"Everybody dies someday, sweetheart," she said carefully.
Ellie thought about that.
"Even you?"
"Someday."
"And Daddy?"
"Someday."
Ellie looked toward Mr. Bumblebee.
"Does he die?"
Rachel managed a small smile.
"He's a teddy bear. We can keep taking care of him."
Ellie nodded.
Then she asked, "Will I die before I'm big?"
Rachel felt tears rising.
She put down the brush.
"Your doctors are working very hard to take care of you. We don't know exactly what the future will look like, but we're going to keep loving you and helping you have as many good days as we can."
Ellie considered that answer.
Then she climbed as far as she could into her mother's arms.
"I want lots of good days."
Rachel held her.
"Me too, baby."
That conversation had happened three weeks before the charity event.
Rachel hadn't realized Ellie was already making plans.
Ellie kept a small pink notebook beside her bed.
Most of its pages were filled with drawings rather than words. She drew castles, dragons, dogs, rainbows, and elaborate houses with enormous windows. Sometimes she asked Mark to write captions because her hands became tired after holding crayons for too long.
One page showed a girl riding a horse.
Another showed a boat crossing a lake.
There was a drawing of a hot-air balloon, a picture of a snowy mountain, and an enormous ice cream cone with more scoops than any reasonable person could eat.
Rachel called it Ellie's adventure book.
The little girl called it her someday book.
Whenever she heard about something interesting, she added it.
She didn't always understand what an activity involved.
But that didn't stop her from imagining it.
The motorcycle drawing appeared after she saw a group of bikers riding through downtown Asheville.
Mark had been driving her to a medical appointment when the motorcycles stopped beside them at a traffic light. Ellie watched the riders with wide eyes, fascinated by their leather jackets and the deep rumbling engines.
"Are they cowboys?" she asked.
Mark laughed.
"Not exactly."
"They look like cowboys with metal horses."
He smiled.
"That's one way to describe them."
Ellie pressed her face toward the window.
"Do motorcycles fly?"
"No."
"Could they?"
"Not the ones on this road."
She thought about that for a moment.