Marva is two years older than me and has never once disappeared in her life, which is why we drifted during my marriage — Gregor found her difficult, by which he meant she saw through him, and a disappearing woman cannot afford friends who see clearly, because they see her disappearing and they say so.

So I had let Marva go, the way I let everything go, and she had never let me go back, had kept calling, kept showing up at the edges of my shrinking life, kept being the one person on earth who addressed her remarks to the woman I used to be rather than the furniture I’d become.

She came and got me from the motel I’d checked into that first night.

She sat on the edge of the bed the way Dr.

Dvorak had, except she took my hand, and she said, “You have got a few months, and you are not going to spend one more hour of them being small.

Do you hear me?