She got an A+ for trying in her own estimation. Connie smiled and hugged Bridget and fawned over her as though she were an adorable kitten Ashlyn had brought home. Bridget was Irish, from County Mayo, and she had an elfin quality about her-a pixie cut of black hair, freckles, and that accent, which stirred delight in Connie despite the circumstances. She was witty and, from what Ashlyn said, wickedly brilliant. She was exactly the kind of girl Connie would have wanted a son to bring home.

Connie plied the girls with oatmeal chocolate chip cookies-Ashlyn’s childhood favorite-and a pot of tea-the lover was Irish-and she chattered like an idiot. An idiot mother who hadn’t guessed her own child’s sexual preference. (Had there been clues Connie had missed? In high school and college and even in medical school, Ashlyn had had boyfriends. Wolf had caught one young man climbing the rose trellis up to Ashlyn’s bedroom in the middle of the night. And, as Wolf had shouted angrily at the time, that boy hadn’t come to play tiddlywinks!) Connie knew she was transparent-at least to Ashlyn-and she was grateful when Ashlyn said that she and Bridget were going up to “their” room to unpack. This gave Connie a chance to escape to the sanctuary of her bedroom where she called Wolf to break the news.

He listened, but didn’t comment. He said, “I know this is going to sound like a complete non sequitur, but I have a crushing headache. The pressure in my skull is so intense, it feels like I’m growing horns. Can this wait until I get home?”

That night, the four of them sat around the dining-room table eating the sumptuous meal that Connie had prepared, and Ashlyn and Bridget talked about the trip they were planning to London, Wales, Scotland, and finally to Ireland to visit Bridget’s family.

So another mother can have her dreams trampled, Connie thought.

But what she said was, “That sounds terrific, girls!”

Ashlyn scowled, probably at the use of the term “girls.” Why infantilize them? Why not refer to them as women or, better still, people? But Connie found it helpful to think of them as innocent girls: Ashlyn with her long, pale hair left loose except for a braid that framed her face and made her look like a Renaissance maiden, and Bridget with her shiny cap of black hair and her implike smile. They weren’t so different from Connie and Meredith in high school-always together, palling around, being funny and affectionate with each other-were they?

Wolf didn’t say much of anything during dinner. His head, he complained. And he’d already taken six hundred milligrams of ibuprofen. He excused himself before dessert. The girls settled on the couch to watch one of the DVDs Connie had rented and to eat apple brown betty and make some jokes about the whipped cream that Connie pretended not to hear as she cleaned up in the kitchen. She reminded herself that this was probably a phase. She prayed to God that she wouldn’t be woken up by any female cries of ecstasy, and she cursed Wolf for being so self-absorbed. When she got upstairs, he was already in bed with the light off, a washcloth folded over his eyes.

Connie said, “I honestly can’t believe it.”

Wolf said, “I’m going blind, Con. I can’t see a thing.”


In the morning, Ashlyn took one look at her father and suggested he call his primary care physician. But it was Saturday, so that meant the emergency room. Wolf resisted. He would just take some more ibuprofen and lie down.

Ashlyn said, “Dad, your right pupil is dilated.”

Wolf said, “I just need rest. I’ve been working like a demon.”

And Ashlyn, caught up in the throes of romance, didn’t push him the way she might have normally. She and Bridget were, at Connie’s suggestion, off to the pumpkin patch in the Aston Martin. They were taking a picnic.

By two o’clock, Wolf was moaning. By three, he asked Connie to call an ambulance.


Connie changed into shorts and a T-shirt. She pulled her hair back into a ponytail. The house was still; Meredith was sleeping. Connie would go get the newspaper. She would drive around and clear her head. She would decide whether to call Ashlyn this morning or wait and see what happened. In her heart, however, Connie knew that nothing would happen. She could call or not call-it didn’t matter.


Wolf had been diagnosed with prostate cancer that had metastasized to the brain. He had two tumors located in the frontal lobe and so, the oncologist said, Wolf’s analogy about “growing horns” was apt. One of the tumors was operable; one was inoperable. The inoperable tumor was spread out, like a spilled drink on a table. They would give Wolf chemo and try to shrink the inoperable tumor. If they got it to a stage where it could be contained, they could go in and scoop out both tumors at once.

Wolf, over the course of the weekend, had seemed to accept his own mortality. “What if I decline chemo? What if I just let them be?”

The doctor said, “Severe headaches, which we can manage with medication. Blotchy vision, ditto. Depending on how aggressive the cancer is, you might have one year; you might have three.”

Wolf squeezed Connie’s hand. “Okay,” he said.

“Chemo,” Connie said.

“Let me think about it,” he said.


Connie sat on the edge of the unmade bed. At dinner at the Company of the Cauldron the night before, Dan Flynn had told them about his wife’s death. The basics of her illness were similar to Wolf’s. The cancer disappeared then resurfaced-the same cancer-in a different place. Nicole had breast cancer travel to her liver. Wolf had prostate cancer travel to his brain. It seemed so unfair: the doctor declared you “clean,” said you’d “beat it,” and then one random, renegade cell traveled to a more hospitable location and decided to multiply.

Connie had never been able to share Wolf’s story with anyone who hadn’t lived through it with her. It was too Byzantine; it didn’t make sense.

Wolf had refused chemo.

Part of this was because of the three commissions he was working on, including the new VA building. These buildings would, presumably, stand for decades and possibly centuries. It was architecture, he was the architect, and if he bailed out now because of debilitating treatment, he would lose control. The buildings would become something else-someone else’s-even if they used his plans.

“It would be like Picasso handing his palette to his assistant, or to some other artist-Matisse, say-and asking that person to finish Guernica. You understand that, don’t you, Connie?”

What Connie understood was that Wolf thought he was Picasso. So it was about ego.

“Not ego,” Wolf said. “Legacy. I can finish these three buildings and complete my legacy, or I can go in for chemo and let my legacy slip down the drain. And there’s no saying the chemo will save me. The chemo might shrink my tumor to an operable size, and then I’ll die on the table.”

“You have to have faith,” Connie said.

“I have faith that I can finish the buildings,” he said. “I can finish my life’s work.”

“And what about me?” Connie said.

“I love you,” Wolf said.

He loved her but not enough to fight the disease. The work was what was important. His legacy. This was his argument, and Connie also knew that deep down, he was afraid. He didn’t like doctors, he was distrustful of the health-care system, he feared chemo, and he feared having his head shaved, his skull cracked open, and his brain scooped out like orange sherbet or rocky road. Better to bury himself in the work and pretend like nothing was wrong. Numb his pain with Percocet and, later, morphine, and hope that his body healed itself. Connie had been married to Wolf for twenty-five years, but she, ultimately, had no say or sway in the matter. It was his body, his illness, his decision. She could either fight him or back him. She backed him.

Ashlyn was furious. She was, in turn, incredulous and disconsolate. She stormed Wolf’s office, then his work sites, and lectured him. She set up an appointment for a second opinion that he agreed to go to and then skipped at the last minute because of a problem with his head mason. Ashlyn stormed the house and screamed at Connie.

“You’re just going to stand by and let him die!”


Wolf died seventeen months later. He had gotten two of his commissions done and the third-the spectacular, complicated VA building-into its final phase.


Connie couldn’t believe she had all but lost her only child over Wolf’s death, but the fact was, Ashlyn had always been an intense, tricky kid. She was all or nothing. She loved you or hated you; there was never any middle ground. Connie herself had grown up scattered, disorganized, fun loving, laid back. None of these words applied to Ashlyn. Ashlyn didn’t accept compromise; she didn’t take it easy on herself or others. Connie and Wolf had once met with a school psychologist who was concerned that Ashlyn was “preoccupied with perfection.” She was eight years old, and when she held a crayon, a vein bulged in her forehead.


After Wolf died, Ashlyn’s anger consumed her. Ashlyn became her anger. During the days when there was still dialogue, Connie had heard it all.

Ashlyn said, “You didn’t encourage him to fight. If you’re diagnosed with an illness like his-which was certainly treatable, if not curable-you battle it. You do whatever you can, you take the clinical trials, you go through seventeen rounds of chemo, you do what you have to do to stay alive.”

“But you know your father didn’t feel that way. His work…”

“His work!” Ashlyn screamed. Her eyes flashed in a way that frightened Connie, and Connie reminded herself that Ashlyn was hurting. All her life, Ashlyn had favored her father. She sought his attention and love as though they were the only attention and love that mattered. Connie had often been treated as the enemy, and if not an enemy then an obstacle that had been placed between Ashlyn and Wolf. Connie had remained steadfast, and sure enough, in college and medical school, Ashlyn had come back to her. There had been lunches and shopping trips and spa vacations (though no real heart-to-hearts, Connie saw now, there had been no chance for Ashlyn to reveal her emotional life). Ashlyn had remained closer with Wolf and that was fine. If anything, Connie had counted on Wolf agreeing to treatment for Ashlyn’s sake. She had expected Ashlyn to save Wolf for both of them.