The doctors, the psychiatrists, the lab technicians—they were foreigners, too. She knew they were trying to help her, but they also seemed like invaders. They had assaulted her dignity—uncovering, poking, revealing, peeling layers of shyness away from her body like dead skin, removing it, strip by strip, until she felt naked and personless. She was still thinking and struggling with her problem when the nurse came to take her down for another round of chemo.
The next morning Michael came to see her. Although she hated for him to see her when she wasn’t on top of her nausea, his presence always comforted her. “I’m between work and class,” he said, his eyes darting uneasily around her room. “I don’t have too much time.”
“I’m glad you came anyway. This place is the pits and I want out.” He placed the surgical mask over her mouth for her and sat next to her bed, leaning on the mattress and resting his chin on his fist. He reminded her of a forlorn puppy. “When was the last time you went ballooning?”
“I don’t remember.”
“You need to go soon. You look earthbound.”
A smile started at the corners of his mouth. “Will you go with me when you get home?”
“Haven’t I thrown up enough lately? You know how I react to heights.”
“Then will you drive the chase car like before?”
“Can I bring Jory?”
He made a face. “You still trying to fix me up with her?”
“Who else is there in your life?”
He touched her cheek. “Only you, Sis.”
“Are you bothered about them doing the bone marrow test on you, Michael?” She’d wanted to ask him for days, but hadn’t found the right moment. “I know how you hate needles.”
“It’s for you. Let them stick me.” He sounded braver than he looked about it.
“Maybe we won’t be compatible.”
“Then they’ll find a donor who is.”
The idea frightened her. Somehow the transplant seemed less intimidating if it came from her brother. The thought of having some nameless, faceless stranger living inside her bones made her shudder.
“But we will be compatible,” Michael said, trying to comfort her. “And besides, this chemo stuff is going to work, so you won’t even need a transplant. You shouldn’t even be thinking about it.”
“I hope it works. I’d hate to think I was this miserable for nothing.” He grinned at her sullen humor. “How’s Mom doing?” Melissa asked. “She acts cheerful enough when she visits me, but how’s she really doing?”
“Better. Once you two made up and she stopped feeling responsible … ”
“Oh, that was my fault. She shouldn’t feel responsible. Cancer isn’t genetic. That was just a cheap shot I took because I was so angry about all of this.”
“I think she felt that she should have noticed something was going on with you. That you weren’t well. I guess I should have been more observant too.”
Melissa was surprised. It hadn’t occurred to her that her family might feel guilty about her illness. “It wasn’t anybody’s fault,” she said.
Michael shrugged as if he didn’t quite believe her. “Mom’s raided the library and the medical textbook section at the bookstores for every printed word about leukemia. You should see her tackle your doctor—she bombards him with a million questions. He must hate to see her coming!”
Melissa pictured her mother giving Dr. Rowan the third degree. It dawned on her that her mother knew more about her disease than she did, and she was moved that her mother had gone to such lengths to read and ask questions about her treatments. “Maybe I’ll read some of her books,” she said. Although she was inspired by her mother, she wasn’t sure how much more she wanted to know.
“I brought you a present,” Michael said.
“You did? But you’ve already given me three stuffed animals and a vase of flowers. You should be saving your money for ballooning.” The cuddly toys had been relegated to the windowsill so she could see them from her bed. Dr. Rowan didn’t want them too near in case they harbored any microscopic germs. She thought it was ridiculous. The animals looked only soft and friendly and innocent.
Michael reached for a bag he’d slipped beneath her bed and removed a book with a handsome cloth-and-leather cover. It smelled faintly of disinfectant, and as she thumbed through the pages she was moved by his attempt to “de-germ” it for her safety.
“All the pages are blank,” she said.
“That’s because it’s a personal journal. You’re supposed to write on the pages.”
“Like a diary?”
“Kind of. You just write in it when you feel like it. You don’t have to write every day if you don’t want to.”
She ran her palm over the supple, dark blue cover. “It’s beautiful, Michael. Thanks. Dr. Moffat—that’s the shrink who helps us deal with our cancer—” she rolled her eyes in exaggerated tolerance, “Dr. Moffat says writing down your feelings in letters or diaries is a good idea. She says it’s therapeutic, but, I don’t know … I think it sounds dumb.”
“ ‘Therapeutic’?” Michael grimaced good-naturedly. “If you’re going to talk ugly, I’m taking my gift back. I just wanted to give you something to keep you busy.” He paused, then said, “But maybe the shrink is right. Maybe you need to write about this whole stinking experience. In this book you can tell it like it is. And who knows—years from now, when you’re rich and famous, you could have it published and make another million on your memoirs.”
She smoothed her palm over the ivory-colored pages. “I’d rather think of it as portable bathroom walls where I can write all kinds of dirty words about these last few weeks.”
Playfully, he grabbed at the book. “I didn’t mean to create a monster.”
“Don’t touch my book.” She held it against her breast and gave him a menacing glare. “Or I’ll be sure and write unsavory things about you in it.”
He laughed and stood. “Well, I’ve got to go. Mom’s coming up during her lunch hour and that’s not too long from now.”
Melissa pulled the mask away from her mouth, allowing him to watch her lips as she said, “Promise me you’ll take up your balloon some morning this week.”
“I’ll try.”
“Did I tell you that I’m using your balloon in my imaging therapy?”
“You know you didn’t.” He leaned against the near wall, his thumbs hooked through the front belt loops of his jeans. “So tell me.”
“Well, supposedly it’s important for me to use my alpha brain cells to fight my leukemia. Some sort of holistic approach to cancer treatment.” She shrugged her bony shoulders.
“It seems like a lot of mumbo jumbo, but I think I read something about that in Mom’s books. So how does my balloon fit it?”
Enthused, she hunched forward. “I close my eyes and imagine that I’m riding in your balloon—without getting sick,” she qualified. “I’m riding along through my bones, and whenever I see one of my cancer cells, I toss a firebomb at it. It blows up”—she snapped her fingers—“without ever touching me, because the balloon’s basket protects me.”
“Does it help?”
She heard the skepticism in his tone and said, “Yes, it does. After a really good session, after totally relaxing, I feel better. It helps me not to be so sick to my stomach after the chemo treatments, too.”
“Whatever works.”
“It does work, Michael. I know it sounds crazy, but it does work.” She picked at her bed sheet. “I want to go home. I want everything to be normal again. I’ll do whatever they want me to do in order to get out of here.”
She watched him work his jaw. “It won’t be much longer. You’re bound to respond to all these treatments soon.”
“That’s what they keep telling me,” she said. “So … how’s my room at home? Does it miss me?”
His smile was brief and rather sad. “It misses you like crazy.” She felt an overwhelming wave of homesickness wash over her.
“You’d
better go before I try to crawl into your pocket and leave with you.”
After he’d gone, Melissa tried doing a school assignment, but her attention wandered. She thought about so many things—home, the PSATs, Brain Bowl, her illness. Even if she did go home soon, how would she adjust? How could she ever think of herself as “normal” again?
She picked up the book Michael had given her and considered what to write in it. Should she describe what it felt like to stare mortality in the face? Or should she write about more practical things, like fighting to maintain her place on the Brain Bowl team? Or about trying to obtain a National Merit Scholarship that she might never use?
Or maybe she should explore her feelings about her family and friends. About how much she cared about them, and how precious they’d become during her illness. And what about life once she got out of the hospital? Who would ask her for a date? Who would ever kiss her or want her? Melissa sighed and thumbed through the blank pages. Sixteen is too young to die, she thought. She tossed the book aside, knowing that she had a lot to say and no earthly idea of how to say it.
Chapter Twelve
That afternoon, feeling stronger, Melissa asked a nurse to help her to the sun room. Located in the oncology ward, the room was lined with windows so that the sun streamed in and reflected off the antiseptically clean linoleum floors. Settling into a green upholstered chair, Melissa opened her history book and was soon lost in the drama of the Civil War.
“Hi. What’chya doing?”
Melissa jumped in her seat. A small girl was standing in front of her, holding a coloring book and a box of crayons tightly against her chest. “I’m reading,” Melissa answered.
“What’chya reading?” The child was dressed in hospital pajamas a size too large for her tiny body. She had a fuzzy scramble of strawberry curls and big, bright blue eyes.
“I’m reading for school. It’s homework.”
“I’m going to kindergarten soon. Then I can read and do homework. My names Rachael and I’m this many years old.” She held up four fingers. A heparin lock was taped to her arm.
Melissa ignored the paraphernalia and concentrated on the child’s upturned face. “I’m Melissa and I’m this many years old.” She displayed ten fingers, then five and one.
Rachael studied them carefully. “Wow. You’re old.”
Melissa laughed. “You’re right.”
“I have leukemia,” Rachael announced, dropping to her knees and opening her coloring book on the table next to Melissa’s chair. “What have you got?”
Perhaps it was the child’s unabashed honesty, her uncomprehending acknowledgment of their unlikely sisterhood, that brought a lump to Melissa’s throat. “I have leukemia, too.”
“I was in mission but now I’m not anymore.”
A shudder ran up Melissa’s spine. “You mean ‘remission,’ don’t you?”
“Yup. I don’t like it here, but Mommy says I have to stay for a while.” Rachael flipped open the crayon box and dumped a rainbow of colored sticks across the table. The warm sunlight softened them, and the room became scented with the familiar smell of crayon wax.
“I don’t like it here either, Rachael.” Despite the sun, Melissa felt chilled. A relapse, she thought. Rachael had survived chemo, lived outside the hospital, then relapsed. Her leukemia had returned.
“I have a baby sister. Do you?”
“I have an older brother,” Melissa said.
“Older?” Rachael glanced up from her coloring, her expression registering disbelief. “Are you friends?”
“Yes. Best friends.”
“I don’t like my sister very much. She cries a lot and keeps my mommy busy.”
“You’ll like her someday.”
“Maybe.” Rachael continued coloring and said, “The medicine they gave me makes me throw up.”
Her sudden change of topics momentarily confused Melissa. “The medicine makes me throw up, too,” she said.
“They stick needles in my back. Do they do that to you, too?”
“Yes.”
“I used to think if they stuck me with needles everything inside would leak out. But that was when I was only three and I was still a baby.”
Melissa bit her lower lip hard. She reached out and touched the soft, shining curls on Rachael’s head. “Your hair’s very pretty.”
“It all fell out once. But now it’s back.” She beamed a broad smile. “Are you a mommy?”
The question struck Melissa like a splash of ice-cold water. Confused by a rush of emotions, she fumbled with her history book. The bright, sun-washed room was suddenly making her dizzy. “I have to go back to my room now, Rachael.”
“Are you sick? Are you gonna throw up? I brought my dish just in case. Want to use it?” She held up the receptacle Melissa knew so well.
“No, thanks … It’s just that I—I’m cold.”
The child nodded. “Oh, I get cold at night. Sometimes when my mommy can’t stay with me, I make the nurse bring me two blankets. She holds my hand till I go to sleep.”
As Melissa slowly moved out the door she heard Rachael say, “Come visit me tomorrow, Melissa. Can we be friends?”
Safely back in her room, Melissa crawled between the sheets, her teeth chattering. She felt an overwhelming urge to cry but couldn’t. What’s wrong with me? Why am I feeling this way? She turned on her side and shivered. She squeezed her eyes shut, but she kept seeing Rachael’s face.
When she opened her eyes, the first thing she spied on the bedside table was the journal. She reached for it, opening to the first cream-colored, fresh-smelling blank page. She sat up and rummaged in the metal drawer until she found a black felt-tip pen, and began writing in her most graceful penmanship.
I met a little girl today named Rachael. She’s four and she has cancer, too. She thought I was very old, being sixteen, and I thought she was very sweet and too young for these things they’re putting us through at the hospital. She asked me if I was a mommy. Of course, I’m not. But I can’t help wondering if I ever will be. Who will want to make love to me now that I’m sick? What would it be like to have a baby grow inside of me? Will I ever know?
Melissa reread the entry, underscored the last sentence, then put the journal away.
“Good morning, Melissa.” Dr. Rowan breezed into her room the next day, his face lit with a smile, a clipboard and a manila folder in his hand.
Warily she lowered the textbook she was studying. “My lab results?”
“Your lab results.” He flipped open the folder. “Your platelet count has stabilized and your white count is acceptable. However, there’s a marked decrease of polys, which means you’re still quite vulnerable to infection, so you’ll have to avoid crowds and keep that surgical mask on when you go outside … ”
“Outside?”
“I’m discharging you. Although we haven’t achieved remission yet, I think we’re close.”
Her mouth went dry over the news. I should be happy about this, she thought. But in reality, she was scared. She hated the hospital, but there she was sheltered, and her doctors and nurses were at hand to help her. At home, she’d be on her own. “Is it really safe for me to leave?”
“It’s both safe and necessary,” Dr. Rowan said, shaking his head of unruly hair. “You need to start leading a normal life again. Get back into the mainstream.”
Wasn’t that what she wanted too? “But what if I have a problem?”
“Your family will be instructed how to deal with most things. And if there’s something they can’t handle, or if there are any questions, I’m a phone call away. You aren’t being released from therapy, Melissa. Outpatient care is just one small step on the road to recovery.”
“Can I go back to school?”
“Not right away.”
“When?”
“I can’t say yet. Your chemo program will change, but until you’re on maintenance, I’d rather not have you in a classroom environment.”
“I want to be back
in school in another week.”
“That’s too soon, Melissa.”
“When?”
“If all goes well, maybe after Christmas. It’ll be safer then.”
“Christmas! The school year will be half over by then.”
“But you’ll be stronger and more able to fight off infections.”
Melissa struggled against panic. Dr. Rowan couldn’t make her wait so long to return to school. She’d already missed most of October and part of November. She couldn’t stand the thought of staying out until January. “But the PSATs are being given next Saturday. I have to take them with my class. They’re for college.”
“You’re a stubborn girl, Melissa. Of course, I can’t forbid you, but it isn’t a good idea.”
Her palms were clammy. “It’s one test for just a few hours. My friend Jory can take me, stay with me, bring me straight back home.” She squared her chin. “I’ll wear my mask the whole time.” She imagined herself sitting in the vast auditorium with a surgical mask strapped to her face. The image caused her to shudder, but she’d do it if it meant she could take the test.
Dr. Rowan was speaking to her, but she heard only part of his speech. “… your mother comes I’ll have your discharge papers ready. Someone can bring you to the clinic day after tomorrow for your chemo. DeeDee Thomas will administer it, so you’ll still be seeing plenty of familiar faces. Feel free to come up here to the floor whenever you want to visit. It encourages the other patients, you know, seeing someone living on the outside. There’s a teen support group that meets once a month which you might like to join.”
Melissa nodded, unable to sort through all he was telling her. The only thing she cared about was that she was going home. When Jory called and Melissa told her, her friend squealed so loud Melissa had to hold the phone away from her ear.
“Everyone will be so glad!”
Melissa wanted everybody to know, but she didn’t want anybody to visit her. She knew how bad she looked. “I can’t have visitors,” she added hastily.
“Oh sure. I understand that. But still, you’ll be home. It can’t be too long before you can come back to school.”