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ankle and a beige shell-covering like that color in a box of crayons. And the leg has a naked mechanical foot that can wear any shoe—“matchy shoes,” Travis says sarcastically. “How nice.”
    The pamphlet reads, “A technological marvel. Looks real to the eye.” It doesn’t look real. And it isn’t flesh and blood. It isn’t human. He’s told me that he hates it.
    Tears sting my eyes. I wish I’d yelled at Mr. Cain and told him that all kids aren’t disrespectful and mindless of others’ property. Some kids are great. They’re nice, kind, thoughtful, talented, gifted, wonderful. And through no fault of their own, they still get cancer.

Travis
    S o now it’s over and the surgeons have taken off. Funny way to think about it. “Taken off” has a double meaning: the cutters have gone, my leg is gone. Taken off. Get it? I sit in the hospital bed and stare down at my bandage-wrapped thigh. All that’s left. A stump. “No,” Mom insisted when I first used the word. “It’s a residual limb.”
    “It’s a stump,” I say. “Call it what it is.”
    “It had a tumor,” she says. “It was diseased and it would have killed you.”
    My stump hurts. I’m wigged out on morphine again because of the pain. Crazy, but I can still feel my toes. They said this would happen. Phantom pains. Mystery feelings in a leg no longer attached. My brain hasn’t bridged the disconnect yet. No leg. No toes. No tumor. Be happy.
    Where did they put it? What do they do with sawed-off legs? Did they bury it? Burn it? Give it to a medical school for doctors-in-training to cut and dissect? I guess it doesn’t matter. Gone is gone.
    I hear someone moving in my room. It’s not a nurse, because one has already come and checked me and gone. A big shape materializes beside my bed. “Coop?”
    “Yeah, man, it’s me.”
    I’m groggy, not sleepy. “I thought you were the grim reaper.”
    “That’s not funny.”
    “What time is it?”
    “Midnight.”
    “I guess you heard.”
    “Emily and Darla both called me. I was working.”
    The pathology report came back this afternoon. The cancer was found in three lymph nodes—a bad sign.
    “Now what?”
    “More chemo. Radiation. Mom’s got specialists lined up in Birmingham.”
    “I’m sorry, man.” His voice is thick.
    He straightens. I grab his wrist. “I don’t wantthem to keep cutting me up. I won’t give up any more body parts.”
    “You’re going to beat this thing. Whatever it takes.”
    I know he’s right, but at the moment, I have no fight left in me. I know he needs to get home and catch some sleep, but I don’t want to be alone. “Can you hang awhile?”
    He eases down into a chair. “As long as you want.”

Emily
    D
ad’s outfitted the house to make life easier for Travis. The den downstairs is now a temporary bedroom until he gets strong enough to climb the stairs. The bathroom shower stall has grab bars. Dad’s ripped out carpeting and put down new flooring, and there are no more little rugs around the house. Nothing slippery. Everything’s about Travis now.
    His car is parked on the grass beside the driveway. I’ve kept it washed and cleaned, and I start the engine every day to make sure it runs. Dad’s fixed up our front sidewalk because a crack in cement can cause Travis to have a bad fall. I’ve taken over lawn duty while my brother’s recovering and learning to walk on his new leg.
    The day Travis comes home, I hang a “Welcome Home” banner across the front door and string balloons over the door to the den. Cooper and Darla are waiting with me. She’s baked cupcakes—kind of pathetic-looking little lumps smeared with frosting that’s oozing off the top and down the sides in the heat, but I don’t think anyone notices except me.
    When Dad pulls into the driveway, he and Mom hop out and slide open the side van door. “Phil, get the wheelchair.”
    “No,” Travis says. He picks up crutches from beside him on the seat.
    “Please, honey.