lost one. "Yeah."

"Alone?"

"I guess so." Arty shrugged.

It wasn't like I could realy expect him to know more, but

why had she lied to me?

I woke, disoriented, when a smal hand tugged my arm.

Expecting Arty, I sat up and fumbled for the light next to

my bed, but there wasn't one. I blinked until my eyes

focused, but my brother wasn't hovering over me. The

touch I'd felt had come from nothing.

I sat straight up, the blankets I'd tucked so carefuly

around me fighting against me now. At the foot of my bed

stood two smal children, both about Arty's age, clutching

each other's hands. Pale, white children I didn't need a

lamp to see because they both gleamed in the darkness.

Pale children with empty black holes where their eyes

should've been and blood dripping from their ragged

fingertips. Behind them, the attic door gaped wide.

I waited for the blood to start pouring out of the door like

it did in The Shining, but al that happened was they

it did in The Shining, but al that happened was they

stared. And stared. The pounding of my heart became a

roar and I did the only thing I had the courage to do. I

closed my eyes, then clapped my hands over them, too.

Nothing happened until I heard a smal voice whisper,

"Take care of us."

Then I screamed, and screamed and screamed…until I sat

straight up in bed to the sound of my phone ringing. The

attic door was stil closed. No ghostly children were

begging me to adopt them. The room wasn't even that

dark, lit as it was by the light from an outside streetlamp

through the window.

I stumbled out of bed and dug in my purse for my cel. My

heart had started pounding again, but for a different

reason. I got al kinds of texts and cals in strange hours,

but this one felt wrong, and I didn't recognize the number.

"Ms. DeMarco?"

"Yes, who's this?"

"This is Dr. Philips at the Hershey Med Center. I'm sorry

to cal you so late, but your mother's surgery has had some

to cal you so late, but your mother's surgery has had some

complications—"

I had to blink twice to make sure I wasn't stil dreaming

and even then I wasn't convinced. "I'm sorry, hold on a

second. Her surgery?"

"The breast-reconstruction surgery had some complica

tions," he explained patiently, probably used to waking

people up to give them bad news. "She's running a high

fever and has been hemorrhaging."

My mother had gone and got herself a boob job. I gritted

my teeth. "You're her plastic surgeon?"

"Yes. I've been working closely with her oncologist, Dr.

Frank, since your mother was diagnosed."

I was stil stupid. "Wait a minute. Her oncologist? I thought

she was having her breasts done."

"Your mother had a double mastectomy," the doctor said.

"With a planned reconstruction. But as I said, there are

complications."

I sagged against the headboard. "What kind of

complications?"

complications?"

"Can you come to the hospital?" he said. "I think you should."

Chapter 33

Leo probably hadn't even gone to bed yet when I caled

him to come sit with Arty and get him on the bus in the

morning. He was there in fifteen minutes. I should've been

relieved to see him, but I was angry, too.

"You knew?"

He nodded. "She told me a couple months ago. When she

told me to leave."

"Months? She knew for months and…she didn't tel me?"

Leo shrugged. "She didn't want to worry you, Paige. Hey,

don't look at me like that. You know your mother. And

she broke up with me because of it."

He didn't have to tel me that was worse than being kept in

the dark. "I'm sorry she did that. Why would she?"

Another shrug. "She said she didn't want to be a burden."

"Did you try to convince her otherwise?" The question was

a little mean, but Leo took it in stride.

"I love that woman, and I love that boy up there." He

pointed. "Hel. I even took a shine to you. I was hoping

she'd reconsider once she had the operation and she saw I

didn't care about the size of her tits."

There wasn't much point in belaboring the discussion, so I

left him at the house. The drive to Hershey was shorter

than the trek from Lebanon to Harrisburg, but it was along

a two-lane, rural highway and I had the bad luck to be

stuck behind someone adhering strictly to the speed limit.

By the time I got to the med center, my stomach had

twisted itself into knots and I'd sweated big rings under my

arms. I parked in the lot and headed into the lobby, where

I managed to decipher the signs to find my mom's floor. I

took the elevator with a pair of chatty nurses and a worn-

looking older man with a basebal cap puled low on his

head.

It was just past 11:00 p.m., not the darkest hour of the

night or anything, but even so the floor was dim and quiet.

The nurses talked softly at the desk. I'd never been to the

ICU before. I wasn't happy to be here, now.

"Alicia DeMarco?" I rested my hands flat on the counter to keep myself from biting my nails. "Her doctor caled and

keep myself from biting my nails. "Her doctor caled and

said she was being moved here?"

The nurse consulted a chart. I thought there'd be trouble

with visiting hours, but she just smiled and told me the

room number and pointed the way helpfuly. My knotted

stomach twisted tighter. If my mom was realy fine I

thought they'd have made me wait until morning, which

would've annoyed me since I'd made the trip, but would've

meant she was going to be okay.

I didn't have that reassurance now.

She looked smal in the bed. Pale without her many layers

of makeup. Her hair not teased or even combed, just

puled back from her face in a high ponytail. She was

sleeping. Machines beeped and something squeaked by in

the hal outside as I just stared.

Her breath rattled and I jumped at the sound. When I

crossed to the bed, I couldn't be sure I'd wake her. I

didn't know if she could be woken.

Her eyes fluttered open when I sat in the chair next to the

bed. "Paige."

"Hi, Mom." I scooted closer. Under the covers her chest

rose higher than looked right. I couldn't avoid looking.

"Checking out my new rack?" My mom's voice cracked

and she drew in a slow, pained breath.

"Why didn't you tel me?"

I waited for a long few minutes for her to answer. Her

eyes closed. I thought she'd falen back to sleep, but then

she licked her lips and coughed.

"Hurts like a bastard," she said.

I didn't ask her again. There'd be time for questions and

accusations, and I had no doubt there'd be plenty of both.

My mom opened her eyes. Then she closed them again,

only to reopen them a second later. She smiled. "Paige."

I moved to the chair next to her bed and took her hand.

"Mom. What the hel's going on?"

"Language," my mother cautioned, and looked at the

plastic pitcher on the nightstand. "Can you pour me some

water? I'm dying."

Alarmed, I stopped halfway to grabbing the pitcher.

"Mom!"

"Shh," she said.

"Mom. You're not dying."

"I'm dying of thirst. Give me a drink, for God's sake." She frowned. "Am I going to have to ring for a nurse?"

"No." I poured and held it up for her to sip, but she waved me away with an irritated sigh.

"I can do it."

I watched her sip delicately at the water, and I watched as

she spiled it al down her chin to wet the neck of her

hospital gown. When I took the cup away, I handed her a

tissue from the holder next to the pitcher. She blotted her

mouth and held the tissue to her nostrils, one then the

other, before crumpling it in her fist.

"I know you think I should have told you what was going

on," she said.

"No shit."

"No shit."

"Paige." My mom gave me one of her looks, but it left me

unaffected. She sighed again. "I didn't want to worry you."

"How long have you known? Mom, my God." I wasn't

thirsty, but I poured myself a cup of water anyway to give

my hands something to do. Then I remembered I was in a

hospital, the air afloat with who knew what sorts of

noxious germs, and I put the cup down.

My mother watched me from dark-shadowed eyes.

Without her makeup on she looked so much younger.

Prettier, even, despite the circles and lines of fatigue

etched at the corners of her eyes. She'd never have gone

out in public like that, but I liked seeing her without so

much paint covering her face.

"For a few months. I found a lump one day and went to

have it checked out. They did a biopsy. It was cancer,

so…" She gestured with her fingertips at the room.

"But why didn't you tel me?" I didn't mean to whisper, and the way I clutched at her hand surprised me. I bent

forward to press my forehead to her hand in mine, and that

surprised me, too. "I'd have helped you!"

"I didn't want you to worry," she repeated. "And you are helping me. You're taking care of Arty. Where is Arty?"

I felt hot, feverish, my mom's hand cool on my skin the

way it had been for countless childhood ilnesses. Only,

she was the sick one this time, not me. "He's at home with

Leo."

"Oh."

At my mom's smal voice, I looked up. "You told him."

She nodded after a pause. "I had to. He wanted to know

why I didn't want to be with him anymore. He wouldn't

believe me when I said it was someone new."

"You didn't. Oh, Mom." I shook my head. "How could

you do that to him?"

She yanked her hand from mine with an unexpected

strength. "Don't you judge me, Miss Smarty. You're not

exactly the best judge of how to make a relationship work,

are you?"

My jaw dropped, but I closed it with a click. "What's that

got to do with anything? Leo loves you. You love him."

got to do with anything? Leo loves you. You love him."

She shrugged. "I wasn't going to wait and see if he stil

loved me when I was sick and losing my hair. When I was

—" She snapped her mouth closed into a tight, fierce line,

her lips sewn shut against whatever it was she refused to

say.

"But you could've told me." I sat back in the chair, a

milion miles between us. "Unless you think I would've

stopped loving you, too."

A single tear spiled out of each of her eyes and slid in twin

silver tracks over her cheeks. "I didn't want you to worry,

baby, that's al. This was something I thought I could

manage on my own."

Her eyelids fluttered closed again. "Paige, I'm tired now.

Let me sleep."

I wasn't close to being finished, but even I couldn't push

her right now. I stood and patted the bedcovers. "I'm

going to see if I can talk to a doctor or something. I'l

come back tomorrow, okay?"

Her words stopped me in the doorway, a chil skittering

Her words stopped me in the doorway, a chil skittering

along my spine.

"Take care of him."

I shuddered at the vision of eyeless children with torn and

bloody fingertips. I turned, but of course it was only my

mom in her bed, her eyes closed but her mouth moving.

"If anything happens to me, Paige, you need to take care

of Arty. Promise me."

"I promise." It was the only answer to give, realy, whether I thought I could honor it or not.

She smiled. Then I heard a familiar soft snoring and knew

she'd falen asleep. I left and went back to the nurses'

station, where a woman in a starched uniform told me

she'd page Dr. Frank and he'd meet me in the lounge when

he was available. I folowed her directions down the hal

and around the corner to find the lounge decorated in early

American Depression, worn couches in shades of beige

and brown, and abstract art in the same colors on wals in