You Should See Me in a Crown(64)

I don’t speak as we drive. Neither of us reaches for the aux cord, no one bothers to fill the air with jazz or the newest Kendrick or any of the sound that normally fills the space of his Range Rover. Jordan simply reaches over and drops a hand on mine where it rests in my lap.

It stays there, warm and strong, until we pull into the parking lot.

“I have to get back to school,” he starts as I open the door, “but I’ll be back later, okay?”

I nod. I still don’t have words to thank him, but I hope by now he knows what this all means to me. “You’ve already done so much. I just— Don’t feel pressured to come back. I understand that you have other stuff to do.”

“Of course I’m coming back, Lighty.” He shakes his head once and offers me a kind smile. For a moment, he looks just like the Jordan who I used to sit next to in middle school band. It makes my heart hurt. “A first is nothing without their second, remember?”



It isn’t the first time I’ve been inside a St. Regis hospital—I spent more nights sitting at my mom’s bedside than I did at home when things got really bad—but being inside the Jesse Washington Children’s Hospital is always … different.

It’s part of St. Regis, but it’s also not. But then again, I guess it should be like that. When you’re trying to convince children that they’re okay, that they’re not here because their own bodies are destroying them, you have to put up paintings of cartoon characters, apparently.

But I know this place just as well as the adult hospital, because it’s scarier. Because it could always mean the worst for the person I love the most. Cartoon characters or not.

When I round the corner, Beatriz, my favorite nurse, with her short bob and cartoon-less scrubs, points me in the direction of Robbie’s room without me having to ask. She’s barely five feet tall and doesn’t smile much, but I’ve always liked her no-nonsense approach. And if the softness that enters her face when she sees me is any indication, I think she likes me back.

Dr. Fredrickson, Robbie’s usual hematologist, is exiting the room right as I reach the door. She places her hand on my shoulder and sort of urges me in the direction she’s walking. I glance back at the door but decide not to argue.

“Elizabeth. I wish I were seeing you under better circumstances, but I’m glad you’re here. Come sit with me for a second,” she says, her rich, honey-like voice soothing as always. “Your grandmother thought it might be best if I was the one to come talk to you. She’s still a little shaken up.”

Dr. Fredrickson is one of the few black female hematologists in the state, which always makes me so grateful that Robbie gets to have her. She was Dr. L’s protégé once upon a time, and I’d always sort of hoped that one day I might be hers. She’s about my height, with long, slim fingers, in her late forties but already completely silver-haired.

After all these years of watching her fix my brother in various states of disrepair, she’s become a sort of hero to me. She even wrote one of my letters of recommendation for Pennington.

We sit down in some of the chairs in the waiting room, away from any of the children and their parents currently waiting to be seen. There’s a LEGO tower in front of us, teetering precariously.

“How are you?” she asks, even though I’m sure she already knows the answer. I normally resent that trait in people, asking questions they already know the answers to, but when it’s Dr. Fredrickson, I let it slide. She doesn’t say anything unless she has a reason.

“I’ve been better,” I answer as honestly as I can.

She crosses her legs and places her delicate hands over her knees. Her massive diamond wedding ring sparkles in the nasty hospital fluorescent lights.

“Yes, I imagine you have.” She nods. Her lips are in a tight line. “Elizabeth, you know how fond I am of you. I think you are truly one of the most capable and dedicated young women I’ve ever met. More than once I’ve told my husband that if we’d decided to have children, I would have wanted a daughter like you.”

“I’m not that capable, doc. If I were, we wouldn’t be here right now.” I swipe at my nose, which has started to run. Dr. Fredrickson hands me a tissue that I didn’t even see her holding. “And I think we both know that.”

Her eyes soften.

“He hasn’t been taking his meds, has he?” I ask. She doesn’t respond right away, but I already know the answer. The miracle of Hydroxyurea is that it reduces hospital visits in young patients an almost unbelievable amount. But like any medication, when you don’t take it, it’s useless.

“I haven’t been watching.” I shake my head and put my face in my hands. I’m so ashamed, so disappointed. “This is all my fault.”

“Don’t say that.” Dr. Fredrickson’s voice is sharp, sharper than I’ve ever heard it. I snap my head up and look at her, and her normally composed face is colored with something heavier. “You are a good girl, smart and driven. But you are not your brother’s keeper, young lady. He’s almost sixteen now. And just as I told your grandmother, he’s old enough to take his health into his own hands.”

“But—”

“But nothing.” She places her hand on mine and pats twice. “Your job is to be his sister, not his doctor or his caretaker. You let me do that.”