“Oh, sorry, Mom. I’m Dani, Dr. Stuart’s PA. I’ll be assisting Dr. Stuart in the surgery.”
“Surgery?” they say in unison, concern bleeding through. They can’t help it, they’re parents, after all.
“It’s the only way to put these bones back together. Dr. Stuart will come in and explain everything to you afterward, but we have to get the wound cleaned out before a bacterial infection starts. These open fractures can get nasty. He’ll most likely need to put in a rod to stabilize things. It’s going to be rough for Mindy for the next few weeks, but you’ve raised a seriously tough girl, and she’s in great physical shape. She’ll be back on the slopes in no time.”
Abhorrent visions dance through Lauren’s head: her girl limping around, her leg permanently scarred. What will she think of this mar on her otherwise smooth and perfect beauty? Lauren has no idea how Mindy will react. She has no scars on her lean body, a miracle, considering. Will she freak out, beg for plastic surgery? Be stoic, wear it like a badge of honor? If Lauren is honest with herself, she thinks it will be the latter. Mindy is so tough, so unlike other girls her age. No, a scar won’t faze her.
Movement, a whispered gasp from the bed. “Mom?”
Lauren grabs Mindy’s hand. She is groggy and pale, and Lauren’s heart constricts. Oh God. My baby. I don’t know if I can handle this. Why can’t I be the one who’s hurt? Why can’t I shoulder this pain?
“Don’t move, sweetie. Your leg is broken. You need surgery.” She can’t help it; tears roll down her cheek.
“I know. Don’t cry, Mom. It will be okay. This happens. They’ll fix me.”
Brave, so brave. Comforting Lauren. At the sting of the role reversal, Lauren sniffs and smiles, pulls herself together.
“Yes, tough girl, they will. You’re going to be just fine. Dr. Stuart is the best orthopedic surgeon on staff.”
The PA slaps the chart back into place. “That’s right, Mindy, we’re going to fix you right up. So kisses and hugs, family, it’s time to put this little egg back together again.”
As instructed, they kiss and hug their drawn, pale daughter. They stay strong. They assure and pet. There are no more tears, no more weaknesses allowed. If Mindy is going to be strong, then damn it, so will they.
Yet, as they wheel her away, Lauren has a moment of sheer panic. A premonition of sorts. Something is not right with their world. Little does she know, this is only the beginning.
* * *
The surgery is estimated to take just under an hour. They are in an impersonal, yellow-walled room with brown couches covered in industrial-strength faux leather, the kind that looks like it will withstand a knife attack or a pack of rabid dogs.
Lauren can’t sit. How can she sit? Her daughter is anesthetized, effectively dead, having a metal rod screwed into the fragile bones of her leg. Jasper doesn’t seem nearly as concerned. After looking up the doctor and seeing that he is the number one orthopod for local skiers and sanctioned by the Vail Ski Club, he’s settled in, drinking coffee and making phone calls, updating friends to Mindy’s status, talking to her coach, Steve Hakuri, who is stuck on the mountain in the blizzard, waiting to find out if they are going to keep running the race when the storm clears. The speaker is on so Lauren can hear both ends of Jasper’s conversation—Steve seems to think they are going to call the whole event, which means Mindy will still have the overall lead, and almost more importantly, enough World Cup points to qualify for the Olympic team.
Lauren doesn’t know if they’ll get that lucky. Jasper gives her a chin-up motion from five feet away. The room—the disgusting yellow-and-brown room—is small, but she doesn’t think she’s ever felt farther away from him than she does right now.
There is a chasm. It has been widening all day. As if this is her fault. As if Lauren is the one who’s flung her child down the mountain and slammed her into a flag, snapping her leg in two.
He might say that. It is true, in a sense. Lauren has pushed Mindy. But she wanted to be pushed. She is naturally driven. Naturally talented. She likes the workouts, the running, the weights, the yoga to keep her young body supple and mind clear, the ultra-clean food. And she loves the mountain. It is her favorite place to be, leaning into that hill, feeling the wind whip past, defying gravity, space, time. Truly, Mindy loves it more than she loves them.
Lauren does her best not to be jealous. She doesn’t want to lose Mindy to her life’s joy. She wants to be a part of it, to participate, to support and help. To push, when needed.
The way Mindy describes skiing, it is holy, sacred. A sacrament between her and the gods who created the mountain in the first place. Lauren and Jasper love to ski, but the connection Mindy has with the snow and ice is corporeal. Anyone who watches her knows this. She’s meant to be a skier.
Lauren can’t help the thought: What are we going to do if this ends her career?
She watches Jasper, wondering how he can be so cheerful. She knows he’s trying to keep her spirits up—he’s naturally a happy kind of guy—an eternal optimist. They’ve been married for a long time now, almost eighteen years of ups and downs, of Mindy’s crazy training schedules, late nights and early mornings, homeschooling, tutors, days spent cold and frozen at the bottom of too many mountains, sleeping rough on transatlantic flights, and through it all, he has been a wonderful father and husband.
She resents his forced cheer, which is completely unfair. The stress of the day is catching up to her. There’s only so much coffee can do. They need real food, real rest.
Her Apple watch shows she’s paced two miles before the doctor finally comes out, his face drawn and tired. He is a large man, balding, with small round glasses like a schoolteacher of old. He radiates intelligence and warmth. She trusts him immediately.
But when he says, “Mom, Dad,” Lauren can’t help being annoyed. Why won’t they use their names? Why must they be reduced to the roles of parents instead of being acknowledged as people, living, breathing human beings?
Regardless, they gather at his feet, supplicants.
“We’ve put her back together, and she’s going to be just fine. We’ll have to watch carefully for infection, but we’ve loaded her up with all the best antibiotics. One concern is I don’t know that she’s done growing, so there may be some surgeries in the future to lengthen this bone to match her right side, but that’s something we’ll know more about later on.”
“This is good, though, right? She’ll heal and be able to ski again?” Jasper’s face lights up with hope. Lauren still feels no relief. There is something else. Something is coming.
“Sure thing. It looked pretty bad, but once I got in there and cleaned things up, turns out it was a good break, no splintering, no leftover shards of bone. Her leg’s in a halo, which looks pretty gruesome, but that’s only to keep things stable while the wound heals. Crutches for six weeks, minimum, and lots of rehab, but she’ll come out of it okay.” The frown deepens, the lines of his forehead collapsing in on themselves so he looks like a Shar-Pei puppy. “There is one complication.”
When he says this, another doctor enters the room, as if he’s been waiting in the wings for his cue. Spotlight, stage right, please, and follow.
Lauren resists that urge to say, I told you so. Instead, her muscles tighten.
“This is Dr. Oliver. He’s with oncology.”
“Oncology? What?” Jasper grabs Lauren’s hand. He is crushing her bones, and she wants to pull away, but she clings as hard as he, and at the doctor’s next words, the world bottoms out around them.
3
There are so many words Lauren doesn’t understand. But somewhere in them, a bone-deep terror starts. She ignores the terminology, the foreign, frightening words, and focuses on the face of the doctor as he explains their new normal.
Their daughter has cancer.
Leukemia.
She needs immediate treatment
.
Jasper asks all the right questions. He is still holding on to Lauren’s hand, but she gets the sense she is the one holding him upright.
She lets them talk until she can’t stand it anymore.
“How could we not have known she was sick?” she blurts.
The doctor smiles kindly, perfectly square Chiclet teeth that are surely veneers shining in the fluorescent light. “A very good question, Mom. We—”
“Lauren.”
“Excuse me?”
“My name is Lauren. Not Mom. His name is Jasper. Not Dad. Please stop it.”
“Yes, ma’am. Of course.” He regroups, then begins again, with a long emphasis on their names that is almost as infuriating to her as the parental nomenclature.
“Lauren. Jasper. Mindy is an athlete, used to pushing herself. If I were to guess, she’s always tired, always sore, and that’s been going on for several months, am I right? My bet is she’s been running ragged competing this winter, and it was easily missed, blamed on her training regime.”
Easily missed. Lauren’s daughter has a disease that might kill her, and it was easily missed by those closest to her.
Dear God. How will they live with themselves if Mindy dies, and they chalked up her symptoms to aggressive training?
The surgeon’s beeper squawks. He reaches down, frowning at his belt. “I need to go, we have another emergency surgery. I’ll leave you in Dr. Oliver’s care, and I’ll see Mindy tomorrow morning during rounds. She’s a tough girl. Don’t worry yourselves too much. The leg will heal.”
And he bustles away, a flurry of blue scrubs and white coat. Lauren senses relief in the lines of his retreating shoulders—his job is finished, and Dr. Oliver’s, and Mindy’s, is just beginning.
Dr. Oliver gestures to the couch.
“Let me tell you where we go from here.”
The names of the tests are lengthy and confusing. He hands over a pamphlet with a smiling bald blue-eyed wraith on it—Dealing with Your Child’s Cancer Diagnosis. Lauren’s stomach flips. She wants to see Mindy, right now, wants to see her so badly it’s like a hole is being seared into her heart.
But she sits still as the grave, and pretends to listen, to comprehend; holds Jasper’s hand and leans into his warm body and prays they aren’t already at the end, when this morning, she’d awakened thinking they were at the beginning.
There is a plan, a “protocol,” that Dr. Oliver is going to follow. It involves aggressive chemotherapy—the induction period—followed by more treatment. Mindy will be moved from the surgical floor to oncology for more testing.
She cannot go home. She cannot pass Go. She cannot collect two hundred dollars. She is going to be stuck in this small hospital for the next few days, and they are welcome to stay with her. Many parents do, especially the first night.
Dr. Oliver is still talking, but Lauren tunes him out. She watches his mouth move. She watches Jasper’s eyes track over the man’s face, looking desperately for something positive to take away from this speech.
There is nothing more to glean, and Jasper is shivering when they stand and allow themselves to be escorted to a room two floors up. It is small but sunny, with the same oddly industrial yellow walls. Lauren does her best not to see any of the other patients as they pass rooms bedecked in personal items, afghans and photographs, ignores the small, bald children in wheelchairs staring into the hallways, ignores the chills creeping down her spine.
Dr. Oliver’s nurse gets them settled. Her name is Hazel, and she seems very kind—they are all so very kind, so kind it sets Lauren’s teeth on edge.
“Is there someone we can call, any family you’d like us to reach out to?”
Who would she call?
Her phone hasn’t rung since the accident, has it?
She digs into her bag, only to find the phone’s battery has died. Lauren doesn’t ever allow that to happen, but since her entire world is right here in this hospital room, there is no one she wants to talk to, so she’s left the phone in her purse, zipped tidily away so it won’t fall out, and it’s dead.
Stop thinking that word, Lauren.
Like Mindy, Lauren doesn’t have any close friends. With Mindy’s activities, it’s always been hard to establish friendships with the mothers of other girls her age. Either they were busy with their own extracurriculars, or too competitive to allow their daughters to spend time with Lauren’s. They are a solid, happy threesome, Jasper, Mindy, and Lauren. Truthfully, Lauren prefers it this way. Their solitude is a comfort to her. She was never much for large groups anyway.
“We should call Juliet,” Jasper says, and Lauren nods. Oh, of course. Juliet. Her little sister. Mindy’s favorite—only—aunt. She must be told. Jasper steps out to make the call.
Lauren is beginning to think she must be in shock. She is not thinking clearly. She watches the blizzard outside the window. The fluorescent lights and kindly nurses are making her so claustrophobic she wants to scream. Her instinct to flee is strong, to run into the snow and go back up the mountain to their house and wake up again and do this day over.
Of course, she can’t. She must stay together for Jasper. She must stay tethered to the real world for Mindy’s sake.
There is a small commotion in the hall. Mindy is arriving.
The techs wheel in the bed. Mindy’s leg is suspended, thin metal pieces disappearing into the bandages like the legs on a butterfly into its thorax. Her foot is half-casted, her toes peeking from their nest, black and blue and a strange orange-yellow—Betadine, from being sanitized before the surgery. She is still deeply asleep, her mouth slightly open. The painkillers must be tremendous to knock her out; her metabolism is Thoroughbred quick, and Lauren hasn’t ever seen anything touch it. She’s never seen her daughter asleep like this, either, unnaturally still, and the word prances in again—dead, dead, dead.
How will Lauren tell her how sick she is? How is this even happening? Mindy has been pale, yes, and she’s been tired, but Mindy thought—Lauren thought?—they all thought Mindy was simply training hard.
Oliver’s nurse watches these proceedings, then straightens a pillow and smiles at them again.
“Mrs. Wright? Ma’am? Is there someone we can call?”
“No, thank you. I’ll charge my phone and make a few calls myself. Thank you. You’re very kind.”
Lauren makes a mental note to send flowers to the nurses’ station. Something cheery, bright. They probably aren’t thanked enough. They work so hard.
Jasper comes back in the room wearing a tight smile, which makes the grooves around his mouth deepen. They are growing older, he and Lauren, but this fact often catches her by surprise. She still sees the young lawyer she married all those years ago. The strands of gray at his temples, the deepening lines—he’s aging very well. Lauren, on the other hand, worries she’s not. Too much sun as a child, too many cigarettes, too much booze in school. Soon enough she will be haggard and drawn, her skin wrinkled and gray.
Is Mindy going to age at all?
At the thought, she has to brace herself not to burst into tears and run screaming from the hospital.
Jasper glances at the metal halo holding Mindy’s leg in place, pales. He licks his chapped lips. “She’s in.”
“What do you mean, she’s in?”
“They called the race. Her points stand. She’s in.”
Lauren laughs, worthless and cold. She can’t help herself. All the work, all the sleepless nights and long, cold days, and the triumph her girl has been working toward is going to be snatched away by a chance encounter with a set of rogue blood cells.
Again, the thought: She is going to be so furious when she wakes.
Mindy caught a terrible cold once, right before a race. They couldn’t give her any medication because of the drug standards for the competition, and she was downright miserable, but she decided she wa
s going to race anyway. She couldn’t breathe, her nose was running, and yet she turned in a personal best time, qualifying for junior nationals, did three TV interviews, and then let her mother coddle her with hot chocolate and chicken soup.
Nothing comes between Mindy and the mountain.
Now, a broken leg and leukemia might.
“They’re playing favorites,” Lauren says. “Won’t everyone complain?”
“Everyone wants Mindy on Team USA. You know how much they all love her.”
This is true. Even the dreaded Janice Cuthbert, a year younger and nearly as good, loves Mindy. Follows her around like a puppy, happy to be anywhere near her hero. Janice won’t make the team now. Lauren is not a vindictive woman, but she is glad, for the moment, that the accolades still belong to Mindy. Though she can’t imagine how her girl will be able to train and go to the Olympics if she is as sick as they say, not to mention heal from the broken leg quickly enough.
For the first time, she prays for a miracle.
* * *
The treatment plan is set by the next afternoon.
They took bone marrow and spinal fluid while Mindy was out from the anesthesia, so they have a jump start on her status. The cancer is identified as AML—acute myeloid leukemia. Not nearly as common as its sister ALL, it is tougher to cure, which means more aggressive treatment from the get-go. Lauren listens and takes notes, Jasper types on his phone. They will stay up all night reading horror stories, and by morning, will convince themselves that nothing will stop their daughter’s survival. Nothing.
The surgery will complicate the induction period, but they have no choice now. The doctors are very clear. They have to kill the cancer cells in Mindy’s blood, and they have to do it quickly. Or else.
4
Dr. Juliet Ryder hates the smell of hospitals. Ironic, considering she spends her days in a lab. The Queen of Pipettes, that’s what her coworkers call her. As lead DNA tech and lab manager for the Colorado Bureau of Investigation, she accepts the title with grace and aplomb.
Tear Me Apart Page 3
