The Last Letter(58)

Dr. Hughes shook his hand and smiled. “Well, I’m certainly glad to hear that. Maisie is a favorite of mine. And I’m pleased to meet you, Mr. Gentry. Ella has definitely needed some support. I’m glad to see she’s getting it.”

“I’ll be here as long as she needs me.” He answered the question she didn’t ask, and her eyes went soft.

Another one bites the dust.

Then we got down to business. She asked a few questions and checked Maisie’s chart for the latest labs, her brows knitting together at times as she read everything over. She listened to her breathing, checked out her IVs, and watched her pressure.

“How worried do I need to be?” I asked, knowing she wouldn’t bullshit me.

Her sigh was deep, and she flipped through the chart again. “I don’t know, and I can’t say until we see how she reacts to the meds. I can tell you that she’s way better off than she would have been in a few hours. You saved her life.”

“Colt did,” I said softly.

“Those two.” She lightly chuckled. “One soul split between two bodies.”

“He said he’d heard her crying in his dream,” Beckett said. “He woke up and went into her room and found her burning up.”

My head snapped toward his, wondering when Colt had— While you were in the truck. When he’d talked to Colt on the porch. The gratitude I felt toward Beckett for his connection with Colt was tempered a little with jealousy that he knew my son in a way I didn’t.

Because Beckett was around more than I was.

“What’s next?” I asked, needing to look past this.

“It will take a few hours, but once we’re certain the meds work—”

“Not with this. With the treatments. Looking forward and all that.” I didn’t want to think about what I couldn’t control. I wanted to focus on what I could. What to research next, to prepare her for. That, I could handle.

Dr. Hughes nodded, like she understood, and then sat in the last empty chair in the room, leaning forward on the small table. “We were supposed to meet next week,” she said.

“Right.”

“You sure you want to do this now?”

I glanced at my little girl fighting a battle I couldn’t pick up a sword for, and instead chose another front. “I am.”

“That last round of chemo didn’t move her levels like we were hoping.”

Having the tumor gone was all well and good, but if her bone marrow was still overwhelmingly cancerous, another one would grow. We’d cut off the top of the tree, but the roots were still alive and fighting.

“Is she developing a resistance to the chemo?”

Beckett’s hand found mine again, and I gripped. Hard.

“It’s a possibility. We’d discussed the MIBG treatment, and I think it’s our best bet.” She leaned down and pulled a pamphlet out of her purse, putting it on the table. “I got you some information on a trial.” She looked over at Beckett, and I knew exactly why.

“You can talk about it in front of him. It’s fine.” Up until now, the only people who knew what my finances looked like were Ada and Dr. Hughes. And probably the cell phone company that had gotten used to me perpetually paying a month late.

“The trial will cover certain aspects, but not everything, and the only hospital in Colorado with the facilities to do this is Colorado Children’s.” She gave me a knowing look.

The cost was astronomical, and I had no way of covering it in cash. But I’d think about that later. “Submit the paperwork, and let’s get her in.”

“Okay. It needs to be soon.”

“Doesn’t everything?”

…

“Tell me about the MIBG,” Beckett asked seven hours later as we ate dinner in the small cafeteria. Maisie slept upstairs, her pressure hovering, her temp fevered.

She’d woken up once and asked to use the bathroom, which just about made me cry in relief. Her kidneys were still functioning.

I pushed the bland excuse for fried chicken to the side of my plate. Why was all hospital food bland? Because they needed it to be gentle on stomachs? Or maybe I was wrong, and it wasn’t, but I was too numb to really taste it.

Maybe all hospital food was really good, and we were just too preoccupied to ever notice.

“Ella,” Beckett said gently, pulling me from my thoughts. “The MIBG?”

“Right. It’s a relatively new treatment for neuroblastoma that attaches the chemo to the radiation that targets the tumor itself. It’s pretty amazing stuff, and they can do it in only eighteen hospitals across the country, one of which happens to be in Denver.”

“That’s incredible. The same hospital where Maisie had her surgery?”

“The same.” I poked at my mashed potatoes, dropping my jaw when Beckett shoved in forkful after forkful. “How do you eat that?”

“Spend a decade in the army. You’d be amazed at what sounds great for dinner.”

And there was some perspective that had me reaching for my fork.

“Any drawbacks to the MIBG?”

“The trial isn’t covered by my insurance.” And there it was, the entrance to the nightmare that was my finances.

“You’re kidding me.” He blinked a couple times, like he expected me to change my answer. “Tell me you’re kidding, Ella.”