“Sort of . . . yes. Sparks.”
“So how many sparks did you see today?”
“How many? I’m not sure . . . ,” answered Mom. “Her eye crinkled up when Aunt Maureen came back into the room.”
“Does that really mean something?” It didn’t seem like much. “Anything else?”
“She repeated some sounds today when your aunt was talking to her,” said my dad.
“What sounds?” I took the runner’s/visitor’s log out of my backpack. If sparks = progress, then I could actually keep track of them. Ugh. The log was a confused mess. I turned the paper over and scribbled SPARKS across the top of it, then made a tally mark.
“I couldn’t really make them out,” he answered. “But Aunt Maureen seemed to understand them.” I erased the tally mark I had just made. But the water pitcher? That was a good one. I wished I had been there to see it. I made two tally marks, one for recognizing the water pitcher and one for knowing to point at it. Did Colin spark for Jack? I’m sure he did. But was that the type of thing Jack looked for when he visited? We weren’t just looking for progress, we were expecting it. Was Jack?
“Does she spark when you go in the room, Mom?” I was pretty sure I didn’t generate any sparks for her.
“I think . . . so,” Mom said, then yawned. Her head was against the window. I wanted to talk more about sparks, but I knew how tired she was. A few seconds later there was light snoring from the front seat. I studied my two sad little tally marks. Three days in the hospital and Riley could point to a water pitcher. Was that ever going to add up to anything?
* * *
When we got home, Archie was waiting at the door, as always. His barking was less maniacal—he finally trusted that we were coming back for him. Plus, one of the neighbors came during the day to take him for a walk.
“I’ll bring him out back, Dad,” I offered. “Come on, boy.” I patted my leg and he followed me through the kitchen and out the screen door, making a beeline to the dark part of the yard to take care of business. When he came back, he sat in front of me and began to whine. If Archie had the chance, he would visit Riley in a heartbeat and stay by her side all day long. If he was a normal-size dog, I swear I would smuggle him in to see her. Riley would love that! I reached for the door, but he didn’t follow me. Instead he sat by the gate, looking out toward the street. Waiting for Riley, I was certain.
“Come on, Archie,” I said, patting my leg again. “Come on!”
He ignored me.
“Riley will be home! Yes, she will!” I used the singsongy dog voice Riley used when she was talking to him. I felt like an idiot, really, but he was acknowledging me now—listening. He really was. “She misses you! And when she sees you again, you are gonna get the biggest spark ever!” He barked at me and wagged his tail, following me at last back into the house and up to Riley’s room. Dog language. I didn’t even know I could speak it.
Up in her room, we both headed for the same thing—the smell of Riley’s coconut shampoo on her pillow. He beat me to it. All I could think about when spread out on the cool sheets, fan blowing on my face, was that I had just spent more time talking to the dog than I had spent talking to Riley since she’d been in the hospital.
Jack was right. There really was no excuse for me.
* * *
22 Leukemia is a cancer of the body’s blood-forming tissues, including the bone marrow and lymphatic system, a system that helps rid the body of toxins.
23 They are called T-cells because they mature in the thymus gland—a tiny gland between your lungs.
24 Squamous technically means “covered in scales.”
25 As a reminder, vitals are temperature, HR, RES, BP, and P-SOCKS.
DAY 4
So, do you talk to Riley when you’re in the room?” I asked as I plopped down at the kitchen table for breakfast and my mother handed me a sandwich. She’d gotten some sleep, taken a shower, and she looked—and smelled—like Mom again.
“Great news!” she announced, ignoring my question. “Aunt Mo texted me first thing this morning—Riley’s been upgraded from critical condition to serious!
“That’s great!” I tried to match the enthusiasm in her voice, but I wasn’t exactly sure what it meant. I mean, “serious” doesn’t sound too hot either. I had already decided—as I was falling asleep last night—that I was going to go see Riley more than once a day. Two times, definitely, or maybe even three. I wanted to see sparks for myself. I wanted to bring Riley a spark, if I could. I know it would sound like I was only more comfortable going because she wasn’t in critical condition anymore . . . but the lousy truth was I had barely seen her. Sixty minutes total, and that was counting the few minutes in the ER and the time I spent with Dad in the hallway watching Aunt Mo and Riley. I couldn’t bring myself to put that on the log, but I was counting it in my head. She had gone from critical to serious, and I pretty much had absolutely nothing to do with it. I was the weak link on the team and I wanted to do a better job. I wanted to be a part of her recovery.
I opened up the turkey sandwich and peeled off the lettuce. That was breakfast this morning, because there wasn’t much else in the house besides cold cuts and pasta. The neighbors kept the fridge stuffed with good, solid dinner food. Froot Loops were not on the list.
“I’m asking your dad to pick up a fruit salad for the hospital,” she said without looking up. She was texting him on his morning run to the bagel store/bakery and now grocery.
“And Froot Loops,” I added. “Can you ask him to get Froot Loops?”
“And Froot Loops,” she repeated as she typed it into her phone.
“So, Riley?” Mom stared at me.
“Do you talk to her when you’re in the room?” I repeated. “Do you sorta pretend that Riley can answer you?”
“I guess I just talk.” My mom paused to think. “Her speech therapist encouraged us to engage with Riley as much as we can. Get her to process language, even if she’s not ready to answer us. So, I guess Maureen and I talk a lot to each other and we just try to include her.” She picked the lettuce off the table and pushed the mayonnaise my way. “It’s still good for her to hear about real things and real life. It’s a good exercise for her brain to focus and listen.”
“Okay, but there is no real life here,” I said. Mom frowned at me. “I didn’t mean it like that.” I smeared mayonnaise all over the sandwich and then squished the top piece of bread back on. Mayonnaise oozed out the sides. My mom is completely grossed out by mayonnaise, so I put the lid back on quickly.
“I know this is hard, honey. Just, you know, talk about whatever you guys talk about.” The lid wasn’t enough distance between my mom and mayonnaise, so she got up and put it back in the fridge. “School? Archie? Boys?”
“Boys?” I cringed. “We don’t talk about boys!” Partial lie. We didn’t talk about boys. But we did have a fight about one boy. A big fight.
A phone-cracking fight about a secret boy with a code name.
GEORGINA
I stuffed way too much sandwich in my mouth and had to spit some back out on the plate.
“Okay, that was gross.” She stared at me a little too long. “Well, then, how about you talk about other things that interest her?”
“I just can’t think of anything.” My stomach was twisting in knots. So far all I had was Hi, Riley. I’m sorry you had a stroke. Today I had mayonnaise for breakfast. Do you like mayonnaise, Riley? Or would you like to talk about music or secret boyfriends? I ate my sandwich to the crusts and then built a bread frame out of them.
My mom grabbed a corner of the one mayonnaise-free crust and popped it in her mouth. I hadn’t seen her eat anything else for breakfast. I thought about what Monica had said about families needing to eat and offered her the rest of my crust. She cringed. Stupid mayo. “It will feel funny, I get that. I really do. It’s hard to talk to somebody who can’t talk back,” she said. “But it’s important to try.”
“Is anybody else going to come
visit her? Like her friends? Where are they?”
“Maureen said Riley doesn’t want them to,” answered Mom. “At least not yet.” It’s one thing to point at the water pitcher when you’re thirsty, but how in the world could Riley have told her mother she didn’t want her friends to visit her? Aunt Mo was either really, really good at communicating with Riley or she was really, really good at imagining it.
“But it would be good for her, wouldn’t it?”
“I think that’s Riley’s decision. Maybe when she feels better.”
“Okay, Mom,” I said. “I’ll figure something out.” I gave the last bit of crust to Archie, who was sitting under the table, waiting for it. He gobbled it up and then licked my toes. Ewwww! I was disgusted but laughed anyway. That’s what the PICU needed, I thought, a dog! Although maybe not one quite so . . . Archie. Jack would love it, although he’d probably name it a medical term I’d never heard of, and he’d probably feed it coffee and beef jerky.
“I’m going to make another sandwich,” I told my mother.
“For later?”
“For Jack, my friend at the hospital. I’m not sure he eats enough.” Should I make one for Colin, too? I wasn’t sure if he could eat solid food, but I didn’t want Jack to think that I had forgotten about him. I made two.
“We’re leaving in fifteen minutes,” Dad announced from the front door. “And I have enough fruit salad to feed ten people!”
* * *
A sandwich in each hand, I took the stairs two at a time to get my backpack and load it up for the day. I put the sandwiches down on the bed—and then caught Archie very clearly hatching his own plan for them.
“Nice try, bud!” I moved them up to the bookshelf—about the only place he wouldn’t be able to reach. I ran my finger over Riley’s name, scratched into the purple paint. Then I saw them. Right above her name were exactly what I needed—her favorite books. Nope, not the ones that are probably your favorites. Riley’s were . . . wait for it . . . presidential biographies. See? Probably not on your list. Not just the major presidents who everybody knows, either, like Washington and Lincoln (her personal favorite), but the ones nobody ever talks about, like Ulysses S. Grant and Calvin Coolidge. The books were old and heavy, like textbooks, but Riley’s had them since she was in the second grade. Her dad had gotten the whole set for her at a garage sale, and he used to read them out loud to her. I could maybe read to her about presidents! It might even get me a spark!
I scanned the titles until I saw Abraham Lincoln and remembered an afternoon when Riley decided that I, too, needed to know all about him. I’d uh-huh’d for an hour. Yeah, it’s weird.26 I know.
I took Ol’ Abe’s biography off the shelf and slid it into my backpack, followed by the sandwiches. Then, at the last minute, I grabbed one of Riley’s sketchbooks, some colored pencils, and even her pillowcase off the pillow and shoved those in there too. Maybe stuff from her room would spark her.
As I put on my sneakers, Archie positioned himself to jump on the bed with me. I closed my hand into a fist and held it over his head. Sit, I hand-said, using Riley’s closed-fist hand signal. He sat. Stay, I hand-said, holding my palm flat and my fingers up. He stayed.
Archie stared at me. Waiting for more words? “She’ll be back, boy.” Archie huffed and lowered his head to the floor. He smells tomato soup, I thought. I took Riley’s pillowcase out of my backpack and put it back on the bed for Archie—after I took a sniff of it myself. I think he needed it more than Riley did.
* * *
26 And not the stuff anybody knows.
DAY 4 1/4
Of course, it started pouring as we drove to the hospital, and the parking lot, of course, was full, so we had to park a few blocks away and I’d clearly jammed way too much in my backpack, which was getting wetter and heavier by the block. I worried the stuff in there was getting ruined. I should have wrapped it all in a plastic bag. Riley’s sketchbook was in there too! Shoot! That would be a great conversation starter, wouldn’t it? Hey, I brought all this stuff that is important and highly personal to you and then took a walk in the rain! Look how charcoal pencil drawings run when they’re wet!
Dad was none too pleased either, working hard to keep his bagels, doughnuts, pastries, and fruit salad from getting drenched. He really had bought enough for a party.
In the family room, while Mom did her morning check-in with Aunt Mo, and Dad muttered about wet bags and poor packing in the kitchen, I unzipped the backpack and pulled out the sketchbook. Phew, it was dry . . . just one corner a teensy bit discolored. Something I haven’t mentioned yet is that Riley was a real artist. She could draw just about anything—giraffes, owls, cheetahs, or even dragons and castles. I found the page with her wolf. Riley’s wolves were great. This is the wolf she tried to teach me to draw the day before we went to Coney Island:
“You claim to be a runner, but every time I see you, you’re sitting.” Jack was back, in the same clothes he wore yesterday.
“Did you sleep here?” Sleeping here was not good. You slept here when the third thing was possible.
“Nope. Why?”
Because you look tired and you’re wearing the same clothes. I thought better of it. “No reason. Here, I brought you a sandwich. Colin, too. Hope you like turkey . . . and mayo.”
“Wow. Thank you.” He looked like he was about to say more, but changed his mind, unwrapping one sandwich immediately. He devoured half of it and carried the other half to the kitchen, smiling at the magazine lady in her usual spot. “Seriously, you shouldn’t sit all day. They say sitting is as bad as smoking.”
“They do not.”
“They do.”
“I can’t run. Where am I supposed to run?”
“Run the stairs. Some of the neurology nurses do it before shift on Tuesdays and Thursdays.” Jack popped one of the little cup things into the coffeemaker and began rummaging around in a cabinet above the microwave while his cup brewed.
“Jeez, you really have been here too long!” Shoot! It’s like I saved up every stupid thing I could say until I got to the family room—and then I spilled them all over the floor.
“You got that right.” Jack let me off the hook again. Why did he do that? He was clearly much nicer than me. “Running stairs is really good for your heart—and your legs. You’ll have monstrous legs, like tree trunks.”
“Sounds . . . comfortable.” He laughed harder than I expected, and then I did too.
“Seriously, you’re going to lose your mind if you sit all day,” Jack went on as he did a lap around my chair, half a sandwich in one hand, his fresh coffee in the other.
“I’m a cross-country runner,” I argued, “not an up-and-down-the-stairs runner.” He widened the circle, lapping around both chairs.
“Stairs are like hills. Plus, seems to me if you really wanted to run, you’d run where you can. What does the direction matter?”27 I stuck one leg straight out in front of me to prevent another go-around. He was about to step over it when the wolf caught his attention.
“Nice!” he said. “Did you do that?” Finally, sitting.
“Uh . . . I don’t really do animals,” I said. “Riley did it. But she did try to teach me. I’ll show you how good I am.” I turned to my version on the next page:
“Whoa,” he said without skipping a beat, “that is not good. Have you ever even seen a wolf?” He picked up the remote and aimed it at the TV. “I’m sure we can find one for you on the Discovery Channel—”
“Riley made me draw it with my eyes closed!” I explained. “She told me to picture a wolf in my head, then draw what I saw.”
“Is that how you see a wolf? It looks like a pig with a straw coming out of its eye.”
“You try it, then!” I grabbed a pen from my backpack and shoved it toward him. Then I repeated what Riley had told me. “Picture a wolf in your head and send the thought down your arm.” He followed the instructions and then showed me this:
“Okay, that looks like a rabbit in a bo
w tie.”
“Better than the straw pig.”
“Is not.”
“Is.”
“Is not!” Some new people came in—newbies were pretty easy to spot—and Jack and I instantly lowered our voices. “Anyway, Riley said the point was to try to get you to see the wolf in a different way.” Persistent as always. But Riley hadn’t stopped there—or given up on my weird pig-wolf with an eye straw. She’d sat beside me and showed me step by step. We’d erased. We’d started over. I copied what Riley did. To remind you, the Riley wolf was this:
Then, one step at a time, Riley walked me to the wolf. It wasn’t perfect, but in less than an hour, Riley had taken me from
I showed Jack. “Hey,” he said, putting his coffee down and taking the book from my hands, genuinely impressed. “That’s amazing. It actually looks like a wolf.”
“Yep,” I said. “Riley showed me step by step. The loose lines for fur, the eyes slanted a bit. The ears and the snout. She would draw and explain and I would copy it. Face, fur, eyes, snout, ears. Trust me, it took a while.”
He turned the pages to admire more of Riley’s work. Then he paused at one page. “Uh-oh—I guess she didn’t enjoy the Cyclone too much, huh?”
“What?” My chest instantly tightened, like someone had grabbed me by the lungs. “What are you talking about?”
He turned the sketchbook around to show me.
I glanced nervously at Jack. Riley even looked scared in the drawing. Bug-eyed and openmouthed. “The—the night before—” I stuttered. “She—she—must have sketched it while I was out for a run or something.” Hot tears sprang to my eyes, and I finally snatched the sketchbook from Jack and tore the drawing out.
“Okay then.” Jack was looking at me funny. A prolonged-eye-contact child-life-specialist kind of look. “That’s it, right? That’s when—” That mind-reading thing again.
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