Ring of Light

by Isobel Bird

  “That’s what I expected to hear,” the doctor said.

  “Kate, this is Dr. Pedersen,” Mrs. Morgan said.

  “Nice to meet you,” the doctor said. “You must be the Kate I keep hearing about. Netty talks about you all the time, even when she’s doing her treatments.”

  “Especially when I’m sitting there with a tube in my arm,” said Kate’s aunt. “It keeps my mind off of throwing up.”

  “Thanks, I think,” said Kate.

  There was a rattling as an aide appeared in the doorway of the room. He was a large, friendly looking guy, and when Aunt Netty saw him she smiled broadly.

  “Hi, Nick,” she said. “Have you come to take me away from all this?”

  “You bet,” Nick said, coming into the room and pulling a gurney behind him. “I even brought the stretch limo.”

  Nick put his hands behind Aunt Netty’s back and lifted her up. Kate was shocked to see how thin she looked in her nightgown as Nick carried her to the gurney and set her down. She’d lost a lot of weight, but Kate hadn’t noticed it until now.

  “I’ll have her back by curfew,” Nick said to Mrs. Morgan as he wheeled Aunt Netty out of the room.

  “You’d better,” joked Kate’s mother. “I’ll be waiting up.”

  When they were gone, Mrs. Morgan turned to the doctor. “How is she doing?” she asked.

  The doctor sighed. “It hasn’t been that long,” she said. “We still don’t know how the new chemotherapy is working.”

  “You look like there’s something else,” said Mrs. Morgan.

  Dr. Pedersen opened the file she was holding. “I’ve been looking at the bone scan we did,” she said. “There are some spots on a few of the bones. That suggests that the cancer is spreading.”

  “Can’t you just take it out like you did the lump?” Kate asked anxiously. “Won’t that make it go away?”

  “Unfortunately, that’s not how it works all of the time,” the doctor replied. “Your aunt has a particularly aggressive type of cancer. It’s metastasized, which means that it’s spread from the site of the original tumor to other parts of her body.”

  “What parts?” asked Kate.

  “First to her lymph nodes,” the doctor said. “That was to be expected with this type of cancer. But now it appears that it has spread. These spots on her bones are the first indications of that.”

  “Does she know?” Mrs. Morgan asked.

  Dr. Pedersen shook her head. “I’m going to tell her as soon as this treatment is over. Then we’ll have to decide what to do next.”

  No one said anything for a moment. Kate looked at her mother, who had a tired, sad expression on her face. Kate wondered what she was feeling, watching her little sister go through something so awful.

  “I should get down there,” said the doctor. “I’ll be back up when Netty’s treatment is over and I’ve had a chance to talk to her. Why don’t the two of you go get something to eat. She’ll probably be an hour or so.”

  “Thank you,” Mrs. Morgan said as the doctor left. Then she turned to Kate. “You heard the doctor,” she said. “Let’s go find something to eat.”

  Kate stood up and followed her mother out of the room, walking to the elevator. Neither of them said anything as they waited for the doors to open, or on the way down to the first floor and the hospital cafeteria. As they wound their way through the line, looking at the unappetizing offerings, Kate wanted desperately to ask the question that was weighing heavily on her mind, but she couldn’t bring herself to do it.

  It wasn’t until they were seated at one of the little plastic tables, chewing their cardboard-tasting sandwiches, that Kate finally asked, “Is Aunt Netty dying?”

  Her mother put down her food, wiped her mouth, and looked at Kate. “I don’t know,” she said. “I honestly don’t know.”

  Kate choked back a little sob. If her mother really believed that Netty would be okay, she would have said so. But she hadn’t, which made Kate think that even her mother expected the worst, even if she wouldn’t say it. It’s what she herself suspected, but it was worse knowing that her mother, the person who had always comforted her and told her that everything would be all right, was also worried. As a little girl, when she was frightened by thunderstorms, it was her mother who’d soothed her and told her stories about how the scary sounds were just the sky laughing. When she fell and scraped her knee, or had a bee sting, she’d trusted that her mother would make her feel better.

  But now Mrs. Morgan couldn’t do anything to make Kate feel better. She couldn’t make Aunt Netty’s cancer go away. She couldn’t stop the hurting. She couldn’t tell Kate that it would all be better in the morning. All she could do was sit there beneath the ugly fluorescent lights and tell Kate that one of the people she loved most in the world might be dying.

  Kate didn’t know what to say. She looked at her mother, who had put her hands over her eyes. When she removed them, Kate could see tears sliding down her face. Her mother sighed deeply, as if trying to keep from crying, and used her napkin to wipe her eyes.

  “I’m sorry,” she said.

  “For what?” Kate asked, about to cry herself.

  “For not telling you sooner,” said her mother. “We didn’t want to worry you. Netty thought the first tumor was the only one. We didn’t want to scare anyone by saying anything. That was wrong.”

  “No,” Kate said. “It wasn’t wrong. And I’m not mad.”

  She stood up and went to her mother. Leaning down, she put her arms around her and hugged her tightly. As she did, she felt her mother begin to shake. She was crying, openly now, and Kate felt warm tears falling on her arms. She’d rarely seen her mother cry, and she knew that what was happening to Netty must be tearing her apart.

  “I love you, Mom,” Kate said. “Don’t worry. Everything will be okay.”

  Their roles had reversed. Now it was Kate comforting her mother, who trembled with fear and sadness. She felt her mother’s hand reach up to clasp her own, and they remained like that for several minutes as her mother released the unhappiness inside of her. It broke Kate’s heart to feel her sobbing, but at the same time she felt a kind of strength filling her, the strength that came from wanting to protect someone she cared for from any more pain.

  “She’s my baby sister,” Mrs. Morgan said, her voice choking. “It’s not supposed to be like this. I’m supposed to be able to help her, and I can’t. I can’t do anything.”

  Kate stroked her mother’s hair gently as if she was the child and Kate was the mother. She kept saying “It will be all right. It will be all right.” But she wasn’t sure she believed it. How could it be all right when the cancer was destroying Aunt Netty’s body at such a furious rate? How could it be all right when her mother, who was always the one to believe that things would work out, was sobbing in her arms? She didn’t know, but she kept saying it anyway, as if repeating it over and over would make it true.

  Eventually, her mother’s breathing evened out as she stopped crying. She let go of Kate’s hand and patted it gently. Then she dabbed at her face with the napkin and sighed.

  “We should go back upstairs,” she said. “Netty should be back by now.”

  Kate looked at her mother’s face. Her eyes were red from crying. “Maybe we should wait a minute,” she suggested.

  “Am I a mess?” asked Mrs. Morgan.

  “A little,” Kate said, and both of them laughed tentatively.

  Her mother looked at her and smiled. “Thank you,” she said. “I know this must be really hard for you.”

  “Usually, I’m the one who’s a mess,” Kate replied.

  “Well, now you know how I feel when you are,” said her mother.

  “It’s not a nice feeling,” Kate admitted. “I don’t really know how I’m supposed to feel about all of this. I want to be brave, for you and Aunt Netty. And I want to be sad, for me. But mostly it just feels weird. This is the kind of thing that happens to other people, or to people in movies or somethi
ng. But now that it’s really happening, it’s not at all like I would expect it to be.”

  “I know what you mean,” her mother answered. “When Netty first called me and told me about the tumor, my first thought was that it was all a joke, or that somehow it wasn’t her and it was someone who dialed a wrong number. I just couldn’t bring myself to believe what she was saying. It was like she was talking about somebody else, somebody I didn’t really know and who just happened to have the same name that she did. Then I remembered the time when Kyle got hurt playing ice hockey. Your father called me from the hospital to say that he might have some spinal cord injury because he wasn’t moving and couldn’t feel his legs. I didn’t believe him. I kept telling him that he must be mistaken, that it must be some other boy and not Kyle because that couldn’t happen to my little boy. It wasn’t until I was at the hospital and saw him for myself that it really hit me.”

  “But Kyle was okay,” Kate said. “Maybe the same thing will happen with Aunt Netty.”

  Her mother smiled. “Maybe,” she said, but she didn’t sound at all sure of herself.

  They carried their trays to the garbage can and left the cafeteria. As they walked back to the elevators, Mrs. Morgan took Kate’s hand.

  “I know I tell you that I love you a lot,” she said. “You and Kyle. And I’m sure sometimes it just sounds like something to say when you leave for school or go out with your friends. But I want you to know that every time I say it I mean it with all my heart.”

  “I know you do,” Kate replied. “And I mean it, too.”

  “No matter what happens to Netty, she loves you,” Mrs. Morgan continued. “You mean a lot to her, and it means a lot to her that you’re here with her during all of this. She pretends to be fine, but I know she’s scared.”

  Kate nodded. She couldn’t say anything. If she did she would start crying again, and she wanted to look as normal as possible when she went in to see her aunt.

  They rode the elevator to the third floor and got off. When they walked into Aunt Netty’s room, Dr. Pedersen was sitting beside her bed. Netty had a stunned look on her face, and Kate knew that the doctor had told her the news that her cancer had spread to her bones. Still, when Netty saw them in the doorway she managed a smile.

  “I hope you didn’t eat all the creamed corn,” she said. “I ordered extra for dinner tonight.”

  “No, we left some for you,” Mrs. Morgan said.

  “I was just going over Netty’s lab reports with her. Everything’s going right—except we don’t have any indication of this round of chemo’s effectiveness on the cancer. We have to wait and see,” Dr. Pedersen said.

  “But you can’t just do nothing!” Kate burst out, sounding angrier than she meant to because she was frustrated. “What good are all these different treatments if you can’t depend on them?”

  “I understand how you feel, Kate,” said the doctor kindly. “Believe me, I get just as frustrated waiting for results. But there are limits, even in medicine, and we have to work with them.”

  “I only have to do these treatments for another few weeks, Kate,” her aunt said. “Then Dr. Pedersen will be able to give us an update.”

  “But that could be too la—” Kate started to say, stopping herself when she realized how awful it sounded.

  There was silence for a minute as they all tried very hard not to look at one another. Then Aunt Netty spoke. “It will take more than a few days to get rid of me,” she said.

  Kate started to apologize, but her aunt stopped her. “It’s okay,” she said. “Do you think I haven’t thought about that? Not saying it isn’t going to make it go away.”

  Dr. Pedersen stood up. “I know none of this is easy,” she said. “But Netty is right; not talking doesn’t help. If any of you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to ask me. I’ll tell you everything I can.”

  “Thanks, Doc,” Netty said, coughing a little bit. “So, are we on for tomorrow morning? I can’t wait for another dose of that stuff you’re pumping into me.”

  “Keep it up,” the doctor said teasingly. “I’ll have the techs use the really big needles if you give me any trouble.”

  Kate marveled at how the two of them could sound so relaxed about everything. If she were the one in the bed instead of Aunt Netty, she would have been hysterical. She just knew it. But her aunt was acting as if this were an everyday occurrence in her life.

  The doctor left, and Mrs. Morgan went to stand beside Netty. Kate took the opportunity to follow the doctor out into the hall.

  “Dr. Pedersen,” she said, jogging after the retreating figure. “Can I ask you something?”

  The doctor stopped. “Sure, Kate. What is it?”

  “Well, I was just wondering if there isn’t anything we can do. I mean, anything I can do. To help. I feel really useless right now.”

  The doctor smiled. “You’re doing exactly what’s best for your aunt,” she said. “You’re here with her. Leave the rest to me and the wonders of modern science.”

  “But isn’t there anything else?” Kate said. She knew it sounded childish, but she didn’t know any other way to vent her frustration.

  Dr. Pedersen looked thoughtful. “You can pray for her,” she said.

  “Pray?” said Kate.

  The doctor nodded her head.

  “My job is to know the best way to treat your aunt medically,” the doctor explained. “But medicine isn’t always the only way to help someone. There’s been a lot of research done that shows that patients who have a strong connection to spirituality often respond more positively to treatment when there’s a faith aspect to it.”

  “You mean they believe they’ll get better because they pray?” Kate said.

  “Something like that,” said Dr. Pedersen. “If people think there’s something greater than themselves, or greater than medicine, helping them, it might have an effect on the healing process. I know it seems like the medical establishment knows everything about how the body works, but the fact is we don’t. People die who should easily get well. People live who should by all scientific reasoning be dead. There’s a link between the mind and the body that we simply don’t understand fully.”

  “I don’t know,” Kate said. “I don’t think Aunt Netty is all that religious.”

  “It’s just a suggestion,” the doctor replied.

  “Well, thanks,” Kate said. “I’ll think about it.”

  The doctor left, and Kate walked back to her aunt’s room. Before she entered, she paused. What Dr. Pedersen said had given her an idea. Maybe she was right. Maybe there was something Kate could do. But it was something a little different from what the doctor suggested.

  A ritual, she thought suddenly. I could do a ritual.

  CHAPTER 8

  Annie clutched the package beneath her arm tightly. She still wasn’t sure that she was doing the right thing. But she’d made up her mind to do it, and she was going to go through with it, even if it made everything worse. As if that’s even possible, she thought as she walked down the hall toward Ben Rowe’s room.

  Part of her hoped that the old man wouldn’t be in there. That way she could just leave the package and let him find it on his own. But she knew that giving it to him in person would be better, if not easier. She’d been thinking about it most of the night, going over and over in her head all of the reasons for not doing what she’d decided to do. She’d almost convinced herself to forget about it, too. Then, as she was walking out the door to go to the bus that morning, she’d seen the package sitting on the kitchen counter where she’d put it and had picked it up.

  She stopped outside Ben’s room, listening for any sounds that would indicate that he was inside. When she didn’t hear anything, she let out a little sigh of relief. Maybe she wouldn’t have to face him after all. She could leave the package and maybe come back later, after he’d had a chance to open it.

  But when she stepped into the room she saw that he was there after all. He was sitting in the chair
next to the room’s one window. The blinds had been pulled up just enough for him to look out, and he was gazing off into the distance with a faraway look on his face. He didn’t look up, and Annie wondered if he even knew someone had come in.

  She cleared her throat to indicate that she was there, and Ben turned his head. “What do you want?” he barked.

  Annie felt her resolve waning. Ben clearly knew who she was, and he didn’t want her in his room. She couldn’t blame him. She was tempted to just put the package on his dresser and leave. But then she stopped herself.

  “I came to bring you something,” she said, her voice unsteady.

  “I don’t want anything,” Ben said simply. “Just leave me alone.”

  He turned and resumed staring out the window, clearly thinking that he had dismissed Annie. But she didn’t leave, even though she wanted to. Instead, she stepped closer to him and held out the package.

  “Please,” she said. “I want you to have this.”

  Ben glanced at the paper bag in her hands. “I don’t want it,” he said simply.

  “You don’t even know what it is,” Annie said.

  “I don’t care what it is,” the old man answered. “I don’t want anything from you.”

  Annie was getting frustrated. She was trying to do something nice, and Ben wasn’t letting her. She could understand his being upset with her, and even wanting to be alone, but she couldn’t understand why he was being so rude.

  She looked around and saw the picture frame she’d broken sitting on the dresser. Ben had put the photo back in the frame, but the glass was missing and the frame was cracked. It listed to one side, as if it might topple over at any moment.

  Annie opened the bag and reached inside, pulling out the frame she had picked up at a store the night before. It was a beautiful wooden frame, and she’d chosen it because she thought it would show off the black-and-white photo beautifully. Now, as she placed it on the dresser, she saw that she’d made a good choice.

  “What is that?” Ben snapped.

  “It’s a frame to replace the one I broke,” Annie said as she picked up the old frame and slipped off the back. She knew that she was risking making the old man angry again by touching his photo, but she didn’t have anything to lose, so she continued, sliding the picture into the new frame and snapping the back on.