Free The Probability of Miracles by Wendy Wunder

like any war, was useless except for its ability to stimulate the economy. Drugs were being sold. Doctors were getting paid. Pharmaceutical companies were getting rich. Cam had become collateral damage in the war on cancer. And she was done with all of it. She was throwing in la toalla .
    â€œDon’t think Madonna could pull any strings, though,” Cam concluded.
    â€œSo, what do you think, sugar?”
    â€œKathy, I think that is very nice of you. Really. But I don’t think that’s my path.”
    â€œSince when do you have a ‘path’?” Alicia asked, appearing in the doorway of the kitchen. She leaned against the doorjamb in her pajamas and kimono and held her cup of coffee in both hands. Her face was chiseled into the stern, serious, and yet slightly amused countenance of a disappointed mother that Cam rarely saw because she rarely did anything wrong.
    â€œSince now. We’re going to Crazy Town in Maine, remember? That’s our strategy, since we don’t know someone who knows someone.”
    â€œDon’t you think we should at least try it?” Alicia said. “It’s medicine, Campbell.” She swept a long curly strand of hair out of her red-rimmed morning eyes.
    Cam wavered for a second. Trying was usually better than not trying. But not in this case. The road trip was changing her a bit. Now that they’d gotten the momentum going, she wanted to finish what they’d started.
    â€œ A’ohe I pau ka ’ike I ka halau ho’okahi ,” she said. It was a popular hula adage that meant: All knowledge is not contained in only one school. “No more trials, Mom.”
    All the last trial had done was diminish her immune system to the point where she got shingles (a seventy-year-old-man disease) and yeast infections all over her body, including her tongue. She couldn’t close her mouth for three days. The “science” of these trials just didn’t add up. You didn’t demolish someone’s immune system to make her healthy. Promise, Maine, made just as much sense. Cam grabbed a banana and made her way out of the kitchen.
    Lily crashed into her. She was bounding into the kitchen dressed in some child-size Daisy Dukes and a calico halter, asking her mom if she’d finished packing the picnic basket.
    â€œYou let your mom pack the picnic basket?” Cam asked.
    â€œThat’s the last of it,” said Kathy, as she put the Brie and apricots into the basket.
    â€œThanks, Mama.” Lily gave her mom a squeeze. Lily was kind of a spoiled brat, but she somehow made it an endearing part of her personality. Finally she turned around to look at Cam. “You’re wearing that?” she asked. Cam was still in the oversize, off-the-shoulder FRANKIE SAYS RELAX T-shirt that she wore to bed.
    â€œI just woke up,” said Cam. “It seems a little early for a picnic.”
    â€œRyan has to be somewhere this afternoon. Come on! Get dressed.”
    Back in the guest room, Cam muttered to herself as she put her cargo pants back on and topped them with a plain black tank top. She combed her hand through her hair, and that was it. She was not going to try to impress anyone.
    She was contemplating whether or not to even wear earrings when she heard a horn blaring from the driveway. She grabbed her biker bag, ran outside, and was mortified to find an idling yellow Hummer.
    â€œCome on!” Lily said as she pulled Cam by the hand toward the enormous vehicle.
    â€œGod, Lily. Don’t you think J. C. would drive a Prius?”
    â€œDon’t be such a buzzkill.”
    â€œI’m sorry I’m so reluctant to destroy the planet with my Humvee. I should be more of a sport.”
    â€œCampbell!” Lily dismissed her friend and then literally skipped toward the truck, the picnic basket banging against her legs. Cam had to help her open the monstrous door.
    â€œWhere’s Andrew?” Lily asked as she