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it no longer felt like a yes-or-no question. But Mom didn’t seem to notice. She grabbed Matt and me in a tight hug.
    “Everything’s going to be all right,” she whispered into my hair. “I love you.”
    Then she let us go.
    Matt and I ran to our bedroom. I was shocked to see that the sun was still shining. Cars were driving by our window and people were going about their day, just like normal. But I felt as if years had passed in the last few minutes. I was older somehow: not in terms of days or months, but in experience. All of my life would now be divided up—before and after this moment.
    Neither Matt nor I said a word. We were both lost in our own thoughts. I guess we’re kind of typically midwestern in that way. My family doesn’t make big displays of emotion. And we definitely don’t dwell on things. When something bad happens, we absorb it and move on, always looking for the bright side and dealing with the dark.
    But how were we supposed to move on from this? Dad had cancer. Nothing would ever be the same again.

Chapter 5
The Transplant
    O f course, life went on as we continued with our normal routine. Mom was still working at ACT, and Dad still took care of us. We didn’t talk much about his being sick. After that first big conversation with Mom, it became something we lived with but didn’t focus on. My parents didn’t hide it—I knew that it was serious enough that Dad had been put on a list for an emergency liver transplant—but since being sad couldn’t fix anything, we just continued on as usual and hoped for the best. Every night I prayed for the cancer to go away. Every day I acted like nothing was wrong.
    Maybe, more than anything else, this is what it takes to be a successful performer: you keep going. Hurt yourself in a rehearsal? Keep going. Lose a competition? Keep going. Get turned down for a part? Keep going. Someone you love gets sick? Keep. Going.
    Dad’s having cancer was, in a weird way, a lot like auditioning for a show. I was constantly hoping to hear news, good or bad.
    Over the next few months, things changed gradually, so that it’s hard for me to pinpoint exactly what happened when. Day by day, Dad had to take things more slowly. He started getting up later in the morning and going to bed earlier. He lost weight. The cancer was hard on his body. He had no energy and couldn’t eat. He didn’t lose his hair, but it became gray and thin. Some days he got up from bed just to sit on the couch until it was time to go to sleep again.
    “I’m going to be fine,” Dad said, whenever he caught me looking at him. “Alex, everything is going to be okay.”
    Then he’d grab a magazine and pretend to chase me around the house, like he had when I was little. But it was impossible to deny that he was sick, and that meant there were things he just couldn’t do anymore.
    “Boys, I need your help,” I remember Mom telling us. “We all need to chip in around the house to keep things running.”
    Matt and I started doing more of the chores, the cooking and the cleaning. John did all that and took on the job of taking care of Matt and me— and continued working at Fareway grocery store to bring in money.
    This was when the dance studio really became my second home. I was there nearly every day, sometimes until ten o’clock at night. It was my safe haven, the place where I could go to forget about Dad’s cancer. In Michael’s studio all I thought about was dance: the rhythm, the way my body flowed with the music, the single-minded drive to learn a step so that from the tips of my toes to the ends of my fingers it was perfect. Everything else in life was messy and complicated, but here, things could be perfect.
    Dance was the happy place I went to, in order to drive all the other thoughts away. Just being physical made things seem better. Talk to any athlete, and we’ll tell you the same thing. If we’re sad, or upset, or just feel like we’re completely stuck and can’t see a way