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'd like to make a call

"Shit!" I slam down the phone

Anna, vigilant, pokes her head around the doorway "You said a bad word"

"I know" I pick up the receiver and hit the redial button I windperson "I was just disconnected Again"

It takes this rep five more minutes to take down all the saiven her predecessors "We actually have reviewed your daughter's case," the woman says "Unfortunately, at this time, we don't think that procedure is in her best interests"

I feel heat rush to ?"

In preparation for the bone rowth factor shots, just like I once gave Kate after her initial cord blood transplant The intent is to hyper-pack Anna's marrow, so that when it is time to withdraw the cells, there will be plenty for Kate

Anna has been told this, too, but all she knows is that twice a day, her ive her a shot

We use EMLA cream, a topical anesthetic The crea the prick of the needle, but she still yells I wonder if it hurts asyour six-year-old stare you in the eye and say she hates you

"Mrs Fitzgerald," the insurance company's customer service supervisor says, "we appreciate where you're co from Truly"

"Somehow, I find that very hard to believe," I say "Sohter in a life-or-death situation, and that your advisory board isn't looking solely at the bottom line cost of a transplant" I have told myself that I will not lose my temper, and already thirty seconds into this phone call with the insurance company, I have ceded the battle

"AmeriLife will pay ninety percent of what's considered reasonable and customary for a donor lymphocyte infusion However, should you still choose to do a boneto cover ten percent of the costs"

I take a deep breath "The doctors on your board who recommended this--what's their specialty?"

"I don't--"

"It's not acute proist who graduated last in his class from some hack medical school in Gua to work as a cure That three ain Plus, if you'd asked a doctor who had any fahter's particular disease burden, he'd tell you that repeating a treathly unlikely to produce results in an APL patient, because they develop a resistance Whichto throwthatmy child's life"

There is a pregnant bubble of silence on the other end of the phone "Mrs Fitzgerald," the supervisor suggests, "it isthat if you follow this protocol, the insurance co for the transplant"

"Except that et it We aren't talking about a car, where we can try a used part first and if it doesn't work, get a new one shipped in We're talking about a hu Do you automatons there even knohat the hell that is?"

This ti the click when I am disconnected

Zanne shows up the night before we are due to go to the hospital to begin Kate's preparatory transplant regimen She lets Jesse help her set up her portable office, takes a phone call from Australia, and then comes into the kitchen so that Brian and I can catch her up on daily routines "Anna's got gymnastics on Tuesday," I tell her "Three o'clock And I expect the oil truck to come sometime this week"

"The trash goes out on Wednesday," Brian adds

"Don't walk Jesse into school Apparently, that's anatheraders"

She nods and listens and even takes notes, and then says she has a couple of questions "The fish"

"Gets fed twice a day Jesse can do it, if you remind him"

"Is there an official bedtime?" Zanne asks

"Yeah," I reply "Do you want ive you the real one, or the one you can use if you're going to tack on an extra hour as a special treat?"

"Anna's eight o'clock," Brian says "Jesse's ten Anything else?"

"Yes" Zanne reaches into her pocket and takes out a check made out to us, for 100,000

"Suzanne," I say, stunned "We can't take that"

"I kno much it costs You can't cover it I can Let me"

Brian picks up the check and hands it back to her "Thank you," he says "But actually, we've got the transplant covered"

This is news to me "We do?"

"The guys at the station sent out a call to arot a bunch of donations frohters" Brian looks at me "I just found out today"

"Really?" Inside ht lifts

He shrugs "They're my brothers," he explains

I turn to Zanne and hug her "Thank you For even offering"

"It's here if you need it," she answers

But we don't We are able to do this, at least

"Kate!" I call the next o!"

Anna is curled on Zanne's lap on the couch She pulls her thuood-bye

"Kate!" I yell again "We're leaving!"

Jesse smirks over his Nintendo controls "Like you'd really take off without her"

"She doesn't know that Kate!" Sighing, I swing up the stairs toward her bedroom

The door is closed With a soft knock, I push it open, and find Kate in the final throes of h to bounce a dime off its middle; the pillows have been fluffed and centered Her stuffed aniradated succession, tallest to sed in her closet, and the mess on her desk has vanished

"Okay" I haven't even asked her to clean up "Clearly, I' bedroom"

She turns "It's in case I don't come back," she says

When I first becaine the most horrible succession of maladies: the bite of a jellyfish, the taste of a poisonous berry, the ser, the dive into a shallow pool There are so many ways a child can be harmed that it see hied: inhaling glue, playing with matches, small pink pills sold behind the bleachers of the ht and still not count all the ways to lose the people you love

It seems to me, now that this is more than just a hypothetical, that a parent falls one of then told a child has a fatal disease Either you dissolve into a puddle, or you take the blow on the cheek and force yourself to lift your face again for more In this, we probably look a lot like the patients

Kate is se like a fountain from her chest The cheiven her mouth sores and such bad mucositis that she sounds like a cystic fibrosis patient

She turns to m instead "Drown," she chokes out

Raising the suction tube she's clutching in her hands, I clear out her mouth and throat "I'll do it while you rest," I promise, and that is how I come to breathe for her

An oncology ward is a battlefield, and there are definite hierarchies of co the tour of duty The doctors breeze in and out like conquering heroes, but they need to read your child's chart to remember where they've left off from the previous visit It is the nurses who are the seasoned sergeants--the ones who are there when your baby is shaking with such a high fever she needs to be bathed in ice, the ones who can teach you how to flush a central venous catheter, or suggest which patient floor kitchens ht still have Popsicles left to be stolen, or tell you which dry cleaners kno to re The nurses know the nahter's stuffed walrus and show her how to make tissue paper flowers to twine around her IV stand The doctors ames, but it is the nurses who make the conflict bearable

You get to know them as they know you, because they take the place of friends you once had in a previous life, the one before diagnosis Donna's daughter, for exaraveyard shift, wears laminated pictures of Sanibel Island clipped like charms to her stethoscope, because it's where she wants to retire Willie, thetriplets

One night during Kate's induction, when I have been awake for so long that ue into sleep, I turn on the TV while she sleeps I mute it, so that the voluh the palatial hoold-plated bidets and hand-carved teak beds, a pool in the shape of a butterfly There are ten-car garages and red clay tennis courts and eleven roa peacocks It's a world I can't even wrap ine for myself

Sort of like this one used to be

I can't even really remember what it was like to hear a story about a enital heart problems or any other medical burden, and to feel rateful that my own family was safe We have become that story, for everyone else

I don't realize I' until Donna kneels down in front of me and takes the TV reet you so?"

I shake my head, eht "I'm fine," I insist

"Yeah, and I's s me toward the door

"Kate--"