A horrible, mixed-up feeling took hold of Hannah's gut as she sat outside her mother's room at the Saint Timothy Hospital of Evanston. The remains of six watercolor paintings were scattered around her white stockings and black shoes. She wiped her palms on her blouse and jerked her head back, hitting it hard against the brick.

"Mom loves your paintings," Dad had explained on the short ride to the hospital. "They'll make her feel better."

Hannah asked him again if something was wrong. Again, he said no.

What if a painting really could make Mom better? It was a silly thought... but what if Dad knew something she didn't? The cancer couldn't disappear from Mom's throat because of a painting... right?

Hannah grabbed another sheet of paper and gazed at the endless white surface. This time, after dipping the bristles in a dab of crimson paint, she scrunched her eyes, rubbed her teeth together, and imagined the cancer dying with every stroke of the brush.

* * *

Across the parking lot, through the revolving doors, down the familiar corridor bustling with friends in white coats; Gavin rounded the corner to his brother's room and stopped short when he saw the prettiest girl he'd ever seen perched like a stone angel across from his usual spot. Orderlies and patients criss-crossed between them, but Gavin's eyes didn't leave the beauty sitting before him. (He suddenly became unshakably aware of the raptor on his chest and wished to God he could go back in time to make a classier decision.)

He paused to let the adrenalin drain from his brain, then slowly and suavely sauntered to the bench across from the girl. He dropped his backpack on the linoleum and slouched.

Jon's markers could wait.

The girl didn't notice him. Her attention was focused entirely on the painting in her lap where a neon Trapperkeeper served as a make-shift easel. She had yellow hair mixed with a little bit of red like the wispy part of a flame. Her shirt was white with tiny buttons, and the front was smeared with multi-colored fingerprints that reminded him of a stained-glass window. Gavin blamed the hospital for the sadness in her eyes.

Mom and Dad's bickering traveled easily through the hall. Their argument ended the second they turned the corner. Mom's face softened and her lips curved into her sad smile that told the hospital workers, "We're staying strong."

Dad adjusted his glasses, but his expression stayed the same. "Coming, son?"

Gavin swallowed hard. "I'll be there in a sec. I need to get started on my homework." What a horrible lie. He couldn't open his bag to prove his story!

"You can do homework tonight. Come see your brother."

"Dad," he said as quietly and emphatically as possible.

The old man narrowed his eyes, noticed the girl on the opposite bench, and got the picture. He smirked, chuckled to himself, then entered the room and closed the door.

Whew.

Gavin returned his focus to the girl. He considered coughing, tapping his feet, or humming a song to get her attention, but before he could decide on a plan, she looked up. It was only for a split second, but she noticed him and his heart flipped like a fish on hot concrete.

The girl's reaction was strange. Instead of acknowledging him or returning to her painting, she used her foot to slide her backpack deeper into the shadows of the bench.

Joy turned to dread as Gavin glanced down at his own bag. Peeking from the open zipper—cradling cheerful breasts in her overly-tan arms—was Delilah. The headline changed to, "GAVIN NIGHTLY IS A PERV."

And the girl saw it!

He jerked the zipper shut and wished he would have ignored the pretty girl altogether. He still had time to run to Central and buy the expensive grey markers—

The girl stood. She gathered her paintings and Trapperkeeper, left her supplies on the bench, crossed the hall, and sat so close to Gavin that he could smell her shampoo. "I need help," she said.

Gavin couldn't respond. Had she seen the magazine or not?

"Hey boy," she prodded. "Didja hear me?"

"Sorry. Yeah."

"Can you help?"

"Definitely!"

"Are you sure? 'Cause if you can't talk, I can find a nurse instead."

"No! I can talk. I mean, I can help."

Her lips pursed to the side.

Gavin flashed his most convincing smile.

The girl shrugged. "I want you to tell me if my pictures are good."

"I can do that."

The first was a watercolor of the planet Jupiter. Gavin recognized it from the red swirl. His teacher said that was called "the red spot" and was actually a hurricane the size of four Earths. "Wow," he said.

"Wow?"

"It's... incredible." He wished he could give better feedback. According to the girl's sigh, she did too.

Next was a picture of a strawberry that took up the whole page. The seeds were missing, but Gavin wasn't going to point it out. "Very cool!"

He inspected the third picture thoroughly. (The longer he looked, the longer his shoulder could rub against hers.) It was an incomplete portrait of a woman with a pale face and bright red hair. It was kinda neat, but the eyes were a little wonky and the mouth looked like it could swallow a watermelon whole.

"That one's not finished," she said.

"I like it!" he exclaimed.

"What do you like about them?"

"I just... I think they're awesome." He searched for specific compliments, but all he could muster was, "They're so neat."

"Okay." She was totally disappointed. Gavin was just about to apologize when she pointed her thumb at the door and asked, "Your brother's in there?"

"How'd you know?"

"Your dad said it before he went inside. What's wrong with him?"

"My dad?"

"Your brother."

"Right... he has A-L-L."

"What's that?"

"Acute lymphoblastic leukemia." Gavin sensed her confusion. "Kid cancer."

"Oh."

"He has too many white blood cells in his bones. He could die." Gavin considered this point to be quite sympathetic, but the girl didn't seem to care. "He sleeps all day and his fevers get so bad he sees things that aren't really there. Sometimes his whole body hurts... says it feels like he got hit by a bus."

"That sucks."

He shrugged. "What's your name?"

"Hannah."

"I'm Gavin."

"Nightly?"

"How'd you know?"

She pointed to the nameplate beside Jon's door.

"Good catch."

"We don't get homework in third grade."

Gavin blinked as his mind adjusted to the new topic. "Oh. You'll get tons in fifth. What school do you go to?"

"Roycemore."

"I go to public." He eyed her leggings. "Do all the kids where those skirts at Roycemore?"

"Just the girls. Do all the boys have dinosaurs on their shirts at public school?"

Gavin couldn't tell if she was serious or mocking him so he avoided the question altogether. "Who's in there?" He nodded to the door across the hall.

"My mom."

"What's wrong with her?"

"Throat cancer."

"Is it bad?"

She shrugged.

"The doctors don't say?"

"They talk to my dad." The girl thumbed through her pictures for the millionth time.

Gavin pinched his leg—hard enough to leave a bruise—and scolded himself for asking such stupid questions.

* * *

Hannah liked talking to the boy. His brown hair matched the moles on his forehead and the birthmark on the wrinkly part of his left elbow. His eyebrows seemed like they were always stuck in the "angry" position, but he didn't act mad at all. The tag was sticking out of his Jurassic Park t-shirt. She reached behind his back and tucked it in.

Across the hall, Mom's door swung open and Dad emerged with a doctor.

"Daddy?" She started to stand.

"Just a minute, princess." The men found a quiet corner where the fluorescent light couldn't reach. The doctor ran his fingers along his throat and neck. They're talking about Mom.

Hannah knew what was next: Dad would call her over, kneel to her level, tell her everything was fine, and pat her on the shoulder.

More than anything she wanted to give him the letter and urn. But she knew it would only make things worse.

She watched her father shake the doctor's hand. She watched them part ways.

Finally, Dad called her over. As she walked to meet him in the shadows, he knelt to her level. "Hey princess," he said. "Are you doing okay?"

"Uh huh."

He froze. For two whole seconds, Hannah thought he was going to tell her something terrible. He looked to the ground, opened his mouth... then made a pretend smile and patted her shoulder. "Good."

* * *

The hospital gift shop reminded Gavin of the lobby in his church with books about Heaven, boring wallpaper, and that musty old-person smell like when you leave clothes in the washer for too long.

Their flower selection was crap. Gav was hoping for one of those big display cases with dozens of bushels. Instead, he found a single table with three vases: two with roses, one with daisies. He lifted the roses and read the price tag... forty bucks for twelve flowers?

He was five dollars short. He set the vase back on the table, then checked the price of the daisies: twenty dollars even.

He pulled his Gameboy from his bag, unlatched the back, and removed the wad of cash.

* * *

Gavin felt invisible in the bathroom's corner stall. The ceiling was lower because of a hidden pipe inside the jerry-rigged rafters. (If there were any eyes watching from above, the ceiling would certainly block their view.) He lowered the seat, pulled down his pants, and sat.

He always imagined Samson's girlfriend with brown hair. But the girl on the magazine was blond. The headline bragged, "Delilah's first time," but he doubted that was true.

Gavin thought of Hannah, not in the way he thought of Delilah and her boyfriends, but in a "feel-bad" sorta way. Maybe the flowers would make her happier.

Delilah made the deed quick and easy, and even heightened the pleasure in the last brilliant moment. Seconds later, she also heightened the shame, and Gavin dropped his head to his hands.

Guilt—he had learned—was not an emotion. Guilt was an animal. It was in him now, stuck, making him sick, slithering through his insides like snakes playing tag.

* * *

In the privacy of the concrete stairwell, Gavin set the flower vase on the ground, propped his backpack against a garbage can, pulled out the magazine, and—without looking—tore it down the middle. Then he tore it again, and again, and again until flesh-colored scraps fluttered into the trash. He crumpled the spine, stomped on it, and threw it away with the rest.

If God could see Gavin's sin through the low-hanging vent in the corner stall, surely he could see Gavin's remorse in the stairwell. "I'll never do it again," he said aloud. "I promise, God—I promise, promise, promise—I'll never do it again."

Next, he slid the stems from the jar and poured the water on the shredded magazine. He dropped the vase in the trash with a dull thud, delicately shoved the stems into the bottom of his bag, then carefully pulled the zipper around the petals.