I recoiled. “Oh my God. No. I can’t imagine. She clearly can’t stand me, and the stress of it would keep me asleep, which would piss her off all the more. Also, she would never go with me.”

“You have to, Sam. I can’t have her here fighting with everyone when she knows nothing about medicine and turns green at every finger stick. You haven’t seen her. Every time someone walks in the room, she’s like, ‘Why are you feeding her Jell-O? Jell-O isn’t food.’ Or, ‘Stop waking her up—she doesn’t need her vitals checked; you have this thing here.’ Then she points to the IV machine like it’s taking my blood pressure. She hasn’t been sick in twenty years, and all her information comes from Grey’s Anatomy. When anyone comes through my door, she asks if they’re the chief resident.”

“Then why did you call her first?” I frowned even though I tried to keep my delight in check.

“I didn’t call her first. We were having coffee when the blood work came in, and I asked her to come with me. Holly is different with me. She is irritated at everyone else, and we may never know what the deal is with you, but she’s so cool in emergencies. Not medical ones, though. It took them two sticks to get my IV in, and I thought she was going to call security from the bathroom where she was gagging.”

A giggle of unadulterated ecstasy bubbled up from somewhere. “I thought you called her because you were dying, and she had to write your will or be your POA or something. I thought if you called her first, it was because you needed Scary Holly.”

Katie dropped her head into her pillow, but I could hear her laughing. “Don’t. Don’t let her hear you call her that. Oh my God, she will stab you with her finger.”

“She bruises.” I grabbed my shoulder, remembering all those years ago when Holly woke me up during graduation. Jabbing me with that finger all the time when I would nod off next to her, which made me feel oddly cared for. Like she’d never let me sleep myself into trouble.

“Did you tell her the same thing?” I asked. “When I walked in here, you were whispering to her. Did you tell Holly to get me out of your hair, to go with me because I’m pathetic and bothersome?”

“No, Katie. I would never. We were talking about my parents. That’s another reason she has to get out of here. You know how Mom is. She still thinks if Holly finds the right man, she could have a ‘traditional’ life. The pregnancy news—you know Holly will have to tell her—Mom will haul out all her crystals. Dad is going to have anxiety-hives this entire visit, and I don’t know how he’s going to get Mom to stop smoking long enough to even get her in the building.”

Katie had said Mom and Dad, like she was our mom, and I almost crawled right into bed with her and cuddled her. Katie put her hand to her head, and the pulse oximeter glowed red, measuring the blood and oxygen that flowed through my darling friend.

It hit me what Katie was asking for. She didn’t need my Excel spreadsheets or Holly as a crabby ombudsman at the hospital. She needed her two feuding best friends to get along for one week, get out of her way, and, most of all, go get her dog. The dog that lay on top of her during the chills of chemotherapy. The dog who knew Katie was going to throw up before Katie did. The dog that had sniffed out Katie’s cancer the first time by burying his big nose in her lap and refusing to move. When Katie’s fatigue hit, she paid attention and made a doctor’s appointment. Peanut was a cancer-sniffing dog before that was a thing. Katie’s ovaries were in her lap, and they were sick, and Peanut knew something was not right.

I tried to picture the trip. Holly, her bony, highly groomed self, driving with a pony-size dog drooling pints of saliva, a dog that might go into insulin shock at the very sight of a MINI Cooper. Then there would be sleeping-me avoiding conflict and any conversation that might illuminate what happened between us so many years ago.

When Katie pulled her hand away from her forehead, I could see a small depression where her finger had been. The hinge on the oximeter pulled a haystack of hair from her head.

“You’re dehydrated, sweetie. How did you get so dry?” I stroked her forehead like my mother did when I had a fever.

“I don’t know. I drink and pee constantly.”

“Holly will never go if I go.”

“She will if you ask her to,” said Katie.

“She will if you ask her to.”

“No, she won’t, Sam. She’ll think I’m being strong or noble or something. She’ll think I’m trying to act like I don’t need her here. You have to ask her to come with you. There’s no way around it. Besides, say what you want, but you can’t do this trip alone. It would take you a year. I might not have that long.”

“Don’t joke about that. There is nothing funny about that.” A couple lights went out in my brain, and I thought about my bed, and then I remembered how alone I would be if I escaped to it.

Katie pushed her hospital gown back, showed me the tops of her thighs. “The red dots are back.”

I couldn’t help it. I touched one. It blanched like my face must have, quickly turning white and back to an anxious red. Before Katie had gone into the hospital for a checkup, the first go-round with ovarian cancer, she’d noticed small red dots, like freckles on her thighs and shins. Petechiae is what the doctor called them. All the specialists said those red dots were nothing. Just an odd coincidence, probably due to stress. Before the doctors announced that Katie was in remission, those red dots cleared up, and that’s when Katie knew she was going to be okay. I covered a few spots with my fingers, hoping that when I pulled my hand away they would be gone.

“But the doctors said,” I tried to remind her.

“We both know what they said. I know what they are.”

I stared at my friend, caught in my own racing heartbeat. The noise of the hospital suddenly amplified around us. Someone called a code; a television commercial for allergy medicine blared, then quieted.

“I need Peanut, Sam. I need to see that he’s okay. I need to have his big boulder of a head in my lap. I checked with the hospital administration. If we make him a service dog, he can be here with me for as long as I need him. I can fight this disease again if he is with me.” Katie said this, but this is what I heard: The cancer will go away when I get to hold Peanut again.

“Maybe you’ll be out and fine by the time we get back.” And there it was; by using we, my brain had decided rescuing Peanut was going to be a trip for two.

The second I said it I was sorry. This trip would be the first significant time Holly and I spent together without Katie since college. Over the years there had been no strained dinners, no odd celebration that the two of us attended with Katie as our glue. Holly had come to Maddie’s birth at Katie’s request, but I didn’t remember her being there. Katie thought if Holly saw me during my epic vulnerability, she might defrost. That was not what happened. Apparently Holly dropped off food just as Maddie entered the world. The end. I was hopped up on baby-bonding chemicals, so I didn’t fully see this at the time. Later, when I pictured Holly turning away from me and Maddie in all our glory, I cried Holly-tears I didn’t even know were still hanging around waiting to be shed.

If I didn’t get Peanut to reduce Katie’s stress, to help her turn this wonky blood work into nothing, there would never be any combination of us again. Without Katie, the us of us was gone, and it was just Sam and Holly, absolutely never together. This thought made me feel like a tree with shallow roots ready to topple in the first storm.

“Maybe you and Holly can talk about what really happened to your friendship.” Katie stroked the back of my hand and added, “This trip might be something you need.”

Before I could respond with outrage, Need? I do not need Holly, she blew back into the room, pulling the heavy door behind her. It hushed shut, and she said, “Ralph has your insurance thing figured out. I’ll bring the papers tomorrow to sign, and we will fax them in time for the deadline.”

“What would I do without you, Holly?”

That was when I accepted that Katie needed me to do this—to drive, stop fighting with Holly, get her dog—and my outrage and resistance collapsed.

“No worries. I’m not going anywhere.”

“Um, about that,” I said. “I think you’re right. I’ll never be able to drive that many miles without stopping a million times. Do you think we could do this trip together?”

Holly looked between Katie and me. “What have you two been cooking up in here?”

“Nothing. Katie pointed out that it might be too much for me to drive all the way drugged up on stimulants and assessing Peanut’s every mood. If we did this trip together, I could do all the blood stuff, and we could share the driving. You said yourself you could do it faster. Katie could have Peanut all that much sooner.”

Holly narrowed her eyes at me, then she looked at Katie. “Did you get news? Did a doctor come in here and give you some information I missed?”