She stays in the car while I go into the gourmet food store to pick up everything that is on our list. She doesn’t say so, but I know she isn’t ready to face the outside world yet. That’s OK. Truth be told, I’m not ready to share her.

We drive to the park and I find a nice grassy spot in a secluded area. I have a blanket in my trunk and we spread it out and proceed to have our picnic. I’m pleased to see Dana eat and we make small talk while enjoying the beauty of the day. I can almost pretend it is like any other afternoon before cancer made an unwelcome appearance.

Dana secures the scarf on her head and allows herself to lay back on the blanket and to my surprise, pulls me down to join her.

"I never thought I’d get to do this again," she says quietly and it reminds me this isn’t just another afternoon. There’s nothing ordinary about it. I can what Dana is seeing when she says this, I see the gentle breeze swaying the tufts of grass, how the sky is so blue it looks like it’s a painted backdrop in a movie, how the sun’s rays are not strong but warm and intoxicating as if they were a favorite blanket. Everything is vivid and tangible. And, as I look over at her, thin and frail, with ocean eyes, I want to reach out and touch the back of her wrist. I have the need to feel her pulse beat under the spanse of my fingers, to know for certain that she is real and not just a figment of my imagination or a delusion that my weakened brain came up with to torture me. I don’t have to. She touches me first.

As if she can read my mind, which is really nothing new, Dana slides her fingers over the curve of my forearm, her touch so light I have to look over to make sure I haven’t imagained it.

"I feel like Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz," her words come out in a jumble as her nails lightly scape over my skin. "Like everything was in black and white before and now it’s in color."