Before everything / Victoria Redel.

Anna, Molly, Ming, Caroline, Helen: the Old Friends. Since adopting their official name aged eleven, they have seen each other through careers, children, illnesses, marriage, divorce, addiction, fame, fall outs. But now, Anna, fiercely loved mother and friend, and the Old Friends' glue, is diagnosed with cancer again, and this time, tired of recoveries and relapses, pitying looks and exhausting regimes, she simply says: no more. As her health declines, the politics of the still lived-in world merge with memories of the past while each Old Friend tries to accept the truth of what is happening: they are losing someone they cannot imagine life.