8No. Bella’s haunting moan filled my head. A sharpened stick twisted beneath my breastbone. Pope.
Bella’s lover. Woody’s father. Stefan’s childhood friend. And for more than a year, my friend, too. Last January, we four had been together in a Georgetown bar, celebrating the success of the father-to-son bone marrow transplant. I remembered Pope sitting across the table from me, one hand in Bella’s lap, the other lifting his beer mug high in a toast. A radiant smile transformed his bony face. His eyes shone like lacquered rosewood behind the metal-rimmed spectacles. A joyous aura surrounded Pope and Bella that night they knew they’d saved their boy. They glowed as though burning candles lit the smoky dimness around them.
“What happened?” I whispered. I raised my eyes to meet Stefan’s hazel
