You followed Oleta Esteban every time you saw her. At the grocery store she was buying frozen peas, milk and bread, chicken broth, two bananas. Is this what women ate after they lost their children? Oleta looked as if she scavenged crumbs left for birds, seeds scattered. Brittle, she was, an old child, thin bones beneath yellow skin, suddenly, terribly visible.

You remembered her in a red dress and white sandals, Oleta before Dorrie and Elia died, arms bare, toenails painted. She dropped her sandals in the dark grass to dance with her children barefoot.

Dorrie gave her marrow to Elia but failed to save him. Nine years old, she was, the same as you were. Too close, the doctors said, a match too perfect. Dorrie’s cells didn’t recognize any part of her little brother as dangerous. Everything in Elia was good, even his cancer. Florid, Doctor Botero said, meaning the leukemia bloomed again, wild inside him.

You turned eleven, flush with love, falling in love with Dorrie Esteban. Dark-eyed Dorrie gave you a curl of her black hair tied with green ribbon, and later, swaying in a tree house deep in the woods, she showed you the violet scars high on her hipbones. Leaves whispered, and you wanted to speak now in their language.

You imagined the dark place inside her bones, hollow needle long enough to probe, sharp lance twisting to the center. You saw Dorrie’s secret core pulled into a syringe and pumped into her brother. Light spilled through the slats of the tree house, and you wanted to touch Dorrie where the light touched and be that silent.

Roof of sticks, floor half rotten—the tree house rocked in the wind, a broken cradle. Rays of light pierced Dorrie’s hips and hands. Nobody saves anyone forever.

At the river you skipped stones and felt blood thin as water rippling through you. Elia did live, five months longer than expected. Twilight streaked the sky rose and violet. Frogs sang from trees and swallows dove, catching insects. Everything loves life: frog, bird, boy, mosquito. You heard the fluttery whoosh of your own heart, valves opening and closing. Is this all we are: wings, stone, water, twilight? Dorrie’s marrow flowed through her brother’s veins to find its way inside his bones and become part of him.

When she said she was going to die, it didn’t surprise or scare you. Sometimes I see myself walking toward myself, and I just feel very beautiful. All day you wanted to touch, but failed to touch Dorrie Esteban.

Very beautiful. She did die—in the car, with her mother—a cold, bright day eight months later. Nineteen-year-old Kelly Flynn, blinded by the glaze of ice, late for work and helplessly hungover, hit the gas to run the light at Meridian. Oleta slammed her brakes hard with both feet, but the green Dodge clipped Kelly’s white truck and spun into the light pole. Why does any child die one day and not another? Dorrie’s seatbelt snapped, and the girl you loved flew into the windshield. Three minutes earlier or five seconds later—they might have never met Kelly Flynn if Dorrie hadn’t taken time to kiss and wake her father.