The next day, nearly noon, Tasìa lay on her cot still not feeling up to her full strength. Felicité's question gnawed at her gut still. It was a question that stirred in the back of her own mind ever since she was told the diagnosis.

Are you sure?

She had asked the doctor when he gave her the news.

His hesitation before he affirmed once more that she tested positive left an indelible impression upon her from that day forward.

She got up and she gulped down a cup of coffee that she had allowed to go cold. Este-Oeste brought it to her earlier that morning.

As she waited for the kitchen staff to call chow there was one thing Tasìa could do to help satiate that curiosity while Felicité wasn't around to fill in the gaps for her.

She walked to the center court where the job board desk could be found and she signed up to do patient assistance for two hours after the lunch hour. Given her medical condition, work was not mandatory for her. Volunteer work, however, would still pay her credit to use for commissary.

After eating her lunch, Tasìa quickly changed her clothes and headed up to the medical floors of the Quadra Central Medical Institution, the IMCQ (Instituto Medico Central de Quadra). Her volunteer work gained her a temporary pass to be up on the medical floors.

But for the grace of the Lord, Tasìa told herself. If her sickness worsened substantially, she would be reassigned out of Ward Nueve with its open dorm and relatively free movement between activity areas to a small room in the Oncology Unit where her movement would be much more restricted.

Tasìa had a patient in mind. A twenty-something Colombian girl with leukemia she had met when Tasìa first arrived six months earlier and the Colombian girl had just begun her treatment.

Tasìa checked the assignment sheet and she found the room listed for Lydia Estrella. She also searched the hot box and found to her good fortune Lydia's meal had not been delivered to her yet.

"Lydia! You are looking... Actually, you really are looking good. I'm relieved that I don't have to lie to your face to make you feel better. You look really good."

The Columbian girl smiled at hearing this. The girl lay on her bed with hands folded over her blanket, holding a remote. She took out the audio-visual extensions that hung on her ears.

"Tasìa, darling, you remembered me."

"But, of course," Tasìa said.

She appraised Lydia once more with a quirky smile. The girl's composure was healthier than when they first met.

"I can tell that you get out to the yard. You are almost as dark as I am, Lydia."

"You exaggerate, Tasìa. I burn too easily in the sun to ever be as even in tone as you are so graced. I'm strong enough to go out for an hour in the morning and an hour in the early evening. But the worst of this cancer is over, it so does appear."

"I couldn't be happier to hear it. And so glad to see it for myself."

Lydia literally wagged a finger.

"You should get some sun while you still can. I can tell by the, I don't mean to be rude, dullness of your hair you do not get out.

"When I first met you, Tasìa, you had the most beautiful highlights streaming through that raven coif. I said to myself at the time, 'A truly sunkissed brunette. I. So. Hate. Her.'"

Lydia Estrella grew up far from any poor barrio but they shared a similar seminarian education which formed a bond that caused them to become fast friends. Tasìa felt a twinge of guilt that her visits were so rare and her purpose for being there now was only ulterior. She decided to be upfront with it.

"So, you've heard about my cancer?"

Lydia nodded. She looked down at her hands. Tasìa pinched her big toe, playfully. Then she sauntered over, leaning into the Columbian girl to rub the soft, short hair that grew uniformly across her skull like downy.

"It is growing back so beautifully, so evenly," Tasìa complimented her.

"Thank you."

"That is really the reason why I am here. I wanted to ask you about hair. When did you start to lose yours in the process of your treatment?"

"Second week of chemo," Lydia answered. "My body stopped resisting the treatment. Then-," she stuck her tongue out and gave her a raspberry, "-thhhppt, my hair began to fall out in clumps. I was bald by the end of my third week."

Lydia reached out her hand and grabbed Tasìa's own hand. She cuffed and stroked it.

"Tasìa, when do you start your own chemo?"

"That is the thing. I started three months ago."

Lydia's eyes bulged with tense furled wrinkles lining her brows. "Something is not right. That is not possible."

Tasìa roped all of her long strands together in her hand and she gave them a forceful pull.

"As thick and as ensconced as my hair has ever been, even if it is a bit dull. Since the treatment I no longer go out in the sun. It makes me nauseous to do so."

Lydia looked thoughtfully with the frown still set upon her brow.

"Would they give a placebo on a cancer patient's normal treatment schedule?"

"I don't know," Tasìa answered, "I have met a few reptiles amongst the staff here."

Tasìa collected the meal tray after Lydia was finished eating.

Before she left, Tasìa asked what time the Columbian hit the track in the morning. Tasìa promised to come up to join Lydia for her morning stroll. She could dress from head to toe if necessary to stay out of the sun.