“I’m not having much fun.”
Grandmother smiled wistfully. “When you were a child, you used to tell me that on days it would rain and you couldn’t go the beach.”
Jenny felt as if her whole life was being rained on at the moment. “Do you know what’s going on with all these tests yet?” she asked.
“Not yet.” Grandmother’s mouth said one thing, but her eyes said another.
“You do know, but you won’t tell me,” Jenny accused. When Jenny had first come to live with her grandmother, she had been in awe of Marian, who seemed very stern and businesslike—not at all like the affectionate mother who had kissed her, climbed on a train, and never come home.
Jenny hadn’t been living with her grandmother long when Marian came in her bedroom and discovered her sobbing beneath her covers. Right then, Marian had taken her into her arms and held her. “I do love you, Jenny,” she confessed. “I’m sorry I’ve not made you feel more welcome, less lonely. Please forgive me.”
It wasn’t until Jenny was quite a bit older that she’d begun to appreciate what an upheaval her unexpected entrance had caused in her grandmother’s life. In a week’s time, Marian had learned that her son was dead and that she was going to have to raise his daughter because there were no other relatives to take the child.
Jenny had grown up with life’s fine things—two houses, beautiful clothes, the best prep schools, but those things mattered little to her. Perhaps because she’d lost her parents when she’d been so young, what mattered most to her were the people in her life. Her grandmother, her few friends, Richard. More and more, Richard.
“Jenny,” Grandmother said, lifting her hand from the white sheet of the hospital bed. “When there is something to tell you, we will tell you. Until then, rest and keep your strength.”
Jenny nodded her acceptance, but like a condemned prisoner, she wasn’t sure where she’d find the courage to face the dawn and whatever it held about her future.
She was toying with the food on her breakfast tray and feeling awful when Dr. Gallagher arrived at seven the next morning. Surprised to see him so early, Jenny pushed the tray aside. Even more surprising was seeing her grandmother right beside him. The expressions on their faces told her that the two of them had been discussing her.
“It’s bad, isn’t it?” Jenny’s gaze darted from face to face.
“I told you I’d always level with you,” Dr. Gallagher said kindly.
“Yes, you did.” Jenny took hold of her grandmother’s offered hand. “What’s wrong with me?”
“The tests confirm that you have leukemia, Jenny. A particularly vicious and complicated form of leukemia.”
Seven
AT FIRST, THE words didn’t sink in. Leukemia. “That’s a kind of cancer, isn’t it?” She felt her grandmother’s hand tighten on hers.
“Yes,” Dr. Gallagher said. “What happens is that for reasons no one can explain, a single white blood cell in your bone marrow goes crazy. This mutant cell begins to multiply like wildfire and crowds out normal red blood cells. You become anemic—that’s why you’ve felt tired and listless. Your lymph glands and spleen swell. Yet, your white blood cells are immature, and as they begin to infiltrate your bloodstream and organs, you develop bruises and unexplained fevers.”
Jenny felt detached and numb, as if they weren’t discussing her at all. “Don’t people die from leukemia?” she asked.
“Not if I can help it,” Dr. Gallagher replied. “This is 1978, Jenny. In the fifties and sixties, this disease couldn’t be checked, but we know more about it today. We have some very potent chemotherapy—drugs to kill off the mutant cells. We use radiation treatments, cortisones, an arsenal of medications.”
Jenny felt icy cold with fear. Tears began to slide down her cheeks.
“We’re going to fight this thing,” her grandmother said, taking hold of her shoulders. “If it takes every penny in my bank account, every cent set aside in your trust fund, we’ll spend it. Nothing’s more important than your getting well, my dear Jenny. Nothing.”
Jenny longed to feel positive about her prospects, but she was so weak, so ill that she couldn’t sort it all out. How could she have possibly gotten leukemia? Why had her body turned on her this way?
“The first thing we’ll do,” Dr. Gallagher explained, “is give you a blood transfusion, which will make you feel better immediately. Next, I’ll start you on a chemo protocol and try and get this disease into remission.”
“Remission?”
“That’s a halt to the progression of the disease. Once it’s achieved, you can go home, and you’ll only have to come in for periodic blood work and chemo sessions.”
Home! Had a word ever sounded more beautiful to her? Jenny reached for a tissue. “All right. I’ll do whatever you want me to do.”
“That’s a girl,” the doctor said.
He left to write up the order for her transfusion, promising to check in on her later. “I’m scared, Grandmother. I don’t want to go through this.”
“I’m scared too,” the older woman confessed. “But you just remember, you’re from good Yankee stock.” Marian offered a slight smile. “I was a Winston-Cabot, and your grandfather a Crawford. Our ancestors came over on the Mayflower and carved a living out of the solid granite of Massachusetts—no easy task. You can lick this thing.”
“How long have you known?” Jenny asked. “You didn’t want me to know, did you?”
“Not until they were positive. There seemed no sense in worrying you.”
“Please don’t ever do that to me again.”
Marian gave Jenny a startled look. “Whatever do you mean?”
“You should have told me what they suspected. You had no right to hold back the truth.”
“There was no truth until today. It seemed pointless to let you worry over what could have been a false alarm.”
“But I had a right to know. Richard knows, doesn’t he?”
Grandmother’s cheeks flushed. “He knows what was suspected, but he doesn’t know about the positive lab results.”
“I want to tell him,” Jenny said.
Grandmother started to protest, but decided against it, telling Jenny, “Very well. But please don’t be angry with me. I was only trying to protect you.”
Seeing the pain on her grandmother’s face, Jenny felt a wave of forgiveness sweep through her. “How old was my father when he moved to London?”
“Warren was nineteen when he left home.”
“That’s only three years older than me.”
“Why is that important to you?”
Jenny wasn’t sure. She only knew that somehow, in the last half hour she’d passed from the world of childhood into the realm of adult. The passage had been quick and stunning and harsh, without time for even a backward glance. “Maybe because I always thought when I was grown, I would understand why he and Mother died. It must be in the same category as why people get cancer.”
Grandmother opened her arms and pulled Jenny into them. “I have no answers for you, my dear. Except to say that if I could have died in my son’s place, I would have. And if I could have this disease in your place, I would get it.”
Together, the two of them wept until a nurse entered, bringing an IV stand and two plastic bags of rich, red, healthy blood for Jenny.
The transfusion took several hours, but Dr. Gallagher had been correct in predicting that she would feel better. By that evening, Jenny felt revitalized. “Now I know how vampires feel after they’ve sunk their fangs into a victim’s neck,” Jenny told the nurse who came to check and regulate the flow of the blood.
With the IV line taped to her arm, Jenny attempted to put on makeup before Richard arrived. She wanted him to see her looking pretty again instead of sickly. “You look great,” he told her when he came into the room.
“The tests came back,” Jenny informed him, without preamble. “I have leukemia.”
His eyes closed, and he rocked back on his heels a
s if he’d been shoved by some invisible hand.
She didn’t want him feeling pity, so she continued matter-of-factly, “I’ll be starting chemotherapy tomorrow morning. I don’t know much about it yet, except that it’s unpleasant. I—I think it might be best if you don’t come visit for a while.”
“What? Why not?”
She was fibbing to him. She’d read about the side effects of chemo and talked to the nurses about it. She would get sick—deathly sick. At some point, she’d lose her hair, and she’d probably develop skin lesions and grow weak and disoriented as the poisons potent enough to kill the cancer cells killed healthy cells as well. The cortisone would make her face and limbs swell with retained water. The radiation would make her nauseated and ill. She didn’t want him to see her that way. “It’s what I want, Richard,” Jenny said quietly.
“But I want to be with you.”
“You can have a good time in Boston. You don’t need to hang around this place. You can sail over to Martha’s Vineyard on the weekends. Isn’t that girl there? You know, the one from Vassar you told me about?”
He said nothing, giving her the courage to continue. “You shouldn’t have to ruin your summer running back and forth to the hospital. It’ll be all right if you call me. I still want to keep in touch. I want to hear about your job and things like that.”
“How can you ask me to stay away? I don’t want you going through this all by yourself.”
“Grandmother will be with me. And Mrs. Kelly.”
“But not me.”
He made it sound like an accusation. She struggled against a flood of emotions. She wanted him with her more than anything, but she couldn’t tell him. “When it’s over,” she said carefully, “when I go into remission and go home, then I’ll make plans with you. Then you can take me sailing.”
Richard’s insides felt cold and hard. She was shutting him out! He kept seeing her as a little girl by the side of her parents’ graves. He had been the one to persuade her to leave the cemetery and go with her grandmother in the black limousine. “I don’t want to leave them,” she had cried when he’d knelt down beside her.
“You can’t stay,” he’d told her. “Come on with me. We’ll be friends.” Now, it was she who was telling him he couldn’t stay. “Jenny, please don’t do this. I want to see you through this thing.”
“I’d rather you see me after it’s over.” She gave a small laugh. “I made a joke.” The smile faded, and she stared at him. “Please, do what I ask.”
“You’re not being fair.” He backed toward the door, angry, agitated. “This isn’t over.”
“Call me,” she said as the door swung open. “Call me,” she whispered as it shut behind him.
Alone in the huge private room, Jenny trembled. She’d sent Richard away. It’s for the best, she insisted. Wasn’t everyone doing what was “best”? Her grandmother thought it best to protect her by holding back the truth. The doctor’s best was an attempt to heal her by pumping her full of chemicals and drugs. She was trying her best to handle what was happening to her without falling apart.
The aching emptiness inside her felt like a bottomless well. All her plans and dreams drifted away like smoke. And worst of all, she felt utterly and completely alone. Sure, Grandmother and the doctor would help her. But she was the one who had to endure the pain, the treatments, the loss of all her dreams. How could they truly understand what she was going through? How could anyone?
Jenny curled up on the bed and wept, not only for what she was losing, but for what she might never have.
Eight
NOTHING PREPARED JENNY for chemotherapy—not the reading material the nurses gave her, not descriptions of it from the nurses themselves. The chemo room was located several floors below Jenny’s private room. It was painted a soft green color and contained several contour chairs, each with a metal IV stand beside it. There was a TV set in the room, racks of magazines on the walls, a toy chest, and a fully stocked pantry. She noticed that there were no windows, and wondered if windows had been eliminated for fear that someone might try to crash through one in an attempt to escape.
Jenny stretched out on the curved chair, and when a nurse offered her an assortment of magazines, she experienced a sense of melancholy. Some of the titles were for small children, and it struck her profoundly that little ones, kids much younger than she, had to face this same ordeal.
“Ready?” a nurse named Lois asked.
“I guess so,” Jenny mumbled, although her brain screamed, Never! She was glad that when her grandmother had asked to come to the session with Jenny, Dr. Gallagher had said, “Jenny’s an adult. This is her disease. You’ll be needed later, after she returns to her room.” Instinctively, Jenny knew this was something no one could help her do. She must go down this road alone.
Lois prepped Jenny’s arm for the needle that would be inserted into her vein so that the powerful chemicals could drip slowly into her bloodstream. “The treatment takes about forty-five minutes,” Lois said. “If you need anything, just holler. I’ll be right over there at my desk.”
Jenny nodded and swallowed a lump of fear. She felt the tip of the needle slide into her flesh, and Lois tape it down. Her heart hammered. The worst is over, she told herself, attempting to relax.
Lois adjusted valves on tubing leading from two plastic bags on the IV stand and patted Jenny’s shoulder. “This will regulate the flow.” The nurse stepped away.
Panic seized Jenny as the first dose of medicine hit her system, for it burned like liquid fire. The sensation was so intense that she stared at her arm, certain that it would burst into flames. Suddenly, extreme nausea gripped her. Her stomach heaved, and she choked back bile.
Instantly, Lois was at her side. “Feeling a little shaky?” Lois handed her a beige plastic basin. “Don’t hold back. If you want to throw up, do it.”
Horrified, Jenny grabbed the basin, struggled in vain against the relentless waves of nausea, and finally gave in to them. She vomited over and over. Each time, Lois emptied the basin, washed Jenny’s face, and handed the basin back to her. Soon, Jenny was trembling and shaking from head to toe. Tears ran down her cheeks. How could she endure this torture?
“You will adjust,” Lois said softly.
All Jenny could do was silently beg God to let it be over—even if it meant dying right that moment.
Jenny didn’t die, but when the procedure was over, she was so weak that she had to be lifted onto a gurney for the return trip to her room. Once she was back in her bed, Mrs. Kelly and her grandmother fussed over her, and even though Jenny could see how pinched and white her grandmother’s face appeared, she could offer no words to comfort her.
“Don’t think about the bad parts,” Mrs. Kelly counseled as she placed a cool compress on the back of Jenny’s neck. “Think about how millions of cancer cells are dying inside your body because of the medicine. Think about how the chemo is hunting them down in your bloodstream and blasting them into oblivion.”
Jenny tried to focus on the positive, but had trouble. Yes, the bad were being destroyed, but what of her good cells? Weren’t they in danger too? How could she endure this kind of agony three times a week? She closed her eyes, certain that if the cancer didn’t kill her, the treatments would.
“Why can’t I see her? Why won’t she let me be with her?” Richard paced on the fine Oriental carpet in front of the ornate Louis XIV desk in Marian Crawford’s Boston mansion. Marian sat ramrod straight behind the desk, allowing him to vent his frustration. “I won’t upset her, Mrs. Crawford. All I want to do is see her. It’s been over three weeks.”
“Richard, please try and understand how physically and emotionally demanding her chemotherapy regime is. She’s really not up to having any visitors.”
“Visitors?” Richard fairly spat the word. “I’m not a visitor, Mrs. Crawford. I’m her friend. We’ve practically grown up together.”
“Then all the more reason for you to accept her wishes.”
> “What about my wishes? Don’t you know how crazy it’s making me not to be able to even see her?”
Marian stood abruptly, pressed her palms against the top of the desk, and leaned toward him. “This isn’t about you, Richard. For the time being, you will not be allowed to see her.”
Taken aback by her angry tone, Richard stopped pacing and turned to face Jenny’s grandmother. “You can’t stop me,” he said carefully.
“I can, and I will. I will post a security guard beside her door, and no one will be allowed entrance except medical personnel.”
“You’d go that far to keep me away from her?” He’d heard his father say that no one ever opposed Marian’s will and lived to tell about it. Until this moment, he’d never understood the remark made in frustrated jest. “Why do you hate me so much?” Richard asked.
Her stony expression didn’t dissolve. “Once again, it has nothing to do with you. It’s what Jenny wants, and at this time, I can give her very little. What I can give her, I shall. And right now, she wants to see no one. She wants privacy.”
Marian sat down and began sorting papers on her desk. Richard realized that it was her way of dismissing him. However, he was in no mood to be brushed off. “If I could just talk to her, I know I could change her mind about allowing me to visit.”
“Not at this time,” Marian replied, with obvious patience. “It’s nothing personal. It’s a woman thing.” She added the last remarks hesitantly, almost as if they might make amends for her harsh demeanor.
He struggled to sort out her meaning. “A ‘woman thing’?” he asked slowly. “Are you saying she doesn’t want me to see her because she looks bad?”
Marian gave him a sharp, penetrating look, but now that he had the opening, Richard barreled ahead with his argument. “I don’t care how she looks. All I want to do is see her, hold her hand, and talk to her. I know I can make her feel better. I’ve always been able to take her mind off her troubles.”
That much was true, Richard assured himself. That first summer, after her parents’ deaths and after she’d come to live with Marian, he’d taken Jenny under his wing and showed her all his secret places to play on Martha’s Vineyard. He’d taken her to the beach and shown her how to slip along a wall of seemingly solid granite to the narrow crevice that led to the cave. A cave full of pale blue light and shallow pools and mysteries from the sea. How he regretted not going there with her weeks before. Why had he lied about seeing some other girl? There was no one he wanted to be with more than Jenny.