The Last Letter(43)

I snapped.

“With all due respect, it wasn’t a procedure. It was a twelve-hour, life-threatening surgery in which they removed a tumor the size of a softball from my daughter’s adrenal gland. This isn’t an inconvenience; this is cancer. And no, next year won’t be better. She’s fighting for her life, so excuse me if I don’t share your worries that she may have missed the critical day of kindergarten when you covered the life cycle of the butterfly. Statistically she might not even…” My throat closed, my body rebelling against the words I hadn’t spoken since the day they’d given me her odds. “Next year will not be better.”

“And you don’t wish for her to repeat her kindergarten year.” Principal Halsen wrote down a note in the folder.

“It’s kindergarten. Do you seriously feel like she needs to?” A repeat wouldn’t just be hard for Maisie to swallow, but for Colt as well. They’d be a year apart in school, which would mean that even if—when—she beat the cancer, she’d have to look the consequences in the eye every day.

“She doesn’t,” Ms. May spoke up. “She’s quite bright, and she’ll do just fine in first grade,” she told the administrators.

The two men conferred quietly for a moment before turning back to me. “We’d like to offer you a solution. Transfer her to an at-home program. Kindergarten isn’t as academically challenging as first grade, and next year, she’ll need the flexibility.”

“Pull her out of school.”

“School her at home,” Mr. Jonas corrected. “We’re not against you, Ms. MacKenzie, or Maisie. We’re genuinely trying to figure out the best solution. She’s not in school for the required hours, and next year her workload will increase exponentially. Couple that with the liability of having her here with her weakened immune system, the worry placed on the staff, and the other children, and we all might be more comfortable—including Maisie. She could keep the best schedule for her health if she were schooled at home.”

Other cancer moms did that. I’d spoken with a few of them, but it always seemed like they pulled them out as a last resort…when they were dying. It wasn’t so much the physical act of removing her from the school as it was the emotional acknowledgment that she couldn’t go.

And that was equally devastating to us all—Maisie, Colt, and especially me.

But it would relieve stress on her, on her levels, on the days she couldn’t get out of bed. On the mornings she spent lurched over the toilet, crying, only to look at me and swear she could make it.

“What would it entail?”

“I could teach her,” Ms. May offered. “I’d come by in the afternoons whenever she felt well enough. She’d stay on track, she’d be exempt from district hour requirements, and we’d be able to personally tailor the program.”

“Can I think about it?”

“Of course,” Mr. Jonas said, passing back the letter from early in her diagnosis.

We adjourned the meeting, and Ms. May walked out with me. I felt numb, or maybe it was simply that I’d been hit so hard and so often in the last six months that I no longer registered pain.

“Colt is just heading to lunch if you’d like to see him,” she offered.

Colt. He was exactly what I needed right now.

“I’d very much like that,” I told her.

She reached for my hand and squeezed it lightly. “He’s a phenomenal kid. He is kind, and compassionate, and defensive of the smaller kids.”

My smile was instant. “I lucked out with that guy.”

“No. He’s phenomenal because he has an exceptional mother. Please don’t forget that in the midst of everything. You’re a great mom, Ella.”

I couldn’t think of anything to say that wasn’t a rebuttal of that statement, so I simply gave her hand a squeeze back.

Then I stood with a dozen other moms who were lined up outside the cafeteria, all waiting for their kids. Most were the normal PTA moms, the ones who had impeccable minivans, color-coded day planners, and stylish but sensible fashion. Some I knew, some I didn’t.

I looked down at my Vans, worn jeans, and long-sleeved tee, and felt…unkempt. I’d never really understood the phrase “let yourself go,” but this moment? Yeah, I got it. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d cut my hair, or taken the time to actually put on more makeup than concealer for under my eyes and mascara. None of it mattered in the scheme of things—of saving Maisie—but right now, I felt the separation between me and these women as certainly as if they were in ball gowns.

“Oh, Ella! It’s so nice to see you!” Maggie Cooper said with a hand over her heart, flashing a diamond bigger than her knuckle. She was a year older than Ryan and had married one of the corporate guys from up in the ski village. I’d half expected their engagement announcement to read “local girl makes good.”

“You, too, Maggie. How is…” Crap. What was her kid’s name? The obnoxious one who’d colored on Maisie’s backpack with permanent marker and thought it was cute to force kisses on her? Doug? Deacon? “Drake?” Phew.

“He’s great! Really soaring at piano right now and looking forward to soccer. It starts next week in case Colt wants to play. Look, I meant to ask, have you thought about treating Maisie holistically? I mean, those medicines are really poisonous. I was reading this blog that talked about eating just cassava root or something? It was really intriguing. I can absolutely send it to you.”