Chris’s voice sounded muffled and unfamiliar.

Faye couldn’t take it in. Chris, so vital, so full of life, couldn’t possibly have cancer. But she did. A rare type of endometrial cancer. As Chris pointed out, that was rather ironic given how little she’d used her womb. Glasses clinked around them. The entrance to Stockholm harbor lay sunlit and smooth as a mirror before them, the Royal Palace loomed up on the other side of the water, looking as usual more like a municipal prison than a fairytale castle. It was an unusually beautiful autumn day, and it had drawn out the city’s inhabitants in their hordes. At the tables around them people were enjoying their afternoon tea with clinking gold jewelry, and Faye wondered how they could be laughing when her own world had imploded.

“I wasn’t going to say anything until I got rid of it. But it is what it is.”

Chris shrugged. If the doctors didn’t manage to stop it she’d be dead within twelve months. Faye kept looking for a sign that she was joking, kept waiting for Chris’s loud, disarming laugh. But it didn’t come.

“We have to get out of here,” she said. She could barely breathe. “I can’t sit here picking at a fucking Caesar salad while you tell me you’ve got cancer.”

She regretted saying that at once. She realized Chris must be terrified, and was struggling to hold everything together. This wasn’t the right time for her to be saying what she wanted. And it wasn’t the time for her to be feeling sorry for herself.

“Sorry. I’m just so incredibly sorry,” she said.

Chris smiled. Sadly this time. An expression Faye had rarely, if ever, seen on her beloved friend’s face. She forced herself to eat a piece of chicken. It felt like it was going to catch in her throat. She put her cutlery down, caught hold of a passing waiter, and ordered two gin and tonics.

“Doubles, please.”

They sat in silence until the drinks appeared.

“Do you want to talk about it?” Faye asked when she’d taken a sip.

“I don’t know. I think so. But I don’t know how to.”

“Me neither. So you have to get better.”

“Well, obviously I’m going to. The timing’s so fucking awful, though, with Johan and everything. At long last I’m in love, then a tumor pops up in my womb and wrecks everything. Someone up there has a sense of humor.”

Chris’s laugh didn’t reach her eyes.

Faye nodded. She put her lips on the straw and sucked up more alcohol. She felt it spreading out, warming her up, making it easier to breathe.

“You mean you’re worried he’ll leave you?”

“I’d be surprised if he didn’t. We’ve only been seeing each other a couple of weeks and if I’m going to beat this illness it’s going to take all my strength. It’s going to make me ugly, unattractive, I’ll lose any desire to have sex, I’ll be exhausted. Of . . . of course I’m worried. I really do love him, Faye, I love him so much.”

“Are you worried about . . .”

“. . . dying? Terrified. But I’m not going to die. I want to be with Johan, go traveling with him, get old. I’ve never wanted to live as much as I do right now.”

Another grimace. Faye felt inadequate and uncertain. In the end she put her hand on Chris’s. The hand that had been her strength during the abortion. It was trembling and felt ice cold.

“Sooner or later you’re going to have to tell him. Regardless of whether he leaves you or not.”

Chris nodded and drank her gin and tonic in one gulp. Faye kept her hand on Chris’s.

When Faye picked Julienne up on Sunday her daughter looked at her expectantly. Faye had forgotten all about what she’d asked her to do—Chris’s illness had turned everything upside down.

“Where is it?” Julienne asked.

“What?”

“My mobile. I did what you said.”

“That’s good, darling. You’ll get it tomorrow.”

Julienne started to protest but Faye explained that she’d have to wait. Julienne went off to her room in a sulk, and Faye couldn’t summon the energy to call her back.

Nor could she feel any enthusiasm at the fact that she would soon have Jack’s password.

Chris had asked her not to tell anyone about the cancer. She didn’t want anyone’s sympathy, no stamp on her forehead announcing that she was being treated for cancer, as she put it. They had agreed that Faye would go with her for her first treatment session, and that they weren’t going to talk about it again until then.

But it was impossible to think about anything else.

Life without Chris? She had always been there, she had been strong when Faye had just wanted to hide. Now their roles were reversed. Now Chris was going to need her. All of her.

Faye had money. She had a successful business. She had shown Jack and the rest of the world that she could stand on her own two feet. Maybe she should let the key logger installed on his computer store his password, everything he wrote, and not do anything about it? Should she simply let go?

That was impossible. She felt sick at the thought of not following through on her revenge. She couldn’t let go. Didn’t want to let go. What sort of person did that make her? Her best friend was ill. Possibly terminally ill. And she was still thinking about how to crush Jack.

FJ?LLBACKA—THEN

I WAS TWELVE YEARS OLD the first time Dad hit me. Mom had gone to the supermarket, she’d left only moments before. I was sitting at the kitchen table, and Dad was next to me, at the end of the table, immersed in a crossword. I went to turn around but managed to hit the cup. In slow motion I saw it tip over, could feel the impact of my hand.

The hot chocolate spilled out across Dad’s paper and the almost solved crossword. It was as if fate had stepped in, letting me know it was my turn now.

Dad seemed almost nonchalant as his hand flew out and hit me above the ear. My eyes filled with tears. I heard Sebastian close the door to his room, he wouldn’t dare come out again until Mom was home.

A second blow followed almost immediately. Dad stood up and this time his hand hit my right cheek. I closed my eyes and searched inside myself, making my way to the welcoming darkness. The way it welcomed me when I went to school and was able to shut out all the shouting and yelling.

Dad’s palm hit my skin. I was almost shocked by how well I managed to withstand the pain.

When I heard Mom’s footsteps in the hall I knew it was over. For the time being.

Faye met Chris at the Karolinska University Hospital. The city was shrouded in low cloud. Stockholm was gray and damp in that way it so often is in autumn. The leaves had started to fall, forming drifts of brown mush on the ground.

Chris was shivering outside the entrance.

“The worst thing is that I haven’t been allowed to eat anything since yesterday, not even a cup of coffee,” she muttered, glancing at Faye’s 7-Eleven cup of bad latte.

Faye tossed it in a green trash can.

“You didn’t have to do that,” Chris said as they passed through the sliding doors.

“We’re in this together, okay?”

“Okay,” Chris said, and gave her a grateful look.

“If it had been me who was ill you’d have cut me open and removed the tumors yourself,” Faye said. “Sadly I’m scared of the sight of blood so I’ll have to make do with keeping you company and not drinking crap coffee. It isn’t much of a price to pay for spending a few hours with my best friend.”

She pulled Chris toward her. “How are you feeling?”

“Like a cancer patient. As for you . . .” Chris whispered in her ear, “you’re not scared of anything. But thanks for pretending. For my sake.”

Faye didn’t say anything. Because the only thing she could have said was that she was actually scared. Scared that her best friend was going to die.

—

When they left the hospital Chris was so exhausted that Faye had to put her arm around her. Faye wasn’t sure if it was mental or physical exhaustion. She didn’t know anything about cancer. Or cancer treatment.

Chris would have taken a taxi, but Faye decided to drive her home and spend the night with her. She sent Kerstin a text, and she replied saying that she’d take Julienne to the cinema.

Chris leaned her head against the window with her eyes half-closed as the city rushed past outside.

“Is Johan at yours?” Faye asked.

“No, I told him . . . I told him I’ve got meetings all weekend and haven’t got time to see him.”

“You need to tell him.”

“I know.”

Chris picked at the car door with a red-varnished nail.

“But I’d like you to meet him first. In case he . . .”

“In case he what?”

“In case he leaves me.”

“What sort of man would he be if he leaves you?”

“A typical man,” Chris said with her eyes closed, smiling wearily. “You of all people ought to know how it works. Why should Johan be any different?”