"They did. You haven't been home. Gallivanting with Ed Farrell, I expect."

"I don't gallivant with anybody, especially not Ed. I was just at the creek, and he showed up." She crossed her arms over her chest, hugging herself. "So, that's good news, right? That she's coming home?"

He sat on the edge of the desk nearest her. "Why don't you take a seat."

His voice had turned suddenly serious, and she obeyed without question.

"Harriet wanted me to speak to you first, before they got home. I guess they need you to know so you can help them with the children. Especially Maddie." His blue eyes were gentle as he regarded her, but they did nothing to still the rising tide of fear inside her.

Unbidden, her fingers reached up to the gold charms around her neck and began fingering them one by one. She noticed Sam's gaze following her hand, and he looked at her with such under-standing that she wanted to fall into his arms and let him kiss all the hurts away.

She held his gaze and kept her voice strong. "What do they need me to know?"

"They had her charts and test results faxed over to me, and I was on the phone with her oncologist for over an hour this morning, discussing her care." He looked down at his hands for a moment. "So, I can explain this to you in black-and-white terms, in medical termi-nology, in words that won't make a lot of sense to you. Or I can tell you what you don't want to hear."

Cassie stood, walked over to the window, and jerked up the venetian blinds, sending a small cloud of dust motes into the late-afternoon sunshine. "Tell me . . ." She cleared her throat, her voice stronger now. "Tell me everything-medical and otherwise. I need to know everything." Her voice sounded far away to her, reminding her of the same voice her father had used when he told her that her own mother had gone to heaven. She felt small and scared again, and the need to run away and hide made her foot twitch. But she reached inside herself and found the inner reserve, her particular brand of stubbornness, and clung tightly to it. "Shoot," she said with false bravado.

He took a deep breath. "She has breast cancer with lymphatic invasion-a stage-four cancer. Aggressive, multimodality therapy is warranted, but we can't undertake it because of the pregnancy. Radiation is out of the question because of how widespread the tumors are, and Harriet won't consider the chemotherapy because of the chance of miscarriage or fetal damage, however small the risk at this stage of the pregnancy. Surgery is also not an option at this stage because of how much the cancer has spread." He paused for a moment as if gathering strength. "She, with her doctor's knowledge, will wait until the baby is born before beginning treatment-if any is even warranted at that point."

Cassie made her way back to the chair, sat heavily, her legs no longer able to hold her, and began to shake with small trembles at first, which then erupted into visible limb movements. She realized she still held her Coke can and let Sam take it out of her shaking hand. Then he moved to stand next to her, draping his lab coat over her bare shoulders.

Cassie stared at the wall. "If she's at stage four now but waits four more months for treatment, what's her survival probability?"

He squatted by her chair and looked her in the face. "It's almost nonexistent now, Cassie. Cancer cells have spread everywhere- including her liver. Even without the pregnancy, her chances are very, very low."

Her voice was calm, belying the trembling in her arms. "And the baby?"

"The baby is healthy. There have been no known instances of a maternal-fetal transfer of cancer cells." He touched her arm, a glimmer of light in his voice. "It's another boy."

"A boy." She gripped the coat around her arms, unable to control their shaking. Squaring her shoulders, she sat up straight in the chair and looked directly at him. "So, after the baby is born, what do we do then?"

He stared at her for a moment before speaking. "This isn't an advertising plan, Cassie, where there's a solution to everything. This is the human body, and I'm afraid it just doesn't work like that. We're in a wait-and-see mode right now, but her survival is given now at about six months."

She stood so quickly, her chair flipped on its back. "So what do we do?" she repeated, her voice rising and cracking. "What's the next course of treatment?"

He stood, too, but slowly and deliberately. "We make her comfortable. And we . . . manage the pain."

The overhead air vent shut off, and all was silent inside the office except for the muffled voices down the hall and Sarah Frances's childish laugh. Cassie gripped the edge of the desk, unable to move or form words. Yanking the coat off her shoulders, she threw it to the ground.

"So you're going to give up-just like that?" She slapped her hands on the surface of the dark wood desk, making a piece of paper slide off the top, then slowly drift down to the floor like a fallen spirit.

She tried to move, but he held on to her with both hands on her shoulders. "Cassie, you're not being reasonable. This is Harriet's decision, and she needs your support."

She struggled, not even trying to keep her voice down. "You're all a bunch of quitters. None of you know how to fight." Biting her lip, she struggled to get away from him.

Gently, he said, "No, Cassie. I think we realize when it's time to pick up the pieces and go home-wherever that might be. Harriet has made her choice. Let her do this in peace."

"No!" She jerked away and headed for the door, leaving Sam behind.

She ran to the examining room and found it empty. In a panic she started opening all the doors down the corridor, shouting Sarah Frances's name. When she came to the waiting room, she stopped. The little girl was at a kid-sized table, coloring. She looked at her aunt with a smile and held up the picture she had been working on. It was a picture of a house with seven stick people in front. One of the figures with long blond hair held a small baby in her arms.

"I'm drawing this for Mommy. I'm going to give it to her when she comes home."

Cassie knelt by the child and hugged her tightly.

As if sensing something, the child stiffened and began to cry, "I want my mommy."

Cassie patted the back of the girl's head and whispered softly to her, "I know, I know. Let's go home." Then she lifted the little girl, the picture clutched tightly in the small fist, and carried her out the door.

Twenty-Two.

The dog days of summer had arrived with a vengeance, and there was little respite from the heat to be found anywhere. Cassie had already taken the children to the Piggly Wiggly for MoonPies and Cokes, lingering in the well-chilled frozen-food aisle.

Now she sat on the porch swing with Maddie at the old house, the ceiling fan whirring overhead and a metal tub of peas between them. Joe and Harriet were set to arrive any minute, and Cassie had to have something to take her mind off it. Sensing Maddie's agitation, Cassie knew she'd better find something for them both.

Cassie stifled a yawn as she struggled to shell a pea. She'd been up half the night researching cancer on the Internet, hoping to find mention of some new drug, some miracle cure. A lot of what she'd found had been mostly gibberish to her, but she'd printed it all out, anyway, sure it would mean something to somebody. Despite what Sam had told her, she, at least, was not going to give up. She threw peas at the tub on the floor, missing the bucket and sending the small green projectiles scattering across the floorboards.

As she bent to pick up the errant peas, she heard the sound of tires on gravel and looked up to see Joe's van, followed closely behind by Sam's truck. Walking to the screen door, she opened it and shouted to the younger children to come outside.

The two vehicles parked amid clouds of dust, and the two men got out and went to Harriet's door. Cassie stood on the top step, her breath in her throat, watching as they assisted her sister out of the car.

Harriet seemed smaller, somehow, more frail. They had only been gone three weeks, yet the woman that stepped out of the car was years apart from the woman who had left such a short time ago. Her pregnancy was a little more pronounced, but still barely caused a bump in the A-line cotton dress Harriet wore. She had made it to the porch steps by the time the sound of running feet could be heard in the foyer. As the screen door slammed, she was seated on the bottom step and had her arms spread wide.

Knoxie, Joey, and Sarah Frances vied for their mother's limited lap space but were all given turns before being handed over to Joe for bear hugs and big kisses. Aunt Lucinda appeared with Amanda in her arms. When the baby saw her mother, she squealed and reached for Harriet with chubby arms.

Maddie stayed on the swing, shelling peas and letting them plop into the bucket until her father approached. "Hey, peanut. Aren't you going to give your favorite daddy a big hug and kiss?" His eyes were full of reproach, but he kept the warm smile on his face.

The girl shrugged, causing Cassie to prod her on the arm. Reluctantly, Maddie reached up and gave her father a hug and a quick peck on the cheek before returning to her shelling.

Harriet stood with Amanda in her arms, wobbling slightly. Lucinda took the baby as Harriet approached her eldest child. "Hey, Maddie. Can I have a hug, too?"

Maddie looked up far enough to see the swell of her mother's abdomen, then resumed shelling peas without comment. Cassie, seeing the hurt in her sister's face, gave Harriet a hug. She felt small and brittle in her arms, making Cassie pull away and look carefully at her sister. The skin on Harriet's face seemed thinner, almost translucent, as if stretched too tightly over the fine cheekbones. Her blond hair seemed to have lost much of its luster, but her eyes, glowing with brilliant radiance, had not changed. An odd sense of deja vu came over Cassie as she held her sister at arm's length and said, "Welcome home, Harriet."

She dropped Harriet's hands and gave Joe a hug. She tried to read his eyes but could only see a deep and abiding weariness in their clear depths. Hugging him again, she wondered how she could have once had more than just brotherly feelings for this man. The past fifteen years without her sister suddenly went spinning through her mind, leaving her with a bitter taste in her mouth at the abject waste of it all. Looking at Harriet again, all she could see was a decade and a half of wasted time and profound loss.

Studiously avoiding Sam, Cassie motioned for everyone to go into the kitchen, where Lucinda had prepared a homecoming lunch. After the children finished fighting over who got to sit next to their mother, Cassie found herself once again seated next to Sam. For the blessing, she reached for his hand without looking at him and waited for him to take it.

Harriet took a single bite of her chicken salad and chewed slowly. Dropping her fork, she stood, leaning heavily on the table. "Excuse me, everybody. But I've got to go lie down on the sofa in the parlor. I'm just so tired from the trip."

Cassie excused herself and followed her. "Are you all right?" She grabbed an afghan off her father's reading chair.

"Besides the cancer, yes, I'm fine. Just tired is all."

Cassie cringed. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean . . . well, I can't believe you can joke about this." She tucked the afghan around Harriet.

Harriet leaned back and closed her eyes. "I'm sorry, Cassie. It's just that if I don't laugh-" She let her voice die.

Cassie straightened and went to the bookcase to take out a stack of papers. Pulling up the ottoman in front of the sofa, Cassie held them up. "I printed these off the Internet last night. It's a whole list of clinical trials you can sign up for. There's also a few articles on drugs that they expect the FDA to approve in the next year. I think you and Joe need to look at these."

Harriet nodded, her eyes soft, and reached out her hand. Cassie gave her the pages, expecting them to be read and examined right away. Instead, Harriet dropped them on the sofa beside her.

"I'll give you some time to look at those while I go make sure the kids eat their lunches, all right?"

Harriet nodded, and with a small squeeze of the shoulder, Cassie retreated to the kitchen.

She seated herself between Knoxie and the highchair and began mushing bananas to feed to the baby. Maddie hadn't come in yet to eat, and the others were busy wolfing down their sandwiches so they could go outside and have some of Aunt Lucinda's homemade ice cream.

When the older children had deserted the kitchen, leaving the back door open, as was their habit, Cassie addressed Sam and Joe.

"I've printed a bunch of stuff off the Internet that I think you should read. I didn't understand most of it, but there's a lot there that I think might be of help to Harriet, including a list of clinical trials and a few new experimental treatments." She glanced up hopefully, her gaze moving from one man to the next.

She saw them exchange a look as Joe shifted uncomfortably in his chair.

Sam put down his sandwich. "We've already gone over every possibility, Cassie. We've looked down every avenue, and this is the course of action that Harriet has chosen. And you need to remember it's her life we're talking about."

With deliberate care, Cassie put down the fork she'd used to mash the bananas and dumped the food on the highchair tray. Amanda immediately dove into it with both hands. "So what you're telling me is that those five children-soon to be six-don't need their mother. You're giving up."

Sam's jaw began twitching as he slid back his chair, leaning forward on the table as he spoke to her with precise words. "We're not giving up. We're making the best decision we know how with the situation we are given."

She slid back her own chair, bumping the wall behind her. "The hell you are." The baby stared up at her with wide eyes, and Cassie's heart skipped a beat. Lowering her voice, she said, "There's a world's worth of information on the Internet, and you're not even going to look at it, are you?"

Sam spoke with a great deal of control, keeping his voice low. "Damn it, Cassie. Don't you think I already have? Maybe if you saw the X-rays yourself, you'd understand the situation better."

She stood and slapped her hands on the table. "I don't want to see any X-rays. What I do see now is my sister and those children, and I'm the only one around here who seems to care about any of them."

The baby began to whimper, and Joe, with an anguished look on his face, took her out of the highchair and left out the back door, Lucinda following close behind.

Sam came around the table in two steps but kept his clenched hands at his side. Despite bright red patches of color on his face, he did not raise his voice. "You're not the only one upset here, Cassie. Don't you think that Joe is grieving for her, too? Don't you think we're all angry at what has happened? Because I'm angry as hell. I'm angry that she's sick, and I'm angry that this baby is complicating things." He turned to face the wall and pounded a fist on pale blue wallpapered corn-flowers. "You should be thanking God that this wasn't a decision you had to make and respect Harriet enough to comply with her wishes and not make this any harder for her." He took a deep breath, facing Cassie again. "Don't fight her on this."

She tried to walk away, but he blocked her path. Looking up at him, she bit her lip, willing the tears not to spill. "She's going to get better with or without your help. I don't have time to take a wait-and-see approach. And I guess it will be up to me to make sure that she gets the care and treatment she needs as quickly as possible."

She made a move to get by him again, but he held her back with his hands on her arms. His hands trembled as he spoke to her with measured control, his face only inches above her own. "You're acting like a spoiled child who can't get her own way. I'm sorry if things are messing up your plans to return to New York and that you're being forced to get involved with other people's lives more than you want to." He shook her gently. "Now listen to me, because I'm not going to tell you again. Let Harriet die in peace. And if you feel you can't, then go back to New York. It's where you think you belong, anyway."

Yanking away, she ran out of the kitchen, biting back the bitter taste of tears. She stopped for a moment, pressing her forehead against the wall, willing her strength and composure to return. Walking into the parlor, she noticed that all the pages she had painstakingly printed out the night before had slid off the couch in a white waterfall and were now covering the rug under the coffee table.

Her sister's voice called her over to the sofa. Stopping, Cassie knelt and took Harriet's hand. "Do you need something?"

Harriet nodded. "I need your understanding."

Cassie looked down, ashamed that Harriet had heard her arguing with Sam.

Harriet squeezed Cassie's hand lightly. "Even without the pregnancy, my chances of survival are almost nonexistent. I could fight it with chemo and radiation, but it would only prolong my life by a few months-if any. Why risk the life of my unborn child only to give me a little more time?" She swallowed, closing her eyes for a long moment. "I know Maddie is angry about the baby. She thinks I'm choosing it over her and the others. I want you to help her understand something . . . and maybe that will help you, too." Her chest rose and fell in shallow breaths, her skin blanched as if in pain. "I have been blessed by being allowed to give life to Maddie and her sisters and brother. It is all this baby is asking of me and all that I will ever be able to give him. Allow me this, please." She closed her eyes again. "Please," she said again, her voice barely louder than a whisper.

Cassie dipped her head, hot tears spilling on their clasped hands. "I don't want to let you go. Not now . . . now that I've found you again. You're . . . all . . . I've . . . got."

Slowly, Harriet shook her head, her eyes remaining closed. "No, Cassie. You'll never be alone." Her voice faded, and Cassie continued to hold her hand until Harriet fell asleep. Leaning over, she kissed her sister's forehead and left the room.

Crossing the foyer, the phone rang, and Cassie rushed to get it in her father's study before it could disturb Harriet.

"Hello, Cassandra. It's me."

"Andrew." She waited for a rush of emotion-any emotion-but none came. She was completely tapped out. "How are you?" The background noise of pulsating music and laughing people made it hard to hear. She wiped the tears from her face and searched to find a stronger voice.

"Never been better. As a matter of fact, I'm in the midst of celebrating."

She leaned against the desk, feeling so very tired all of a sudden. "Celebrating what?" The sound of a woman's voice came from close by. It sounded a lot like Cynthia Moore.

"We closed the VisEx deal today-it's mine."

Cassie felt a faint tingle reminiscent of the old adrenaline rush course through her veins. "That's wonderful, Andrew-and congratulations."

His voice broke through the background noise. "I couldn't have done it without you, Cassandra. You were the one who made the initial contact and set the groundwork. You deserve as much credit as anyone."

"To be honest, I'm surprised. When you didn't call back after our last conversation, I assumed the deal had fallen through. I guess you got them to agree to it without having my name attached."

There was a long pause and the woman's voice again, faint but insistent. Then Andrew spoke. "Actually, that term of the agreement didn't change. I told them you'd be back in January to manage the account."

She stared at the phone, speechless for a moment. "You told them what? Andrew, you out-and-out lied! I told you I wasn't sure. How could you do this?" She rubbed her temple, feeling the beginnings of a headache. She almost welcomed it. It was so much easier to deal with than heartache.

"Because I knew you'd come back when I offered you a partnership."

The air seemed to leak out of her like a punctured beach ball. "A partnership? As in 'Wallace and Madison'?"

"Yes. That's exactly what I mean. What do you think?"

"What do I think? My gosh, what could I think? I'm . . . flattered. More than flattered, really. I don't know what to say." She tried to force enthusiasm into her voice.

"How about just saying, 'Okay, Andrew, I'm on the next flight out'?"

She brushed the hair off her face, feeling her hand shake. Why couldn't she just say yes? God, that would make her life so much easier. Instead, she heard herself say, "It's just . . . well, things are complicated here. I need time to sort things out." For some reason, she didn't want to tell him about Harriet. Maybe if she kept it to herself, it would go away.

Another pause now, with the distinct sound of clinking glass coming through the receiver. "The Cassandra Madison I knew wouldn't take more than a second to think about it."

Irritated, she said, "Well, maybe I'm not the same Cassandra Madison you remember."

"Yeah, well. The thing is, you don't have to decide right away, although I was hoping you would so I can put all my people in place. But VisEx won't be able to make the move until after the first of the year. How about if I give you until January first to decide? Will that give you enough time to sort through your complications?"

Her gaze rested on the family picture of Harriet and Joe with the kids, then moved to the framed crayon rendering of her with her nieces and nephew catching fireflies. "Yeah. That should be plenty of time." As if Harriet's life was a complication. As if January could even be looked forward to without thinking of the intervening months and the specter of diminishing life that haunted the time between.

"Great. Because there's also the matter of the apartment. Your name's on the lease, remember, and the renewal is coming due in February. We need to sit down and talk about it-among other things. I feel we haven't really settled everything between us."