THREE WEEKS LATER
Mindy watches the FIS coverage of the World Cup event in Lake Louise with professional detachment. Shiffrin looks sharp as ever and takes the downhill by over a second, and Mindy bites back the jealousy. Mindy should be in that spot. She can taste the Canadian snow, feel the bone-deep cold, the chattering of her skis on the ice. Except she’s stuck in Vail, cozy warm in her bedroom, not out there with her teammates. It sucks.
At least they let her out of the hospital. She was going mad in there. The constant noise and the bright lights and the needles at all hours... Home is better.
Mindy switches off the television, sends a text of congratulations, ignoring the knot in her stomach. It’s bad enough she’s out for the season, that her chances to be included on Team USA are questionable. She is sick of it all. The coddling. The lack of movement. The pain that sits deep in her bones, like the worst workout hangover she’s ever had, but the pain isn’t the good kind, when you’re sore from overexertion. This is wrong. Alien. She’s felt it for a while, for at least a couple of months before the trials, but having a name on it makes it so much worse.
Cancer.
She is pissed. She is pissed at the world. Pissed at her parents, and the doctor, and the damn rod in her leg, and the therapists who won’t let her do anything more than gently ride the bike with her good leg only and stretch her arms over her head. Pissed at the idea of an unseen creature eating her from the inside out, at the underlying nausea that persists no matter what antiemetics they give her, at the strange hollowness she feels when she wakes every morning, like she’s slowly emptying inside.
Thank God for Aunt Juliet. At least someone treats her normally.
Her parents are acting stupidly protective. Something has shifted between them, subtle but insidious. Every look her mother gives is couched in the throes of it might be the last. Her dad has always been the cautious one, but even he hasn’t ever held her back.
Until now. They are both stifling her with their well-meaning love and attention.
Which is strange, because Mindy has faced much more dangerous situations and her mom has never had anything but fire in her eyes. She’s sent her off to fly down the hill without a moment’s admonition of be careful, don’t go too fast. Mindy has a better chance of dying in the ninety seconds she spends hurtling upwards of eighty-five miles per hour down a mountain of ice.
She understands their worry, of course she does, but she wants to see the fire in her mother’s eyes again, not this mealy, moony crap. She wants her dad to argue with her, not acquiesce to her every wish.
Maybe now is the time to ask for that little BMW convertible she saw pull into the parking lot of the hospital while she was having her first chemo treatment.
God, was she ever sick. She’d never felt anything like it. It took a couple of days for them to find the right combination of anti-nausea meds so she didn’t hurl all over the place. Even now, the memory of the past two treatments, knowing she has to go back tomorrow and do it again, and again the following week, and the next, makes her want to scream.
No, Mindy must accept this new reality. There will be no World Cup celebrations for her. She is Ill, capital I, and she has no choice but to hold their hands and let them all doctor and parent and aunt her to death.
She wishes her mom would leave her alone for a day. Just a day. Just so she could have a chance to catch her breath. She hasn’t been properly alone since she took off down the mountain three weeks ago, has been under constant, vigilant supervision by her parents, her aunt, the nurses and doctors, and she is slowly going mad for lack of privacy and silence.
She could ask her parents to leave, ask them to go to dinner and a movie, but she can’t handle the idea of her mother’s hurt eyes, welling with tears at the thought of being parted.
She shifts uncomfortably, folding her right leg underneath her like a flamingo. The cast is heavy, ungainly, banging into her ankle and shin at night. The stabilization halo is gone but her skin smells oily and rank under the cast, and the incision, though healing, itches like fire. She needs to wash her hair, stand in the hot water, let it run over her aching bones, but she can’t even do that properly; the cast isn’t meant to get wet.
God, she has to get out. She has to live, too, but she needs to get out of this bed, her room, her house. She has to move.
She can do some modified yoga. She hasn’t been given permission, but Mindy isn’t the type of girl to ask permission. At least yoga will be movement. She searches her drawers, but her favorite top isn’t there. Her mom probably washed it and it’s in the laundry.
She swings down the hall on her crutches, into her parents’ room.
She loves it in here. The whole house, really, but this room is sheer perfection. Mindy shares her mother’s minimalist taste. It’s done in creams and pale sage greens, the cedar ceiling vaulted, the view off the side of the mountain panoramic, the green of the trees, now covered in white, postcard perfect. The view is lovely in the summer, too, and the fall, when the aspens turn, but the winterscape is Mindy’s second heart. Their house is built to take advantage of the views, with its floor-to-ceiling windows, and Mindy has spent the week cuddled in front of the fire, watching the snow billow to the ground, missing its taste, its texture, the way her skis slide through it like a lover’s embrace.
Mindy is surprised to see her mother standing in front of her dresser, holding something in her hands that looks like spiral notebook paper, crying.
“Mom? What’s wrong?”
Lauren wipes her eyes and shoves the paper into the open dresser drawer, whips around to face Mindy, all in one motion. The smile is painted on. Her mother looks so tired.
“Honey! What are you doing up? I thought you were napping. You need your rest.”
“I’m bored out of my skull and thought I’d do some yoga. Don’t worry, just stretching. Where’s my yellow top?”
“Oh, it’s on the line. Why don’t I pop it in the dryer and warm it up for you?”
Lauren bustles into the adjoining laundry room and sets about the task, then starts folding towels as the dryer runs. Mindy, perched on the edge of her mother’s bed, glances at the dresser out of the corner of her eye. What was she reading? Did it have something to do with her diagnosis?
Her mother’s back is turned. She could look. But the dryer buzzer goes off, and her mom is suddenly there. “Here you go, sweetheart.” She holds out the top, then yanks it back. “Do not do anything that could hurt, okay? No pushing.”
Mindy takes the top and threads it through her left crutch. “I won’t.”
She clumps away. Her mother moves in the opposite direction, toward the living room. Mindy doesn’t think twice. As quietly as she can, she goes back to the bedroom and straight to the dresser. She deserves to know the truth, the whole truth, about her diagnosis.
But that isn’t what she finds.
The notepaper is old, the edges ripped and soft, like a hand has stroked them over and over as the words were read. The handwriting is juvenile, girlish and round, completely unfamiliar.
December 14, 1993
My dearest Liesel,
I was so happy to get your letter. We didn’t really have a proper goodbye. Man, do I miss you. It’s dreadfully dull here. Ratchet et al. are especially surly without your sunny disposition. They miss you, too, I think. I hope they didn’t let you out too soon. I’ve been so worried about you. Are you well? Still no cuts?