And this is when she feels it-the first pain. What she has experienced until now has been more of a presence, a sense of something there. It was this awareness that brought her fingers to her breast to find the lump two weeks ago. But now, at this moment watching her son and his friends dancing, her mind adrift in the past, a tiny ball of fire ignites within her. It rockets through her body with a nauseating rush, leaving her hands and feet tingling, her brow glazed, her throat constricted with bile. The room lurches below her; she reaches one hand outward to brace herself, but finds nothing to hold, to stop her fall. The wall, she thinks. The wall will save her. Three more steps and she is there.

Then someone has taken her by the elbow: it is Sandra, standing beside her. Wasn’t she just onstage?

“Mrs. Burke?”

But Miriam cannot speak; she knows if she doesn’t leave the room immediately she will be sick, or faint. The gymnasium seems like an enormous fishbowl, colors and shapes bending in the crooked, swirling light. At some impossible distance she sees Arthur and Eliza dancing, like two figures swimming on the far side of a lake.

“I’m ill,” she manages.

“I know. I’ll help you.”

A pair of metal safety doors, then the sudden white light of the hallway: guiding her by the elbow, Sandra leads her away, though Miriam is barely aware of any of this. All she knows is that the music is gone, sealed away behind her. Another door opens and she finds herself in a small room full of instruments; she is backstage, where the band keeps its supplies. Relief overwhelms her, like oxygen to the lungs. She realizes that she is sitting on a bench of some kind, and that Sandra has gone, but the moment she discovers this she looks up and sees that Sandra has returned, carrying her purse. She holds a paper cup of water before Miriam’s face.

“Drink this,” she says, and guides her hand around the cup.

Miriam lifts the water to her lips. It is cool but not cold, and she sips at it, thinking only of the water’s taste, and her own pounding heart. The pain is gone, but in its wake it has deposited a kind of tingling numbness, scattered throughout her body like a luminous dust. So this is what it will be like, she thinks.

A few moments pass. She finishes the water, and Sandra takes the cup. “Do you need the bathroom?” Sandra has pulled a chair up, and is sitting directly in front of her.

“I don’t think so.”

“Do you want me to get Mr. Burke?”

Miriam shakes her head. “You’ve done more than enough. I just need to rest here a minute.”

Sandra’s eyes search her face. They are very blue-the blue of sapphires.

“He doesn’t know,” Sandra says then.

But before Miriam can say anything, Sandra goes on. “I didn’t mean to surprise you. You haven’t told Arthur, have you? Or O’Neil.”

Miriam shakes her head. “No.”

“And it’s cancer? A kind of cancer.”

Miriam nods, amazed beyond words. “Yes. I think so. I have a tumor in my breast. How did you-”

“It’s all right.” Sandra takes her hand. “I just do.”

For a while they just sit there, their hands together. And Miriam is glad she has said it. Finally, she has used the words.

“I’ll tell you how,” Sandra says gently. “I don’t know if it’s the real reason, but I’ve always thought so. I was six years old, and I was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. Do you know what that is?”

“I think so.”

“Most people don’t. I spent most of two years in the hospital. Little kids who get it nearly always die, but I didn’t know that at the time. My parents sure weren’t going to tell me. But I found it out, later. Chemo, radiation, things they’d never tried on anyone before. I had it all. And when it was over, I could always tell when someone was sick, even if they didn’t know it yet. I guess I’d been around cancer patients so long, I could just read the signs.”

“When did you know about me?”

“Well, when we first met, at the race, I thought it.” Sandra tips one shoulder and frowns; Miriam can tell she has returned to the moment, to feel what it was like. “At dinner too. It was just an inkling. You’ll probably laugh. Sometimes it’s lights, or a sort of ringing sound. Sometimes it’s just a feeling, like I’m remembering what it was like to be sick myself. I wasn’t certain until I saw you just now, outside.”

The understanding hits her all at once. “The hats,” Miriam says.

“You’ve discovered my secret.” Sandra smiles warmly, shrugging. “I just don’t feel dressed without one.”

The door opens then, washing the room with music and noise, and a heavyset boy steps inside. Like the other band members he is wearing a navy suit and a gold necktie, and his face is flushed with the exertion of playing. He stops when he sees the two of them.

“Christ, Sandy. Where have you been? We had to shuffle the playlist twice already. You were supposed to be off break ten minutes ago.”

Sandra barely takes her eyes off Miriam. “Just a minute in here, all right, Joe? I’ll be done soon. You can get along without me.”

His face falls. “You don’t have to be such a crank about it. We need charts for the third set, anyway.” He kneels and rustles through a cardboard carton to find it, then leaves the two of them alone.

“We should probably get back,” Miriam says.

“When you feel up to it.” Sandra gestures toward the stage door. “They can fake it for a while.”

A question occurs to her. “Does O’Neil know about you?”

“About the cancer?” Sandra shakes her head. “I think he knows I was sick, but not the details. I’ll tell him sooner or later. He thinks I’m just some kind of superachiever, and to tell you the truth, I don’t want to spoil the illusion yet.”

Her purse is at her feet; she remembers Sandra returning to get it. Miriam asks Sandra to bring her some more water, and Sandra leaves with the cup, reappearing almost at once. Miriam drinks it down-she hadn’t realized she was so thirsty-and opens her purse to remove the small package with the glass trombone inside. She places it in Sandra’s hands.

“It’s just something small. I saw it today, and thought of you. But open it later. I don’t want O’Neil to know just yet.”

Sandra looks at the package in her palm. It is wrapped in thin white tissue paper, with a crinkly green bow. “I don’t know what to say. Thank you, Mrs. Burke.”

“You’re welcome. And it’s Mimi, okay?”

Sandra smiles. “Mimi, then.”

They have risen to go when Miriam stops. “Sandra, this thing you can do.” Miriam pauses, wondering what words to choose. “Can you tell if someone’s going to be all right?”

Sandra doesn’t answer. For a long moment she looks at Miriam, studying her, though her expression is nothing Miriam can read. Then she removes her hat, a dome of green felt, and places it on Miriam’s head. The band is warm, and a little damp against her forehead.

“I’d say you will be,” she declares, “if you go to the doctor.”

Hours later, beneath the floodlights of the dormitory parking lot, they say their good-byes; Arthur and Miriam will be leaving in the morning, and won’t see O’Neil and Sandra again. Miriam hugs each in turn, and watches as Arthur, awkwardly, does the same. As they are turning to go, Sandra hugs Miriam again, and whispers quickly in her ear, “I really believe it. Just remember what I said.” O’Neil and Sandra are still standing in the parking lot when Miriam and Arthur drive away.

In the morning they awaken late to rumors of snow. They eat their breakfast and pack the car, and while Arthur is paying the bill, Miriam waits outside. The sky is gray, a northern gray; the air is very still. Around her the town and the campus are quiet, as if everyone is still asleep.

Arthur steps from the hotel. “I called O’Neil. I thought we might change plans and buy the two of them lunch.”

“And?”