Despite the hour, light still burned through the thin curtains, revealing Jenna's silhouette. She stood at her dye bath, ringing dry a length of fabric. Though the details were obscured by the stagnant cloth and its limited privacy, Nora could identify the cigarette hanging from Jenna's lips.

Nora took a deep, calming breath, just like the therapist recommended whenever Jenna frustrated her. Sometimes Nora spent whole afternoons taking deep, calming breaths. Sometimes she wished it was all over and wept that she was so horrible, only the death of Jenna could bring relief.

At the slam of the door, Jenna stubbed her cigarette in the ashtray she kept next to the unused sewing machine. The doctor had said it was okay to sew as long as she bleached down the machine and properly disposed of any fabric if she drew blood on the needle. The doctor didn't know she could barely start a project anymore without cutting herself. Her hands shook all the time.

They shook as she unfolded the yellow cotton, they shook as she traded it on the drying rack for a strip of lavender silk, they shook as she laid the silk out on the old work bench fashioned out of a bookshelf. The year before, she would have used her fine dyes to paint a deceptively simple image on the delicate weave, then sold it as a tapestry for someone's token wife. These days she could barely manage the uninspired patterns she pushed at farmer's markets for use as quilting squares.

She dug through the bookshelf, searching for the resist she knew she'd buried with the growing collection of failed pills. Abacavir and Zintevir, Delavirdine and Nevirapine, the zinc finger inhibitors and the interleukins, all failures. She told herself to throw them into the mountain of biowaste, but something always stopped her.

"I brought you some dinner," Nora said by way of greeting.

Jenna did not turn around. "I'm not hungry," she muttered, waving Nora away.

"Baby, you gotta eat or you'll start wasting again. I talked to Dr. Jack and he said I have to get on your case about this. Especially after Nathan…"

"Fuck Dr. Jack," Jenna growled.

Nora took a deep, calming breath as she emptied the ashtray into a biowaste bin filled with bloodied fabric and turned on the air purifier that cost her a week's pay. With Jenna smoking again, it was a worthless investment.

"I got my bonus from the office today. I thought we could use some of it to buy nice dresses for the funeral."

Jenna snorted. "Buy yourself a nice dress. I'm staying home."

"But Nathan was your best friend! You two grew up together. I know things got rough after Taku, but remember all the good times you kids used to have together?"

Finally giving up on the resist, Jenna spun around in her chair. Though her face was more pallid and sunken than ever before, her eyes flashed with a feverish rage. "I’m not stupid, mama! What, what? Is this a test of dementia? You figuring out if the dementia has set in now that Nathan's followed Taku? I’m just fine, mama. Just fucking peachy!"

"Of course you are," Nora murmured, even though Jenna hadn’t called her 'mama' in six years.

Denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance. In a private session, the therapist had confided to Nora that youths typically took a long time working through the anger. After two years, Jenna still couldn’t get past it. After Taku's funeral, Nora thought bargaining would start, but it changed nothing. With dementia worming its way in, it would rapidly cease to matter if she ever accepted. No short term memory meant no knowledge of the virus slowly eating her away.

"So why not go to the funeral?" Nora asked softly, using the low, even tones the therapist had recommended for the dementia.

Jenna threw a bolt of white cotton onto her bed and used sharpened shears to haphazardly slash it into dye strips. "You must be joking," she spat. "Have you been outside lately? It’s fucking February! Sure, let's go, we'll see how long it takes me to keel over and die from pneumonia or the flu or hell, a goddamned cold! You can just bury me with Nathan, it'll be a whole--shit!" she gasped as she cut herself on the scissors.

Toxic blood splashed across the strips of cotton. Jenna slumped down to the floor, cradling her injured hand. Just as she had a hundred times before, Nora popped open the first aid kit and slipped on a pair of latex gloves. She rummaged through the kit for a wrap and some disinfectant, only looking up when she heard a sob.

"Baby?" she whispered.

Jenna was curled up on the floor, hitting herself in the forehead with the heel of her palm. "Why did he have to die?" she moaned. "Why did he have to kill himself?"

Nora swallowed hard as she gripped Jenna's hand and wiped the blood away. "It was an accident, baby."

"He killed himself," Jenna sobbed. "He told me he'd do it and I didn't believe him. Oh God, why?" She opened her eyes and stared up at Nora. For the first time, Nora saw pure, bone-chilled fear in those pale orbs. "He was the survivor, mama. He was the mythical beast, the long-term nonprogressor. He was gonna win. Why did he do it?"

Nora couldn't deny that Nathan's death was anything but suicide. Nor could she pretend to be surprised. Nathan's mind had died with Taku, he just needed time for his body to catch up.

She finished bandaging the cut and wiped the tears from her daughter's eyes. "He was scared, baby. I don't know why else."

Jenna threw her arms around Nora's waist. "I can't die, mama! I can't die like this! I'm only 17. Don't let me die!"

Nora held her daughter tightly and prayed for the right words to come to her.