Catherine Dornan sat bolt upright in the back of the cab, her arms around the shoulders of her two small sons. By the rigidity she felt in their bodies, she knew her mother had been right. Ten-year-old Michael’s surliness and seven-year-old Brian’s silence were sure signs that both boys were intensely worried about their dad.

Earlier that afternoon when she had called her mother from the hospital, still sobbing despite the fact that Spence Crowley, her husband’s old friend and doctor, assured her that Tom had come through the operation better than expected, and even suggested that the boys visit him at seven o’clock that night, her mother had spoken to her firmly: “Catherine, you’ve got to pull yourself together,” she had said. “The boys are so upset, and you’re not helping. I think it would be a good idea if you tried to divert them for a little while. Take them down to Rockefeller Center to see the tree, then out to dinner. Seeing you so worried has practically convinced them that Tom will die.”

This isn’t supposed to be happening, Catherine thought. With every fiber of her being she wanted to undo the last ten days, starting with that terrible moment when the phone rang and the call came from St. Mary’s Hospital. “Catherine, can you come right over? Tom collapsed while he was making his rounds.”

Her immediate impression had been that there had to be a mistake. Lean, athletic, thirty-eight-year-old men don’t collapse. And Tom always joked that pediatricians had birthright immunization to all the viruses and germs that arrived with their patients.

But Tom didn’t have immunization from the leukemia that necessitated immediate removal of his grossly enlarged spleen. At the hospital they told her that he must have been ignoring warning signs for months. And I was too stupid to notice, Catherine thought as she tried to keep her lip from quivering.

She glanced out the window and saw that they were passing the Plaza Hotel. Eleven years ago, on her twenty-third birthday, they’d had their wedding reception at the Plaza. Brides are supposed to be nervous, she thought. I wasn’t. I practically ran up the aisle.