Alexis wanted to shake the girl until her teeth rattled, but she knew it would accomplish nothing. Emotionally, Kelly was like a shallow pond. In a storm of adversity, she had no depth, and therefore no place to anchor her loyalty. She could be no safe harbor for someone who loved her. “Kelly, you’re pathetic. I feel sorry for you because you don’t know that love and loyalty go together. Just remember, what you dish out will one day come back to you. You and Wade deserve each other.”
Alexis turned on her heels and left the ladies’ room.
Sawyer was leaning against a wall, waiting for her out in the hallway.
“Kelly’s sorry, but it’s just too painful for her to watch Adam suffer.” Alexis boiled down the confrontation into one burst of anger, dripping with sarcasm.
Sawyer pushed off from the wall, took her arm. “Time to go.”
Hot tears of frustration brimmed in Alexis’s eyes. “I shouldn’t be making you leave.”
“The music sucks. Come on. Let’s go see your brother.” He slipped her sweater around her shoulders, and together they walked out of the ballroom.
Adam was listlessly flipping through TV channels when they arrived in his room. “Short dance,” he said, looking surprised to see them.
“We didn’t want to stay,” Alexis said. “The air stunk.”
“Who was she with?”
“Wade,” Sawyer said. “Want me to break his kneecaps for you?”
Adam grinned halfheartedly. “You can’t make somebody love you if they don’t. I guess I always knew Kelly was with me for the wrong reasons.”
Alexis didn’t mention her talk with Kelly. Why prolong Adam’s misery? “You want company?” she asked.
“You two are dressed up. Go out and have a good time.”
Sawyer picked up the remote and aimed it at the TV. “I think there’s a game on ESPN. What’s more fun than watching that?”
“Watching paint dry?” Alexis asked.
Sawyer snorted and exchanged pity-the-poor-girl looks with Adam.
They were just settling in when Tessa swooped into the room, carrying two brown grocery sacks. “It’s me, a geek bearing gifts,” she joked at her own expense.
“What are you doing here?” Adam asked.
In the turmoil of the evening, Alexis had forgotten Tessa’s statement about dropping by to visit a sick friend.
“I was bored stupid at home, so I said to myself, ‘Self, why not get out of here and do something fun?’ ”
“Coming here is fun?” Adam asked. “You’ve got to get out more often.”
“Let me help,” Sawyer said, taking one of the sacks. He put it on the table.
“What’s in the bags?” Adam asked.
To Alexis, he sounded more like his old self, and she silently blessed Tessa for taking his mind and heart off Kelly.
Tessa seized the remote from Sawyer and turned off the television. “I’ve brought good stuff.” She opened a bag and proceeded to pull out board games one by one. “I’ve got Clue, Trivial Pursuit, Monopoly, Scrabble—a game for every taste and every mood. And if that’s not enough . . .” She reached into the bag again and brought out dominoes, checkers and three decks of cards. “Plus, for those of us who hanker for a little snack while we play”—she reached into the second bag—“I’ve brought popcorn, soda, a bag of M&Ms, a can of peanuts, two packages of Oreos, one package of Vienna Fingers and tadum, a thermos full of rocky road ice cream.”
“All right!” Sawyer said, taking the lid off the Monopoly box. “What say we team up, Adam, and take on these two amateurs?”
“Are we being challenged?” Alexis asked Tessa. “The debate queens of Kendall High?”
“Seems so,” Tessa said, stacking up the Monopoly money.
Adam pulled his chair closer to the table. “I’m already a winner,” he said, glancing appreciatively from face to face. “Thanks to you three, I just got a Get Out of Jail Free card without even rolling the dice.”
SIXTEEN
“It’s official. I’m stuck here for Christmas,” Adam told Alexis. He was in bed that day because he was having a particularly difficult time with his treatments. The chemo cocktail had taken its toll, leaving him limp, weak, without any energy. He kept a bedpan within reach because he could keep nothing in his stomach.
“Can’t you bribe your doctor to let you out for one day?” Alexis was in his room addressing Christmas card envelopes for their mother, who’d gone down to buy the two of them some lunch. School was out for the holidays, and they came to visit Adam every day.
“I’ve already begged,” Adam said.
The pediatric floor was decorated for the holidays, but the number of patients staying over the holidays was going to be small. Of those who were staying, a few would receive day passes, enabling them to leave on Christmas Eve and return late afternoon on Christmas Day. But not Adam.
“Well, not to worry. I’ve already got a plan.”
“Ally, you always have a plan.”
“It’s a good plan. We’re going to set up an artificial tree in that corner”—she pointed—“and bring all our gifts down here first thing Christmas morning. How’s that sound?”
“It sounds like I’ll be the only one in the family without presents to give.”
“Au contraire,” Alexis said with a wave of her hand. “I took the liberty of shopping for you. You bought Dad a bookstore gift card, Mom a sweater with fake fur trim and me two new CDs. Thanks a bunch.”
He shook his head. “Gee, I hardly remembering hitting the stores. Did I have fun picking out these things?”
“Tessa and I acted on your behalf, so yes, you had fun.”
“Well, is it too late to ask you to do me a favor?”
She laid down her ballpoint pen. Even from where she was sitting, she could see that Adam was struggling with the exertion of talking. His skin had a yellow cast, and purplish half circles lay under his eyes like bruises. “Anything, just name it,” she said.
“I’ve heard that Rudy’s finally going home.”
“Wow, that’s a great Christmas present.”
“Yes, it is. And I thought of another one. I lie here with plenty of time to think,” he said. “Nights are the worst because I wake up and can’t get back to sleep.”
“Did you tell Mom? Or your doctor?”
He took a couple of deep breaths. “This isn’t about sleeping better. It’s about something I want to do for him. And for the other kids too. But I’ll need your help.”
“Tell me what you want.”
“Maybe it’s something you and Tessa can do together. I know how much you both like projects.”
“I’m sure Tessa will help.”
“You’ll have to get money from Dad.”
“Piece of cake.”
A tiny smile quivered on his mouth. “Then here’s what I want you to do for me. . . .”
With less than a week before Christmas, Alexis picked up Tessa for their day of special shopping from the list Adam had given her. “He wants me to help?” Tessa asked. “I can’t get over it.”
“He asked that we do it together. And why shouldn’t he? You visit him almost as much as I do. He’s depending on you. That should tell you something about his feelings for you.”
“It tells me that I’m like a second sister to him,” Tessa said. “Not that I’m complaining. Although I’d rather have him look at me with love in his eyes. You know, the way Sawyer looks at you.”
“All in good time,” Alexis said. It heartened Alexis to know that Tessa saw past Adam as he was now, ravaged by cancer and his treatments. “Ready to hit the stores?”
“Are we financed?”
Alexis reached into her purse and pulled out a small square of plastic. “Dad’s card.”
“He’s given it to you again? After Disney World?”
To Alexis, the days at Disney were a distant memory. So much had happened since then. “Not for me. For Adam,” she said, putting the car into gear.
They wen
t to three department stores, four specialty stores and two giant toy stores, where they looked at more than a hundred different teddy bears before choosing the ones they wanted. “The most important ingredient,” Tessa said, stroking one of the cute, cuddly bears as Alexis wove in and out of the heavy holiday traffic.
Next they went to a party store, where they bought several bags of party favors. And finally, they stopped at a piece-goods store and bought an assortment of material, sequins, glue, thread and other odds and ends. After five hours of shopping, they returned to Alexis’s house and spread their bounty out on the dining room table. “The most underused piece of furniture in the place,” Alexis told Tessa. She wasn’t complaining, because she and her parents ate most of their meals up at the hospital these days as a family.
They began to sort through the party favors and were cutting pieces of material into heart and star shapes when Eleanor came into the room. “What are the two of you up to?”
“A very special project,” Alexis said, snipping away at a yard of red satin. “Adam wants to give every kid on his floor a teddy bear for Christmas. Especially Rudy. But he doesn’t want them to be just store-bought teddy bears. He wants each one to be customized for its owner. Clever, huh?”
“How many bears are we talking about?” Eleanor scanned the table strewn with fuzzy bear bodies of different shapes and sizes.
“Fifteen.”
“And the two of you are going to customize fifteen bears by Christmas?”
“By Christmas Eve,” Alexis said. “That’s when Adam wants to take them around to every room and give them away.”
“How do you know what’s special to these kids? How do you know how to customize these bears?”
“Adam’s made friends with everyone on the floor, and he’s written down what each kid likes best. All we have to do is follow the list he’s made and tag the bear with the child’s name.” She held up a page of notes.
“This one’s for Rudy,” Tessa said, lifting a soft brown potbellied bear from the table. A fireman’s hat was strapped to its head, and a party-favor-sized ax was tied to its paw. “Don’t you think he’s adorable? We’re thinking of gluing a red satin heart onto his chest too. Or maybe a yellow satin star with HERO written on it. What do you think would look better?”
Eleanor stroked the bear, fingering the hat and the assortment of hearts and stars spread out like a fan. “Adam thought of this?”
“He did,” Alexis said. She watched her mother’s eyes go misty.
Eleanor cleared her throat. “Can I help?”
“Absolutely,” Alexis said without hesitation. “Neither Tessa nor I can sew worth a darn, and we’d really rather sew the heart or star on than glue it.”
“I can sew. I used to make your little dresses, remember?” Eleanor pulled out a dining room chair and began to thread a needle. “I like the star idea better,” she said. “More boyish, don’t you think?”
Alexis and Tessa exchanged glances. “Sure, Mom. Knock yourself out. There’s plenty of sewing to do.”
When Alexis’s father came home, he stopped in the doorway of the dining room, and Alexis once more explained about the project.
“Pretty ambitious,” he said. “A different bear for every kid?”
“It’s a good idea,” Alexis insisted. “Although I think it would be a good thing to give bears away to every child the minute he or she’s admitted to the floor. Of course, they couldn’t be customized, but the child would have something soft to hug.”
“You’re right,” Eleanor said. “Something cuddly to hug would be nice. I remember how scared Adam was when he was first checked in at age eleven. He was probably too old for teddy bears, but I know that if someone had handed him one he would have held on to it.”
Alexis thought back to that time when everything had changed for her family, and she wanted to say that things can be pretty scary for kids left alone at home too. “People are never too old for teddy bears. I still have my old Winnie the Pooh bear in my closet.”
Her father set down his briefcase and walked around the table to stand beside her mother. “What are you working on?”
Eleanor held up her handiwork for his inspection. “A ballerina bear. See the little toe shoes? We made them out of felt. And I sprinkled glitter on her tutu.”
“It’s for Sara,” Alexis said, looking over at the list. “She’s nine, and she has leukemia.”
Her father examined the bear, then handed it back to his wife. “Nice job. I’d forgotten how well you sew.”
“I haven’t done it for years, but I used to love sewing. I’d forgotten just how much.”
He gently swiped his thumb down her cheek. “You have glitter stuck to your skin.”
“It’ll wash off.”
He peered over at Alexis. “Is there anything I can do to help?”
Surprised by her father’s offer, she thought quickly. “How about ordering in some pizza? We’re starved.”
“I can handle that,” he said, sounding pleased.
“And then we’re going to need some name tags. Maybe you can make some on the computer with a couple of cool typefaces. I’ll punch a hole in the corners and tie them to each bear with a ribbon. Here’s the list of names we’ll need.”
He saluted her and took the piece of paper she handed him. “I’m on my way.”
Alexis caught Tessa’s eye and shrugged. Who could have guessed that either of her parents would want to work on dressing up teddy bears for sick kids? Certainly not her.
Adam grinned like a kid who’d won a prize when Alexis, Tessa and his parents brought the box full of bears to his room two days before Christmas. He examined every bear, proclaimed each perfect and listened wholeheartedly while they took turns explaining how they’d made each one.
“Besides paying for it, what did you do, Dad?”
“I made tags and invested a small fortune in pizza and Chinese food. The worker bees needed nourishment, you know.”
“I don’t want to wait until tomorrow,” Adam said. “Let’s deliver them right now.”
When his parents went to get a wheelchair from the nurses’ station, he asked Alexis, “They got into this without you begging them?”
“Totally into it. I was shocked by how into it they got.”
Tessa said, “I think they were disappointed that we only had to make fifteen.”
“Whatever. I’m glad they wanted to help,” Adam said. “What should we call the project? Bears this cute should have a name, don’t you think?”
“How about Adam’s Bears?” Alexis offered. “Short and to the point.”
“Too boring.” He snapped his fingers. “How about Boo-Boo Bears?”
“Adam’s Boo-Boo Bears,” Tessa amended. “Their owners should know who masterminded the goodies.”
As soon as their parents returned with the wheelchair, Adam climbed in and settled his mask over his nose and mouth, a Santa hat on his head and the box of bears on his lap. Alexis and Tessa pushed him along the hall and into every room, where he doled out each custom-made bear to its intended owner. Every child was thrilled, and Alexis knew that part of their delight was because the gift had come from Adam, because he cared, because he’d befriended them.
Adam saved Rudy’s room for last. “I’ll wait in the hall,” Tessa said.
Once inside, Adam handed Rudy his fireman bear and a wrapped package that had been at the bottom of the delivery box. Alexis had not seen it until that moment, and she gave Adam a questioning look, which he politely ignored. “Merry Christmas, little brother.”
“Both presents are for me?”
“Sure are.”
Rudy hugged the bear and pronounced it “awesome,” then sat it on the bed so he could tear into the package. “Wow,” he said, removing Adam’s old baseball glove. “Is it real?”
Alexis felt her breath catch.
“It’s real, and it’s already broken in,” Adam said. “You’re the only brother I’ll ever have, and I want you to
keep it. You take good care of it, hear?”
“I will!” Rudy’s eyes shone in his scarred face.
“You have a merry Christmas,” Adam said. “And call me and tell me what Santa brings you.”
When they were again in the hall, Alexis said, “Why did you do that?”
“It needs a good home. I had Dad wrap it up because I knew you’d try and talk me out of giving it away.”
“But—”
“No, Ally. This is what I want. If things work out and I get to play in the spring, you can buy me a new one, okay?”
She nodded, not trusting herself to speak.
Adam leaned back in the chair, looked up at Alexis and Tessa. “I think the bears were a real hit. Now I know how Santa Claus feels. Thanks for making it happen.”
“Well, Santa’s elves here are worn out. Look at this.” Alexis held out her hands. “Chipped nails, and glue stuck to my skin. It may never come off.”
Adam’s eyes crinkled around the mask, and Alexis knew he was smiling. “I don’t think elves whine and complain. They’re happy and cheerful.”
“Ha! That’s what you think. Next year we’re forming a union for the humane treatment of elves and other Christmas helpers.”
Adam pressed his forefingers to his temples. “Let’s see. . . . Tell me, sis, can you read my mind right now about what I think of your proposed elf union?”
She feigned shock. “Of course I can, and what you’re thinking is positively rude, Adam Chappel. Especially for Santa Claus.”
He laughed heartily, and the sound warmed her heart.
SEVENTEEN
In mid-January, Adam’s doctors allowed him to come home. On the Friday afternoon he checked out, Tessa pulled Alexis aside and said, “He doesn’t look so good. Are you sure he should be getting out of here?”
Alexis dismissed her friend’s concerns. “They wouldn’t let him go if he wasn’t better. I remember when he came home the other two times. He was sick, but after a few weeks, he got stronger, and then he did everything again. He just needs some time. He’ll be fine.”