6

FOUR HOURS AND EIGHT MINUTES. THAT’S HOW LONG IT TAKES for the first knock on our door.

“Lia!” my mother calls up. “Come here a sec!”

As I descend the stairs, I’m met by the upturned faces of my former Brownie troop leader and her daughter, Annabel, who transferred to private school when we were in second grade—which may also be the last time I’ve seen either of them.

Mom’s voice is fake-bright. “Look who stopped by! Blast from the past, right?”

(My mother has never quite gotten over the time Miss Lesley told her, in response to Mom not being able to help us sell Girl Scout cookies after school because she had to work, “Oh, well, of course I understand if you have to put yourself first.”)

I step off the bottom step and am promptly swept into Miss Lesley’s arms and squeezed tight.

“You are simply the bravest thing, honey,” she whispers before releasing me and continuing, “When Annabel saw everyone—all the old crew from Haggerty, this is—posting about your plight online, we just had to jump into action.”

Annabel alternates between studying the floor and stealing glances at me. She’s ditched the braids for a crew cut that I covet, but that makes her look like even more of a stranger from the image of a toothy eight-year-old I carry in my head.

“Now, I’ve arranged a sign-up page on Meal Train and it’s filling fast, so this is only the first of many to come,” Miss Lesley says, her chin indicating the plastic-wrap-covered sheet pan in Annabel’s hands.

I blink, struggling to compose myself, when all I want to do is yell, But I’m not an invalid!

“This is really so sweet of you, Lesley,” my mother says, covering for me as I stand thunderstruck. “And Annabel, of course.”

Finally, I find my manners and echo, “Um, yeah. Yes. Thank you. So sweet.”

Which it is. Here’s the thing: it sounds incredibly bratty to complain about the fact that people care enough to rally around me and my family. I know that. I should be grateful to be surrounded by a sweet, generous community. But the words everyone posting and your plight run on a loop through my mind. Combined with the fact that two people I haven’t seen in ten years are in my front hall with lasagna—it’s all too unbelievable to be real.

How can this be my life?

It’s just . . .

What I really need right now—far more than any pan of pasta—is to keep focused on the positive. Not to forget, per se, because it’s not like that’s possible, but also not to have the constant reminders in my face. It might look like an innocent dish of pasta and cheese, but to me it’s a taunt. You’re weak, Amelia.

I am not weak. I’m the same me as ever.

Why can’t everyone just allow me that?