“Ms. MacKenzie.” He stood, adjusting his Easter-print tie.
“Mr. Halsen.” I nodded, then turned my attention to my oldest by three minutes. “Colton, what are you doing here?”
“Going with you.” He hopped off the bench and tugged at the straps of his Colorado Avalanche backpack.
My heart crumpled a little more. Heck, the thing had been so battered over the last few months I wasn’t even sure what normal felt like anymore. “Honey, you can’t. Not today.”
Today was scan day.
His face took on the stubborn set I was all too used to. “I’m going.”
“You’re not, and I don’t have time to argue, Colt.”
The twins shared a meaningful look, one that spoke volumes in a language I could never hope to speak or even interpret.
“It’s okay,” Maisie said, hopping off the bench and taking his hand. “Besides, you don’t want to miss fried chicken night.”
His eyes threw daggers straight at me, but they were nothing but soft for his sister. “Okay. I’ll save you the legs.”
They hugged, which had always seemed to me like two pieces of a puzzle fitting back together.
They shared another one of those looks, and then Colt nodded like a tiny adult and stepped back.
I knelt down to his level. “Bud, I know you want to go, just not today, okay?”
“I don’t want her to be alone.” His voice was the softest whisper.
“She won’t be, I promise. And we’ll be back tonight, and we’ll fill you in.”
He didn’t bother to agree, or even say goodbye, just turned on his little heel and walked down the hall toward his classroom.
I let out a sigh, knowing I’d have damage control to do later. But that was the problem. It was always later.
Maisie slipped her little hand in mine. She couldn’t even be promised now, which meant that as much as I hated it, Colt had to wait.
“Ms. MacKenzie—” Mr. Halsen wiped invisible dirt off his thick-rimmed glasses.
“Mr. Halsen, I was a kid in these halls when you first took over. Call me Ella.”
“Ella, I know you’re on your way to yet another appointment—”
Breathe in. Breathe out. Do not snap at the principal.
“But when you get back, we need to discuss Margaret’s attendance. It’s impacting the quality of her education, and we need to have a real discussion about it.”
“A discussion,” I repeated, because if I said what was actually on my mind, it wouldn’t reflect well on my kids.
“Yes. A discussion.”
“On Maisie’s attendance.” Like I gave a crap about kindergarten attendance. She was fighting for her life, and the man wanted to discuss if she’d missed the day where they’d discussed the virtues of K being for kangaroo?
“Yes, a discussion on Margaret’s attendance.”
For an educator, I would have thought he’d have another word.
I looked down at Maisie, whose forehead puckered in her trademark whatever look that I recognized all too well…since it was mine. In sync, we looked back to Mr. Halsen.
“Yeah, we’ll get right on that.”
After chemo. And scans. And nausea and vomiting. And wiped-out blood counts. And everything else that came with a kid whose own body had turned against her.
…
Two hours later, we sat in the San Juan Cancer Center, me pacing at the end of the exam table while Maisie kicked her legs back and forth, battling whatever iPad app she’d chosen for the day.
I was too keyed up to do anything but wear out the floor. Please let it be working. My silent prayer went up with the million others I’d sent. We needed the tumor to shrink, to get small enough that they could attempt a surgery to take it out. I needed all these months of chemo to have been for something.
But I also knew how dangerous the surgery would be. I glanced at my tiny daughter, her hot-pink beanie with matching flower standing out against the white walls. The panic that had been my constant companion these five months crept up my throat, the what-ifs and what-nows attacking like the sanity-stealing thieves they were. The surgery could kill her. The tumor certainly would kill her.
“Mama, sit down, you’re making me dizzy.”
I took a seat next to her on the wide side of the exam table and placed a kiss on her cheek.
“Well?” I asked as Dr. Hughes came in, flipping through something on Maisie’s chart.
“Hi, Doc!” Maisie said with an enthusiastic wave.
“Nice to see you, too, Ella.” She raised her eyebrow. “Hiya, Maisie.”
“Sorry. Hi, Dr. Hughes. My manners have run away screaming lately.” I rubbed my hands over my face.
“It’s okay,” she said, taking the spinning stool.
“What do the scans say?”
A soft smile played over her face. My breath caught, and my heart slammed to a stop, awaiting the words I’d been longing to hear and yet was terrified of since this all began five months ago.
“It’s time. Chemo has shrunk the tumor enough to operate.”
My little girl’s life was about to be out of my hands.
Chapter Seven
Beckett
Letter #7
Chaos,
I’m sitting in the hallway of the Children’s Hospital of Colorado, with a notebook propped up on my knees. I would tell you what day it is, but I honestly can’t remember. It’s been a blur since they said cancer.
Maisie has cancer.
Maybe if I write it a few more times, it will feel real instead of this hazy nightmare that I can’t seem to wake up from.
Maisie has cancer.
Yeah, still doesn’t feel real.
Maisie. Has. Cancer.
For the first time since Jeff walked out, I feel like I’m not enough. Twins at nineteen? It wasn’t easy, and yet it was as natural as breathing. He left. They were born. I became a mother, and it changed me in the very foundation of my soul. Colt and Maisie became my reason for everything, and even when I was overwhelmed, I knew that I could be enough for them if I gave them everything I had. So I did, and I was. I ignored the whispers, the suggestions that I give them up and go to college, everything, because I knew that there was no better place for my kids than with me.
I might have a few issues, but I always knew that I was enough.
But this? I don’t know how to be enough for this.
It’s like the doctors are speaking a foreign language, throwing around letters and numbers like I’m supposed to understand. Labs and scans and treatment possibilities and the decisions. God, the decisions I have to make.
I’ve never felt more alone in my life.
Maisie has cancer.
And I don’t know if I’m enough to get her through it, and she has to get through it. I can’t imagine a world where my daughter isn’t here. How can I be everything she’s going to need and give Colt any sense of normalcy?
And Colt…when the genetics came back, they told me Colt and I had to be tested for the gene mutation. He’s okay, thank God. We both are, and neither of us carry it. But those moments waiting to hear if losing them both was a possibility? I could barely breathe at the thought.
But I have to be enough, right? I don’t have a choice. It’s like the moment I saw those two heartbeats on the monitor. There was no option to fail. And there’s no way I’m going to fail now, either.
Maisie has cancer, and I’m all she has.
So I guess it’s down the rabbit hole I go.
~ Ella
…
I stepped onto the dock that reached into the small lake just behind my cabin, testing my weight. Yeah, this thing was going to need to be rebuilt. No wonder they’d kept the gate locked.
The sun stretched just overhead, cutting through the brisk morning. I’d been in Colorado for almost two weeks, and I’d learned the key to the weather here was layers, because it might be snowing in the morning, but it was almost seventy by dinner. Mother Nature had some serious mood swings around here.
A light fog rolled off the lake, lingering around the shores of the small island that rested about a hundred yards away in the center of the lake. I knew eventually I’d have to use the little rowboat that was tied up at the end of the dock and row myself over.