“There’s something I wanted to mention to you,” Glenn said.

Mari looked up, surprised by the serious look in Glenn’s eyes. “What?”

“I ran into Carrie on the way into the hospital this morning, and I mentioned we were gonna grab something to eat before the game tonight.”

Mari tensed but kept her voice light. “Oh. Is she going to join us?”

Glenn’s brows drew down and she shook her head. “No, but she asked me if this was a date.”

Mari couldn’t stop the hot flush from climbing up her throat. “I see. Is that a problem?”

“Sorry?”

“I mean, is Carrie upset that we’re having dinner together? Do you want to cancel?”

“No, why would I do that?”

“Well, I thought—”

“I’ve been thinking about it all day,” Glenn went on in a rush, as if she had rehearsed what she was going to say and didn’t want to get sidetracked. “It wasn’t a date, when I mentioned it to you before, but I think I’d like it if it was. So would you like to have dinner with me, tonight. The two of us, like a date.”

Mari caught her breath. “Glenn…”

Glenn pushed away from the lockers. “Sorry, I didn’t do that very well. I apologize. You can forget I said anything.”

“No, that’s not it. It’s not what you think.”

“What do I think?”

Mari rose so quickly her head went light again. She rested her fingertips quickly against the locker to orient herself. “I don’t know how to say this without sounding incredibly clichéd. I don’t date, and it doesn’t have anything to do with you.”

Glenn laughed shortly. “Boy, there really isn’t any good way to say that, is there.”

“Damn it,” Mari said, knowing she was messing things up and not knowing how to make it right. “It isn’t about you, it’s about me. I can’t date.”

“Why not? You have a girlfriend, wife?”

“No.” Mari couldn’t even absorb the impossibility of either of those things. “Just the opposite. I’ve never—but that’s not what I mean.”

“Hey,” Glenn said gently, cupping Mari’s elbow in the palm of her hand. “You don’t have to explain anything to me. It’s okay. We don’t even have to have dinner if you don’t want to. I can arrange for someone else to give you a ride to the game.”

“No! Will you please stop trying to fix it?” Mari heard her confusion and uncertainty coming out like anger. She was angry, at so many things, but not Glenn.

“Sorry. Bad habit.” A muscle along the edge of Glenn’s jaw jumped, but she didn’t move her hand away.

Mari sighed. “I’m the one who should be sorry. Let me try to explain a little bit better.”

“No, you don’t have to. You really don’t owe me an explanation or anything else.”

“I do, I do. I need to. For me, not for you.”

“All right,” Glenn said.

“Can we not do this here?”

Glenn picked up her gear bag and Mari’s in one hand. “Come on, there’s a little garden out back with some benches. No one will be out there now. We can talk.”

Feeling almost surreal, Mari followed Glenn through the hospital, down a long corridor, and out through a staff exit that led into a small grove of trees with a little fountain and a ring of stone benches. The canopy of maples blocked out most of the sun, and it was cool in the shadows. She sat, and Glenn sat a few feet away. Folding her hands and sliding them between her knees, Mari stared into the fountain, only then realizing the flickering flashes of light beneath the surface were not reflections of sunlight but koi, dancing through the water.

“I can’t date, not for a couple of years,” Mari said.

“Why the time limit?”

With a sigh, Mari shifted on the bench and looked into Glenn’s eyes. “A year ago, right after I finished my PA training but before I started the job I had lined up at the medical center, I was diagnosed with acute myelogenous leukemia.”

Glenn’s face blanked. The blue of her eyes swirled to indigo. “Leukemia.”

“Yes,” Mari said. “It progressed quickly, and the remission I got from chemo only lasted a few weeks.”

Glenn’s breathing picked up, but she said nothing, her gaze cemented to Mari’s. She didn’t say she was sorry, she didn’t act shocked, she didn’t offer sympathy or condolences. She waited, she listened. She was so very good at that. Her solid, unwavering calm gave Mari the courage to keep going.

“My sister Selena, my twin, donated bone marrow. The transplant worked, so far. You know the statistics, or maybe you don’t, but three years is pretty much the uncertain period in terms of delayed rejection of the transplant and disease recurrence. Once past that, I can probably count on being a survivor.”

“So far everything looks good?” Glenn asked.

“Yes, as of my last checkup. There really isn’t anything to do at this point except wait.”

“Does Abby know?”

“I don’t think so. My medical record wasn’t part of the application process, and it’s private. I’m in good health right now.”

“This job will take a lot out of anyone.”

This was what Mari feared, why she kept her diagnosis secret. Already, Glenn was worrying about her, wondering if she could do her job. This was why she didn’t tell people. Oh, she hated the sympathy, and the fear that seemed to hide behind it, as if somehow whatever bad karma or ill luck had befallen her might be catching, but most of all she hated being viewed as less than capable. “I’m perfectly able to do my job.”

“I know,” Glenn said abruptly. “I’ve seen that for myself.”

“Then you understand why I don’t want to have any kind of serious personal relationship.”

“I don’t think I’m making that connection.”

“Really? Then you’re not looking at the long game, but I have to. How fair would it be for me to get close to someone, when I might not even be here in a year or two.”

“Anyone can have an accident, come down with a fatal disease. There are no guarantees.”

“Yes, that sounds great in the abstract, but this isn’t an abstraction. This is a fact.” Mari didn’t want to argue, especially not with Glenn. “You can’t win against me when it comes to these statistics. I’ve studied them for over a year. I could be living on borrowed time. You know that as well as I do.”

Glenn let out a breath. “You know what you need to do, and you don’t need to justify that to anyone.”

“Good,” Mari said, feeling deflated rather than happy. “Then we’re on the same page about no dating.”

Chapter Fifteen

“Will you do me a favor,” Mari said into the silence as Glenn drove them toward the softball field.

Glenn glanced over at her, keeping her face a careful blank. Her feelings were not what mattered right now. Her anger at the random unfairness of life, something she was way too familiar with, didn’t matter. Her confusion at discovering a road she hadn’t thought she’d wanted to travel suddenly blocked to her didn’t matter. The disappointment she hadn’t expected to feel didn’t matter. Mari mattered. Mari had trusted her with a piece of herself, and that trust deserved to be honored. If she needed something and Glenn could give it to her, she would. “Yes.”

“Don’t tell anyone what I told you just now.”

Glenn stared back out to the road. Knowing someone, really knowing them, wasn’t always measured by a calendar or a clock—knowing was sometimes the recognition of shared pain or joy, the communion of spirit from struggling together, the connection born of similar experiences. She hadn’t been rejected by her family, but she knew what it was like to be without one. She had faced her own death countless times, not from disease but an enemy just as invisible and just as merciless. She had sealed away her pain and respected the walls Mari had built. “You don’t know me well enough to know that I wouldn’t do that.”

“I think I do, really, or I wouldn’t have been in a position to need to tell you. I wanted to tell you.” Mari leaned closer, touched Glenn’s bare forearm. “I needed to ask because I’ve kept the secret so long I feel exposed somehow.”

“You’re not. You’re safe. I won’t say anything.” Glenn let out a slow breath and looked at Mari, who sat half turned in the front seat, facing her. “Harper and Flann would understand more than you realize.”

Mari frowned. “What do you mean?”

“Their younger sister Kate died of fulminant leukemia. She was eleven or so, I think.”

“Oh God, that’s horrible,” Mari whispered. “I hated seeing all the children when I was getting treated.”

Glenn reached her hand. “Lots and lots make it.”

“I know,” Mari murmured, her fingers unconsciously twining with Glenn’s. “I kept telling myself that every time I looked at them.”

“And you made it,” Glenn said, gently disengaging her fingers. Mari’s hand was warm, soft. She would have been happy to keep holding it, but Mari probably wouldn’t be pleased when she realized what she’d done. She’d just asked for distance, after all. “Will you do me a favor?”

“Yes,” Mari said, not qualifying, instantly agreeing.

“Will you tell me if there’s a problem, any kind of problem?”

“Why?” Mari asked.

“If I know that you’ll tell me if you need your shifts adjusted—more time off between cycles or whatever—or if there’s a medical problem, I’m not going to be constantly wondering.” Glenn smiled, felt the cold brittleness of her own lips stretched thin. “I don’t want you to feel like I’m always watching, waiting for something bad to happen.”

“I like that you care,” Mari said, “but that’s exactly why I don’t want anything—anything beyond friendship—with anyone. I don’t want anyone to be watching and waiting. Something like that sucks all the joy out of life.”

“I’ll do my best not to do that,” Glenn said.

“I know you will, and I appreciate it.”

“You haven’t actually answered my question. Will you tell me if there’s a problem?”