I Want to Live

by Lurlene McDaniel

  Mike, crouching behind her, snapped the flashlight’s button and a narrow stream of light cut through the darkness. “Why do we have to sneak in here for eggs and flour four nights in a row?”

  Dawn leaned against the smooth door of the giant refrigerator. “Because if we take too much at once, someone will notice. This way, if we only take a little bit at a time, then we’ll have all the supplies we need to get Dr. Ben and no one will be the wiser. Understand?”

  Mike grumbled, “You still haven’t told me what we’re doing to him yet.”

  “All in good time.”

  A noise startled them, and they both hugged the floor, hearing footsteps approaching. Mike quickly turned off the flashlight, tugged Dawn’s arm, and motioned toward a walk-in pantry door. They crawled inside just as the kitchen light flooded the room. Pressed into the hard pantry shelves, Dawn held her breath. If they were caught, her plan would be ruined. Not to mention her pride. She heard the refrigerator door open and the sound of glass bottles knocking lightly together. It’s only someone after a midnight snack, she told herself. Within minutes, she heard the door close, saw the light blink off, and heard the sound of the outside door bang shut.

  “Whew! That was close.” Mike admitted.

  “Come on. Let’s hurry.” Dawn slinked to the refrigerator. She took two eggs and settled them carefully into two pockets in her shirt. She now owned six eggs and two cups of flour. It was all hidden in her suitcase under her bunk in her cabin. She patted her prizes and whispered, “Let’s go. Thursday night, during the skit entertainment, we bake our cake.”

  “What are you planning, Dawn Rochelle?”

  “You’ll see,” she replied confidently. “All I can say is that this will be a cake Dr. Ben will remember for a long time.” Together, they slouched and scurried outside into the night, back to their respective cabins.

  * * * * *

  The day before skit night, ten-year-old Jennifer Hayes got very ill. Dr. Ben and two of the nurses stayed up with her most of the night, but early the next morning an ambulance had to come for her. The incident left the campers shaken, their spirits dampened. And Dawn felt angry. Why did reality always have a way of rearing its ugly head? They all had cancer. There was no forgetting.

  “All right, people! Let’s settle down and get this show underway!” Dr. Ben shouted after blowing his whistle. “That’s better,” he said as excited chatted died down to whispers.

  Dr. Ben stood at the front of the room on a makeshift stage with a blanket for a curtain. “Now, when I call your cabin’s name, come up front and get ready behind the curtain. Props and things have been stashed in the kitchen area, so you’ll all have five minutes between skits to change. As you know, the staff will act as judges. The winning skit will be awarded a trophy that will go in our permanent trophy case.

  “We’ll judge on originality and presentation. In the case of a tie,” he lowered his glasses and swept his gaze over the audience, “I will act as tie-breaker.” Boos and hisses followed his announcement. “No need to get hostile,” he shouted. “I’m both fair and perfect.” More boos and hisses came from the crowd.

  Dawn wiggled on the hard bench. She had more than her cabin’s skit on her mind. Her eyes looked for Mike across the crowded room. Their eyes met and he winked. She carefully raised her head to see the paper sack secured above the stage in the rafters. The low light level made it almost invisible. Propped behind the doorway to the kitchen was a broom that Mike had set casually against the wall. With all the activity, it was hard to see the upside down nail protruding from its end. Part one of their plan was in motion.

  One by one the cabins went forward to perform. Dawn’s cabinmates—Red Fox— performed their skit dressed as doctors and nurses. Dawn played a receptionist who was hard of hearing and who kept getting the doctor’s instructions wrong. The skit went very well. When it was over and they took their bows, Dawn carefully placed two eggs on the chair she knew was Dr. Ben’s.

  But as funny as their skit had been, it was Mike’s cabin that took the prize. As the curtain parted for the six boys from Hawk Cabin, the audience gasped. There the boys stood, dressed as girls, complete with eye makeup, bright red lipstick, and brilliant pink cheeks. Curly wigs were on their heads and earrings dangled from their ears. And Mike was wearing one of her nightgowns! How had he gotten hold of it without her knowing? Across the chest, where he’d placed two bulging balloons, was printed Kiss Me, You Fool. Dawn felt her face grow red, but she was laughing too hard to really be embarrassed.

  All the boys paraded and danced in their feminine clothing, mouthing the words to a recorded love song by a top female rock singer. Whistles and catcalls came from the audience. Following their performance, the group took three curtain calls.

  “Not bad!” Dr. Ben shouted. “Especially the one in the middle!” he said, indicating Mike.

  When it came time to present the trophy, it was no contest. Hawk Cabin won! As Mike accepted the trophy, Dawn casually joined him on stage, reaching behind the door for the broom as she went.

  “Thanks, Dr. Ben,” Mike beamed, holding out his hand.

  Dr. Ben shook it, and the raw egg concealed in Mike’s palm cracked in the camp director’s hand. “What the . . . !” he shouted. Dawn nudged him backward into his chair. Splat. His backside crushed two more eggs. “Oh no!” He shot out of his chair and another two eggs emerged from Dawn’s hands to find the top of his head. The goo from the eggs slithered down his hair, over his glasses, and onto his shoulders. “Help!” he cried. Dawn stepped aside and thrust the broom handle straight up. The protruding nail sliced open the paper bag in the rafters and a shower of white flour descended onto the stunned man.

  “Gotcha!” Mike shouted. Then he and Dawn bowed on either side of good old Dr. Ben, who resembled a sticky, overgrown polar bear. Mike and Dawn clasped hands and walked calmly off the stage into the wildly cheering audience.

  Eight

  “COME on, sleepy head. Are you planning to sleep away the day? It’s almost ten a.m.,” Dawn’s mother announced, pulling up the window shade and letting the morning sunlight pour into Dawn’s bedroom.

  Dawn groaned and buried her face in her pillow. “It’s summer vacation.”

  “You’ve been sleeping in ever since you got home from camp. Darcy’s coming tonight with the wedding invitations. You are going to help me address them, aren’t you?”

  Dawn sensed her mother standing beside her bed, so she peeked through one eye from beneath the pillow. The wedding invitations. Darcy’s visit. Fittings for her bridesmaid dress. No, she didn’t want to get up. She had no energy for these endless projects.

  Mrs. Rochelle lifted the pillow off Dawn’s face. “Are you feeling all right? Ever since camp and your clinic visit on Monday, you’ve seemed extra tired.”

  “Oh, good grief. Mom! Can’t a person sleep in if she wants to? Don’t make a big deal out of it. I feel just fine.” Dawn tossed off her covers and swung to a sitting position. She felt light-headed, but she didn’t want her mother to know.

  “Well, if you say so. Get dressed and come downstairs. Rhonda’s called twice. She wants you to go to the mall with her. I’ll take you, and her mother will pick up. Want to go?”

  Dawn felt renewed fatigue just thinking about an excursion to the mall. “Sure. That’ll be fun. I’ll be down in a few minutes.”

  Her mother left, and Dawn flopped backward onto her bed and stretched. What was wrong? Why did she feel so tired? She missed camp and the activity—and the people. Before she’d left, Mike had walked with her to the lake. He’d asked her, “We had a good time, didn’t we?”

  She said, “I’ll never forget skit night. You were beautiful. You looked better in my night gown than I do.”

  “All true. I don’t think Dr. Ben will forget it either. We sure got him good. How’ll we ever top it next year?”

  “We’ll think of something.”

  “Would you—” Mike started. “Would you like to write during the
year?” He continued, “I know I’m not like Greg . . .”

  Her mind added, Or Jake . . .

  “. . . but I’d like to hear from you. You know, keep in touch.”

  Dawn smiled up at him and nodded. “Of course, I’d like to write.”

  Then they’d walked back to the main complex, and later they returned to their cities and homes. Now, a week later, she still hadn’t written Mike. “If only I wasn’t so tired all the time,” she said aloud to her shelves of teddy bears. The menagerie grinned down at her, but didn’t answer.

  Dawn went downstairs and joined her mom and Rob in the kitchen, where he was wolfing down a heaping platter of waffles. “Hi, Squirt. Want some?” He’d taken a summer job in a grocery warehouse and often worked the night shift for extra pay. His already-muscular arms bulged with even more definition. He poured a thick river of syrup, and she watched it ooze over the sides of the stack. “They’re delicious.”

  She wrinkled her nose. A queasy feeling gripped her stomach. “No, thanks. Cereal’s fine for me, Mom.”

  Mrs. Rochelle set a box of corn flakes in front of Dawn, along with a bowl and a carton of milk. “Mom, I’m going to get some sleep,” Rob said. “Wake me up by three o’clock, so I can get the cobwebs out of my brain. Darcy should be here by dinner time. I told my boss I’d work a double shift this weekend if I could take tonight and tomorrow off.”

  Once Rob had shuffled off to bed, Dawn finished her breakfast, determined to try to feel energetic. She called Rhonda, set the plans for the day, and by the time they arrived at the mall, she felt more perky.

  “What do you think of this?” Rhonda asked, holding up a bright yellow bathing suit in the swimwear department of the mall’s largest and most fashionable store.

  “The color’s super on you. I wish I had a tan like yours.”

  “So come to the pool with me tomorrow afternoon. I’m taking lunch and spending the entire afternoon. Two hours toasting the front. Two hours toasting the back. And time out to swim and flirt with David Casper. He’s a lifeguard this summer, you know.”

  “Oh, I can’t. Mom’s got me locked into wedding plans. Darcy’s coming.”

  Rhonda wrinkled her nose. “Too bad.” She nudged Dawn’s arm. “Hey, is that Kim and Cindy over there?” Rhonda waved frantically at two girls from the cheerleading squad who were in the next department. Soon the group was a foursome. For Dawn, it was more of a threesome. She felt left out, like a kid looking through a store window. The other girls didn’t understand her the way Rhonda did. And Rhonda became so engrossed in the others that she hardly remembered Dawn was with her.

  Dawn hung around on the fringes but was grateful when Rhonda’s mom showed up and took them home. She was more tired than ever as she dragged herself up the steps of her front porch. She reached for the door’s handle, but her mother flung the door wide and pulled her inside. “Oh, honey. I’m so glad you’re home.” Worry lines creased her forehead.

  “What’s wrong, Mom?”

  “Dr. Sinclair called. He wants us to meet him at the hospital this afternoon.”

  Dawn’s heart pounded and dizziness descended. “Why?”

  “He wouldn’t say on the phone. But he wants all of us to be there for the appointment.”

  “Dad and Rob, too?” Even to her own ears, Dawn’s voice sounded small and scared.

  “Yes. All of us. The whole family. We’re to meet him at five in his office at Children’s Hospital.”

  The hospital was a giant brick building. Steam spiraled skyward from the kitchen area. Dawn studied the front of the structure as she approached the entrance. She remembered the first time she’d come here— the smells, the faces, the sense of pulsating life that throbbed from the very walls. Even though it was a hot afternoon, Dawn felt cold and clammy. She didn’t want to go inside, and she didn’t want to meet with the doctor.

  An air-conditioned breeze swept over her skin as she followed her parents and brother through sliding glass doors and into the elevator. Dr. Sinclair’s office was on the tenth floor. For Dawn, the elevator ride seemed to take forever.

  When they finally arrived, Dr. Sinclair took them to a conference room where another man waited. “This is Dr. Singh,” Dr. Sinclair said to all of the Rochelles, but to Dawn in particular.

  After a round of introductions, they sat and faced each other across a wide oak table—the Rochelles on one side, the doctors on the other.

  The faint odor of lemon wax made her nauseous. She told herself that it wasn’t the smell, but the tension she was feeling. Her father cleared his throat, and Dr. Sinclair opened a thick manila file on the table in front of him. “Thank you for coming on such short notice.”

  “We assume it’s about Dawn’s latest tests,” Dawn’s father said.

  “Yes.” Dr. Sinclair lifted a paper out of the file. “These are the results of the bone marrow aspiration tests. What they say is that Dawn’s marrow is producing more immature cells than her previous tests showed.”

  “Do you mean I failed my test?” she asked.

  A kind, soft smile flipped the corner of the blond-haired doctor’s mustached mouth. “Not exactly. What they tell us is that you may be headed for a relapse, a resurgence of your leukemia.”

  Nine

  FOR a moment no one spoke. Dawn felt a buzzing sensation inside her head and listened to the hum of the air conditioning.

  Out of remission. Relapse. My cancer’s back. She sagged slightly in the chair, feeling almost relieved. Hadn’t she been expecting this news for months? At least now the waiting was over.

  “What exactly does that mean?” Rob’s voice broke the tension in the room.

  “It means that conventional therapy is failing.”

  “And just what is modern medicine going to do to help my sister now that your conventional therapy is failing?” Rob said angrily. His face looked pinched and white.

  Dawn reached over and patted his hand.

  Rob flinched and directed his question to the two doctors. “I asked you, what are you hotshot medical whiz brains going to do about it?”

  Dr. Sinclair shuffled the papers in his hands. “That’s why I’ve had Dr. Singh join us. He’s the head of the bone marrow transplant unit here at Children’s Hospital. Based on what we know about Dawn’s case, he feels that she is a candidate for a transplant operation.”

  “Explain, please,” Mrs. Rochelle broke in.

  Dr. Singh cleared his throat. “As you may remember, when Dawn was first diagnosed we extracted bone marrow from each of you and cross-matched it for compatibility. More and more we’re successfully reversing the course of leukemia by transplanting healthy, cancer-free bone marrow into victims. There are drawbacks, but if the procedure works, the new bone marrow begins to take over blood cell production and cures the cancer victim.”

  “So why haven’t you done this for Dawn before now?”

  Dr. Singh’s voice was soft with only a hint of an accent. “The procedure is not without risks.”

  “What risks?” Dawn’s question startled herself. Had she spoken aloud?

  Dr. Singh turned toward her. “I will be most honest with you, Dawn, because this is truly the most important decision of your life. Unfortunately, we do not have a genetic match with your bone marrow. Your brother Rob comes the closest.”

  Rob interjected, “She can have all my bone marrow she needs.”

  “This is not the problem. Compatibility is the secret of successful transplants. The closer alike her marrow is to yours the better the chances of her body accepting the transplant.” Dr. Singh leaned over the table, closer to Dawn. “Do you understand about the human body’s defense mechanism? Do you know what biological rejection is?”

  “I’ve studied it some in science class. Everybody has special cells to fight germs. It’s like a little army inside us that helps keep us well.”

  “Excellent, Dawn. That is correct. Your body does not understand or accept any genetic code but your own. If we transplant Rob’s bone
marrow into you, your body will attack it as if it were germs.”

  “Then how can you do such a transplant?” Rob asked.

  “We prepare Dawn’s body with massive doses of immune suppressant drugs. They will hold down her resistance to your marrow, Rob. Hopefully, they will hold it down so that your marrow will start growing and producing healthy blood cells.”

  “So what are the other risks?”

  “By suppressing her immune mechanism, she is also susceptible to any germ or virus that comes along. Even a common cold can be deadly.”

  Dawn felt removed from the conversation, as if they were discussing a character on a television show instead of her. “How long before you know if Rob’s bone marrow is working inside me?” Dawn asked.

  “The entire process will take about six weeks. First, you will check into the hospital and undergo testing. If all things point to success, you will be placed into isolation in a sterile room, and we will begin to give you the immune suppressant drugs. After they do their job, Rob will have an operation, and a portion of his bone marrow will be removed. We will give it to you like you receive your chemotherapy: It will drip slowly into your body over a four- or five-hour period. You will be awake the whole time. If all goes well, you will leave the hospital a few weeks later. Assuming there are no complications,” he added, “like secondary infections. Or rejection in spite of the drugs.”

  Silence again filled the room. Dawn wondered briefly if the two doctors realized that there was a moth flapping against the plate glass window behind them. She studied the insect as it flailed and beat its wings on the clear glass, desperate to touch the sun outside. Poor moth . . .

  “This is not a decision for you to make this minute, Dawn,” Dr. Sinclair said, breaking the heavy silence. “Go home and think about it. Discuss it. But don’t take too long. We’ll need to proceed as soon as possible if you decide in favor of the procedure.”