Till Death Do Us Part

by Lurlene McDaniel

  He grinned. “Your parents have done this to you too?”

  “I could write a book, but why bother? They'd only embarrass me with it.”

  His grin broadened. “Thanks for understanding. Sorry if your dinner got ruined.”

  “It's okay. Who needs the calories?”

  He brushed his hand along her cheek, causing a tingle to shoot up her spine. “Pve never had a girl like you in my life before. I don't want you to go away.”

  They started walking along the sidewalk, and he led her into a small café. They sat at a table in the back and ordered two cappuccinos. They didn't speak right away, but stared out the window at the gathering gloom of the evening and at the lights coming on across the street. When the cappuccinos came, he stirred his, stopped, and reached across the table to take her hand. He held it lighdy, rubbing his thumb across her knuckles. “If you're right about parents getting ‘embarrassment’ handbooks, then girls must get ‘cruelty’ ones.”

  “How can you say that? It isn't true.” She attempted to pull her hand away, but he wouldn't let go.

  “Hear me out. Please.”

  She nodded. “I'm listening.”

  “I've always been sick, April. I was born with CF, I grew up with CF. I will die with CF.” She shuddered but didn't interrupt. “When a person's sick, especially with a disease that's never going to go away, he learns some tough lessons. He learns that other kids always treat him differendy. Sometimes they even call him names, make fun of him.”

  “You were teased because you had CF?” She couldn't imagine it.

  “Yeah. Kids can be that way, you know. If they don't understand, if they're afraid, they shun you. Not everybody … but most. Grade school was really rough. I was in and out of the hospital so much and I coughed and smelled like medicine. I couldn't play sports, and I was skinny, and nobody wanted to be my friend.”

  She wondered if she'd ever treated anybody that way, then remembered her first reaction to Mark. She hadn't even wanted to get to know him because if he was in the hospital, he must be sick. She sat very still, hoping she wouldn't have to confess she'd felt that way.

  “Do you know what the crudest thing is about being different?” he asked.

  She shook her head.

  “While your body is all tied up with sickness, your mind and feelings aren't. You still want all the same things that ‘regular’ people have. You still want to be liked. You still want friends and to be invited to places and, when you're older, to ask a girl out and not have her act all embarrassed … or worse, horrified. All through high school I wanted to date. I wanted to kiss a girl. I wanted to have a girlfriend. Look at me: I'm twenty-one years old and I've never heard a girl tell me ‘I love you.’”

  She didn't know what to say. His pain was real.

  “There were times when I realized that I could live with my CF—if only I didn't have to live with my feelings. Why couldn't CF have taken my emotions away, instead of my breath?”

  “I'm sorry for every mean word that was said to you,” April told him. “I'm sorry for every girl who hurt you and rejected you.”

  He shrugged sheepishly. “This isn't a pity party. Honest. The last thing I want is for you to feel sorry for me, April. I can't help the way I feel about you. I wanted to date you the first time I laid eyes on you. But I also knew that getting a girl like you to date me was a long-shot. So everything we Ve done together so far is beyond my expectations.”

  She felt her face grow warm. She hadn't encouraged him, and now she felt bad about it.

  “I knew I was taking a chance at your blowing me off, but I had to try. I wanted to see you as much as you'd let me. Being with you today has been terrific.”

  His honesty unnerved her. She'd dated Chris for four months and he'd never once been so open with her about his thoughts and feelings. Looking at Mark, seeing his vulnerability in his eyes, twisted her insides. How could anyone have treated him cruelly? How could she?

  “I do know what it's like to be sick, Mark. I didn't have to live with it like you did, but I have to live with it now. Believe me, it isn't any easier when it happens to you after you've grown up some and had a ‘normal’ life. I've been afraid of my friends finding out. Only a couple know.” Her gaze fell to the coffee in her cup, which looked cold and unappetizing. She felt Mark squeeze her hand and she lifted her gaze and saw his face, compassionate and tender. A lump lodged in her throat. She didn't want to bawl. “My boyfriend,” she said, “can't deal with what's happening to me. He's backed off so far, I'd have to fax him to get a message to him.”

  Mark chuckled. “His loss.”

  “But it's my problem.” She toyed with the ends of her long red hair. “The doctor marked me up with a blue pen and every day I go into this room and they shut the door and shoot me full of radiation. Not very romantic, is it?”

  “They only zap the tumor,” he said.

  “So what? I'm … different now. And as you know, different isn't always appreciated.”

  Mark's grip on her hand tightened. “If you will let me, I'll do everything possible to make you happy again.”

  “Happy.” She said the word without emotion. “It's been so long since I've felt happy, I don't remember what it feels like.”

  “Let me try. All I want is a chance, April. Is that too much to ask?”

  She didn't answer him, because she couldn't. His health was even more fragile than hers. How could she tell him she was frightened of taking a chance?

  She resumed radiation treatments on Monday, resigning herself to another week of balancing her life between her regular high-school grind and medical necessity. She had stopped all her after-school activities and, except for Kelli, steered clear of most of her friends. She knew they knew about her problem. There was no way it could be kept a secret, but at least no one bugged her about it, or asked stupid questions like “How are you feeling?” or “Does it hurt?” She was positive that it was Kelli who kept everyone off her back, and she was grateful to her friend.

  Mark called her nightly and they talked for hours. One night he told her, “I'm racing this Saturday night. Will you come watch?”

  She was hesitant but curious about his passion for racing cars.

  “My dad will be there,” Mark said. “He's always been my biggest fan. You can sit with him and I'll get you a pass so you can come onto the infield.”

  April knew that saying yes would mean a shift in their relationship. “If I come, will you win?”

  “If you come, I've already won.”

  She took a deep breath and agreed to go.

  On Friday afternoon, as she was leaving school, she ran into Chris in the parking lot. He had his arm around a pretty junior named Hallie, but lowered it when he saw April. She turned on her brightest smile. “How's it going?”

  “Fine,” he said. “How are things with you?”

  Hallie shifted awkwardly, looking as if she'd been caught doing something naughty.

  “Couldn't be better.”

  “That's good.”

  “I hear you're leading the soccer team to all kinds of wins.”

  “I'm having a good season.”

  “And the rumor about you getting an athletic scholarship to Virginia, is that true?”

  “It's been offered. I'll probably take it. It's a foil ride.”

  April felt a twinge of jealousy that he was able to make college plans. “I know you'll do well wherever you go.”

  “And you? You pick a college yet?”

  “Not yet,” she said smoothly. “Sometimes a person's plans are forced to change.”

  For an instant, sadness filled his eyes, and … hurt? “I'm sorry.”

  And she saw that he meant it. “Don't worry about it. I'm going to make it through this, and my friends will help me.”

  His cheeks colored and she knew she'd made her point—he hadn't been much of a friend to her. But there was no way to let him know that in the long run, his abandonment had been the best thing for her. Oth
erwise she would not have made room for Mark. She slipped the key into the lock of her car door, knowing that if she didn't hurry, she'd be late for radiation. “Got to run,” she called, pulling open the door. “Have a good life, Chris.”

  As she drove off, she saw Chris and Hallie in her rearview mirror. Their arms were linked around each other's waist. April wanted to feel something—remorse, anger, sadness. She and Chris were history. And she felt nothing at all.

  Is it always so loud?” April shouted, not certain Mark could hear her over the roar of engine noise from cars warming up around the speedway track. Nighttime blanketed the sky, and artificial lights obscured the stars.

  “It's beautiful music,” Mark shouted back with a grin. “Come on.” He led her around the exterior of the half-mile track and inside the inner field where cars were parked, surrounded by men in jeans and overalls, most smudged with grease and oil. “The crews are car fanatics,” he said. “Each pit has a few people who help out. Drivers are usually the cars' owners. No one gets paid.”

  “You do this for free?”

  “For bragging rights and some prize money. We're pretty small-time, just a group of local car lovers. Of course, the really big races are driven by professionals on two- or three-mile tracks. I'll take you to one sometime.”

  April smiled. Mark seemed so excited by the whole business. His brown eyes fairly danced and he looked animated and energized. “How long do you race? Is it year-round?”

  “Our season is from May until the snow flies. Tonight's for running cars in my car's class. Other nights, other kinds of cars run: dragsters, which are supermodified cars—the ‘funny’ ones, are over there on the straight track and the late-model stocks here on the oval. This is my first race this year, but I've got a good car and I expect to kick some butt tonight.”

  April met several of Mark's racing friends. She could barely hear their names above the din of the motors. Mark's car was a Chevelle, unpainted except for a coat of rust-colored primer. The hood was up and she saw a massive engine laced with wires and hoses. The smell of gasoline and exhaust made her eyes water and she wondered how Mark was able to breathe when even she was having trouble. “How do you manage not to go deaf?” she shouted.

  “These will help.” He handed her a set of ear protectors that looked like the kind airplane mechanics wore. Putting them on muffled the noise considerably.

  His father materialized from the side of the field. “You can sit with me,” he yelled.

  “I need a token,” Mark told her as she started off with his dad.

  “A token?”

  “Something of yours to bring me luck.”

  “Gee, I don't know what Pve got.” She fumbled for some item and settled on the scarf she was wearing. It was an expensive one, given to her by her parents. “Is this okay?”

  He grinned and wrapped it around his upper arm into a band, letting the tails flutter. He took her by the shoulders and planted a kiss on her mouth, shouting, “For better luck! See you in the winner's circle.”

  The noise wasn't as loud in the grandstands, which were already crowded with onlookers. “I didn't think so many people were into racing,” she told Mark's father.

  “It's a whole subculture. A lot of people love hot rods.”

  “Your wife didn't come?”

  “Rosa's still mad because he's racing. It takes her half a season to get over it. Once she does, she comes. I like to come because it's good to see Mark doing something he loves and doing it well.”

  “Does he win a lot?”

  “He's got bookcases full of trophies at his place. Didn't he show them to you?”

  “Not yet.”

  “Well, he was never one to brag. And once a race is over, he forgets about it. He's looking ahead to the next one.”

  She could tell that Mark's father was proud of him but at the same time worried about him. “His mom's right, isn't she? Racing is hard on his CF.”

  “It isn't good for it. One whole season he wore a special mask around the track. But Rosa doesn't understand that the kid's got to have something to call his own. That his whole life can't revolve around CF—even though it does.”

  “I'm happy you support him,” April said. “I know it means a lot to him.”

  He shrugged. “He's my son. I love him.”

  The racing began, and Mark's father explained that it was done in heats—the top finishers from each heat became the competitors in the final race of the night. The winner of the final heat would take home the prize money and trophy. Mark would race in the third of seven heats, and if he won that, he'd run in the last. The cars were beginning to accelerate around the track in anticipation of the green go-ahead flag dropping and starting their heat. April realized she was growing used to the roar, so she slipped the hearing protectors partway off.

  “This is it,” she shouted when the cars rolled out for the start of Mark's race. Mark's primer-coated Chevelle looked intimidating on the asphalt oval. She dug her nails into her palms when the starter flag dropped and the cars shot out of their slots, jockeying for position. It didn't take Mark long to push his car to the front of the pack. April let out a whoop when he crossed under the checkered flag in first place. “He made that look easy!” she exclaimed.

  His father grinned proudly. “He usually does.”

  For the rest of the evening, she fidgeted in her seat, watching with keen interest the winners of the following heats. By the final race she was squirming. “This is it,” she declared as the winners of all the heats took to the track.

  “Guess you're becoming a racing fan,” Mark's father said with a wink.

  “It's loud and smelly, but it's fun.”

  “True,” he said. “And Mark loves it.”

  April held her breath as the green flag dropped and the cars roared forward. This time, Mark maneuvered quickly behind the lead car, hugging its back bumper. “What's he doing? Why doesn't he go around him?” she yelled.

  “He's drafting,” Mark's father explained above the whine of the engines. “He's letting the other car slice through the air to pull him along. It cuts down on his car's wind drag. Then, if it's timed just right and he can maneuver past him, the other driver can't do anything but eat his exhaust.”

  She watched, wide-eyed, as the cars rounded the final turn and roared down the stretch. At seemingly the last moment before the checkered flag dropped, Mark gunned his accelerator and flung his car around his opponent, crossing the finish line just a bumper ahead. The fans went wild. “He won!” April screamed, jumping up and down.

  “Let's get to the winner's circle.” Mark's father took her arm and pulled her down the steps and through an infield gate, where he showed his badge once more. In the winner's area, Mark's car stopped rolling. He switched off the motor and climbed out. Everyone applauded and she heard shouts of “Good driving!” and “Way to go!”

  Mark tugged off his helmet, his smile brighter than the artificial lights over the field, and waved. But his gaze found April in the crowd instantly. She threw herself into his arms and kissed him wildly. “You were wonderful! I'm totally impressed.”

  He handed her the trophy. “This one's yours.”

  “I can't keep your trophy!”

  “Sure you can.” He unwrapped her scarf from his arm, looped it around the back of her neck, and pulled her against him. “You brought me luck.”

  “You didn't need me or my token tonight,” she insisted.

  He looked into her eyes, and for a moment the noise of the crowd faded. “You're wrong, April/5 he said. Her heart hammered crazily. “I need you more than you'll ever know.”

  After her first month of radiation, April returned to the city to meet with Dr. Sorenson. Her mother went with her and, after the routine exam, took her out for lunch and shopping. “I wish he'd told us something,” her mother said as they settled into velvet-covered chairs at the restaurant.

  “He did,” April replied, nibbling on a bread stick. “He said there wasn't anything
to tell us yet.” Until her radiation therapy was completed, the tumor couldn't be measured, nor could she be given a prognosis report. To April's way of thinking, the visit had been a colossal waste of time. And with only three weeks until graduation, she'd have rather been spending the time at school.

  Her mother studied the menu. “Nothing looks good to me. How about you?”

  “I don't have much of an appetite. I think the treatments are affecting my taste buds. Everything tastes funny. Sort of dull.”

  “You should have said something to the doctor.”

  “It's normal, Mother,” April said, although she didn't really think anything about cancer radiation was normal.

  “You'll get through this, honey,” her mother said sympathetically. She lowered her menu. “Oh, by the way, the Stevenses are having a dinner party Saturday evening and they've invited all of us.”

  The Stevenses were her parents' oldest and best friends, and April usually enjoyed attending their parties. “I can't. Mark's racing this Saturday and I'm going to cheer for him.”

  “You're certainly spending a lot of time with him.”

  April felt her radar go up. “And so what if I am?”

  “You aren't dating the boys you used to date anymore.”

  “The boys I used to date are pretty juvenile, Mom.”

  “They were fine before.”

  “You mean before I got a brain tumor. They really can't relate to me anymore. High-school guys were fine until I got sick. Now they seem immature.”

  “But they're teenagers, April. Mark is a young man. What does he see in a girl your age?”

  “Oh, thanks, Mother,” April said sarcastically. “Maybe he actually likes me.”

  “You know what I mean.” Her mother looked flustered, and bright spots of color appeared in her cheeks. “It merely seems odd that he's interested in dating someone four years younger than he is.”

  “Four years is nothing.”

  “Maybe you should give the boys from school another chance. Maybe you simply haven't found the right one.”

  Irritated, April declared, “Maybe I have found the right one. I care about Mark. And I'm not going to stop seeing him.” Mark had come to mean a lot to her.