HARPER: Hour three. Your mom is incredible. And she loves you more than anything.
His reply is instant:
CALEB: I know. Love you both.
I stare at those words until they blur.Love you both.Like it’s obvious. Like it’s just a fact.
Maybe that’s what family is—people who keep choosing you, over and over.
When the chemo is done, I help Helen to the car, her weight leaning against me. She’s pale, tired, but still smiling.
“Thank you,” she says softly. “Not just for the drive. For letting me be there for you.”
“Yeah. Well. Thanks for showing me what a real mom is supposed to look like. And for making my dad not an asshole anymore.”
“He did that all on his own.” She squeezes my hand. “Thank you for showing me what it’s like to have a daughter.”
“All right, enough with the mushy Lifetime moment.” I swipe at my face. “I’ve got a reputation to maintain.”
After all, I’m Harper Tucker, stone cold bitch.
Even if lately I feel more like a marshmallow.
THIRTY-SEVEN
CALEB
The Harvard acceptanceletter sat on my desk this morning like it should mean everything.
Crimson crest at the top. My name—Caleb Sterling Graham—lined up beneath it in a font so clean it feels inevitable. Like it was always going to say those words. Like my entire life was designed to culminate in this exact rectangle of cream-colored paper.
We are pleased to inform you…
I traced the embossed letters with my index finger—four times, then seven, then eight.
It should’ve felt like triumph. Proof that every late-night cramming constitutional law, every perfect grade maintained at the cost of sleep, every carefully managed second of my existence for the last six years was worth it. Proof that the rules work. That control equals safety. That perfection can hold back chaos.
Instead, it feels… hollow.
Empty as a championship trophy sitting in a display case—beautiful, impressive, and utterly lifeless.
It was a Tuesday, after all. And for goddamn regionals, the debate championship I’ve been preparing for since freshman year, I was missing an appointment with Mom.
Dr. Park’s office. Round three of the new experimental chemo. The one with the sixty-two percent remission rate for her specific markers.
Sixty-two percent.
I folded the letter with mechanical precision—corners aligned, creases sharp—and slid it into my backpack, right next to yesterday’s Princeton letter. Two Ivy Leagues in forty-eight hours, both telling me I’ve won the game I’ve been playing since I was twelve years old.
Since I decided the only way to keep Mom alive was to be perfect enough that the universe couldn’t take her from me.
This was the dream. The future that would justify her sacrifices. The proof that her fight meant something. ThatImean something.
So why does my chest feel like someone hollowed it out with a spoon?
I check my phone—exactly ninety seconds since the last check. I’ve been tracking it. Every ninety seconds feels safe. Divisible by thirty, by fifteen, by three. A controllable interval. If I check at the right times, everything will be okay.
But there are no new texts from the hospital. Mom’sappointment started at eight. It’s nine-forty-seven now. They should be done soon.