She only calls when her life is falling apart

Dear Delyara, My best friend has known me for twenty-six years. I know every crisis in her life because I am the person she calls at two in the morning. Divorce, panic attacks, her father’s illness, money trouble, the affair she nearly had, the affair her husband actually had—I was there for all of it. Last month, my biopsy came back abnormal. I called her three times before she answered two days later. She listened for six minutes, then said she was relieved I had finally called because she needed to tell me something terrible about her daughter. We spent the next hour talking about her. She never asked about the biopsy again. Yesterday, the results confirmed cancer. Early, treatable, the doctor says. I typed a message to her and deleted it. I know she loves me. I also know my role in our friendship has become so fixed that even my fear feels like an interruption to her story. She sent me a voice note tonight saying she really needs me. I have not opened it. I am sitting here wondering whether twenty-six years of being needed is the same thing as being known.