Leukemia. Cancer.
“Stop. Wait.” I put my hands out. “I’ve had her at the pediatrician at least three times in the last six weeks. They told me there was nothing, and now you’re saying it’s leukemia? That’s not possible! I did everything.”
“I know. Your pediatrician didn’t know what to look for, and we’re not even certain it is leukemia. We’ll need to take a bone marrow sample to confirm or rule it out.”
Which doctor said that? Branson? No, he was ortho, right?
It was the cancer doctor. Because my baby needed to be tested for cancer. She was just down the hall and had no clue that a group of people were sentencing her to hell for a crime she’d never committed. Colt… God, what was I going to tell him?
I felt a hand squeeze mine and looked over, my head on autopilot, to see Dr. Hughes in the seat next to me. “Can we call someone? Maybe Maisie’s dad? Your family?”
Maisie’s dad had never so much as bothered to see her.
My parents had been dead fourteen years.
Ryan was half a world away doing God-knew-what.
Ada and Larry were no doubt asleep in the main house of Solitude.
“No. There’s no one.”
I was on my own.
…
The scans began in the morning. I pulled a small notebook from my purse and began to jot down notes of what the doctors said, what tests were being run. I couldn’t seem to absorb it all. Or perhaps the enormity of it was simply too much to take in.
“Another test?” Colt asked, squeezing my hand as the doctors drew more blood from Maisie.
“Yep.” I forced a smile, but it didn’t fool him.
“We just need to see what’s going on with your sister, little man,” Dr. Anderson said from where he stood perched at Maisie’s bedside.
“You’ve already looked in her bones. What else do you want?” Colt snapped.
“Colt, why don’t we go grab some ice cream?” Ada asked from the corner. She’d arrived early this morning, determined that I not be alone.
I could have been in a room with a dozen people I knew—I still would have been alone.
“Come on, we’ll grab some for Maisie, too.” She held out her hand, and I nodded to Colt.
“Go ahead. We’re not going anywhere for a while.”
Colt looked to Maisie, who smiled. “Strawberry.”
He nodded, taking his duty with all seriousness, then gave Dr. Anderson another glare for good measure before leaving with Ada.
I held Maisie’s hand while they finished the draw. Then I curled up next to her on the bed and switched on cartoons, holding her small body against mine.
“Am I sick?” She looked up at me without fear or expectation.
“Yeah, baby. I think you might be. But it’s too early to worry, okay?”
She nodded and focused back on whatever show Disney Junior was airing.
“Then it’s good that I’m in a hospital. They make you better in hospitals.”
I kissed her forehead. “That, they do.”
…
“It’s not leukemia,” Dr. Anderson told me as we stood in the hallway later that night.
“It’s not?” Relief raced through me, the physical feeling palpable, like blood returning to a limb too long asleep.
“No. We don’t know what it is, though.”
“It could still be cancer?”
“It could. We’re not finding anything other than the elevated white counts, though.”
“But you’re going to keep looking.”
He nodded, but the sheen of certainty he’d had in his eyes when he’d thought it was leukemia was gone. He didn’t know what we were dealing with, and he obviously didn’t want to tell me that.
Day three and four passed with more tests. Less certainty.
Colt grew restless but refused to leave his sister’s side, and I didn’t have the heart to make him go. They’d never been separated for more than a day in their lives. I wasn’t sure they knew how to survive as individuals when they thought of themselves collectively.
Ada brought clean clothes, took Colt for walks, kept me up to date on the business. How odd it was that my obsession with Solitude had been my number three priority behind Colt and Maisie for the last five years, but at this moment felt utterly unimportant.
Days blended together, and my fingers were damn near raw from the internet searching I’d done since Dr. Anderson dropped the C word. Of course they’d told me to stay off the net.
Yeah, right.
I couldn’t remember a damn thing they said half the time. No matter how hard I tried to concentrate, it was as if my brain had shields up and was only taking in what it thought I could handle. Using the internet filled in the gaps that my memory and my notebook couldn’t.
On the fifth day, we gathered in the conference room once again, but this time I had Ada next to me.
“We still don’t know what’s causing it. We’ve tested for all the usual culprits, and they’ve come back negative.”
“Why doesn’t that sound like a good thing?” Ada asked. “You’re saying you haven’t found cancer, but you sound disappointed.”
“Because there’s something there. They just can’t find it,” I said, my voice turning sharp. “The same as Dr. Franklin. Maisie said she hurt, and she was sent home with a diagnosis of growing pains. Then they called it psychosomatic. Now you’re telling me that her blood says one thing, her bones say another, and you’re just out of ideas.”
The men had the good sense to look embarrassed. They should be. They’d gone to years and years of school for this very moment, and they were failing.
“Well, what are you going to do? Because there has to be something. You’re not going to send my little girl home.”
Dr. Anderson opened his mouth, and I knew from the set of his face, the next excuse was coming.
“Oh, hell no,” I snapped before he could get a word out. “We’re not leaving here until you give me a diagnosis. Do you understand me? You will not wash your hands of her, or me. You will not treat her as a mystery you simply couldn’t solve. I didn’t go to medical school, but I can tell you that she’s sick. Her blood work says it. Her hip says it. You did go to medical school, so figure. It. Out.”
Silence roared louder than any excuse they could have given me.
“Ms. MacKenzie.” Dr. Hughes appeared, taking a seat next to Dr. Anderson. “I’m so sorry I haven’t been here, but I split my time between this hospital and Denver Children’s and just returned this morning. I’ve seen your daughter’s test results, and I think I might have one more thing we can test for. It’s incredibly rare, especially in a child this old. And if it is what I think it might be, then we need to act quickly.” A clipboard appeared in front of me with yet another consent. “One signature is all I need.”
“Do it.” My name scrawled across the paper as my hand moved, but it wasn’t a conscious effort. Nothing felt like a choice at the moment.
Two hours later Dr. Hughes appeared in the doorway, and I stepped out, leaving Colt and Maisie wrapped around each other in front of Harry Potter.
“What did you find?”
“It’s neuroblastoma.”
…
Ada followed in my car, Colt strapped into his car seat behind her as we made our way through the curves and bends of I-70 toward Denver. I’d never been in the back of an ambulance, not even when I went into labor with the twins. Now my first trip in one lasted five hours.
They took us immediately to the pediatric cancer floor at the Children’s Hospital. There was no amount of festive cartoon murals on the walls that could have possibly lightened my mood.
Colt walked beside me, his hand in mine, as they wheeled Maisie down the wide hallway. Little heads peeked out of the doors or raced by, some bald, others not. There were kids dressed as superheroes and princesses, and one very charming Charlie Chaplin. A mother with a cup of coffee gave me a tentative, understanding smile as we passed where she sat.
It was Halloween. How had I forgotten? The kids loved Halloween, and they hadn’t said a single word. No costumes, no trick-or-treating, just tests and hospitals, and a mom who couldn’t remember what day it was.
I didn’t want to be here. I didn’t want this to be happening.