Everly pulled herself up and slowly slid one foot and then another into the tub before she tossed the robe away. I handed her Andy and then undressed. I did as I promised, and washed her hair, soaped her back and wrote messages in the suds as she tried to guess, and after I washed her, I kissed her clean, warm skin, until Andy fell asleep in her arms.

But one evening, she wasn't making up fears inside her mind. I was called to bed #53, and found Everly Anne pale as a ghost, with a faint pulse. A neighbor checked in on her after I couldn't get her on the phone for over an hour, and found Andy wailing in his crib. Everly Anne was unconscious on the floor of his room.

I lifted her lids, shining my light into her eyes as I spoke softly. "Topolina, can you hear me? Everly Anne, open your eyes. Look at me. I want to see your bright hazel eyes, Farfalla. Look at me. Find my voice in the darkness. Find me staring back at you with that look you know, that look that says you're my beautiful treasure. Like I'm staring at you in your short dresses that I love." Because I didn't want her to hear my voice panicked, ordering people around, as her last memory, if that was our last moment. I was only her husband who loved her enough to be a form of comfort, despite my own torment.

"I can barely lift him," she said, putting Andy into his crib one night. "He's getting big so fast."

"It's you and your delicious breasts," I grinned. "I told you."

"They are quite something," she laughed, looking down at herself. "Too bad they won't stay like this after I'm done with breastfeeding."

I reached to her hair, combing my fingers through. "You're beautiful. Always have been." But as I pulled my hand away, blonde strands of hair were twisted around my fingers. "What the hell?"

"It's the anemia," she said. You should see when I brush it. I don't know how I'm not bald."

"Everly Anne," I began with reservations, "we need to talk about a blood transfusion."

She stepped out of Andy's room and closed the door. "I don't want another transfusion."

"But you need one."

"I don't need some stranger's blood in my body." She turned but I grabbed her arm and pulled her into me. "I thought you wanted to stay with us?"

"I thought you wouldn't make me suffer?"

"I won't, but I can't be silent about my feelings, either."

"You want me to get a blood transfusion?"

I cupped her face in my hands. "I want you to live."

And we spent our year like this. Up, down. High, low. It was the Yin-and-Yang of our life. No joy existed without the fear of it ending.

THE TICK TOCK OF CROCODILE CLOCKS.

"She liked his tears so much that she put out her beautiful finger and let them run over it. Her voice was so low that at first he could not make out what she said. Then he made it out. She was saying that she thought she could get well again if children believed in fairies." Everly closed Peter Pan. "Time for bed, Little Wonder."

"Mama? Is it true?" He twisted his neck to see her face as he sat all potato sack slumped in her lap. "You get better if I baweeve in fayweeze?"

"It's only a story." Into the bed he went with one fell swoop of her arms. "Say your prayers, Beautiful Beat."

Her hands washed over his dark, half-curled head of hair as he cupped his hands and closed his eyes, lost in silent prayer. Everly watched him with a look I knew all too-well. She was once again questioning her purpose-and perhaps his, too.

"Mama?" He peeked at her. "Is God like a faywee? Can he make you better if I beweeve?"

She paused, and then, "It depends on what 'better' means to you, Andy. Words have different meanings depending on how you intend them. I trust God, if that's what you need to know." She pulled the covers higher and turned off his pirate ship lamp. "Dream. That's what little boys should do. They should dream."

In the dark and quiet she spotted me spying from the doorway. There was no smile or toying in her inflection as she said, "besides, it's all the work of the tick-tock-croc." She was peaceful as she slid past me, her hand ghosting across mine. "Ain't that right, Callum Andrew?"

Her smile materialized when my phone alerted me of a message. I kissed her forehead and closed Andy's door softly behind us. My phone buzzed a second time refusing to be ignored.

"I'd say someone better be dying . . . but . . ." Dutifully I surrendered to the message waiting on my phone. "Well what do you know."

"Someone's dying." She leaned in and kissed me. "It's okay, go. But come back to me before morning."

I returned her kiss. "It would be impossible not to, Everly Anne."

But she held on to my hand as I tried to leave. "He wants to know," she said quietly. "I mean he does know . . . he knows something is wrong with me."

I closed the small space between us. "He knows that going to the doctor kicks rocks."

"He's smarter than that," she argued, "More intuitive. He deserves to know the truth, Callum."

"He's not going to understand, and truthfully, Everly, I don't want him to know."

"Are you saying that as his father, or, as the boy who lost his mom?"