Summary

After three seasons of friendship, Heather finally decides to tell Kathy about Gracie’s illness. Kathy reacts well and does not say anything that Heather had feared hearing.

As the family leaves for Gracie’s transfusions, she asks Heather and Brian if everybody else has to get blood the way she does. Heather must reconcile with the fact that “We were forever trying to figure out how to talk with Gracie about her sickness. She knew she had it, but she just hadn’t known, until then, that not everybody else had it too” (160).

On the way home, Heather asks Brian to stop at the food co-op for her favorite cheese even as he grows agitated that he has not had a chance to write all weekend. Although she promises the detour will be only fifteen minutes, “Walking around alone – without a person...