Jenny felt sorry for Elaine, who seemed more optimistic about life overall, but she certainly understood where Kimbra was coming from. Girls their age with cancer had to be practical. Pollyanna thinking led nowhere.
As the day dragged on, their collective mood grew more gloomy. It was almost suppertime when Shannon, one of Noreen’s older, married sisters came into their room. She looked haggard and red-eyed from crying.
“What’s wrong?” Kimbra jumped from her bed and rushed over to Shannon. “How’s Noreen?”
“She’s out of surgery and in the recovery room,” Shannon said with a quivery voice.
Jenny sagged with relief. “But that’s great news,” she said.
“Yes and no.” Shannon wiped her eyes on a wadded tissue.
“Explain.” Kimbra used her best no-nonsense voice.
“Before her surgery, Noreen made me promise to come and tell you three everything.”
“What’s everything?” Elaine wanted to know. “Didn’t they get all her tumor?”
That possibility hadn’t crossed Jenny’s mind. She had assumed that once the doctors operated, Noreen’s stomach tumor would be a thing of the past.
“Not exactly.” Shannon blew her nose. “Her doctor told us that when he opened her up, he found other tumors. Many others. In fact, there were so many that he couldn’t begin to get them all. So, he took out the largest ones, then sewed her back up. As soon as Noreen recuperates from the surgery, they’re going to send her home. You see, there’s nothing else they can do for her. Nothing. My sister’s going to die.”
Thirteen
“NOREEN’S DYING!” JENNY sobbed to her grandmother that evening when she came for a visit. “Noreen’s just fifteen! She’s younger than me.”
“I’m so sorry, Jenny.” Grandmother stroked Jenny’s back, attempting to calm her.
“It’s wrong! Why is this happening to her? Why can’t the doctors do something to save her? Why did they put her through all the torture of chemo and radiation if it wasn’t going to make her well?”
“They had no way of knowing, Jenny. They had to try.”
“Try! I’m sick of hearing try. Why can’t they make her well?”
“You’re getting yourself all worked up over something you can’t change. It isn’t healthy.”
“Nothing’s healthy, is it? And I don’t care if I’m all worked up.… I want to change things for Noreen. I want to make things different for all of us.”
Grandmother looked distraught, and Jenny realized that her anger was only upsetting the woman. She wanted to stop her tirade, but couldn’t. It was as if her frustration had reached volcanic proportions and she was helpless to control the eruption. In despair, Jenny buried her face in her hands and wept bitterly.
Her grandmother stroked her tenderly. “I wish I could change all of this for you, Jenny. I wish I could make it all go away with a wave of my hand, but of course, I can’t. Sometimes, I weigh all of what’s happening to you … to us … against other calamities that have occurred in my life. I remember the day your father and I had our disagreement.”
Jenny’s sobs quieted as she listened. Grandmother rarely talked about her son—Jenny’s father.
“Warren had spent the summer in London and had come home on fire with idealistic dreams about changing the world. He’d also met your mother and fallen in love with her. I refused to listen to him, refused to believe that he could want anything other than the plans I had made for him. We had a terrible fight.”
Jenny looked up, wiping her cheeks with the hem of the bed sheet. Her grandmother’s eyes had taken on a faraway look.
“He stormed out of the house and returned to London. In reality, he stormed out of my life. Do you know, we didn’t speak again until you were born?”
Jenny shook her head. “They never told me.”
“You were the magnet that brought us back together.” Grandmother smiled wistfully. “It was a tentative union, but at least, we were on speaking terms. He and your mother, Barbara, came for a visit when you were only three months old. I was prepared to dislike her and be indifferent to you.” Another smile. “Instead, I discovered a lovely young woman who adored my son and their child, and the most beautiful baby girl I’d ever set eyes upon.”
“I didn’t know,” Jenny said.
“When they returned to London and got an assignment with the Peace Corps in Africa, I was heartbroken. Even then, I assumed your father wanted to return to my world. He did not, of course. He had his own world. And when he died, my world changed forever.”
“You inherited me.”
“Yes.… Barbara had no family to speak of in Britain, so you came to me. You were a frightened child, all alone in the world. I was terrified about raising you.”
“You were?” Jenny never thought her grandmother was afraid of anything. She always seemed so confident, so in control.
“I hadn’t been around a child in years, and suddenly, I was responsible for my granddaughter.”
“I don’t remember much about that time. I only remember being scared.” She remembered Richard and the day of her parents’ funeral, when he’d taken her hand. From that moment, she had begun to adore him. “Everything here was so different. The weather was cold, and I couldn’t run around outside and play. And I missed my parents.”
Grandmother traded Jenny a wad of clean tissues for the soaked hem of the sheet. “Certainly not what either of us planned for, was it?” Jenny shook her head. “But after having you with me for a month, I realized how empty, how hollow my life had been until you came into it.”
“I remember running through your living room and breaking your good vase. I thought you would send me back to Africa.”
“The vase meant nothing, Jenny. By then, I had learned that the only thing that counts in this life is relationships. I had learned that the plans we make for our lives can’t always be fulfilled, but that sometimes the change is extraordinarily wonderful.
“And over the years, I’ve realized that something good can come out of the darkest moments of life if we simply wait out the darkness.” She arched an eyebrow and added, “Not that I like having my will thwarted, you understand.”
Jenny managed a smile. “Are you telling me you’re stubborn?”
“I call it Yankee determination.”
Jenny toyed with the wad of tissue. “What good can come out of this, Grandmother? I want to believe what you’re telling me, but I can’t see what good can come from Noreen’s dying at fifteen and my being sick with leukemia.”
“I don’t know either,” Grandmother admitted. “But for some reason, some of us are asked to walk more difficult paths than others.”
New tears formed in Jenny’s eyes as she said, “Well, this path is really hard, and right now, I can’t see any reason for it. And I’m sure I never will.”
That night, Jenny lay awake in the dark. She envied Elaine and Kimbra, who were asleep under their covers, but for her, sleep was impossible. She knew she could ring for a nurse and get a pill to help her sleep, but she didn’t want that either. With a sigh, she tossed off the covers, slipped on her robe, and padded down the dimly lit hall looking for someone to talk to.
She passed by one of the children’s rooms and heard a soft whimper. She went inside and discovered a small girl huddled in her bed and crying. “Can I help?” Jenny asked, leaning down and whispering.
The little girl’s eyes grew wide with fright. “Are you going to give me a shot?”
“Why, no.”
“Are you a doctor?”
“No … I heard you crying, that’s all.”
Still, the girl looked skeptical. “Why’s that thing on your face? Is something wrong with your mouth?”
Jenny touched the mask. It had become so much a part of her that she’d forgotten she was wearing it. “Nope. I have a very big mouth. See?” She slipped off the mask and opened wide, causing the girl to sniff and smile. “I’m really a mermaid, and sometimes, I have trouble b
reathing real air.”
The girl giggled. “Mermaids have fish tails. Where’s your fish tail?”
Jenny glanced down. “Oops. I must have lost it.” She ducked down and looked under the child’s bed. “It’s not there. Hum-m-m. Wonder where I left it? That thing is so hard to keep track of.…”
The girl giggled again. “You’re teasing me.”
“Yes, I am.” Jenny pulled a chair next to the bed. “I’m Jenny. What’s your name?”
“Betsy. I’m six.” She held up six fingers.
“I’m sixteen.”
“I get lots of shots,” Betsy said. “I hate shots. They’re making me take medicine too, and it tastes bad. I hate it here. I want to go home.”
“Me too.”
“My mom couldn’t stay with me because she’s going to have a baby. I miss her.”
Jenny’s heart twisted. She imagined how torn Betsy’s mother must feel, having to leave her child alone to face the terrors of the night because of her pregnancy. She touched Betsy’s soft blond curls. Jenny knew that soon the silken locks would fall out in handfuls and Betsy would be bald and ill from chemo. Another victim, she thought. “How would you like me to read you a story?” Jenny asked.
“Will you?” Betsy looked so eager that Jenny smiled broadly. “I have some books.” Betsy fumbled under her covers and extracted several worn copies of books by Dr. Seuss. She handed them to Jenny and settled back against her pillow. “I can read them by myself,” she said, “but it’s better when someone reads them to me.”
Glad to find a way to help pass the seemingly endless night, Jenny took the books and began to read.
By midmorning the next day, Jenny couldn’t pull herself out of bed. Her throat felt scratchy, and her head ached. “How’s Noreen?” she asked Kimbra, shielding her eyes from the sunlight streaming in the window. Her eyes felt sore in their sockets.
“Still recuperating.”
“Does she know about her other tumors?”
“I don’t think so. Are you all right?” Kimbra peered closely at Jenny’s face.
“I’m hot all over.”
“I’ll get a nurse.”
“No … don’t …”
But Kimbra was gone before the words were half formed. She returned with a nurse, who shook down a thermometer and placed it under Jenny’s tongue. A minute later, she pulled it out, read it, then hurried from the room.
Fourteen
JENNY FELT AS if she were burning up. Her chest felt tight, her arms and legs like lead weights. The cool hands of the nurses were the only thing that comforted her. Dr. Gallagher arrived quickly, listened to her lungs through his stethoscope, then ordered her to be taken down to Radiology for lung X rays. He wore a mask, yet Jenny saw the serious look in his eyes.
She wanted to make a joke, but it took too much effort to form words, so she simply closed her eyes. Voices drifted in and out of her hearing. She heard Kimbra say, “But she was fine last night at bedtime.” She heard a teary Elaine say, “First Noreen, now Jenny. She has to be all right, Kimbra. She has to!”
Jenny heard her grandmother speaking to her and felt her cool dry hand against her forehead. She struggled to open her eyes and tell her not to worry, but couldn’t. Eventually, Jenny heard snatches of conversation between Dr. Gallagher and her grandmother: “… pneumonia … infection … very ill … isolation … intensive care …”
At one point. Dr. Gallagher leaned over and said, “Jenny, you’re going on a little ride down to ICU, where you can get round-the-clock nursing. Don’t be alarmed, but I’m going to put you on a respirator for a while, just until your lungs clear up. It will help you breathe easier, so relax … we’re going to fix you up.”
A machine that could breathe … Jenny thought the information fascinating. She understood they were going to move her out of her room, and she tried to ask them not to, tried to ask Kimbra and Elaine not to let anybody take her place in the room. But again, she found talking much too difficult.
Hands lifted her onto a gurney, and she felt the motion of being rolled down the hall. Bright lights flashed past overhead. She floated, as if on the sea, and she embraced the sensation. She imagined that she was on the ocean, adrift on billowing waves of deep cobalt blue. She imagined that Richard was with her, holding her hand and smiling, his green eyes as bright as emeralds.
Suddenly, she wanted to see him again. She wanted to touch him, have him hold her as he had the night they danced at the country club. Why had she acted so stubborn these past weeks? Why had she refused to let him visit her? She’d been stupid. Richard. She cried out his name in her heart.
Hands settled her on a bed. Needles pricked her arms, tubing lay against her skin. She heard the unfriendly hiss of machines all around her, the rattle of bed rails being raised, fencing her in.
A crushing heaviness seized her chest, and she gasped for air. What if I die and never see him again? Tears slid from the corners of her eyes. She felt helpless, hopeless, alone. She heard one nurse tell another, “Poor kid. She’s crying.”
She heard the other say, “Impossible. She’s not even conscious.”
She felt dizzy and saw what seemed like a dark hole reaching out for her. Subconsciously, she back-pedaled, but the hole grew larger, until she had no choice but to fall into it … down … down … like Alice down the rabbit-hole.
In the ICU waiting room, Richard paced the floor as a caged animal caught in a trap. Marian sat in a chair, her back stiff and straight, her thin, veined hands clasped in her lap. Ten minutes. That’s all anyone was allowed to go into ICU every hour. Every other hour for me, he reminded himself.
On the day he’d learned of Jenny’s setback, he’d gone straight to Marian and begged to be allowed to see her. “I—I don’t know,” Marian had said. “I’m not sure it’s what Jenny would want.”
He could tell Marian was genuinely torn, and he used her ambivalence to his advantage. “She’ll never know,” he replied. “It’ll be our secret. But I have to see her. It isn’t right not to let me, and you know it.”
In the end, Marian had agreed. Now, ten days later, there was little change in Jenny’s condition, even though she’d been placed on a respirator and pumped full of antibiotics to fight off the persistent infection.
“Ironic, isn’t it?” Marian’s question stopped Richard’s restless pacing. “For the first time since her diagnosis, Jenny was free of leukemic cells. They were going to let her go home and continue her treatment as an outpatient. And then this happened. An ordinary germ has knocked her out.”
Richard saw permanent lines of worry etched in Marian’s face. She looked to have aged ten years over the past three months. “She’ll get well,” he insisted. “She can’t have been freed of cancer only to go down to pneumonia.”
“I hope you’re correct.”
Richard glanced at his watch and saw that it was time for his visit to ICU. “I’ll be back,” he told Marian, who only nodded and continued to stare into space.
He entered the glass-walled chamber where Jenny lay surrounded by the tools of technology. A tube, attached to a respirator, protruded from her throat where the doctor had cut a hole in her trachea and inserted it. Wires snaked from her chest and hooked up to a monitor that kept a constant vigil over her heartbeat.
She looked as if she were asleep. Her face was gaunt, but even so, he could see her beauty through the ashen skin stretched tight over delicate facial bones. Dark circles smudged her eyes, and a fine fuzz of hair had begun to grow on her scalp. Tentatively, he reached out and touched the new growth. It felt as soft as down.
A knot filled his throat, and he could scarcely swallow around it. Rage filled him, blinding, white-hot anger that wanted to make him explode. Why was this happening to her? Was there no one to help her? Rationally, he knew the doctors were doing everything possible, but he sensed in his gut that her life didn’t lie in the hands of medicine.
In the glare of the artificial lights, the walls of the cubicle seemed t
o fade away. And he saw Jenny through the eyes of memory, on the Easter Sunday of the previous year, when she’d been fifteen. She was dressed in wispy voile the color of buttercups. She wore a straw hat, and her long, dark hair hung in loose waves down her back.
When he’d seen her sitting in the pew, when she’d turned and caught his eye and smiled, his breath had almost stopped. It was if he were seeing her for the first time. She wasn’t the kid he’d grown up with, taught to sail, run with, barefoot, on the beaches. She was suddenly different, more beautiful than any girl he knew at college. Maybe that was when his feelings toward her began to change. Perhaps that was when he began to love her, and to want her in every way.
Richard shook his head, dislodging the shimmering picture. “You can’t die, Jenny,” he whispered. She had so much to live for. They had so much to live for. He felt a firm resolve grab hold of him as he realized what he knew he must do. He would become a lawyer the way his father wanted. He would work hard, earn money, become the kind of man Marian would allow Jenny to marry. Suddenly, his future looked full of purpose and direction.
But first, she had to get well. And only God could grant that wish. He closed his eyes and rocked back on his heels. If he was going to be an attorney, and if God was the final judge, then, at this moment, he had an opportunity to plead his first case.
He ignored the incessant noise of the machines and bowed his head. Dear God … help her … please … Richard swallowed, feeling inadequate with words of prayer and petition. He prayed the simple words again and again, until a nurse came to remind that his time in ICU was long since up.
Richard cleared his throat, bent, and kissed Jenny’s forehead, hoping with all that was in him that God had heard him and would be lenient. Jenny was all he wanted. Hope for a future with her was all he had.
Fifteen
RICHARD WAS SITTING alone in the waiting room when a one-armed girl wearing a bathrobe entered. Self-consciously, she stopped in her tracks and clutched her robe tightly across her breasts with her remaining hand. “I—I thought Mrs. Crawford would be in here,” she said.
The Legacy: Making Wishes Come True Page 7
