CHAPTER TWELVE
“How long have you known?”
The five syllables seem to land like heavy bricks thudding on the carpet between them. It was so, so awful. Terrible. Nat was far too nice a person to have to suffer like this. Why should she get cancer? It wasn’t fair. Why was it always the nice, good, interesting people who got clobbered by something nasty when evil bastards like Stephen never even caught a cold? Leah’s mind, which earlier had been full of pleasant, warm thoughts about Josh and the beach, was now full of jaggedness, anger and sympathy.
Nat picked up the wig which had tumbled off when she had fallen so suddenly into a heavy sleep and carefully positioned it on top of the sparse white wisps that clung to her pink scalp like strands of cotton wool. “Oh, I don’t know. Let me think
