For the next week Kate soaked in the early summer sun; her days were spent huddled under her treasured afghans in a chair by the beach, writing furiously in her journal, or talking with her kids or her husband or Tully. Evenings were taken up by conversation; Lucas and William told the longest, most run-on stories in the world. By the end of them, everyone was laughing. Afterward, the adults sat around the fire. More and more often they talked about the old days, back when they'd been too young to know that they were young, when the whole world had seemed open to them and dreams were as easy to pick as daisies. The funniest part of all was watching Tully try to take over the household duties. She burned dinners, bitched about an island world where no one delivered food to your home, ruined laundry, and repeatedly received instructions about how to operate the vacuum. Kate especially loved it when she heard her friend mutter, "This at-home shit is hard. Why didn't you ever tell me? No wonder you looked tired for fifteen years."

But no matter how hard they all tried to be normal, their life was a dirty window that couldn't be wiped clean. Everything, every moment, was coated by illness. As always, it fell to Kate to lead the way, to be the smiling, optimistic one. They were all okay as long as she remained strong and resilient. Then they could talk and laugh and carry on the pretense of ordinary life.

In any other circumstances it would have been the time of Kate's life. For once she was the center of attention.

It was exhausting, all this propping up of their feelings, but what choice did she have? Sometimes when the burden was too great she upped her pain meds and curled up with Johnny on the couch and simply fell asleep. When she woke up, invariably she was ready to smile again.

Sunday mornings were especially overwhelming. Today, everyone was here -- Mom, Dad, Sean and his girlfriend, Tully, Johnny, Marah and the twins. They took turns telling stories so that there was rarely a lull in the conversation.

Kate listened and nodded and smiled and pretended to eat, even though she was nauseous and in pain.

When she was back in bed, medicated again, she stared up at her husband.

Kate tried to make a joke, but her mouth was too dry to form words.

It was Tully who noticed. In the process of passing the quiche Mom had made, she looked up at Kate, said, "You look like shit."

Johnny swept her out of her chair and carried her to her room.

Tully put a hand to her chest in a Scarlett O'Hara protestation of innocence. "Me? You know how rarely I talk. People often say I'm too quiet."

They all agreed.

"How is she?" Tully said, coming into the room, standing beside Johnny.

Johnny smiled at Tully. "Did you say something?"

Kate saw them there, together, shoulder to shoulder, and loved them so much it hurt. As always there was a pinch of jealousy, too, but that was as familiar to her as the beat of her heart.

"I was hoping to feel good enough to go shopping with you," Kate said. "I wanted to help Marah pick out her prom dress. You'll have to do it, Tully." She tried to smile. "Nothing too revealing, okay? And watch out for the shoes. Marah thinks she can wear high heels, but I worry…" Kate frowned. "Are you two listening to me?"

The doorbell rang. "Who could that be?" Tully said. "I'll go check."

Kate maneuvered her bed up to a sit. "What's with the comedy act? I'm trying to tell you something important."

Marah poked her head in the room. "They're here. Is she ready?"

"Who is here? Am I ready for what?" No sooner had the words left Kate's mouth than the parade into her room began. First came a man in coveralls, pushing a rolling rack full of floor-length gowns. Next, Marah and Tully and Mom crowded into the small space.

Johnny kissed Kate's cheek and left the room.

Kate didn't know if she wanted to laugh or cry, so she did both.

"The only good thing about being rich and famous," Tully said, "well, there are lots of good things about it, but one of the best is that if you call Nordstrom's and say please send me every prom dress you have in sizes four through six, they do it."

"Okay, Dad," Marah said. "No boys allowed."

Marah came to the side of the bed. "I couldn't pick out my first prom dress without you, Mom."

"Don't worry," Tully said. "I explicitly told the saleswoman to leave the skanky dresses in the store."

And then there was the pain. By late July, when the nights began to grow longer and had the sweet sultry taste of a ripe peach, she had nearly doubled her morphine dosage and no one cared. As her doctor said, "Addiction isn't your problem now."

As the weeks passed, Kate felt herself weakening. Despite her best efforts and her purposely optimistic attitude, her body began to fail in a dozen little ways. A word she couldn't find, a sentence she couldn't finish, a trembling weakness in her fingers that wouldn't still, a nausea that all too often became unbearable, and the cold. She was always chilled to the bone.

She was a good enough actress that no one seemed to notice how weak she was becoming. Oh, they knew she had to use the wheelchair to get to the beach, and that she often fell asleep well before the nightly movie started, but in these days of summer, the household was in a constant state of flux. Tully had taken over Kate's daytime routine as best she could, which left Kate time to work on her journal. Sometimes, lately, she worried that she wouldn't have time to finish it, and the thought scared her.

At that, they all laughed.

She couldn't say that, though. Even to Tully, who'd listen to her for hours and hours. Whenever Kate brought up the future, Tully flinched and made a smart-ass comment.

"Mom?" Marah said quietly, pushing the door open.

Marah stepped forward. For a moment, Kate was disoriented by the sight of her own daughter; she'd had a growth spurt again. At almost six feet, she was filling out, too, becoming a woman before Kate's eyes. "I need to do something."

"I was going to."

Kate's desire to say no swelled, almost overtook her, but she said "Of course," and put on her robe, mittens, and knitted cap. Fighting nausea and exhaustion, she got slowly out of bed.

Dying was a lonely business.

"What changed your mind?"

"Okay. What is it?"

Kate forced herself to smile. "Hi, honey. I thought you were going over to Lytle Beach today with the gang."

The funny thing was that dying didn't. Not so much anymore. Oh, she still had panic attacks when she thought about The End, but even those were becoming less frequent. More and more often, she just thought: Let me rest.

Marah turned around, looked down the hall, then back to Kate. "Could you come into the living room?"

Marah nodded and snuggled in close to her. When she looked at Kate, though, she wasn't smiling. "A long time ago," she said in an unsteady voice, "you gave me a special book."

"It's okay --"

Kate smiled. "This is like those plays you used to stage when you were little."

Kate wanted to pull away suddenly, distance herself, but she was held in place by her children. "Yes," was all she could say.

"And I figured out why. We all need it." She reached over to the end table and picked up the paperback copy of The Hobbit Kate had given her. It felt like a lifetime ago now, the day she'd given this favorite novel to her daughter, passed it on. A lifetime ago, and an instant.

Marah took her by the arm and steadied her, becoming for a moment the mother; she led her into the living room, where, despite the heat of the day, a fire burned in the fireplace. Lucas and William, still in their jammies, sat together on the couch.

"For the last few weeks, I've tried to read it a bunch of times and I couldn't."

"You told me that someday I'd be sad and confused and I'd need it."

"Hi, Mommy," they said at once, flashing their gap-toothed grins.

Marah positioned Kate next to the boys, tucked her robe around her legs, and then sat down on the other side of her.

"I gave you lots of books."

Lucas elbowed his brother. "Shut up."

Kate put an arm around her boys and stared at her daughter's earnest, beautiful face. "Okay."

"Yippee!" William said. "Marah's gonna read to us."

"Do you need your oxygen?" Johnny asked, bending close to her ear so the kids wouldn't hear.

Marah leaned back, settled in close to Kate, and opened the book. Her voice was only a little wobbly at the start, but as the story took hold, she found her strength again. "In a hole in the ground, there lived a hobbit…"

August ended too quickly and melted into a lazy September. Kate tried to experience every moment of every day, but even with a positive outlook, there was no way to avoid the ugly truth: she was fading.

She clung to Johnny's arm and concentrated on her walking. One slippered foot in front of the other; keep breathing. She was so tired of being wheeled around in her chair, or carried like a child, but walking was more and more difficult. She had headaches, too; blistering ones that sometimes left her winded and unable to remember the people and things around her.

"Of course. Marah needs to get to rehearsal and the boys would hate to miss Little League. And Tully will be home any minute."

Johnny laughed. "I don't know. I can produce an entire documentary in the time it takes her to grocery-shop for one meal."

He got her settled on the deck in her favorite chair and tucked the wool blanket around her. "Are you sure you'll be okay while we're gone?"

"I sound like Lance Armstrong during the Tour de France." She tried to smile. "No, thanks."

Kate smiled, too. "She is learning a lot of new skills."

After he left, the house behind her settled into an unfamiliar silence. She stared out at the glittering blue Sound and the tiara of a city on the opposite shore, remembering suddenly when she'd lived over there, near the Public Market; a young career girl with shoulder pads and cinch belts and slouch boots. That was when she first saw Johnny and tumbled into love. She still remembered so many of their moments -- when he'd first kissed her and called her Katie and said he didn't want to hurt her.

That's the funny thing about writing your life story. You start out trying to remember dates and times and names. You think it's about facts, your life; that what you'll look back on and remember are the successes and failures, the time line of your youth and middle age, but that isn't it at all.

Love.

She opened to the page where she'd left off and began to write.

Reaching into the bag at her side, she pulled out her journal and stared down at it, tracing the leather pattern on the cover. It was almost finished now. She'd written it all down, or as much as she could remember, and it had helped her as much as she'd hoped it would someday help her kids.

Love. Family. Laughter. That's what I remember when it's all said and done. For so much of my life I thought I didn't do enough or want enough. I guess I can be forgiven my stupidity. I was young. I want my children to know how proud I am of them, and how proud I am of me. We were everything we needed -- you and Daddy and I. I had everything I ever wanted.

She sat down slowly -- slumped, actually -- unable to say anything past the lump in her throat. She knew it would make her cry, but it would make her soar, too. Reaching out, she held Kate's hand and then opened the journal to the first page.

Tully came home from the grocery store feeling triumphant. She put the bags on the counter, emptied them one by one, then opened a can of beer and went outside.

Kate handed her her journal. "You get this. First."

Kate laughed. "Sit."

"That grocery store is a jungle, Kate. I guess I went down the up lane, or in the out lane, I don't know. You'd have thought I was Public Enemy Number One. I never heard so much honking."

That's what we remember.

She closed the journal. There was nothing more to say.

"We at-home moms don't have long to shop."

"If I roll over and play dead do I get a biscuit?"

"I don't know how you did it all. I'm exhausted by ten o'clock every morning."

Tully drew in a sharp breath. For all of the summer, she'd seen Kate writing on these pages, at first quickly and easily, and gradually more slowly. In the last few weeks, everything had been slow going for her.

Of course. Get your bike. And: I'll just shave your eyebrows to give them shape… oops… that's not good…

We're sneaking out?

Look, Katie, no hands.

The first time I saw Tully Hart, I thought: Wow! Look at those boobs.

Tully felt like an imposter as she slipped into Kate and Johnny's bed. She knew it made sense, her being in this room, but on this night it felt more wrong than usual. Reading the journal had reminded Tully of everything she had with Kate; everything they were losing.

Laughing, Tully turned to her. These words, these memories had, for a glorious moment, made everything normal. "How could you be friends with me?"

Tully laughed and kept reading. Page after page.

A sentence jumped out at her.

Your hair is coming out… maybe I should read the directions again…

Finally, sometime after three, she fell into a fitful sleep. She dreamed of Firefly Lane, of two girls riding their bikes down Summer Hill at night. The wind smelled of freshly cut hay and the stars were bright.

Kate smiled back. "How could I not?"

A cool breeze came off the Sound, whistling eerily above the familiar whooshing of the waves.

Johnny's voice startled her. He was in one of the Adirondack chairs, looking up at her. In his eyes she saw the same sadness that filled every pore of her skin and cell of her body.

But Kate wasn't there. Her empty bike clattered down the road, the white plastic streamers fluttering from the ends of the molded plastic grips.

Tully sat up, breathing hard.

Shaking, she got out of bed and put her robe on. Out in the hallway she passed dozens of mementos, photos of this life they'd shared for decades, and two closed bedroom doors. Behind them, the kids were asleep, probably suffering through similar dreams.

Downstairs, she made a cup of tea and went to the deck, where the cool dark air allowed her to breathe again.

"That's the same thing Katie said to me," she said, and just like that, the realization of how similar they were made Tully ache all over again. "It's quite a love story you two have."

"Bad dreams?"

"I don't know how to do this," he said quietly.

"Hey," she said, sitting in the chair beside his.

"Katie," Johnny said, his voice raw, his eyes shining. "Don't…"

She reached out and took his hand, held it tightly while he cried.

"For twenty years, every time I turn around, you two are together."

"Be strong."

"Do what?"

He turned to her, and in the pale moonlight she saw the tense line of his jaw, the tightening around his eyes. He was holding it all in, trying so hard to be strong for all of them.

The words seemed to release something in him. Tears shone in his eyes; he crumpled forward, saying nothing; silently his shoulders shook.

Tully and Johnny both turned.

"You don't have to do it with me, you know," she said quietly.

Kate stood in the open doorway behind them, bundled up in a huge terrycloth robe. Bald and impossibly thin, she looked like a child playing dress-up in her mother's clothes. She'd said things like this to both of them before; they all knew it, but this time she was smiling. She looked somehow both sad and peaceful.

"I love you both," she said, not moving toward them. "You'll comfort each other… take care of each other and the kids… after I'm gone --"

"Don't," Tully said, starting to cry.

Johnny was on his feet. He gently picked his wife up and kissed her for a long, long time.

"Are you cold?"

"Take her up to your bed, Johnny," Tully said, trying to smile now. "I'll sleep in the guest room."

Johnny carried her upstairs with so much care she couldn't help thinking that she was sick. He put her on her side of the bed. "Turn on the fire."

To the bone. She nodded and tried gingerly to sit up as he crossed the room and flicked the switch for the gas fireplace. With a whoosh, blue and orange flames shot up from the fake log, tinting the dark room with a soft golden light.

When he came back and settled in beside her, she reached up slowly, traced the outline of his lips with the tip of her finger. "You first ravished me on the floor in front of a fire, remember?"

He smiled; like a blind woman, she felt his lips curve with the sensitive pad of her finger. "If I remember correctly, you were doing the ravishing."

"And what if I wanted to ravish you now?"

He looked so scared that she wanted to laugh, but it wasn't funny. "Can we?"

Nothing left of her.

He took her in his arms. She knew they were both thinking that she'd lost so much weight there was almost nothing left of her.

Johnny stripped out of his clothes, kicked them aside, and climbed back into bed beside her, drawing the covers up to their hips.

She closed her eyes and tightened her hold around his neck.

Slowly, Kate took off her robe and peeled out of her nightgown, trying not to notice how white and sticklike her legs were. Even worse was the battlefield that had been her breasts. She looked ruined, like a little boy, only there were the scars.

Her heart was thumping hard as she looked at him.

The bed seemed so big suddenly, like a sea of soft white cotton compared to the bed downstairs that had become hers.

Relief and love cracked her open inside. She kissed him, her breath coming hard and ragged already. In their twenty years of marriage they'd made love thousands of times, and it was always great, but this was different; they had to be so gentle. She knew he was terrified of breaking her bones. She hardly remembered later how it had all happened, how she'd come to be on top of him; all she knew was that she needed every part of him, and everything that she was, that she'd ever been, was irrevocably tied up with this man. When he finally entered her, slow and easy, filling her, she came down to meet him, and in that glorious second, she was whole again. She bent down and kissed him, tasting his tears.

"You're so beautiful," he said, and leaned forward to kiss her scars.

But her own orgasm, seconds later, made her forget everything except the pleasure of this sensation.

Then, quietly, Kate said what had been on her mind for a long time. "I can't stand to think of you alone."

"I won't ever be alone. We've got three kids."

He cried out her name so loudly she silenced him with her palm; if she'd had any breath left she would have laughed at his outburst and whispered, The kids!

"You know what I mean. I'd understand if you and Tully --"

"Don't." He looked at her finally, and in the eyes she knew as well as her own she saw a pain so deep she wanted to weep.

Finally, smiling, feeling young again, she snuggled up against him. He put an arm around her and pulled her close. They lay there a long time, half sitting against the mound of pillows, watching the firelight, saying nothing.

"It was always you. Just you, Katie. Tully was a one-night stand, a long time ago. I didn't love her then and I never have. Not for a second. You're my heart and soul. My world. How can you not know that?"

This conversation was like swimming through acid; it burned through flesh and bone. "I know, baby," he said finally. "I know."

She saw the truth in his face, heard it in the tremble in his voice, and she was ashamed of herself. She should have known this all along. "I do know that. I'm just so worried about you and the kids. I hate to think…"