cream to help with my increasingly dry skin, tubes of fruit-flavored lip balm. She and Archer are always on hand to help, and they often stay into the evening to spend time with Nicholas and Bella.
“I picked this up on my way over.” Kelsey opens a shopping bag and holds up a boy’s leather jacket. “I guessed at the size, but I think it’ll fit him.”
“Cute.” I struggle to sit up on the sofa. “What’s it for?”
“Nicholas’s school concert tomorrow, remember?”
I search my fuzzy brain for something about a concert, but come up empty. “No, I don’t remember.”
“The first-grade classes are doing a concert with songs from the 1950s, and the director asked parents to have the boys dress up like Elvis or in jeans and leather jackets. The girls are supposed to wear poodle skirts or something similar. Dean said Nicholas didn’t have a leather jacket, so I picked this up. Got him some hair gel too, if he’ll let me give him a James Dean pompadour.”
Something inside me cracks. I pull my knees to my chest and rest my forehead on them.
“Hey.” Kelsey puts her hand on the back of my neck. “What’s going on?”
“I can’t go.” Tears clog my throat. “I can’t go to my son’s first-grade concert because I’m so fucking sick. I didn’t even remember he was having it.”
“Oh, Liv, there will be other concerts. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to make you feel even shittier.”
“It’s not your fault.” I wipe my eyes, lifting my head. “Thanks for taking care of it for him. I just wish I could go, you know?”
Kelsey March is nothing if not a woman who gets things done. So I shouldn’t be surprised when she shows up at the front door at ten a.m. the next morning and tells me to take some anti-nausea medication, get dressed, and get in the car.
I shouldn’t be surprised when she drives me to the school gym, where dozens of parents are seated in folding chairs arranged in rows in front of the tiered stage.
I shouldn’t be surprised when Dean and the school principal come into the gym and lead me to a set of empty chairs with a clear view of the stage.
I shouldn’t be surprised when the first-graders file in, heartachingly adorable in their 1950s costumes, or when Nicholas spots me and Dean in the audience and waves with surprised excitement.
I shouldn’t be surprised when the off-key, six-year-old chorus of “Hound Dog” and accompanying dance makes me cry. I shouldn’t be surprised afterward when teachers and other parents greet me warmly, when children from Nicholas’s class shout “Hi, Nicholas’s mom!” in passing, or when my son gives me a bear hug before trotting back to his classroom.
I shouldn’t be surprised.
But I am.
Chapter 31
Dean
March 23
“You okay?”
The minute the question escapes my mouth, I want to bite it back. But Liv only nods, grasping the porch railing as she comes up the steps. The fifth round of chemo has hit her especially hard—maybe because of the build-up of drugs in her system, or her increasing weakness.
In addition to the chemo infusions, there are check-ups, blood tests, plans for radiation, counselor and nutritionist appointments, shots, and the seething fear that every ache Liv feels, every headache or bone pain, could mean something worse than a side-effect. It could mean that the cancer has taken root in another part of her body.
At this afternoon’s appointment, the results of a blood test didn’t prompt Dr. Anderson to hospitalize her, despite the fact that she struggled to make it to his office. He only prescribed some new medicine for nausea, since none of the previous ones have worked well. For the hundredth time, I had to smother my urge to demand that the doctor do more.
I help Liv off with her jacket before she starts up to the bedroom. She gets halfway up the stairs, then sinks down onto a step to catch her breath. Her skin is white, her eyes glassy, her breathing too fast. She bends forward, clutching her stomach. Beads of perspiration dot her forehead.
My chest knots painfully. I reach to pick her up. She shakes her head.
“I can do it, Dean.”
“But you don’t have to.”
“I will.” She waves her hand, her chin setting with stubbornness. “Go away. I get a little tired of you hovering all the time.”
I bite back the retort that I hover because she has dizzy spells and panic attacks that render her incapable of moving. What if she faints or