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David, the office manager, was a pompous jerk. Judy-the girl in the cubicle next to Terri's-reacted to David's insensitive demeanor and constant haranguing about unrealistic deadlines in a way that caught Terri's attention.

She cried.

She was crying now, as a matter of fact, having bobbled a tax project that a more experienced accountant like Terri herself would have caught one­ handed and had time left over for drinks and conversation. David, apparently unconcerned that his voice carried, had berated Judy like she was a child, threatening to fire her if she didn't “shape up”.

Terri's instinct was to go to Judy's little cubicle and console her. Maybe give her some advice on navigating the software program or answer ques­tions regarding the tax code. As Terri rose from her chair, David entered and dropped a huge pile of folders on her desk. He slid the top file-his largest client-off, covering her already-opened files, and demanded she complete it by the end of the day.

She'd heard about his nightmare clients and believed, being the new hire, she would be spared. Not so. With two days still needed to finish yesterday's “Drop everything, I need this now" -assuming she received all the informa­tion she required-she wouldn't have time to complete today's emergency. She showed him the list of items still missing. He glanced at it and rolled his eyes.

Judy was still crying in the next cubicle.

Terri said the client's returns would be ready in three days. She was pre­pared to bargain down to two, but he started to leave. Without turning around, he repeated the demand that the return be finished by the end of the day-an impossible feat, even in Terri's heyday, when she had been the manager of a large and influential accounting firm. Who did this guy think he was?

David left without bothering to negotiate. It'll get done when it gets done, jerk-face, she told herself. Her thoughts ofJudy next door changed from sym­pathy to empathy.

The crying stopped.

Terri picked up her phone and tapped the screen saver. A photograph of Rae appeared-taken at age 10, the last year of her life-and Terri studied it. Incidents like this made her question whether she had given herself enough time to grieve before returning to the workforce. What did jerk-face know about life, really? Was he even married? Did he have children?

She studied Rae's eyes, blue and innocent, wide and free of self-pity. What does any of this matter, really? she asked the picture.

The crying resumed behind the partition.

Terri set the phone down and examined the dozen or more folders that now clogged her desktop.

She asked Rae, What should I do?

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In her post-delivery hospital bed, 10 years earlier, Terri had waited six hours for her husband Alan to return with Rae after a nurse whisked her baby off to be examined by a neonatologist. She was still holding the tiny blue dress with an anchor pattern, crumpled and twisted, when Alan returned without their daughter. He was instead accompanied by two doctors. Alan held her hand while the doctors explained that Rae had contracted a bacterial infection and been transferred to the neonatal intensive care unit.

The first day of her life, Rae had nursed normally. But on the second day, she stopped. A nurse had assured Terri that Rae would resume nursing, but that hadn't happened. And now a doctor was reassuring Terri an antibiotic would eliminate the bacterial infection within three days. Alan embraced Terri, muf­fling her tears in his shoulder.

In the NICU, the smell of disinfectant assaulted Terri's nostrils as she scrubbed her hands. They passed through a sea of preemies, their translucent skin and fragile bodies like jellyfish. Off to one side, a huge machine provided lung and heart support to a tiny neonatal survivor. Terri guessed the baby couldn't have weighed more than three pounds. Parents stood next to incu­bators. Monitors beeped. The heart-lung machine moaned. Machines buzzed.

They reached Rae, a whale at nine pounds. Terri reached through the opening in her incubator and stroked her arms and legs. She didn't belong here, looking healthy and robust. But thin wires were glued to her chest, an IV injected into her tiny vein, and a tube ran up her nose. Already tense, Terri star­tled when the machine alarm blared like a church bell on steroids. She pulled her arms out and clutched Alan tightly. Rae didn't move. The nurse came by and muted the alarm, explaining that the monitor was highly sensitive, and the change that set it off was within the accepted range.

There were no sleeping accommodations for new mothers, so when the visit was over, Terri and Alan left the hospital as they came, just the two of them.

At seven o'clock the next morning, the neonatologist called and informed them that Rae had been placed into an induced coma. Terri struggled to breathe, her body numb. During the night, Rae's heart had failed, said the voice on the phone, and for a period of time her brain had been starved of oxygen.

The doctor explained Rae might not survive.

At the hospital, the neonatologist directed Terri, screaming and crying, away from Rae, and into a small room next to the NICU where other doc­tors were present. They talked about the rare and unexpected series of circum­stances that had occurred, but Terri heard none of it. Afterward, they listened sympathetically as she accused the doctors of negligence. And told them she no longer trusted this hospital.

When shea finished her rant, she demanded to see Rae.

"You don't understand” one of the doctors cautioned her. "Your daughter is going to need around-the-clock care for the rest of her life. She'll more than likely need to be institutionalized”

"I can handle it” insisted Terri.

In the NICU, she stared at the tube down Rae's throat, the whirring venti­lator linking her to life. There were no other parents in the room. The weight crashed down on her and she collapsed alongside the incubator into a fetal position, awash in tears. Alan bent down and rubbed her back.

After 30 days in the neonatal intensive care unit, Rae was finally released. Her discharge papers, 10 pages from the hospital, listed medications, weekly therapy appointments, along with follow-up doctors' appointments. The doc­tors highly encouraged her to seek institutional alternatives to home care.

"We can handle this” said Terri.

The look on Alan's face suggested he was having second thoughts.

When Rae was five, they traveled to Tijuana for an experimental procedure, a stem cell injection meant to regenerate brain cells. Rae hadn't met any mile­stones: rolling over, sitting, holding objects, eating, talking, or walking. Terri had hoped with more therapy sessions-some twice a day, every day-Rae would catch up. But it didn't happen.

The driver, with the stem cells in a medical bag, picked Terri, Alan, and Rae up at a hotel in San Diego and crossed the border with two other desperate families. They sat and waited on cheap vinyl seats in a sparsely furnished office. The driver, acting as interpreter, directed each family into separate procedure rooms. Rae sat on Terri's lap while the doctor injected 1.2 million umbilical cord stem cells into Rae's stomach tissue. She winced from the pain.

In the next room, a young girl the same age as Rae also received a shot in her belly. Within minutes, both young girls started screaming. A doctor zoomed in, jabbed Rae's arm with a needle, and left.

"What did you give her?" Terri screamed over Rae's sobbing.

Alan and the driver chased after the doctor. ''An antihistamine” he said, slamming the door to an office.

Rae's excruciating muscle inflammation and cramping continued for three days, and as soon as she was well enough, the driver took them back. In the U.S., they found out Rae had received tainted stem cells. They'd taken a chance, and had failed.

Rae followed her own timeline. Trapped in a body she had no control over, her arms and legs flailing, Rae still managed to get her point across. When she was six, she gazed longingly at her cousin's Disney princess jacket while sitting in her wheelchair.

Terri dabbed a cloth to Rae's mouth, wiping away blonde strands of drool.

"Do you like her jacket?" Terri asked her. "On the back are Cinderella, Belle, and Sleeping Beauty” Rae had watched the movies, owned the tiaras, and wore the T-shirts.

"Do you want a princess jacket, too?" asked Terri.

Rae smiled and arched her back to show her response.

A few days later, Terri and Alan wheeled Rae into the Disney store in the local mall. As usual, people stared at Rae-abruptly turning away when Terri caught their eyes. It was different when other children stared, though; it gave Terri the opportunity to explain that Rae was saying hello to them with a smile.

Terri pulled three different princess jackets from the racks and showed Rae each one. Then Alan placed them on the racks surrounding her wheelchair, which drew the attention of a curious sales clerk.

Terri knelt down, eye-level with Rae. "Look at the one you want, then look at me to tell me you made your decision”

The young sales clerk craned her neck and stood behind Alan, who stood off to the side with his arms crossed, encouraging Rae with a smile. "We're waiting for her to decide which one she wants;' he told the young girl, who looked dis­tressed. He held his arm out to prevent her from stepping closer.

Rae stared at the first jacket, then looked at Terri, revealing she wanted that one. Rae stared at the second jacket and again looked at Terri, indicating she also wanted that one. Then Rae stared at the third jacket and looked at Terri. Rae giggled.

"Oh no, you don't get all three. Pick one” Terri said.

Fidgeting her hands nervously, the clerk asked, "How do you know what she wants?"

"She talks with her eyes. She has a talking device at home, but she hasn't mastered it yet” Terri turned to Rae. "You want to try them on?"

Rae's arms flailed wide and she squealed. Her delight was clear to everyone. Alan released the buckles on her wheelchair, lifted her out, and handed her to Terri. Supporting her with one arm, with the other Terri managed to get Rae's arms into the jacket sleeves and angled her so she could see herself in the tri-mirror.

"You look beautiful” said Alan.

They repeated the process with the other two jackets. With the three jackets on the floor around them, Terri kept hold of Rae while she bunny-hopped two steps toward the faded blue jean jacket with pink sleeves, trimmed with the same princesses as her cousin's jacket. Alan picked up the chosen jacket and handed it to the sales clerk.

"This one” he said.

Rae smiled at the sales clerk.

Rae never learned to walk, talk, or sit, but taught everyone she met to accept people as they were. She smiled at everyone. And they smiled back.

By age 10, the high-speed roller coaster that was life with Rae had brought them peaks-like when she first laughed out loud-and death-defying drops, like when she had seizures. They had banked the curves by avoiding hospital­izations, had spiraled through loops, endured surgery after surgery, and sur­vived jolting stops, like when thereo been a code blue that thankfully turned out not to require life support.

It was scary. But it was also rich and full. And it was over too soon.

Rae's last year was filled with failed surgeries and medicines that didn't work. Pain that wouldn't let up, and ever-increasing morphine doses. Another surgery was scheduled. Terri and Alan reluctantly discussed a DNR if things went wrong-but it never came to that.

In the hospital, awaiting surgery, Rae's oxygen level dropped abruptly and her lungs filled with liquid. The nurse slammed the code-blue button.

The alarm blared.

In the weeks after Rae died, Terri nestled in the recliner where she and Rae used to rock, wrapped in Rae's SpongeBob snuggie, sniffing for the faint scent of her. She watched and re-watched the slide show played at Rae's funeral. Sometimes, she clung to Rae's favorite Shrek doll, squeezing so hard it spoke: "Better out than in, I always saY:' Alan would come home from work and ask Terri what she had done that day. Her blank stare said everything.

Reluctantly, she had responded to a friend's entreaty: a partner at a local firm was desperate to fill a tax-preparer position. For Terri, with years of pre­vious experience, no resume would be required. At first, Terri resisted, having become habituated to her misery. But Alan's insistence finally won out.

_____________________________

And now, here she was, sitting in a poorly lit cubicle, with an impossible deadline, the words she'd uttered early on, after Rae's birth, echoing in her head: "I can handle this”

Terri pressed her phone to activate the screen saver again. Wiping away a tear, she smiled. Rae had indeed been perfect as Rae. She called her friend Phyllis, who had helped her through many trying times, and who was pas­sionate about her volunteer work at Misericordia. When Phyllis didn't answer, she hung up.

She walked down the corridor of window offices, gnawing at the eraser end of a pencil, and entered David's office.

"Judy's been working on some complex individual returns” she told him firmly. "She could use more guidance”

David dropped his pen, leaned back in his chair, and held his fingers together in a tepee. "If she can't figure it out, maybe she's not cut out for the job” he said. He raised his fingers and pointed them toward the door.

Maybe the rumors are true, Terri wondered, and jerk-face has hired me to replace Judy. She left without a word.

She walked back down the hallway, picturing Rae in her princess Disney jacket. She felt a rush of love and pride for all the things her sweet girl had accomplished in her too-brief life, things that mattered: making people happy, making people proud, and giving people all her unbridled love and joy. Back in her office, she picked up David's "urgent" file. It felt heavy in her hands. Toxic.

She called her friend Phyllis again. This time she left a message: "Phyllis? Hi, it's Terri. Listen, when you asked me several weeks ago if I'd like to volunteer at Misericordia, I wasn't ready, but I am now” She pulled the phone from her ear and cast a glance at Rae. ''And I want to do it full-time, or as much as I can. I can't think of anything more I'd like to do than to help with those kids with disabilities. Great. Thanks, Phyllis”

She kept the screen-saver image open, holding it to her chest, and bowed her head. "Thanks, honey” she whispered. She grabbed the IRS regs and walked over to Judy's cubicle.

"You got a minute? I've got something I want to show you. I'm sure you'll be able to handle it”