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pulls, gargled and congested, and a faint continuous thrum came from somewhere deep in her chest.
    It was her turn to speak that evening, the kindred greetings that bounced off the cinderblock walls of the basement hushed as she pulled herself towards the speaker chair. Her voice had been thready and thin, but commanding. She was eloquent and educated, and the words she chose were brave. Her message haunted Jenna then, and maybe that was why she had never gone back; in her mind, she wasn’t a peer, but now, it was in that memory that Jenna found comfort, she wasn’t alone.
    The woman, she explained, had been a teacher. She had taught high school level English at a Reservation school for years, although she made no mention of which one. She had five children, all boys, all under the age of ten, handsome young men, she had said. She was only thirty-five. Her husband was a logger who made daily trips to the West End, and now that she wasn’t able to work, their money was stretched tight, they couldn’t afford much, and his insurance hardly covered her treatments. They struggled to support the family; it was a place she never dreamed they’d be, like so many of the other obstacles they faced now, it was never something she planned on. She’d gone to college, fallen in love, put in her years teaching others to appreciate the English language and the nuances of it. She had only just begun to raise her children, her boys, to be kind, respectful, and fair. She loved her husband and had since they were little kids growing up in the same small town. But she was dying now, and everything they’d had the potential to become together was dashed. She didn’t talk about her treatments, or the heinous side effects or how cheated she felt; she wasn’t a cautionary tale, she said. She was there to tell a story. Her name was Susan Taft.
    Her boys, she had said, were young men. They had dreams, goals, and plans for the future. Two wanted to be loggers, to follow their father into the woods and do ‘man’s work;’ the others longed for something different, they wanted to learn about science and medicine, art and history. They were all different, but they were all hers.
    She began to speak about responsibility, which was her message for the night. The insight of which was something she credited her years in education for. She realized now that a parent’s work was never really done. No matter how big, smart, or steady the child—they always would need their parent. Her death, she reasoned, didn’t change that or negate that, but only stood to make it more important.
    She had begun recording tapes for her sons. Five tapes for each of her boys. She called them their milestone tapes. Her sons could listen to them during the times they would want their mother’s guidance. She would offer advice, share stories, impart her wisdom. It wasn’t easy, she said, going to that place where she had to admit she wouldn’t be around for them, but it was the truth. She wasn’t going to see them graduate high school, or go off to college; she’d never bounce a grandchild on her knee or meet their future wives. But that didn’t mean she couldn’t be useful. Being a mother, she said, meant figuring out how to best fit into your child’s life and be what they needed—a friend, an authority, a confidante, and a touchstone.
    Jenna remembered walking out of the meeting that night feeling, for the first time since her diagnosis, as though this was the worst possible thing in the world. She was angry, furious. Not for herself that night, but for Susan Taft, her husband and her boys. Jenna drove away as quickly as possible, back to her comfortable house, stripped off her jeans, sweater and boots, turned the shower on as hot as it would go and stood under the water until her skin was red and tender and sore. Jenna had cried for the woman, for her sons, her husband and their countless struggles. She prayed that night, as always, but not for