I walked down the hill to my place, where I intended to enjoy a half hour in my overstuffed armchair, with a heated herb-filled neck pillow around my nape, before the invasion of the wives.

That’s how I thought of my regular get-together with my sisters-in-law. They showed up at my place once a month for munch and gossip; sometimes we walked or saw a movie, but always we ate and we talked.

That’s not to say I don’t like and love my brothers’ wives. Clare and Lucy have been in my life since high school and my early twenties, respectively, and while I’m unlike them I don’t dislike them. They both have qualities of my mother. Only with blonde hair. And bigger breasts. But wifely like my mom. They all have attitudes that elude me and goals, perhaps, that I don’t share. But they seem to be mostly content in their marriages, and that’s something I never achieved.

Maybe there isn’t a rule book that everyone has a copy of but me. There seems, however, to be a quiz, and I keep answering incorrectly. “What would you say,” I asked Clare and Lucy over our pizza Provençal, “if your husband came to you with: ‘Honey, I know you love living here, but I’ve just had an exciting offer that could really move my stalled career. The problem is, we have to move for at least three years to Cleveland (or Flint or Duluth, or anywhere that sounds really unpalatable to you).’ What would you do?”

Clare looked at me with a grin around her mouthful of pizza while Lucy said, “I’d be packing my bags…” and as I asked “Really?” Clare began a vigorous nodding of her head.

I was surprised. I knew we were different, but my immediate response to my own question was the thought that long-distance relationships aren’t impossible, and that we’d have some great weekends when we saw each other. I’d definitely want my mate to follow his star. But no way was I leaving my house and job.

Their willingness to move seemed immediate and absolute. Even though relocation would end Clare’s local career and take Lucy away from her much beloved and ever-renovating house. And it wasn’t that they always chose for the good of my brothers; I’d seen too many examples of Clare and Lucy deciding what was best for the men, limiting what my brothers knew of their real opinions, manipulating Sam and Jake into fatherhood and executive careers like they guided them into certain slacks.

I didn’t get it, but even so and unknown to me then, Josie was doing exactly the same thing with her husband. She was maneuvering Freddie into a house while appearing submissive to his wishes. He said they couldn’t afford one yet, and she agreed, but she kept pointing out to him all the ways they could save money by owning instead of renting, and she always acted as if he had taught her the ways. Josie’s mother, like all our mothers, counseled her daughter to be loved a little more than she loved, lest she lose all control.

And yet, these men grew out of the boys we knew when we were kids. I couldn’t believe they were the enemy. I didn’t want that deal.

(I wonder how happy those marriages are? The women seem too conscious. The men have told me – my brothers anyway – that they have no regrets but if they had it to do over again they’d make other choices. They roll their eyes toward their marriages when they say that. Funny: I’d say I do have regrets, plenty of them, but I’m pretty sure I’d make the same choices all over again…)

Four years and seven months from now I’ll receive my first diagnosis of cancer. Finally we’ll learn the oblique source of my headaches and neck pain. Half a year later, I’ll have reached the Siberia of Stage IV.

Coincidentally, Josie will then have finished her training and distinguished herself as an oncology nurse. She’ll still be clueless about topography, duplicitous with Freddie, territorial about her house, and as passive/aggressive as the next woman.

But she’s going to be my sweet succor. Josie’s genius for nurture will improve my life and together, patient and nurse, we’ll lengthen it. I’ll have additional seasons lent to me, when I can walk in my favorite places. I’ll be amazed at the beauty of this planet, and I’ll marvel at Josie’s unawareness of it. Grateful, vain me: I probably won’t even recognize her.