From Ant to Eagle(54)

Aleta came to the hospital twice more before Day 27. Both times she sat next to me on the cot while I read to Sammy, then after he was asleep we went out and joined the evening activities the volunteers put on. I spent most of my time thinking about Sammy and double-checking to be sure my walkie-talkie hadn’t run out of batteries, but not Aleta. She got involved. It was like something changed in her at these activities. At school she hardly spoke more than a few words to anyone but at Art Night she went and sat down next to Gracie—the little girl with ALL and Down Syndrome—and helped her make a necklace out of noodles. I guess the other volunteers must have noticed because at Pet Night she was asked to help walk the dogs around so the kids could pet them. She smiled, she laughed—something I hadn’t seen her do with other people around ever. I felt happy watching her. For a little while I could take my mind off Sammy—for a short, tiny, millisecond of a while.

Then finally it arrived. The day I had waited twenty-seven days for. The day we would have our answers.

I woke up and looked outside expecting to see dark storm clouds or maybe an ominous raven sitting on the fence around our yard but all in all it looked like a pretty normal day. The sun was still shining, the sky was still blue, there were no tornados or typhoons. In fact, Day 27 looked no different from Day 26.

At school I couldn’t concentrate. All I could think about were the answers we would have in a few hours. I heard Dr. Parker’s voice in my head saying that the bone needle at twenty-seven days was the best indicator of how Sammy would do. If it showed no cancer, Sammy would probably be fine.

At recess I marched across the frosted grass and sat watching the other kids playing while Aleta scribbled in her journal next to me, trying her best not to look anxious. She knew it was Day 27. She knew how nervous I was. I wanted her to come to the hospital with me but we agreed it wasn’t a good idea. So I drove with Dad and pretended that his hands always shook while he gripped the steering wheel.

When we got there Sammy was lying in bed, his hip covered with a square white bandage just visible through the slit in the side of his hospital gown like it had been after his first bone needle. Mom’s face told me she didn’t have answers yet; not happy enough for good news, not sad enough for bad, just a cardboard look of worry.

I sat next to Sammy and quickly dug through my day to retrieve something worth sharing. “Tom failed his math test this week. I saw it under mine when Ms. Draper was handing them out.”

Sammy grinned.

Dr. Parker came in sometime after dinner and I knew right away that he had an answer. He walked in and sat down on the end of Sammy’s bed, looking around the room. The only noise was a tiny hum from something behind Sammy’s bed. I wanted to know the answer so badly. I wanted to yell, “Tell me what you know!” but then he looked directly into my eyes and I had my answer. It was all over his face. His eyes lacked their usual twinkle. It was as if he had aged a hundred years since I saw him last.

His voice was quiet as he told us that Sammy’s cancer had not responded to the chemotherapy.





CHAPTER 33

I HADN’T STAYED LONG. I COULDN’T STAND BEING IN THE ROOM. You’d think I would have been overcome with sadness, like Dad whose sobs could be heard echoing around the oncology floor or Mom who sat next to Sammy rubbing his back and saying, “It’s going to be all right, it’s going to be all right.”

Instead I was overcome with another emotion—anger.

I was angry at the chemotherapy that had poisoned Sammy’s body for a whole month, taking his hair and shrinking his body but doing him absolutely no good. I was mad at the cancer. I was mad at Dr. Parker. I was mad at…

I stood up and walked quickly from the room. I walked down the hallway, glancing briefly into Oliver’s room to be sure he wasn’t there, then went into the games room. Oliver was sitting in his usual chair playing Mario. I walked up and turned the screen off—right in the middle of his game.

“You told me Sammy would be fine!” I yelled. “You lied to me!”

Oliver looked startled. I was screaming really loud but I didn’t care. I was furious.

“I never said Sammy would be fine,” he protested.

“You said to not let him lose hope! You made me believe he would be okay! But you knew all along that this would happen! You said you could tell straight away if a kid was going to be okay. You lied to me!”

“I said to have hope, yes, but I never said he would be fine.”

“Then why did you say that? Why did you make me build his hopes up if he had no hope at all? Why?”

“Because the only thing worse than dying is living without hope.”

At that moment I didn’t stop to think through what he’d said. I didn’t stop to think that maybe Oliver was living without hope. I was too angry to think.

“You’re not who I thought you were. You go around pretending like cancer and dying are no big deal but you’re nothing but a scared kid. I know your secret. You could have left here months ago but instead you stay. You stay because you’re too afraid to leave. Too afraid to be outside the walls of this hospital that you think protect you.”

Oliver’s face changed. He suddenly looked mad. “Ha! You think I like it here? You think this is some sort of safety net for me? You don’t know anything. Don’t come in here and pretend like you know what it feels like to have cancer.”