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“Um… uh… if I drive my own car, I’ll be able to bring Crista and Dylan to the hospital tomorrow if we need.”

Dad stared me down like I’d said the stupidest thing in the world. I racked my memory to figure out if I’d done something to piss him off. Nothing came to mind.

Thankfully, Mom came to the rescue. “Great idea, honey,” she said, pushing past me to throw her load into the backseat of the Honda. “You can follow us.”

I trailed after her, still carrying my own small collection of stuff. Dad made a beeline for the Honda, telling me to hurry up.

Mom shut the back door and flipped around, wrapping me in a fierce hug out of nowhere. “It’s gonna be okay,” she whispered. “Think positive thoughts for me. We need to combine our energy. We’re stronger together.”

“Okay,” I said. But it was a lie. My brain was already preparing the show reel of horrors it liked to deliver in moments of crisis. Aunt Linda was already dead. Aunt Linda was alone in the hospital, crying for Uncle Roy with no one around. Aunt Linda’s body was under the ground with bugs burrowing under her fingernails to lay eggs.

The drive to Linda and Roy’s house went by in a hazy fog. My body drove on autopilot while my mind floatedsomewhere near the car ceiling, chanting “doom, doom, doom” like it was in a trance. I guess I was. In a trance.

Mom and Dad stayed in their car, and I swapped batons with Uncle Roy. Him to the hospital. Me with the kids. Team break.

I felt super weird sleeping in Aunt Linda and Uncle Roy’s bed, so I dug through their linen closet until I found a blanket. I cocooned myself on the sofa, fluffing up the hard cushions as best as I could. Then I proceeded to stare at the ceiling. Like I was going to get any damn sleep now.

It’s funny how you can spend weeks, or months, or sometimes even years preparing yourself for a nightmare that’s more “when” than “if.” Then just when you’re fooling yourself that you’ve accepted the world’s end, and you’ll roll with the impact when it hits… suddenly, it might be hitting, and you’re not rolling. You’re collapsing, sitting where you stood, totally overwhelmed by a loss you were never really ready for.

How could I have thought I’d cope with losing Aunt Linda? The reality of it all made me feel helpless. My life stretched out in front of me, made up of hundreds of thousands of hours, which were made out of millions of minutes, which were made up of billions of seconds. And right now, each second pinned me down like rubble. I’d have to somehow get through all those billions of seconds without Aunt Linda being alive anymore.

Tick.

Tick.

Tick.

13

I woke up to three missed calls and a text. My stomach plummeted, and I steeled myself to open the message.

Thursday, 7:16 AM

Linda’s doing okay. Bring the kids when you can.

Okay.

Okay was good.

I moved through a bubble, getting the kids up, dressed, and fed. Neither of them had a clue their mom was in the hospital, it turned out, and I didn’t know how I was supposed to frame this. In the end I just kind of minimized it, passing it off as a minor blip, sounding as chirpy as I could. Which was a hell of an effort, considering I’d had about four hours’ sleep by my estimate. Luckily for me, the kids didn’t seem suspicious. They were too busy chattering about what they wanted to have for Thanksgivingdinner. How Aunt Linda had promised she’d do the potato gratin with bacon pieces, and that they could have a glass of Coke if they were well-behaved.

Shit. I hadn’t even thought about dinner. Someone was going to have to break it to the kids that Thanksgiving dinner wasn’t likely to happen today. That someone was not going to be me, though. I’d been the bearer of enough bad holiday news. In fact, I decided then and there that I wasn’t going to contribute to making this day suck any more than it had to for them. So when Crista wanted to put on her Elsa costume, complete with teeny little kitten heels, even though it was forty freaking degrees outside, I let her. And when Dylan wanted a banana smoothie as a “special” breakfast, he damn well got a banana smoothie. Who cared, at the end of the day? Life was short.

At the hospital, Aunt Linda was lying in bed, propped up by stiff white hospital pillows and the bed itself, which was raised at one end. She was missing her headscarf. Even though she’d been going through chemo for a while now, her scalp wasn’t totally bald. Instead, a few short wisps of the curls that used to tumble down her neck were left behind. Also, her face was totally clean. She never, and I meannever, went without makeup. Even if it was just eyebrows and eyeliner. Bare like this, she looked capital-S Sick.

My parents were side by side on the ugly floral love seat, and Uncle Roy slumped in the chair by Aunt Linda’s head. When he noticed us come in, he gave the kids a tired smile and held out a hand.

Crista and Dylan went straight to the bed. “I thought you were doing chemo?” Crista asked in a voice so small I died a little.

Aunt Linda’s smile was even more exhausted than Uncle Roy’s. “Happy Thanksgiving to you, too, Elsa. I felta little sick while you were sleeping, so we came here to get me better. Don’t you worry a bit.”

“Does it hurt?” Crista pressed.

Aunt Linda and Uncle Roy exchanged a quick look, then Aunt Linda shrugged. “Nothing I can’t handle. But, Little Miss Munchkin, excuse me. Where is your coat? It’s freezing out.”

I held up the kid’s carryall. “Got it. Sneakers, too.”

“I don’twantsneakers.”