Allison replied with a cool wave of her hand. She snorted, rolling her eyes. "Kath, you do realize that the life you live is completely ridiculous. Golf with Tiger, tossing around the football with John Elway—as if these are just folks, stopping by."

"Uncle John is Daddy's friend," Kathleen bristled. "They are just normal people. They use the bathroom just like the rest of us."

"Yeah, but when they finish peeing? They win championships," Sean laughed. "I think we all need to have our next reunion at Kath's house."

Allison's face shadowed. "I think next time, we don't let three years go by."

Sean shrugged, kicking a stone on the path away into the brambles. "Everybody's been so busy. And it's gonna get harder—you and May graduate in two years, and if all goes right, I'll be in med school—I won't have much free time at all. May might have a baby, you'll be a jet-setting fashion photographer—and Kath'll be Tiger Woods, yall."

"I didn't say I was going to do golf," Kathleen protested. "They're so many cool things. Like, May got me a ticket to see Jessica Ramsey dance—maybe I'll be the next black prima ballerina." Kathleen lifted her arms above her head in an oval, twirling in a delicate spiral. "I'd just have to, you know, learn to dance and stuff."

We approached a small teahouse nestled in a small copse of trees, leafy green bushes hugging the path. The small building was open to the light breeze, a small bell nestled in the triangle of its roof. I brushed my hand over the bamboo as we approached, inhaling the sweet scent of growing wood and jasmine.

"Isn't this lovely?" Flynn smiled, sitting down on a bench in the house. "When I really need some peace and quiet, I'll come here to Kumakura and try to meditate a bit by the koi pond."

"And I thought this thing called Illinois was just Chicago and corn. It's Chicago, corn, and a Japanese garden—and wineries," Allison giggled. "Booze and meditation. It's a perfect way to spend the day."

Flynn grinned, tugging a Frisbee out of her purse. "Just yell when you're ready for us to rock and roll."

"It'll take me some time to get set up, but then I'll get to you." Allison motioned for Sean to set the camera box down, and she took the bag from Kathleen. Working between her left hand and the knob of her right forearm, she unlocked the box and pulled out a tripod and then the boxy head of her large format camera, one of those old fashioned devices with the accordion nose and long black drape covering the back.

"I cannot believe you sometimes," I clucked, settling down on the bench as the noise of our other three friends faded into the background. "Why don't you just use your regular sized film camera?"

"This gives me just amazing clarity, the detail is outstanding. I mean, I almost feel ashamed that this is only a 4 x 5 camera—Sally Mann works with an 8 x 10, and she's my total freaking hero. I totally asked Mom and Dad for an 8 x 10 for graduation, though I think Santa might bring me one for Christmas," Allison grinned, attaching the lens on the front of the long accordion nose. "Hello, Schneider," she sang, giving the lens a small pat. "I usually only use this for studio work, but I took some really incredible photos of Lake Havasu over spring break on this puppy. And I wanted to take a really fancy ass one of Sean and Flynn. I'll take more arty stuff on my small SLR."

I leaned back against the wall and swallowed down a quick bolt of nausea. "I wish you could have taken my wedding photos. My friend Erin did a really nice job, but you're a pro."

Allison blushed a bit, pushing the drape on top of the box at the end of the camera and glancing into the back of its body. "Well, at the real wedding, I'm your girl. Baby's first photos, too, if you go through with this. And—how about this. You two come to my show in August, and I'll take some studio shots of you guys. I'll even make Ethan clean the workspace," she added, wriggling her eyebrows.

"I'll talk to him about it," I grinned. "At the very least, I'll be there. Sharing a studio—that's a pretty big step," I noted, watching her adjust the position of the camera.

"Yeah, well, we also share with six of his classmates. I'm the only one not at Parson's—they called me the Tisch Bitch until they got to know me. Like I was just a total trust fund baby or something," Allison sniffed, tugging at her shirtdress, an outfit that just screamed money. She walked over to me with a light meter in her hand, clicking it all over the inside of the house for a few minutes before walking back to the camera. "Anyway, once they saw my shit, saw how hard I work, they changed their tune. I'm actually kind of tight with Norah and Cass, the three of us go out and do, like, art on the go around the city. It's total fun." She narrowed her eyes at something in the back of her camera, her fingers twitching around. "Cass is showing at the Emerging Artists show, too—she's got this really wild impressionist autobiographical style in her painting. I think you'll like it."

"Cool," I shrugged. "I'm just glad that Ethan makes you happy."

"He does," Allison glowed. "I don't know if we're forever or anything, but for now, it's really great. And he's totally been my best assistant with all of my projects. When we went to take photos at Children's Hospital, he was great with the kids, he didn't get freaked over any of the cancer stuff. I mean, Kath and me are still holding our breath, just praying that we make it to five years. It's no guarantee, but it's closest thing you get to someone saying, It's all gone. And Ethan understands, and he's sticking. I guess he once had a girlfriend with really bad diabetes, he gets how you can have an illness but still be, like, you."

She put her hands on her hips and then tossed the black drape over her head. "Can you get out of the shot, dear?" she called, her voice muffled.

I hauled my tired body up, walking over to her and sitting back down again on the path. Allison was quiet for a few minutes, her left hand stretching out from under the cape-like fabric and pulling the accordion in. I watched the drape move up, and a large wrapper fell to the ground. She dropped out of the fabric and sat down next to me, setting the timer on her watch.

"It'll take five minutes, then I'm going to get in the shot and give a little illusion of a ghost, and then another few minutes," she said, staring at the face of the clock. "Where was I. Yeah, Ethan's good. I love this—did I tell you? In the fall, I have an externship with a really awesome fashion photographer named Wolf. That's his name—Wolf. Wild, huh? He did the fall Armani campaign, and a lot of top lines are pegging him to snap their shit. It's a really huge opportunity for me—oh, and some of the models whose headshots I did? Are getting work. For the first time in a long time, I'm looking only to the future. I'm thinking, after graduation, of going to either Paris or Milan—fashion capitals of Europe and all. My French is tres bon, but my Italian is non-existent. Ravioli. That's about it."

"Well, let your photos speak for you," I said with a curt nod.

Allison laughed, nudging me with her stump. "That's sweet, thanks. Oh, I brought my portfolio—do you want to see it?"

"You brought it with you?" I squeaked as she ran to the large camera box.

She shrugged. "I didn't know if we'd stop at their house before going to his folks' for dinner, and I thought that I'd show off there. But, we have some time to kill."

I clapped my hands, receiving the black book. "So, these are your best photos? Are my senior photos in here?"

"Yours? No. But one of Emily's and one of Logan's. But you're in here. The photo Dawn had me take—you in the coma," she murmured.

I wrapped my arms around my chest. "I don't want to see that, not right now, is that okay?"

"Of course," Allison nodded. "I know where it is, I'll flip right by it, don't worry."

I took in a breath, pushing that fear out. The sleep that holds you down, drags out the want to live and make it into a leaden, heavy, hard stone on your back. On your heart. "Let me see Emily's photo first."

Allison smiled, turning to the fourth page. Her fingers glossed over the picture of my Emily, standing against a black backdrop, her bare body wrapped in a bleached and faded rainbow flag. There, in the pale stripes of once vibrant colors, she stood with her eyes lined a heavy, smudged coal color, staring at the camera as if it would answer her questions. Who am I. What do I want. Her hands were clasped in the middle of her chest, holding the sagging flag in place around her.

"It's just the most incredible photo of her," I breathed. "Her mom just wept when she saw it—the Bernsteins hung it in their living room, despite, you know, the gay thing, because it's just…it's the most vulnerable I've ever seen Emmy. Well, while sober."

"Thanks," Allison replied. "I always get huge compliments for it. Has she dated a girl again?"

I shook my head. "Though she's made out with a few at bars and stuff. I think Emily's still looking for someone like Navit—not a sycophant like Howie or a total party boy like Tucker. She wants someone to challenge her and support her at the same time. I know she'd rather have a guy, but she says that she first found it in a girl, so who is she to close off fifty percent of the people out there? Emmy's really focused on school and advancing her career, and she says that she's not in the mood to date at the moment. She's, like, so my hero with how focused she is."

"I love that about you," Allison grinned. "How you find at least one thing in all of us that you just admire. It makes me feel really special when you say those things."

I felt my cheeks heat up as she turned a few more pages. "Here's your boy," she said, tapping on another photograph. This time the background was white, the blot of his green away jersey startling against the lack of color. Logan was crouched low, his weight shifted to the balls of his feet with his arms wrapped around his knees. Wedged between his thighs and his face was a basketball, his cheek on its orange surface as if it were a pillow. He looked so calm, so at peace with a small smile set on his lips, curled up like a baby in a womb.

Touching my heart as I gave a drippy smile up at the sky, I flipped back to the start of the portfolio, to a photo of Tim's tattoo arching above the snake of his catheter filling the black and white rectangle. WWLFD? The concave sink of his chest took the air right out of my lungs—I looked like that, too. I missed him, our Lord Flash. What would he do? Next, a color shot of an Asian girl's back, the twist of her arms holding a box of Benadryl between her palms. Her hair was choppy, dancing against the nape of her neck, hiding the bend of her face. On the opposing page, a girl with no legs sitting in her wheelchair in a bubblegum pink fairy costume, laughing wildly as a shower of bright, sparkling dust rained down from the fling of her hands.

"This next one—I bribed Dr. Hijapi to tell me ahead of time if I made remission because I wanted to get my parents' faces the moment they learned. And this is of the second that they read the information. Mom thought I had set up the tripod to take a family portrait, like, later? But I got them," Allison said, leaning her head on my shoulder as I gazed down at her father, his eyes bright with tears, her mother's hand drifting up in shock as they stared forward to where Allison must have stood, firing the remote shutter release as they took in the news that their daughter was well.

"You just know the exact moment to take a photo," I marveled, turning page after page of faces, bodies, people opening up their softest places to the glass eye of Allison's camera.

"There was a French photographer, Henri Cartier-Bresson, who talked about 'the decisive moment'—the most perfect time for a photo, when it is at its most significant. Call me egotistical, but I think that people like us? Who have to deal with running out of time? Have a better sense of timing than anyone else. I like to find people when they are at their most honest, you know? Because there is nothing more truthful than knowing that you might have to die," Allison sighed.

Her eyes met mine, and she said, "May, I want to take a photo of your chest tonight. Please." She tightened her hand on mine and then crawled away towards the teahouse, bending up into the line of the camera and spinning around in a slow circle, her arms outstretched like propeller blades. She twirled as if stuck in honey for a few minutes before standing still, staring right at the camera for another three, four minutes, before sinking back down and crawling away.

She walked to the camera and snuck under the drape; I watched her arm pull up and she fussed for a moment before coming out with a large black box that would hold documents. She cradled it for a moment before placing it in the nestle of the camera box.

I still stared at her, my mouth hanging open as she yelled for Sean and Flynn. My eyes drew down to the photograph open in my lap. I was almost terrified that I'd see my own limp body there, the way she had taken it from my feet stretching up to the place where a tube was jammed down my throat to keep me alive.

But instead, it was a girl, maybe thirteen. The girl's face was half obscured by a bag of blood dripping down a long IV. She was staring not at the camera, but at the blood, her eyes weary, swollen and dark. But full of hope. Full of faith. She looked destroyed and battered, but she was gazing up with a calm look in those eyes that said every prayer in the world.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

My phone rang, and I put my hand on Sean's shoulder, lifting up from the couch and away from the furious game of Hearts we were all playing with his parents, our desert plates empty of the cheesecake, as his brother raced around in a Batman costume.

His match baby.

I slipped outside and flipped the cell open. "Hey, Dawnie, what's up?"

"Not much. I just finished talking to Jeff," she said.

"He okay?" I asked.

She sighed. "He called Logan last night to apologize, and everything seems cool between them at least—and he talked to Kerry, and she said that she overreacted, but…he's still really…I'm worried about him. He has something he's calling the Doomsday Clock, counting down when he had to go back to California at the end of the summer."

"He needs to talk to Sharon," I urged. "I think you guys are underestimating her. She might not yank him to Connecticut, you know."

"Yeah, but she will tell Dad. And at worst, Dad leaves Carol, and that's just going to be horrible. At best, what, Carol just treats Jeff like shit for revealing her dirty secret?" Dawn took in a hissing breath through her nose. "Jeff just needs to keep his head down and avoid it all. I told him to stay with Ducky a lot—Ducky's so fucking high all the time, he won't give two rips if Jeff's hanging out."

"Dawnie, this is way too much for Jeff. He needs to talk to his parents," I repeated.

"Sometimes, we can't turn to our parents, Mary Anne," she said, her voice so soft that it slapped me across the face.

I leaned against the porch railing and took in a shaky breath. "Well…how are you?"

"A bit lonely—Stacey's practically living in the library. Her final exam project is due in two weeks, and she's flipping out. Still, Monday night we watched all of our favorite Project Runway episodes, and we went out on a date last night, and we had a total blast—we saw a Durham Bulls game and went dancing. It was really nice," Dawn smiled.

"Have you seen Henry at all?" I asked, closing my eyes.

"Yeah. We have a date tonight—just a movie. I'm going to take that mockumentary that you have? On the Californian Civil War? Oh, my God, Stacey and I nearly wet our pants laughing," Dawn giggled. "I bet he'll just adore it."

"It's really good," I nodded. Henry. More secrets.

I heard a scratching noise. "May? I want to ask you a favor. Henry and I are thinking…since Stacey's class ends in two weeks, maybe then she'll be okay with the idea of me and him. If I tell her—would you be there with me?"

"Oh, Dawn, I'm so glad to hear that you want to tell her," I murmured, rubbing my forehead.

"I do, I really do. Stacey's my best friend—she's my other half. I can't stand hiding something from her. But I can't tell—is it worse to keep a secret or worse to tell the truth? I deserve to be happy, I know I do. That therapist, Harriet, says so. It's all so messy. Why couldn't I have just fallen in love with one of Lee's stupid teammates, huh?" she snapped. "They're all so hot. They aren't chubby econ freak shows."

I let out a small laugh, but Dawn gasped. "Oh! Dude! Did I tell you what happened when I took Randa to the airport on Monday?"

"No, what?" I moaned.

She burst into hard snickered but managed, "We had to stop at a gas station—girlfriend nearly cried at how cheap cartons of cigarettes were, so she bought four! And she told me not to tell you, but come on. How ridiculous is that."

"Very," I grinned, rolling my eyes. "She definitely did not mention that when she called."

"Well, I don't want to keep you—your visit is going good? Sean and Flynn answer all of your questions?" Dawn prompted.

"Yeah, but…it's kinda scary," I admitted. "There's this tiny part of me that doesn't want the baby to match because it's could go so wrong."

"It's better than not doing it, sis." Dawn stated.

"I know. Besides. The baby not being a match means—well, you know. And it breaks my heart to think about that," I whimpered.

Dawn was quiet for a few moments. "I love you, okay?"

"I know, I love you, too. I'll see you tomorrow. But now? I need to whip some butt in cards," I declared, thumping my fist against the porch rail.

"Bye, sis," she called, and the phone went dead. I held it in my hand for a moment before walking back inside, where my friends were standing up and hugging Sean's parents goodbye.

"We heading out?" I asked, tipping my head in confusion.

"George is kinda pooped," Felicia, Sean's mother, explained. "And we thought that nine was pretty late for you, not to get all mommy on you, Mary Anne."

I shrugged, giving her a hug. "You're probably right. Thank you for dinner, it was lovely." I took George's hand. "And it was nice to see you again, Batman. Good luck in keeping Carbondale safe."

He nodded gravely, his dark hair slipping out from under the cowl. "The Joker," he said.

"Yes," I told him. "You gotta get him." I let my hand curl around his face. If I had a son…if Richard had…my match baby will… I bit hard on my lip and let my hand fall away.

Felicia let George out of her arms, and I watched him run from the room before I put my hand on her arm. "May I ask you something that may be hideously rude?"

She glanced at her husband Manny, and he tugged at his beard. "About a match baby, right?"

"Yes," I nodded, looking between them and Sean.

Allison glanced at Kathleen. "Why don't we go step outside," she offered, tugging Kathleen to the door. We waited for the heavy wood to make contact with the frame before Manny spoke.

"Mary Anne, we had wanted another child, but it didn't happen. Then the timing just didn't work, between her career and mine," Manny explained. "And then Sean got sick, so we didn't even think about another child, not when we had to concentrate on him. When he got sick for the second time, we discussed it, we seriously considered it, but then he made remission, so we put it off the table. But—actually, Flynn is the reason why Felicia got pregnant with George."

Sean put his arm around Flynn and rubbed her back. "Flynn got really sick—like, we thought she would die sick. We had moved here to Carbondale, and she was still in New Haven, and I thought I would lose her before I could get out East again. She okayed this crazy treatment that used arsenic to try to beat back the crap in her lungs, just to buy her enough time to live until I could get there." Her eyes were filling with tears as he whispered, "She was awake for ten minutes, and we said goodbye, then she slipped away from me. And she didn't wake up for a week."

I buried my face in my hands. Logan rushing to the hospital where I was bleeding. What if I had died that day? Without him saying goodbye, what if I had died? What if I died without my father forgiving me? He had held my mother in his arms when she passed away, and he was shoving me out of his grip. What if that happened to me—dying alone from my father? I felt my knees buckle as a wave of dizziness hit me, and a gather of hands helped me into a chair.

"Drink this," Manny was saying, handing me a glass of water. I sipped at it and stared up at Sean and Flynn, begging them to continue.

"I don't know, I came home from that, and I said to Mom and Dad that I could get sick again at any minute, that it might happen so fast that we might not have the time to react. That night, we had dinner and held hands and made sure that we said everything that we needed to say to each other—how much we mean, how much we love and stuff," Sean mumbled, pulling out a wadded tissue from his shorts pocket and handing it to his wife.

Felicia looked at me, touching my head. "Manny and I decided that we would try to conceive again, just in case Sean got ill. We could sit down and debate this all day, if it was right or not to have a baby to save Sean, but at the bottom of it, George was so wanted. He was loved, regardless of what his genes were. And before we did anything, we met with a genetic counselor who said that we had to be sure that we knew that, regardless of how perfect the HLA markers were, this transplant may fail, and that we'd be left with this baby."

"A baby that we loved," Manny repeated. "That part was easy—if Sean died, it wasn't George's fault. It was just Sean's time. We had trouble with the idea of using a helpless baby like that—was it fair since the baby couldn't consent? And we decided that it was. These were parts that would be discarded otherwise—and now, people save cord blood and placentas in case of familial transplant. It was just picking up steam in 2005. And Sean ended up getting sick in Felicia's sixth month. We were very lucky that it all worked it, so very lucky."

I let out a long breath and stared at the water in my hands. Water for the firegirl. "I—I wanted this baby even before they mentioned it being a match. But I might not be able to keep it."

"You're doing the baby no favors by being on the brink of exhaustion and breakdown, Mary Anne," Sean told me, still holding Flynn close to him. "If you're using the transplant as an excuse to keep the baby, hey, that's your own choice. But we said it all the time at Yale, right—you gotta live. You've just got to. Tattoo it on your forehead, chant it every hour if you have to. You might have to give up a lot to get there, but you still gotta live. Don't feel guilty about putting yourself first."

"I'm not," I sighed. "Not anymore. I'm more worried about Logan. If I get a transplant, and it fails, and I die, and he's left with the baby. I just wanted to know—I trust him to be strong, but I wanted to know what it would have been like for you two."

"When it comes down to it, Mary Anne, you love your kids," Felicia said, spreading her hands open. "You love them, and that rules the day. You hold them close, and you just have to adore them because they steal your heart right out from the moment you see them. If you pass away, he will love that baby, I promise you. It's what you do as a parent."

Unless you are my father. But I shoved that down under my heart, taking furious gulps of the water until that drowned.

We said our final farewells and shuffled out to Flynn's car, making our way back to the neighborhood where their small house was. Allison had prepped their living room as a studio, draping heavy white sheets over a wall and the floor and putting all of the floor lamps in a circle around the area. She glanced at me, and I shook my head. I wasn't sure yet.

"I think we should play Truth or Dare," Allison announced, putting the flash on her small film camera. "With booze."

"I can't drink," I said. "And Kath is fourteen, no way!"

"We can have soda," Kathleen declared, following Sean into the kitchen. "Daddy said he'd give me a hundred dollars every year until I'm twenty-one if I don't drink."

"I'd take the money and lie," Allison snorted.

Kathleen poked her head out of the kitchen. "Why would I lie to my dad?"

Allison looked at me, putting her hand over her heart and mouthing, Aw! But my lower lip started to tremble. What would it be like to be that close to your father? I knew not wanting to disappoint him. And I had. By being depressed. Getting cancer. This baby that was still here. I was a failure. I was Alma. I clamped down on that shaking lip and forced him out of my head as Allison stared at me in sympathy. She knew, the line of her eyes said. She remembered him from back then—she knew.

"Okay, Truth or Dare, Kath," Flynn called, plopping down on the couch in a tube top with her jeans. She took a beer from Sean and wriggled her eyebrows at the girl.

"Um—truth," Kathleen said, sitting on a chair.

"Have you ever kissed a boy," Flynn asked, grinning at her.

Kathleen blushed. "No, not yet. Boys don't really like me. And I swear, it's not the cancer, it's because they're scared of Daddy and my brother. That they'll get beaten up. It's so retarded," she sniffed.

Sean snapped his fingers at her, taking off his shirt. "Uh uh, liar liar. Tim kissed you."

Kathleen's brown skin crisped over with a furious red as Allison gaped at her. "Kathleen Abamwe! You did not!"

"It doesn't count, you meant, like, a boy asking me out," Kathleen protested. "Timmy said that I deserved to be kissed, just in case. And he was..." She put her hands on her cheeks.

"Your first crush," Allison supplied. "It's okay, you can say it. Somewhere up in heaven, he's probably woofing in delight at being some girl's object of desire."

"Yeah," Kathleen murmured, her hands drooping down. "But then I met Davis. One day, I'll be eighteen, and he'll be twenty-five, and we'll totally date. He's fantastic, we watch all of his games on TV? And he emails me a lot," she gushed, clasping her hands together. She gave Allison a mischievous glance. "Truth or Dare, Al?"

Allison pointed at the floor. "Sean, lay down, Flynn put your head on his chest. Um…truth."

"Did you love Timmy?" Kathleen blurted out, shifting higher in her chair.

Allison winced. "Well…okay. We slept together, but I think everybody knew that. To be real, Tim was kinda annoying, all his weird British stuff. And he kinda looked like a Fraggle, all goofy and gangly," she giggled, moving Sean's right hand to rest behind his head, bending his left arm over Flynn's chest. Allison made that hand meet Flynn's right hand, his fingers whispering on her cheek, with her left hand looping over to touch his left shoulder. "But I wanted what he gave me when we were together—the validation of my body. I got that confused with him validating me. I was so hurt after Kieran dumped me because of the cancer, it was just a mistake." She glanced at me. "It wasn't like you and your guy. When you two would mess around, it was about you and him. When Timmy and I did—it was about him wanting ass. It took me a while to sort that out."

She took a step to stand over them, straddling Flynn, and began taking pictures. Five, six. "Now look at each other," she commanded, crouching lower. Ten, eleven. "Okay, move your hands up, Flynn close your eyes, Sean look at me." Sixteen, seventeen. "Flynn, move your hand—yeah, and Sean look at that? Flynn look at me." And she clicked out another bunch. "Okay, Flynn roll over, and—yes! Don't move!" Allison pressed the shutter release over and over until the camera whirred the film back into place. "All done. Sean, Truth or Dare?"

"Dare!" he barked, sitting up.

"I dare you to run around the outside of the house and sing a song from the H.M.S. Pinafore. Without your shirt," she ordered, changing the film in her camera.

Sean leapt up to his feet and saluted as the rest of us cackled with laughter. He threw the door open and boomed, "And it's surely to his credit," he began, lifting his arms above his head, the tattoo of his brother's initials stretching on his arm. He raced to the left, and we could hear the low, off-key operatic run of the song, his white body flashing like a ghost against the windows as he circled around. When he appeared back in the door, he took a huge breath and belted, "Maaaan!" with his arms open so wide.

Kathleen and I jumped to our feet. "Bravo!" we cried, as he bowed.

"Thank you, thank you, and fuck you," he said, pointing at Allison. "And somewhere, Aaron Sorkin is crying with pride, huh? Okay, Flynn-a-lynn, Truth or Dare."

"I would take Dare, but I don't want to make a prank phone call or whatever," she said, shaking her beer at him. She screwed up her face in thought as Allison had Kathleen sit in front of the white wall. "Truth, then."

Sean smirked. "Okay, baby. Have you ever cheated on me?"

Flynn stamped her foot on the ground in anger as Kathleen laughed, Allison quickly snapping photos of the girl's joyous face. "Let it go, you dork! It was high school, and you know for a damn fact that Bobby Martin was hotter than a hamburger, so deal! Besides, you were trying to mack on Julia Lorde, you're just jealous that I got a piece, and you struck the hell out in your quest to get some from a girl not named Flynn."

Allison glanced back at me with her face twisted in laughter, and I gripped at my chest, trying to find my breath under the hysterical giggles. My chest.

I looked at Allison's camera as she titled Kathleen's head down onto her knees. Flynn was saying my name, and I shook myself to attention. "May? Truth or Dare?"

"Truth," I heard myself reply.

Flynn sighed. "Do you really want to be pregnant at nineteen?"

"No," I whispered, and I watched Kathleen's face fall, the quick click of Allison's camera. The decisive moment of our sweet Kathleen open in sorrow. The way she was during treatment. The honesty of her. "I don't. But…this happened for a reason, my body got healthy enough to start working down there, and the moment it did? I got pregnant. This has to be more than an accident, I really believe that." I wiped my eyes and tried to swallow back the rest of my tears. "But…I love this baby, but I have to live. And I'll do anything to live. It does no one any good, not me or it, if I have a heart attack and die trying to get this baby to term if it's not a match. It's risk-reward. The reward of just being a mother isn't worth risking my life."

At least, I don't think so. Not now.

Logan picked me, and I was glad. I wanted to live.

I looked at Allison and murmured, "You can take my photo."

Kathleen stood up and wrapped her arms around me. "We'll leave the room if you want."

"It's okay. It's nothing that some you haven't seen before," I whispered, waving at my eyes. The myth of Closed Door back at Yale—how many times had they walked in while I laid flat on my back, my naked chest exposed to the air to help the surgical wounds heal? We were all survivors here. There was nothing but truth.

Allison sat down next to me and pulled a small make-up case out of her purse. In silence, she drew liner around my eyes and coated my lashes in a thick, oily mascara. She kissed my cheek and walked over to a few of the lamps, turning them off so that the sheet was a weave of shadows. She had me stand in the middle of the shadows and light, turning on and turning off lamps until she got the right pattern.

Flynn, Sean, and Kathleen sat on the couch, their eyes open and encouraging, not wet with sympathy, but understanding. Knowing. We had all been here before. This is us, our history, the truth of our skin. Allison unsnapped the flash from her camera and changed the film, placing two more canisters in front of her feet.

"Whenever you're ready," she said, reaching forward to squeeze my hand.

I nodded, reaching up to slide my shirt over my head, careful not to touch the makeup on my eyes. Allison nudged me into place and then took a breath. "Alright. Cross your arms over your chest, okay, and look at me."

I will not cry. I will not cry. I will only look forward at her, and I will not cry. I stared into the glass, into the reflection of me staring back, a pale sylph of a girl with night-dark hair, the shine of sad eyes. I struggled against my tears, that feeling tickling behind my lips. This was me. Nothing hidden, just me. I linked my fingers behind my neck and let my head dip down. I felt my elbows spread, the scars on my chest peeking out, my catheter flopping down.

Allison kept taking pictures, saying nothing, just watching me stand there in this struggle. She changed film and balanced the camera back on her stump. She had gotten back to normal, better than ever. A better girl than she was before she was sick. Not the Allison Ritz who had hurt Stacey so badly. An Allison in search of truth.

"Can you put your arms down?" she whispered. And a ragged gasp came out of my mouth, and I pressed the backs of my hands against my eyes. Click, click, click, like the counting of a clock. I felt myself giving in to the crying, tracing my fingers up onto my forehead and staring at her as she kept taking picture after picture. Documenting this. The way I was breaking.

But I was still standing. I wasn't hiding. I was here.

The rapid teeth of the shudder chewed photo after photo of me. Me, staring at Allison. Me, staring at the ravage of my chest, the catheter that looked lonely without the chemo pump. The mascara was racing down my face on the river of my crying, but when I went to wipe it away, Allison told me no.

She switched film again, and I stared down past my chest, putting my arms above my belly, framing the cancer from the baby. As if I could will the two apart, these two objects beating on my energy. One, wanted. One, not. One that could fix the other—but could kill me, too. I was a time bomb, I closed my eyes and let the breath slip in and out of my mouth as I touched my stomach.

Who will win here?

"You look beautiful, Mary Anne," Kathleen whispered. I stared at her for a minute and then laughed.

"Oh, Kath, you're a wonderful liar," I said, coughing over and over with little laughs.

"Dead sexy," Sean agreed. "Courage is sexy."

I covered my smile, still laughing, and Flynn started clawing the air, purring like a hungry tiger. "Stop it!" I giggled, bending my head.

Allison lowered the camera on her arm. "Wipe your eyes, Mary Anne."

So I did, still laughing, and I stared back at her for a moment, then raising my hands up to my hair and drying my fingers by running them through the mass of curls, so thankful when I looked down at my hands and saw no hair there. Maybe soon it would all come down, thick like snow, but not yet.

I looked back up, staring into the camera, and I waited for Allison to finish capturing me in the honest eye of her machine. And I wondered: who is the Mary Anne I will find staring back?

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"Yes, Daddy, I'll call you before we leave O'Hare," Kathleen was saying into the phone as our cab pulled up to the airport. "Uh huh—oh, that sounds great! Yeah! Okay, I'll see you in Hartford. Love you, too—bye!" She snapped her cell shut and beamed at me. "We're having dinner at my favorite place. Yum, steak."

"Red meat rocks," Allison agreed. "I wish we had gotten carryout from that place in Murphysboro. God, that was possibly the best ribs in my life."

I grinned. "I do agree, though only on the possibly. Logan and his family make the best barbeque ever. But they say their sauce is Kansas City meets Virginia and has a lovechild with good ol' fashioned Italian roasting. Whatever. It's incredible."

"I want to come down and see a game," Kathleen said. She grabbed Allison's arm. "You can come, too! And take some photos! It'll be so much fun."

"Anytime you want," I told her, scooting out of the cab. "Just say the word."

"I'm ready to go home," Allison sighed, scratching the missing wrist on her right arm. The phantom pain. I adjusted the chemo pump that hung on my chest and tried to ignore the ache there. "Sleep in a bed, take a long ass bath. And I can't wait to see Ethan."

I touched the photo of the two of them, nestled in my purse next to my ticket. "I'm ready to go home, I guess, but Logan's not back until tomorrow? And Dawn's out of town visiting a friend of hers from school who lives in Charlotte—and with Stacey at the library all of the time, I like being alone, really, but I don't want to be right now."

Allison chewed on her lip as the cabbie pulled our bags out of the trunk. "Do you want to go back to Durham? Or do you want to go home."

"Durham is my home," I told her. "Well, no. My home is with him, you know? It's cheesy, but home really is where the heart is, I guess." I sighed, watching Allison tip the driver. "But yeah—I guess a part of me wants to go see Dad."

"What's stopping you? Scared that he'll be an ass?" she asked, pulling her bag behind her.

I shrugged. "Maybe, but I want to see him more. Truth? It's money. Changing the ticket has a penalty fee, and then I'd need to get another ticket to go back to Carolina from there. I don't want to blow several hundred bucks on a ticket when I could use it on, like, me and Logan. I don't want to waste money on Dad when he won't take the time to reach out to me."

"Well, if it's money," Allison said, halting on the other side of the door. "Hi, I'm the First Bank of Allison, with an American Express black card, baby."

"Allison, no," I declared, stamping my foot. "I will not let you."

She tipped her head back and laughed. "Uh, hi? Once? Laine Cummings and I got a hotel room at the Plaza and changed four hundred bucks to room service. And my parents were like, Eh. Come on. If it wasn't for the cancer, I would probably be as insufferable of a trust funder as Laine, but, you know, getting an arm chopped off kinda reels you back in from the bitch ledge. I love buying people things. Right, Kath?"

Kathleen nodded. "When I went to visit Allison in the city, she bought me a ton of stuff. It was so fun."

"You want to talk to your dad. You need to. If you feel so guilty, write my dad a thank you note. His secretary will send you something nice back," Allison shrugged. "Come on, May, it's time to go home."

I bit my lips and followed her to the ticket counter. We watched Kathleen check in for her flight to Hartford, then Allison and I walked up together. She checked in without incident, and then she rested her stump on the counter.

"Yeah, we need to do a little bit of switching with her ticket," Allison said, gesturing at me. "Change it from here to RDU to here to Stamford, Connecticut, and then from there to RDU on Friday."

The ticket agent blinked at me. "Is that right?"

"Yes," I answered, clutching at the pump under my dress. "I need to see my dad."