“It’s still a hospital, Grandmother. I’m sure they take precautions against germs.” Jenny offered a chiding look. “Honestly, Grandmother, if I didn’t know better, I’d say you were acting snobbish. That you didn’t want me to mingle with these girls.”
Marian’s cheeks flushed. “I have nothing against the girls. Why, I don’t even know them. It’s simply that wards and sharing rooms are for people who can’t afford better.”
“And since I can, I should keep in my place and they in theirs. Is that what you’re saying?”
“Not at all.”
But Marian looked so flustered that Jenny reached out and covered her grandmother’s hands with her own. “You’ve taken excellent care of me, and I love you very much. I wouldn’t be asking this if it weren’t important to me. More than important,” she added hastily. “It’s necessary. If I have to stay up here one more day, I’ll go crazy.”
“I’ve only wanted to protect you, Jenny. Don’t you know what I’d give to make all this go away for you?”
Jenny gazed at her levelly. “It’s not going to go away. At least not by wishing. I’ve changed a lot these last two months. And I don’t mean just on the outside.” She smiled wryly. “All, my life, I’ve been just a little bit different from my friends. I didn’t grow up in a regular family with a mom and a dad. I was an orphan. I never boarded at school like all my friends. I was driven in a chauffeured car back and forth every day.”
“I saw no need to ship you off to school. I wanted you with me.”
“And I wanted to be with you. But things are different now. I may not even be able to return to school and my friends. I have to find my way through this thing that’s happened to me by myself. I want to get well. I want to grow old and spend all that money you’ve socked away for me.” Jenny squeezed her grandmother’s hand. “And right now, I want to move in with Kimbra, Noreen, and Elaine. Please, don’t disapprove.”
Eleven
AFTER OBTAINING DR. Gallagher’s approval, Jenny, Mrs. Kelly, and her grandmother moved her things down to the pediatric oncology ward early the next morning. Elaine was receiving a chemo treatment, and Noreen was in Radiology, so only Kimbra was present to help her settle in.
“Is this real silver?” Kimbra asked, holding up Jenny’s antique fountain pen.
“Um—it was a gift.”
“And this picture frame—was it a gift too? Wow, who’s the hunk?” Kimbra held up a photograph of a smiling Richard standing on the bow of the Triple H. Jenny had been unable to force herself to send it home with her grandmother, so it remained with her, her only reminder of better days and of all the things she wanted to return to when remission was finally achieved.
“A friend,” Jenny said.
“Just a friend?” Kimbra arched an eyebrow. Jenny shot a sideways glance toward her grandmother. Later, she mouthed silently, and Kimbra caught the hint.
“We’ve scheduled a Monopoly marathon tonight in the activity room,” Kimbra announced, setting down the photograph. “Want to join us?”
“What’s that?”
“Once a week, we have an all-night game session. It helps take our minds off upchucking. If one of us gets too sick to play, then someone takes over her place at the board. We play until someone owns the board and the others are in bankruptcy.” Kimbra grinned. “There’s a certain sense of satisfaction that comes with winning, and showing opponents no mercy. The night nurses help out by offering us food—anything we want, anything we can keep down.”
“You need your rest,” Grandmother interjected.
Jenny had forgotten that Marian was eavesdropping. “I’m sure the nurses won’t let us do anything that’s harmful.”
“Heck, no,” Kimbra said. “They do their best to make us as happy as possible. They know how tough all this is on kids—especially little ones. Some nights, we all go down the hall and cuddle the younger kids. They get scared, and their mothers can’t always stay round-the-clock.”
Jenny had always liked little kids, although she’d never spent much time around them. And she vividly remembered what it felt like to be without the familiar comfort of her parents, to be alone and scared in a strange place. “It will be fun to do both things,” Jenny replied. “I haven’t played Monopoly in years.” Not since one summer when it had rained almost every day. Then, she and Richard had set up a Monopoly game in her grandmother’s sunroom and kept it going for weeks.
“Just don’t get overtired,” Grandmother warned.
Jenny insisted she could handle the schedule, then, feeling a certain amount of relief, said goodbye as her grandmother went home for the afternoon.
“She’s awfully protective,” Kimbra observed.
“She means well. I’m all she has.”
“You’re lucky to have family close by. Since my folks live in Baltimore, they can only get up here once or twice a month. And poor Elaine’s folks can only make it every five or six weeks.”
“How about Noreen’s family? She lives in the city.”
Kimbra grinned, “Every time you turn around, you’re tripping over one of her kin. There’s so many of them that I can’t keep them all straight. She has a couple of older brothers who are really cute, but what guy’s going to take a second look at a one-armed girl?”
“What guy’s going to look seriously at any of us?” Jenny countered. “We’re not exactly a bunch of beauty queens, you know.”
Kimbra appraised Jenny carefully. “Sorry, Jenny, but not even baldness and a moonface can make you look ugly.”
“You don’t have to be kind—I’ll share the dresser with you,” Jenny quipped. Still, Kimbra’s evaluation meant much to Jenny. She only wished she felt good enough about her looks to face Richard. She missed him. She wondered if he was dating anyone special now that he was alone in the city. Don’t torture yourself, she commanded silently. Nothing could have ever happened between them anyway.
“Are you still with me?”
Kimbra’s question caused Jenny to start from her musings. “Absolutely.”
“By the way you were staring into space, I thought you’d checked out.”
“Only in my dreams,” Jenny said with a sigh. “Only in my dreams.”
Elaine returned from her chemo session looking white-faced and sick. “I won’t throw up,” Elaine mumbled. “I won’t.”
“Why do you fight it every time?” Noreen asked. Her radiation treatment hadn’t wiped her out as much as Elaine’s chemo one. “Just let it rip. You know you’ll feel better.”
Jenny understood completely. Vomiting was disgusting and very debilitating. “Would it help if I read to you?” she asked. “Kimbra says we don’t start our Monopoly-a-thon until at least eleven.”
“No one’s read to me since I was a little kid.”
“Sometimes it helps to concentrate on something other than how your insides feel,” Jenny said. “And I have just the right book.” She whipped out a dogeared copy of Gone with the Wind. “I’ll start with Scarlett flirting with all her boyfriends at the picnic at Twelve Oaks. That’s where she meets Rhett, you know.”
Jenny began to read, taking on different voices for the different characters. Soon, Kimbra and Noreen had gathered around Elaine’s bed and were listening intently. She read until she was almost hoarse, but her suggestion worked. Elaine didn’t throw up and finally drifted off to sleep. Jenny dosed the book and went across the room to her bed.
“Good job,” Noreen whispered.
“It really worked,” Kimbra said.
“Sometimes it does.” Jenny tossed the book down and stretched out on her bed. Suddenly, she was exhausted, then realized that she hadn’t taken one nap that day, though lately she’d been taking several out of boredom. “Tomorrow is my turn down in the chamber of horrors,” she said with a sigh.
“So we’ll read to you,” Kimbra promised.
“With three of us on chemo, what happens when we finish the book?” Noreen wanted to know.
“Don’t worry.”
Jenny pulled open her bedside drawer and pulled out several thick paperback novels. “The Fountainhead, Anna Karenina, and War and Peace. I think we can manage to fill up the hours.”
The two girls laughed, and Jenny smiled too. How good it was to hear the sound of laughter. How good it felt not to be alone in the room. Why hadn’t she discovered these friends before now?
Richard confronted Marian in her parlor one evening after he left work. “Why isn’t she getting better? Why is it taking so long?”
Marian rubbed her temples with her fingertips. “Dr. Gallagher is concerned that it’s taking an inordinately long time for Jenny to achieve a remission.”
“Isn’t there anything else he can do?”
“Unfortunately, no. He’s told me about bone marrow transplants, but they’re still rather experimental.”
“I’ve never heard of them.”
“It’s a new frontier, the new hope for leukemia treatment. They actually transplant bone marrow from a healthy donor into a leukemia victim. It’s had some success when the transplant has been between identical twins.”
Richard’s heart sank. Jenny wasn’t a twin. “Well, I know that she and I aren’t related, but I’ll be a donor if they can use me.”
Marian considered him kindly. “Medical science hasn’t solved the rejection problem yet. According to Dr. Gallagher, each person’s immune system is unique, and when a foreign substance enters the bloodstream, the body begins to fight it off. In order for a transplant to work, they have to destroy a person’s immune system, and that makes a person susceptible to any germ that comes along.”
“So even when good marrow could cure Jenny, her body won’t accept it. Some hope,” he added sarcastically. “Is this the best that can be done for her? All the chemo and radiation?”
“I’ve contacted doctors all over the world, even clinics specializing in cancer research. They tell me the same thing. For now, this is all that can be done for Jenny. In ten years—in 1988 instead of 1978, more advances will probably change the situation for patients.”
“Born too soon” Richard said, feeling defeated. “What a paradox.” He remembered the night of the dance. If only he could put his arms around her again, he wouldn’t let go. “She writes that she likes the ward she’s in.”
“At first, I didn’t approve,” Marian admitted, “but the other girls have been good for her morale. According to Dr. Gallagher, a positive mental outlook is helpful.”
Richard wished his morale were better. It had been too long since he’d seen Jenny, and he missed her. In another month, he’d be returning to Princeton, and although he wasn’t looking forward to it, he had to admit that attending classes would beat his summer job by a long shot. And beat the waiting for Jenny to come home. The endless waiting.
Twelve
DR. GALLAGHER PUT Jenny on a new experimental drug that left her so vulnerable to secondary infections, she had to wear a mask over her nose and mouth that filtered out germs from the air. The drug made her sick, she dropped six pounds in a week, but her blood work began to show improvement. Fewer leukemia cells—blasts—showed up in her bone marrow.
“After two weeks, we’ll take you off this stuff and put you back on more conventional therapy,” Dr. Gallagher told her. “So keep the faith.” He used his familiar words of encouragement and squeezed her hand.
At the same time Jenny was being pumped full of the potent new chemical, Noreen’s doctor scheduled her for surgery to remove the tumor in her stomach. The night before she was to be taken down for the operation, the four roommates huddled together in their room. “I hope this guy knows what he’s doing and doesn’t take out my whole stomach,” Noreen grumbled.
Jenny could tell Noreen was trying to keep up a brave front for them as well as her family, who had just left amid promises to be back at the crack of dawn.
“Think of the bright side,” Elaine offered. “You would never have to worry about dieting again.”
“Plus, what they’re taking out of you won’t show up on your outside,” Kimbra said, waving her stump of an arm. “That should count for something.”
Noreen pulled her covers up to her chin. “Do you have any books to take my mind off tomorrow, Jenny?”
“All I can think of is some of the psalms in the Bible.”
Noreen made the sign of the cross. “Ma told me our parish priest is coming with them tomorrow to wait through my surgery. I guess if things don’t go right, he can give me last rites.”
“Stop talking like that,” Jenny’s voice sounded muffled because of the mask, but her tone was sharp enough to make Noreen look startled. “You’re going to come through this just fine. In fact, after it’s all over and you’re back down here with us, I’ll throw you a party.”
Noreen perked up. “What kind of party?”
“What kind do you want?”
“Something with a gigantic cake. And ice cream.”
“You’ll have a vat of the stuff.”
“And a rock band.”
“The loudest.”
“Can I have my brothers and sisters come too? And some of my old friends from school and the neighborhood?”
Just then, the medications nurse, Mrs. Henry, entered the room carrying a tray of assorted pills and cups of liquid medicines. “Teatime,” she announced. Then, glancing at their faces, she asked, “What are you four cooking up?”
“Us? Why nothing,” Kimbra replied innocently.
“Then why do you all look as if you’re up to something?”
“Jenny’s going to throw me a party after my surgery,” Noreen explained. “Something small and private.”
Nurse Henry still looked suspicious. “Since when have any of you done anything small and private? I mean, who started the war during last week’s art therapy session?”
“Oh, that.” Jenny said, recalling how during the session, Noreen and Kimbra had decided to decorate each other, in addition to their crafts projects, with gold and silver glitter. Soon, the entire room had erupted into chaos, and glitter had fallen like rain.
“Yes, that.” The nurse tried to keep a straight face. “I hear that the janitors are still picking glitter out of the carpet.”
“I’m still finding it embedded in my head,” Elaine said, rubbing the top of her bald head with her hand.
“And you expect me to believe that you’re going to have a sedate little party?”
All of the girls exchanged glances. “Let’s just say it won’t be boring,” Jenny replied.
“Well, I think all of you should take your medicine and turn out the lights. Noreen has a big day ahead of her tomorrow.”
“I’d almost forgotten. Why did you have to remind me?”
“Will you make sure someone keeps us informed, since we can’t go into the recovery room and check on her ourselves?” Elaine asked.
“Someone will keep you posted,” the nurse assured them.
“We have to stick together,” Kimbra told her. “We are the Four Musketeers, you know.”
“More like the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse,” Mrs. Henry said with a wry smile.
After she left, Elaine turned to the others. “Who are the Four Horsemen of the whatever-she-said?”
“I’ve heard of them,” Noreen replied. “They’re in the Bible.”
“I think they’re associated with major calamities,” Jenny said. “Like pestilence and famine.”
“Who mentioned famine?” Elaine asked. “I’m so hungry, I could eat the paint off the walls.”
“You’re always hungry,” Kimbra insisted.
“How can you talk about food when I’m about to have my stomach amputated? Give me a break!”
“You’re not thinking about the bright side—diets will be a thing of the past,” Jenny told her returning to what Elaine had said earlier.
Noreen let out an exasperated screech, which started them giggling. An hour later, they turned off the lights for the night, but lay in the darkness and talked until one by one
, they fell asleep.
Jenny felt as if she’d scarcely closed her eyes when she heard the orderlies come to take Noreen down for surgery. In the semidarkness of the room, Jenny was instantly awake. “Keep the faith,” she told Noreen. “Make sure that surgeon gets all the bad stuff.”
Jenny knew her friend had been given preop medication, which would make her groggy. As she was rolled past on the gurney, Noreen held up her thumb and offered a lopsided smile. Jenny felt her heart clutch. “Be all right,” she whispered to the darkness after Noreen had been wheeled from the room.
Neither she, Kimbra, nor Elaine felt like doing anything that morning. They lounged around their room, reading and watching TV. Outside, it poured rain, the weather matching their glum moods.
“I would have won ten thousand dollars if I’d been on that game show,” Elaine said halfheartedly during a particular program. “Maybe someday, I’ll go on one, and they’ll have a category on cancer. I’m sure I could answer every question.”
“What would you do with ten thousand dollars if you won it?” Jenny asked.
“She’d probably fritter it away on hamburgers,” Kimbra answered for Elaine.
“A lot you know,” Elaine said with toss of her head. “I’d save it and go to college.”
College. The word pricked Jenny. Naturally, college had been in her plans. Her grandmother had spoken often about Wellesley as a fine place for “proper young women.” At the moment, Jenny couldn’t remember the last time she’d thought about school, much less college.
“Why is it taking so long?” Kimbra blurted, irritated. “They should have finished by now.”
“Maybe her doctor’s just slow,” Jenny offered.
“This whole place is slow. We all should have been out of here ages ago.”
“I wish—” Elaine began.
“Well, stop wishing,” Kimbra snapped. “Wishing for something is dumb and stupid. Wishes don’t ever come true, so why bother?”