I had not told her.
That was the thing I kept coming back to, in the weeks afterward. In all the years, in all the dinners, in all the letters I had written to the world telling the world what to think of me, I had never once told Candace the truth about the clinic.
I could have. She was grown. She had a right to know. But I had decided, in the way I had decided everything, that she was better off not knowing, and that the protection of her was worth the lie.
And now Marcus was holding the truth in his hand and smiling.
"Sit down," I said.
"I don't want to sit down."
"Candace. Sit down."
She sat. Marcus watched us both.
"Two weeks ago," I said, "I went to the clinic because I had a biopsy. The results came back two days before the dinner. I have a mass in my left breast, and the su
