The Last Letter(10)

“Dr. Hughes?”

“Just observing. I saw the girl’s chart when I came on shift.”

Dr. Taylor nodded, took a deep breath, and turned his attention back to me.

“Okay, if she has an infection in her hip, that would explain the leg pain and the fever, right?” I folded my arms across my stomach.

“It could, yes. But we’ve found an anomaly in her blood work. Her white counts are alarmingly elevated.”

“What does that mean?”

“Well, this is Dr. Branson, and he’s from ortho. He’ll help us with Margaret’s hip. And this…” Dr. Taylor swallowed. “This is Dr. Anderson. He’s from oncology.”

Oncology?

My gaze swung to meet the aging doctor’s, but my mouth wouldn’t open. Not until he said the words his specialty had been called in for.

“Ms. MacKenzie, your daughter’s tests indicate that she may have leukemia…”

His mouth continued to move. I saw it take shape, watched the animations of his facial features, but I didn’t hear anything. It was like he’d turned into Charlie Brown’s teacher and everything was coming through a filter of a million gallons of water.

And I was drowning.

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.