My mother brought my baby book with her. She sat on the floor with Charlie in her lap and showed him pictures of me as a baby and toddler. Charlie kept looking from the pictures to me, like he was understanding my mother telling him that the baby in the picture was me, but he couldn't quite believe it.

She couldn't stop smiling at Charlie, I smiled at them both, Claudia hung out in her room and gave us space, and Emily sat stiffly on the couch, looking both frightened and emotionally overwhelmed, blinking rapidly and licking her lips frequently.

Mom delivered several compliments, about what an obviously wonderful mother Emily was, about how well Charlie spoke, about how wonderful he was. Emily nodded at these statements, and swallowed with difficulty. And, finally, my mom stood from the floor and went to sit beside Emily on the couch. She patted Emily's knee and Emily managed a small smile. My mom grinned back and then pulled Emily into a careful, gentle hug.

"Human beings make mistakes, Emily. They do things that are wrong and make bad decisions every day. The fortunate ones are the the ones who find the strength and get the time to right those wrongs. It took a lot of courage for you to come here. You could have stayed in London, but you didn't. You keep looking at me like you're expecting me to get angry with you, but I'm not going to do that. So stop it."

All of those words were delivered with my mother's chin resting on Emily's shoulder, while Emily sat in stunned silence. But at that last sentence, Emily laughed quietly, and then she hugged my mother back.

That was yesterday, and my mother stayed at the house all day with me, perfectly content. She stayed while Emily napped, she stayed while we made lunch and dinner, she insisted on doing the dishes. She stayed until we crept out of the house quietly because Emily had fallen asleep while we were putting Charlie to bed. Her visit wasn't just about Charlie and me. She was there to experience the life I'd chosen, the life I was currently living, in all of its confusing, beautiful ambiguity.

This morning my mom was waiting outside of her hotel when I pulled up, eagerly looking forward to taking Charlie to the zoo, and to the zoo we went.

There is something magical about spending the day with my mother and my son, something that makes me feel like so much more of an adult, and also feel like a child myself again. Maybe that's what children do for you; they make you grow up and allow you to access your inner child all at the same time.

When Charlie sees a new animal in the distance and runs towards it, I find myself running, too, not merely to keep up with him, but because his innocence and exuberance is contagious.

Over lunch, my mother grins at me and then laughs. "He runs like you used to," she says. "You would keep me and your father on our toes, and I loved every minute of it. But I love this even more. Seeing you as a father is the most wonderful thing I've ever experienced."

We share a look that we've perfected throughout the decades, the mutual, wistful look in our eyes, the lips that briefly turn into a frown before settling back into a small smile, the brief remembrance of his face - the look that says, I wish your/my father was here to see this, without having to say it out loud.

When we get back to Emily's, I notice Penelope's car parked on the curb. We enter the house and I see a printer that wasn't there before on a small table in the living room, and papers and scissors scattered about. Emily, JJ, Claudia and Penelope are sitting on the floor, eating ice cream in the middle of the mess.

Charlie is asleep in my arms, and Claudia stands to take him from me so he can go nap in his bed.

"What's all this?" I ask Emily.

Emily stands up and goes straight to my mother, a photo album in her hand. "I've kept almost everything digital, but I thought you'd like this more, so we made it today," she says to my mom. "A baby book. Charlie's baby book, with all the important dates and pictures. So you can keep in on the shelf next to Derek's."

My mom takes the book in one hand and reaches up to gently run her fingers across Emily's cheek. I watch my mom flip open the book to the first page and I realize some of these pictures are different than the ones on my flash drive. Those pictures, which I've looked at several times since I first received them, were all seemingly taken by Emily. I can see her hand or arm in some of them, but they are mostly just Charlie.

The pictures I'm seeing right now must have been taken by Claudia or someone else. There's Emily in a hospital bed holding a newborn Charlie. Something about the look on her face makes my heart seize up.

I feel like I'm operating outside of my body. I gently reach over and take the book from my mom's hands and sink into the closest chair. I realize the room has fallen completely silent, but I don't look up - my eyes are transfixed on the radiant, healthy woman I'm staring at - Emily as a mother, before she was sick.

I flip through the pages. Some of the pictures I recognize. But there, on the page about "Baby's First Smile," is a picture that's new to me. Charlie laying on the floor and Emily with her head tipped towards his, their noses nearly touching, both of them with huge smiles on their faces.

I find these gems throughout the book, and I am heartbroken for the first time not because of what I've missed with Charlie, but what I've missed with Emily - that I never got to see her in person, looking truly healthy, happy and energetic with our son.

I trace my finger over the look on her face in one picture before I look up and find her and my mother both staring at me, and it's only then that I realize a few tears are on my cheeks.

"I can make you one like that, too," Emily says softly.

I shake my head. Not caring that we have an audience, I look her right in the eye. "I will see you like this with Charlie, in person. You're going to get well, and I'm going to get to see this Emily with our son," I say gently, but firmly, as I point to one of the pictures of her with Charlie.

Her cheeks flush in embarrassment that this has been spoken in front of other people. Whatever emotional merry-go-round we've been riding with each other, it's been done mostly in private, until now.

But she keeps her eyes locked with mine and nods.

For the first time, I have mentioned her making it and she's not pushing back with hesitancy. She nods firmly at me and smiles slightly before clearing her throat and turning away, busying herself with cleaning up the scraps of paper around the room. Penelope and JJ start helping her, and my mother moves to stand beside me. She puts her hand on my shoulder and kisses my head and we both look at the picture of Emily with a smile that could light up a room, her arms stretched wide as she waits for a one-year-old Charlie to walk to her on unsteady legs.

Emily excuses herself for a nap shortly after that, Penelope and JJ leave, and I take my mom back to her hotel so she can rest for a couple of hours before dinner. The house is quiet when I return, and I figure Claudia is probably reading in her room, which she's been doing a lot lately, when Charlie sleeps and I'm in the house.

I go straight to Emily's room and lift the chair that resides in one corner, placing it next to her bedside. I watch her sleep, which has become a comforting, if somewhat creepy, habit of mine. I watch her face and try to find the woman in there that I saw in those pictures. It's very difficult to do, but I stare until her face blurs around the edges and I can catch a glimpse of the Emily I once knew.

I stay there, lost in thought, for well over an hour. I notice when a tear leaks from under her eyelid in her sleep. I know she's dreaming; I've been tempted to ask her what her dreams are about, but somehow I don't think she'd tell me.

I hear Charlie wake up, and that wakes Emily up. She no longer looks startled when she discovers me watching her while she's been sleeping.

"Promise me," I say in a whisper. "Promise me I'll get to see you like that, like how you were with him before all of this."

I know deep down it's a promise she can't keep with one hundred percent certainty, but I desperately need to hear it. I want her fighting for that promise as much as she's fighting for Charlie and herself.

"I promise," she whispers back. And then she gives me something more than I could have hoped for. "And I won't go back to London."

I stand from the chair, a smile splitting my face. I reach forward, and for the first time in over three years, I run my fingers through her hair.

And a large chunk comes out in my hand.

I never thought I'd be the type to shave my head as a preemptive strike towards the inevitable. I've read blogs online of women who have done so, and I've also read that there is a lot of emotional benefit to it. I still couldn't see myself doing it; I fully intended to hang onto my hair until there wasn't any hair left. That was until it started coming out in chunks, the first chunk in Derek's gentle hand the day before.

He's just left to take his mom back to the airport and won't be coming back this evening. Fran Morgan is one of the best human beings I've ever had the pleasure of getting to know; I see where Derek gets it from now. I'll miss her and Charlie will miss her, but I know she'll be back soon.

I stare at my hair that looked decent on Friday morning. I expected a slow thinning to my hair starting at about week two of chemotherapy, and instead I got this - nearly four weeks where my body hung on to its hair and then started letting go in one fell swoop.

It's late Sunday afternoon now, and I have several large areas of missing hair where I can see right to my scalp. My eyebrows and eyelashes are figments of what they used to be. And when my doctor told me I should be prepared to lose all of my hair, he meant all. There's some sad irony in the fact that it's summer, and if I wouldn't look so frightfully thin and awful in a swimsuit, for the first time in forever I need neither to shave or wax to be swimsuit ready.

As soon as I hear Charlie wake up from his nap, I go and get him. I sit on the edge of my bed and hold his still-sleepy body in my arms, remembering how when he was a baby, he'd twine and twirl his fingers through my hair.

I rock my body back and forth and hold him until I feel him pick his head up from my shoulder, fully awake. Every part of this journey so far has included Derek, but I want this for just me and Charlie. For as close as I've let Derek get, this feels oddly private. Plus, I know if Derek's there, or even Claudia, I'll cry. And I don't want this to be marred by tears.

It just is.

Claudia is at the store, so the time is right. I pull back so I can look at Charlie's face. "Guess what? It's that time when the medicine I'm taking is making my hair fall out. You see here and here?"

I point and Charlie shifts so he's standing on the bed and can get a good look. I feel his fingers touching my scalp. He tilts his head so he's looking at my face again.

"It looks rather silly, doesn't it?" I ask and then make a face.

Charlie laughs at the look on my face.

"Soon it's all going to fall out, but since it looks silly now, I was thinking of just cutting it off. Would you like to help me?"

His eyes are wide, and I know he doesn't totally get what's about to happen, but he nods.

I carry him to the bathroom and stand him on the counter. I pick up a pair of scissors I placed there. I put his little fingers in the handles and then I place mine over his. I hold one section of hair out and guide the scissors close to my scalp. We cut.

Charlie looks almost shocked at the long strands of hair that fall away from my head. I keep the scissors moving and start talking. "We'll go shopping in a couple of days. You can help me pick out some hats, maybe some scarves."

"A hat?" he asks.

I nod. "A few hats, I think."

I can't even fathom a wig in this east coast humidity and heat.

Charlie pulls his fingers away and I let him let go of the scissors. He stands on the counter and stares at me as I cut all of my remaining hair close to my scalp. He stoops at one point and gathers a handful of my hair in his hands and that is almost my undoing. I take a deep breath to combat the tears I feel sting my eyes, and smile at him. I make another silly face.

"This is the fun part," I say to Charlie. "This is your Daddy's razor. Since he left it here, I figure we might as well put it to good use. Do you want to help?"

Charlie shakes his head, and just watches. I smile at him. "It's okay. It's going to look different, but it's okay, Charlie."

I turn on the razor and shave everything off, using my hands to feel for areas I might have missed. When it's all done and I survey myself in the mirror, all I can think is at least I have a decently shaped head.

Charlie steps closer to me and kisses my head. "Like my book, Mummy."

"Yep," I say. Then I make another silly face. He just stares and stares, but then he smiles at me.

"Ready for a snack?" I ask, like nothing sad or monumental just occurred. Like it's just any other day, which is what I want him to think even if there isn't a fiber of my being that believes it at that moment.

Charlie nods.

I've started referring to Monday as "Milkshake Days." It's now how I send Emily off to chemotherapy, and today I feel a little celebratory flair in me: It's week four and we're one-third of the way through. Except on this Monday, when I walk in the front door, Emily's standing there looking shy, a little sad and a little apprehensive. She's completely bald.

At first I'm hurt that she made the choice to do that when I wasn't here, but I know that's ridiculous. It was going to happen on its own soon enough, and she probably came to that conclusion when I wasn't here yesterday evening.

I get over myself quickly and smile without missing too much of a beat. "You are damned sexy for a bald woman," I say. I don't know where it came from but those are the brilliant words that escape my mouth.

Her eyes open as big as saucers and then her lips start twitching, and finally she's laughing. "Say that again with a straight face," she replies.

I could say that with a straight face a million times over, but I merely smirk and say nothing back. I head to the kitchen with my supplies. This time, I've decided on a peach milkshake. She's been enjoying peaches a lot lately.

I can hear Claudia helping Charlie get dressed from the down the hall, and I start putting ingredients into the blender. Suddenly, Emily is there beside me, leaning against the counter, trying to catch my eyes, a folder in her hand that she's trying to give me.

At first I think it's maybe some printed pictures. I wipe my hands on a dish towel and take the folder. It takes me a few seconds to look at the three pages and understand what I'm looking at. They're official UK government documents, and they keep referring to a birth registration, not a certificate, which is what throws me for a bit.

"I think it's about time you get yourself on Charlie's birth registration, don't you? Once that's done, we can see about getting him a US birth certificate."

In my hand is one paper already filled out by Emily that will get my name on that birth registration. The second form is blank, something I need to fill out to declare myself as Charlie's biological father. And the third is an application to change Charlie's last name from Prentiss to Morgan.

I look at Emily and touch her bald head for the first time, running my fingers reverently over the soft skin there, then I lean forward and kiss her forehead, letting my lips linger for a few seconds longer than I normally would.

I pull back, place the first two pieces of paper on the counter, and take the third sheet of paper, crumpling it up. I toss it in the garbage can in the corner of the kitchen.

"I do want my name on the birth registration, but I've got no problem with Charles Prentiss, Emily. The world has already had a Charles Morgan, and he was one of the best men ever to grace this planet. And Charlie Prentiss is going to be the same."

Emily looks at me, tilting her head slightly to try and read if I really mean it. Then she steps forward brushing slightly against my body so she can reach up and kiss my cheek gently. Her arms wrap around me in a warm hug. "Derek Morgan is pretty wonderful, too," she whispers in my ear.