Until, that is, she had returned to LAX. Upon landing, she turned on her cell phone and saw she had a message. Eagerly she accessed her voice mail hoping to hear that Dana had received the news that she was coming home and would agree to see her. Instead, she heard Alice’s breaking voice explain something about an infection and cardiac failure. Numbly, Lara stood, color draining from her face as the cell phone slid from her fingers and crashed to the floor. That was currently the worst moment of her life. She doubted it would ever be superseded by anything else.

Somehow she managed to hail a taxi and without thinking she gave Dana’s address. Upon arriving, she gathered her bags and quietly sat down on the stoop. The taxi driver regarded her odd behaviour without comment and drove away, taillights disappearing around the corner.

She had no idea how long she sat there, before Alice’s mini drove up. She watched, unblinking, as the writer got out of the car, shrugged on her coat and turned to walk up the drive. Their eyes locked and Alice froze, her face a mask of grief and pity. Without speaking she stepped forward and picked up one of Lara’s bags. Unlocking the door, Alice led the way into the room and set the bag down. Turning she watched Lara enter slowly, her eyes resting on the stack of unopened mail then glancing down the hallway to the unmade bed. The homey apartment had an unmistakable air of urgent emptiness. As though her body was weighed down, Lara had slowly moved to the center of the room, her breath coming in shallow gasps. She looked at Alice who was gazing back at her with heartbreak that equaled her own.

At the time, kissing Alice had seemed the only thing to do.

But now, Lara wasn’t so sure.

She’d paused in front of a picture of Dana, Alice, Bette, Tina and Shane. Lara took it herself three years earlier in the beginning of her relationship with Dana. In the picture Alice was tickling Dana who was captured on film in the middle of a gut busting laugh. In that picture, life stretched endlessly in front of Dana with no malignant implications.