“Calm down, dear,” her grandmother said soothingly. “Maybe he was paged. He’s got a hospital full of patients, and you’re an outpatient, so sick people get attended to first.”
Jenny chewed her lip. With only two weeks left before they went out to the summer house, she was especially tense. Don’t let anything spoil this summer, she pleaded silently.
Dr. Gallagher swept into the office. He banged his chair into his desk and slapped a manila folder against the cluttered top.
“What’s wrong?” Jenny felt her heart thudding ominously as she looked at his face.
“Your blood work shows blasts, Jenny. I’m sorry, but you’ll have to check back into the hospital.”
Twenty-Three
June 4, 1979
Dear Kimbra,
The worst thing about being put back in the hospital is realizing that I know too much. Last time I was ignorant—I had no grasp of what was happening to me. But this time, I do know. I know every test, every consequence of every test, every drug, every pain waiting for me. Sometimes, I get so depressed that I just want to give up.
Don’t panic. I’m not giving up. Honest. There are two things keeping me going. Grandmother—who’s practically driving Dr. Gallagher crazy with her suggestions—and Richard. He was so upset when he heard about my test results that he almost came right back home as soon as he got to Princeton. I begged him not to dump a whole year’s worth of classwork for my sake. He has finals in a week and promises he’ll remain and take them. I’m glad. I don’t want my illness to be a burden on him.
It certainly doesn’t look like I’ll be going anywhere anytime soon. My cancer is stubborn. Dr. Gallagher’s throwing everything at it, but it just doesn’t want to take a hike. My head hurts so bad after the spinal injections that I’m practically blind from the pain.
But enough about my fun times.… How’re you? Please don’t stop writing. The letters from you and Elaine mean everything.
Love,
Jenny
July 10, 1979
Dear Jenny,
Mom forwarded your last letter to me at basketball camp. I can’t believe you’ve got to go through this a second time—and you’ve got to go through it all by yourself too! I swear, if I wasn’t here at camp, I’d fly down and move into your grandmother’s and come visit you every day.
Things are pretty good for me. The one arm isn’t the handicap the coaches thought it would be. I’ve learned how to shield with my body and duck under the person guarding me and dunk from the outside. It’s a pretty good maneuver, and believe it or not, I’ve been a high scorer.
Don’t get too discouraged. I know how much you wanted to go out to your summer place, but it’s only July. You can go into remission and make it out there yet. Just think. If the seas are choppy, you won’t get seasick, because your stomach is so used to upheaval!
Love,
Kimbra
July 25, 1979
Dear Jenny,
Cancer camp is a whole lot more fun than I ever thought it would be. I’ve met a bunch of girls, and I actually like a few of them. Not to worry. No one can ever take the place of you and Kimbra. We’re the Three Musketeers, aren’t we?
I met a cut guy here too. His name is Tony, and he had a brain tumor removed when he was twelve. He’s doing fine now and has been coming to this camp for three years. He took me on a moonlight canoe ride, and it was positively magnifico. (Tony’s teaching me Spanish. If fact, he’s teaching me plenty of other things too.) If the three of us get together at Christmas like we’re planning, I’ll tell you and Kimbra all about it. Maybe.
Did I tell you that I’ve been recommended for my school’s gifted program? What a joke! Me, gifted. Maybe it was all those chemo treatments. I don’t know if I want to be gifted or not. Being smart is such a social downer in my school. Oh well … what’s a person to do?
Love,
Elaine
August 5, 1979
Dear Elaine,
I’m jealous. Canoe rides in the moonlight sure beats elevator rides down to chemo. I’ve lost all my hair again. Somehow, it’s not as important to me this time as it was last. All I want to do is get out of this place.
Richard’s working at his dad’s law firm again, and he comes by every day to visit. I can’t believe I was such a dope about keeping him away last summer. I mean, he doesn’t care how I look (which is pretty awful). And it’s so wonderful to have him around. Grandmother’s a little jealous, I think, but she’s tolerating it.
By the way, congrats on your gifted status. Noreen would have loved to blab it all around. Don’t be afraid of being a “brain.” Think of all the college offers you’ll get. Brains are worth scholarship bucks, according to Richard.
Love,
Jenny
August 17, 1979
Dear Jenny,
Mom took me out to buy school supplies today. How do you like my purple ink? I’m actually looking forward to my junior year. I learned so much at basketball camp, and my high school coach is talking about my starting in January. I really think we have a shot at the state title this year. Keep the faith! I worry about you.
Kimbra
August 26, 1979
Dear Kimbra,
I never thought I’d be jealous about someone returning to school, but I am. This was supposed to be the September I went back, but it looks like I’ll be tutored again.
The good news is that I’m going home! Dr. Gallagher doesn’t say much except that he wants me to get lots of rest and be comfortable. I have so many pills to take that Grandmother’s hired Mrs. Kelly to live in and watch over my medications.
The one thing I’m looking forward to is Labor Day weekend on Martha’s Vineyard. Grandmother’s flying us over even though the season is all but officially over. So what? Fewer tourists to bump into. Richard’s coming too, and we’ll finally get in a sail and a picnic. Can you believe we’ve been talking about doing this for a whole year? I only wish I felt better. I’m tired, Kimbra. Tired of being sick, tired of taking treatments. Sometimes I wonder if I’ll ever get well. Dr. Gallagher talks about new treatments coming along all the time, but some of them are a long way off. Right now, I’m simply trying to make it to 1980. Don’t worry so much about me. I’m doing the best I can. Having Richard around helps, but I wish I could see you and Elaine too.
Love,
Jenny
PS. Elaine says she’s got some flu bug, so she won’t be returning to school on time either.
September 1, 1979
Dear Jenny,
Hope you and the hunk have the time of your lives. Have you ever thought of tying him to the mast of that sailboat and making him your love slave? It was just a thought.
Have fun, and then write and tell me all about it. And I want details!
Love,
Kimbra
Twenty-Four
THIS MUST BE WHAT HEAVEN’S LIKE, Jenny thought. She sat on the bow of Richard’s boat and watched the hull slice through the water of the cobalt blue Atlantic. Behind her, Richard stood at the helm, and the magnificent white sail flapped in the stiff northerly breeze. Sun sparkled on the water like silver sequins; puffy clouds, chased by the wind, skidded across the blue sky; and tangy salt spray moistened her skin and stung her eyes. Yes … this was purely heaven.
Jenny wrapped her arms around her knees and pulled them against her chest. She wanted the brisk wind to blow away the smell of the hospital that clung to her skin. She wanted the sun to evaporate the stench of medications and treatments, of sickness and pain. Even though she wore a cable knit wool sweater and an oversize windbreaker, she was cold. But the scent of the sea was so delicious, the feel of the spray so luxurious, she couldn’t bring herself to climb off the bow and return to the boat’s cockpit, where she would be partially shielded.
“Ahoy! You all right?” Richard shouted, breaking the spell of sun and sea.
She turned and yelled, “I’m perfect.”
“Why don’t you come here and hol
d the helm for a spell?”
She knew he was trying to protect her. Her grandmother hadn’t liked the idea of their going sailing at all. “It’s too taxing,” Marian had argued the night before. “Too much exertion for you.”
“I’ll be sitting down the whole time,” Jenny insisted. “Richard will be doing all the work.”
Marian had cast Richard a hard glance. “I won’t do anything to hurt Jenny,” Richard had contended.
“Don’t forget to take your medicine on time,” her grandmother called out as they’d left that morning.
How could she forget? Jenny wondered. She longed to throw the pills into the sea. They made her groggy and disoriented, but they did help check the constant pain she seemed to be in these days. The last time she’d been released from the hospital, she’d been weak, but at least she’d felt better than she did this time.
Richard studied Jenny as she sat curled up on the bow. She looked fragile to him, like a rose battered by wind and pelted by rain. She was impossibly thin. Her clothing hung on her frame. Dark circles rimmed her eyes, and her facial bones protruded from beneath pale, stretched skin.
He wanted to protect her, take care if her. If only he could. After he’d worked months to make Jenny let him into her life, Marian was trying to push him out. He felt a deep, growing resentment toward Jenny’s grandmother. He and Marian had had an argument the night before, when Jenny had gone up to bed and he was preparing to leave.
Marian had ushered him to the front door of her summer home, where she had attempted to talk him out of their plan to go sailing and picnicking. “It’s simply too long a day for her,” Marian had stated. “She’ll be totally worn out.”
“She wants this, and I’m going to give it to her. I’ll be careful. I’m not stupid, you know.”
“That isn’t the point.”
“What is the point, Mrs. Crawford? Why are you working so hard to keep Jenny and me apart? Now that she’s in remission again, I’d think you’d be doing everything to encourage her to get on with her life. I know I’m not the kind of man you want for Jenny, but I love her. And I’m not going to disappear now that she’s on the mend. I don’t care how many relapses she has, I’ll be here for her.”
Marian had pressed her lips together, refusing to comment. Finally, she’d given him a penetrating look and said, “Very well. Take her out tomorrow. Give her the good time she wants so much.”
Marian’s attitude had irked him. As if he were going to show her a bad time—
“What are you thinking about so hard?”
Jenny’s question jerked Richard out of his thoughts. She had crawled back from the bow and was gazing at him through the ship’s wheel. He grinned, hooked his elbow through the wheel to hold it steady, and helped her down. “I was thinking what a terrific-looking figurehead you make.”
She jutted her upper body forward. “Like the ones sailors used to carve on the prows of old ships? Thanks. I love being called a relic.”
Richard laughed heartily. “You’re hardly a relic, Jennifer Warren Crawford.”
“I don’t know.… I think my bones are creaking.”
“That’s the ship’s deck. Or maybe my stomach. What do you say I lower our mainsail and toss out the anchor, and we eat the grub your grandmother’s cook packed for us?”
She wasn’t hungry. She never had much of an appetite these days, but she agreed. He spread a blanket on the deck, padding it with cushions and life jackets from the quarters below deck. She helped him set the food out—enough to feed four people—and watched as he ate heartily.
“Peel you a grape?” he asked when he saw that she wasn’t eating much.
“Aren’t you kind. No … I’m enjoying watching you eat.”
“You mean pig out, don’t you?” She giggled, and he pulled her down so that her head rested in his lap. “Open wide.”
She obeyed, and he placed a plump purple grape in her mouth. It tasted sweet and cool. “Very good,” she said.
He stroked her cheek with the back of his hand. “Yes, very good.”
His eyes glowed green as emeralds, and she felt the old, familiar yearning for him. “Why are you so nice to me?”
“Figure it out for yourself.”
She tried to concentrate, to work out his enigmatic answer, but the gentle swell of the water beneath the boat, the warmth of the sun, and the sound of the lax sail fluttering overhead were making her eyelids grow heavy. “I’ll have to figure it out later. Now I need to take a little nap.” She hated losing even a minute of this wonderful day.
“A nap sounds good to me too.” He stretched out alongside her, raised himself on, one elbow, and gazed down on her upturned face.
“Just a little nap, all right? Wake me soon,” she asked as her eyes closed.
He watched as she drifted off to sleep, and when he was certain that she slept, he bent and kissed each eyelid more softly than the summer breeze.
“But I want to go to the cave. You promised.” Jenny jutted her lower lip stubbornly and refused to budge from the end of the dock.
“Jen, it’s almost four o’clock. I’ll bet your grandmother’s pacing the floor looking for us.” Richard tried to reason with her. They’d hit a headwind, and it had taken him far longer to bring the Triple H into port than he’d anticipated.
“I don’t care. This is my special day, remember? I get to do whatever I want, and now I want to go to the cave.”
There would be no reasoning with her, he knew. Even though he could see she was in pain, even though she refused to take one of her pain pills, she wasn’t going to back down. “At least, let me call Marian,” he said.
“No way. She’ll pitch a fit and insist we come straight home. If we hurry, we can get to the cave and still be home before dark.”
“It doesn’t get dark until almost ten o’clock.” He groaned. “She’ll have my head.”
“Since when did my grandmother start scaring you? You used to poke fun at her and make me laugh and feel very guilty about it.” She tried to cajole him into giving her her way.
Before she had the power to keep me out of your life, Richard almost told Jenny. “All right, well go, but when your grandmother flies out of the house and puts her hands around my throat, I expect you to come to my rescue.”
She giggled, temporarily erasing the lines of pain from around her mouth. He knew then that he would do anything for her and suffer the consequences later.
Quickly, he drove along the beach road, to its end, where there was nothing but curving beachfront and high granite bluffs facing the sea.
“It’s even more beautiful than I remember,” Jenny said, getting out of the car.
He had parked as close to the cliffs as possible, but they still had a long walk, to be followed by a stiff climb. “Are you sure you’re up to this?”
“I’m going,” she insisted.
They walked along the water’s edge until it became impossible to avoid the jutting stone and swirling water. “Tide’s coming in,” he said. “I hope we can find the entrance.”
“We’ll find it.”
He helped her struggle up the first layer of rock and inch westward around the surface. “The entrance’s not easy to find.” He was talking half to himself. “I was a kid of ten when I first found it.”
“And you showed it to me that first summer I came to live with my grandmother. I’ll never forget all the picnics we’ve had here over the years.”
He felt for a partially hidden crevice, and when his fingers hooked around it, he knew he’d found the opening. “Duck,” he told her, pulling her tightly against his chest.
Huddled together, they walked hunched for twenty feet, then the confinement ended and they stepped inside a vast cave.
Twenty-Five
INSIDE THE CAVE, stalactites hung like icicles from the ceiling and along the walls in a rigid fringe. The ceiling soared to a small opening that allowed light to enter, but because the light was so diffused, the cave became lit in an eth
ereal blue. The formations stood out in blue etched relief, like carvings on grotto walls.
Tears swam in Jenny’s eyes. “It’s like coming home,” she whispered as scenes from her childhood bombarded her.
Richard felt he’d stayed away far too long. Yet, it hadn’t seemed right to come here without her during his few visits to his parent’s island cottage over the summer. “Are you warm enough?”
The cave was damp and chilly, and she was cold, but she couldn’t force herself to leave so soon. She hugged her arms to herself and walked across the granite floor toward the formation that they had used as a tabletop when they’d been younger. “Remember the times I served us tea?” she asked, ignoring his question.
“We brought it in a thermos and poured it into your grandmother’s best china cups.”
“I sneaked them out of the house.”
Richard grinned. “But we never so much as chipped one of them, did we?”
“Never.” She peered around the tabletop plateau. Something was nagging at her memory, something concerning Richard from last summer. If only her brain weren’t so numb with pain, she would be able to remember.…
“Hey, look.” Richard pointed upward.
The hole emitting rays from a setting sun resembled a halo, and as the beams filtered downward, they changed from bright blue, to lavender blue, to midnight blue. She stood beneath the hole, and blue light spilled over her.
Richard felt his breath catch. She seemed to come from another universe, beautiful and full of light.
“Come stand with me.”
He went to her, and without speaking, they slid into each other’s arms. “It’s like being in a cathedral,” she whispered, looking up at him. “Like a holy place only for us.”
He couldn’t stop himself from kissing her long and deep.
For Jenny, in that instant, her girlhood fantasies turned into reality. Richard was holding her, kissing her. Her heart raced, and her bones turned liquid. How long had she wished for this moment? How long had she dreamed about it? If only the light were magic and could turn them both to stone, then throughout time, they would be together.