She has a dream. A monster chases her around the house, then begins to eat her. She says she stands still while the monster picks at her and it makes her sad. Until Daddy comes and scares the monster away. Every time she tells me this dream I think to myself, “no pressure!” But for the dream, Jordan is happy. She doesn’t dwell on many setbacks. She is less moody. And she is much more cooperative when she goes in for chemotherapy each week.

He crossed his arms and sulked, then threw back his head and exhaled a sigh brimming with contempt. I shot a look in the rearview mirror. Silence thickened the mood, adding drama to an already tense morning. Jordan ignored it and returned to her singing. “Those blue eyes are going to get you in trouble. I fell in love with those eyes…” She inflected her verse with a flavor of Billie Holiday, improvising the lyrics to Them There Eyes.

D.H. Lawrence advised that “it is no good casting out devils. They belong to us. We must accept them and be at peace with them.” Each of us harbors a demon. Jordan’s is a cancer. It will not be ignored and for the moment, she cannot cast it out. So tonight, she weeps.We imagined tonight would be a happy occasion. She is home. It was the goal she rallied about all day.

She’s bored and she wants to go home. Being awake is taking a toll. She doesn’t enjoy the hospital. Every time I move around the room she asks me where I’m going. Then she asks if she can come home with me. On the bright side, she’s giggling again. She’s back to recounting obscure comedic moments from her favorite films. Then her face sours and she laments being connected to wires and tubes.

You want to be wrong. You want everyone else to be right. For every negative thought that passes through your head, you want to believe that “thinking positive” will ward away what most you fear. Well-wishing friends instruct you to dispel skepticism, will against negativity, and imagine wellness. You try. You really try. But in the recesses of your mind, whispering just loud enough so that your rational stream of consciousness can hear, your inner voice gossips about what could really happen. And when fate agrees, and one of those pessimistic, back-biting ideas really does happen, the negative fringe incites rebellion. Every synapse in your brain attracts itself to the seemingly clairvoyant notion. Perception scrambles for a leader, and the logical point of view rescues sanity from the anarchy of positive thinking.