From Ant to Eagle(47)

“Oliver,” I said. “You’ve been here long enough to have seen a lot of kids with cancer, right?”

“671 days, dude, keep up.”

“Right, then you must have some idea of which kids are going to…you know…make it and which kids are going to…”

“Die?”

“Yeah.”

He didn’t speak for a while. I wasn’t sure if he was thinking or ignoring my question. It turned out he was thinking. “I guess I have a pretty good idea right away. I mean it’s as you said, when you’ve seen enough of anything you begin to recognize patterns.”

“So then, do you think Sammy will be okay?”

Oliver put his controller down and got up. He walked as far as his IV cord would let him and turned off the TV. He turned back toward me and I felt his icy-blue eyes penetrating me. I swallowed hard. I felt like I knew what he was going to say but then he smiled.

“Don’t let him give up hope,” he said, then winked at me.

I couldn’t help but smile back. Oliver thought that Sammy was going to be okay. In my mind, that was just as good as any test the doctors could run.

When I went back to the room Sammy was awake, though his eyes had the familiar glaze from his medicines. They’d started treating his stomach pain with morphine so sometimes he looked a little dopey. He didn’t so much smile as open the side of his mouth ever so slightly when I entered.

“I don’t imagine you feel up to going to the games room?” I asked.

His face contorted momentarily then returned to its half-awake state. “No, thanks,” he muttered.

“Well, how about I read some?”

He paused before shaking his head.

“Really?” I said, walking over to my cot and grabbing a book from underneath. “I was thinking we could start Cuckoo Clock of Doom.”

His mind was drugged. It took him a few seconds to register.

“Oh, I thought you meant The Secret Garden.”

“Nah, that book is horrendously boring.”

Sammy smiled. “Yeah.”

“Promise you won’t have nightmares?”

“Promise.”

“Shove over,” I said, giving him a playful punch in the arm. He whined but shifted over the best he could amid the wires and tubes. I sat down next to him, opened the book and read the first sentence through in my head.

Okay, I thought, here goes.

Sammy was fast asleep in a few minutes but I kept reading for over an hour.

Later that night, as I lay quietly awake in my cot, I heard Sammy shift in his bed and his breathing turn irregular.

He was awake.

I sat listening for a few more minutes to be sure but it wasn’t necessary, I had spent six years sleeping in the same room as my brother, I knew when he was awake.

I rolled over in my cot and got up as quietly as I could.

I walked over beside his bed and looked down at him. The room was dark but I could see two silver reflections looking up at me.

“Hi, Sammy,” I said.

“Hi, Cal.”

“You can’t sleep?”

I saw the dark silhouette of his head nod.

“You having nightmares?”

He didn’t answer. He probably thought I would be angry if he said yes. For years I’d been telling him I would only read to him if he promised not to get nightmares.

“It’s okay to be scared,” I said, sitting down on the side of his bed.

Still no answer.

“How about tomorrow I bring Elligator? I think I saw him under the dresser in our room. He must have got lost. I bet he’d make you feel better.”

I could make out his shadowy face thinking hard. In the end it was too much to resist—he nodded.

“Okay. I’ll grab him tomorrow. How about if tonight we lie together? I’m feeling kind of scared myself.”

Sammy moved over in his bed and let me crawl in next to him. It was squishy but comfortable. I felt his warm, bony body pressing up against mine start to relax and his breathing turned quickly from irregular to rhythmic as he fell asleep.

Not long after, so did I.





CHAPTER 29

AFTER MY TALK WITH OLIVER, THINGS WERE BETTER—NOT great—but better. Sammy was still getting noticeably sicker by the day but at least when he was awake he wanted me around. He’d ask me to read to him, he wanted to play cards (even though I stopped letting him win) and at night, we slept side-by-side with Elligator crammed between us.

When the weekend finished and it was time to go back to school I wanted to carry things forward. I wanted to fix things with Aleta like I had fixed things with Sammy. I’d spent the previous weeks ignoring her so I knew it wouldn’t be easy, but we’d grown close enough over the summer that I knew it was still possible.

Steam rose from my lips as I waited for the bus—winter was coming. I looked at my watch and started counting the number of times I breathed in a minute. Twenty-three. I’d have to ask one of the nurses if that was normal.

The bus arrived with a screech and a pop and the door opened to reveal the bus driver staring down at me. I climbed on and gave her a shallow smile and she smiled cautiously back. I took an empty seat about halfway to the back and scooted over to the window. I was really looking forward to seeing Aleta so when we pulled onto Thornton Road and she still wasn’t in her usual spot at the end of the driveway I felt myself deflate like a balloon.