Hank thought he might beat it out of her. If she wasn’t going to cooperate. He’d just take matters into his own calloused and splintered hands, maybe Thursday afternoon. Then Annie’d agree to go to Boise.

Annie came into the room and could sense the negative energy flowing from Hank like microwaves—invisible but able to melt your insides. She gave him a wan smile and set her teacup down on a saucer on the kitchen table. He had something dangerous on his mind, she could tell. She could feel it wrapping around her like tendrils. She thought she’d better get down to Clifford’s and let Hank cool off a while.

“I’ll be back. Gonna see if Fonda has my next check.”

Hank grunted, staring at the window. He peered at the wave in the right bottom corner of the glass—the old, tired-out glass that had been doing its damn job for too long and wasn’t keeping the cold out any longer. Couldn’t somebody just give the goddamn glass a little help? A little payback for all those years of being seen right through? He sucked on his teeth. “Yep.”

Annie made sure not to let the screen door slam—Hank hated that—and scurried out in the 20-degree weather to her ’85 Oldsmobile. She’d left in such a rush, escaping before Hank’s foul mood turned cruel, that she’d left her coat on its hook. The wind bit at her neck and hands, the skin like tissue paper. Seventy-three was a hard age, she’d learned. At seventy bodies began to dive headfirst toward death, at least for the hard-living people she knew, and by seventy-three they just hung on for dear life, people dropping right and left. A funeral every few months. “Boy, that’s awful,” she said to no one and closed the door quick, the rusted-out corner at the bottom instantly spilling her body heat into the wide world. “Well, I swear,” she said to the cold, to the light-blue upholstery, to the dashboard that lit up when she turned the key and cranked the heat.

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Maggie licks the sweat from her fingers and thinks, This is as human as it gets. Her brow drips salt into her eyes and they sting. Another sign that she’s so very alive. The joy of that fact erupts from her lungs in a burst of laughter that startles her, chest heaving, bent over, elbows on her thighs.

She has run just to know she can. To feel the breeze on her slick skin and get a chill. To feel her heart pump so hard it might explode and end her life on the spot, going out with a bang rather than dwindling away in her withered body. The cancer has taken a piece of her lung, in cahoots with the surgeons paid to save her. They have brought her low, chin-to-chin with the beast that is nothingness, or glory, who’s to say. But she has given the cancer the big middle finger, dug her heels in, promised her failing body she will fight for it. And she has won, at least for now. And this sweat tastes like heaven. Like joy. Like promise and defiance mixed together.

She stands up, her breathing slowed to less of a near-death rate, and smiles at the sun. She squints and lifts her chin straight up to catch its rays, greedy, a bottomless pit of want. And the sun doesn’t disappoint. It obliges, broadens her smile, warms her skin, begins to prick the outermost layer with its UV rays. She is fearless.

When the doctor came into the homey office he had tastefully decorated with muted colors to create a warm, living room–like atmosphere to deliver news, good and bad alike, she could see the concern flicker in his eyes before he fastened a flat and emotionless mask on his face. His bad-news face, she was sure. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath, her husband Ben’s hand squeezing her own. She decided in that moment that whatever news was delivered, she would be just fine. Either she would fight it and win, or fight it and lose, and in the losing she’d learn what she couldn’t in victory. Either way, a positive outcome. She opened her eyes and said, “Okay, Charles, let me have it.”

And he had. He washed away the nothing face in an instant and replaced it with a cold-hard-reality scowl, which made her sit up taller in her seat. He’d delivered the stage 3 lung cancer information without an ounce of pity, and moved straight to the plan of attack. Just the way she liked it. He had held her hand for a moment, stretched out across his desk, Ben’s frame hunched in his chair. But the doctor hadn’t lingered in dismay. He merely recognized the sadness, then gave her a look of determination. “Your chances aren’t great. But they’re chances just the same. Might as well use them.”

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