Don had not worked like a dog for nothing. He had struggled up the corporate ladder to one rung below the vice-presidents —who were all brothers. So Don knew he wasn't going any higher on the ladder.

That was okay with him. They had treated him like family. He had earned a six-figure salary and eight weeks of vacation and had 10,000 frequent flyer miles to play with.

Then leukemia drove his wife, Donna, into the hospital where they shoved needles into her and pumped her full of chemicals and new bone marrow and blood and sent her home again — alive, but quite possibly dying.

Somehow after all that, Donna could rejoice to see so simple a thing as the dying violet offered to her in the chubby little fingers of her grandson, Trevor. She was thankful to be alive, but still she dreaded every…