“Forced by what?”

“Dr. Silverman noticed the yellow in her eyes and insisted. But even with that, before she agreed to see a doc, she had blood drawn in the E.R. When the results came back, Dr. Silverman ordered an emergency CAT scan. The tumor was sitting right in the middle of the pancreas and there were metastases in her liver and her stomach and her intestines. She went downhill fast. Sometimes I wonder if the shock of knowing took all the fight out of her. Or maybe it was just the natural course of the disease.”

She sat straight-backed, dry-eyed. Petted Blanche slowly. Someone who didn’t know her might judge her detached.

I said, “How long was she ill?”

“From the day of diagnosis, twenty-five days. Most of that was spent in the hospital; she became too weak to live at home. In the beginning, she did her best to be ornery-complaining her tray wasn’t taken away promptly, griping that float nurses weren’t like regular nurses, there was no continuity of care. Every shift, she insisted on reading her chart, double-checked that her vitals had been recorded accurately. I guess it made her feel in control. Mommy was always big on control. Did she ever tell you about her childhood?”

“A bit.”

“Enough for you to know what happened to her in New Mexico?”

I nodded.

Small hands clenched. “It’s a miracle she turned out so wonderful.”

“She was a terrific person,” I said.

“She was an incredible person.” She studied an etching on the left wall. “That first week in the hospital, she was an absolute despot. Then she got too sick to fight, mostly slept and read fan rags-that’s what she called celebrity magazines. That’s when I knew it was really bad.”