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Prologue: In which I’m told I’m a very sick girl
Fifteen years ago….
I hate coming here. Have hated it since we started coming two years ago. It was supposed to be just a normal check up. The doctor took my blood and then gave me a lollipop because I’d been such a brave girl. He listened to my heart and my lungs with the stethoscope that was so cold it made goosebumps raise on my skin.
And then he took my mother to the side and told her quietly that they found something in my blood. Something that made them worried. Or maybe it was the other way around. They found something my blood lacked, because for the last two years, every month since I turned eight and a half, I’ve had to come here.
And every time they draw my blood and then put something back in me.
I’ve asked my mother what’s wrong with me, what sickness I have. One of the boys in my class, Josh Keller, mother got sick with cancer and he said she had to have her blood taken a lot, that she had to spend hours getting injections, just like me. So I’m pretty sure that’s what’s going on here.
I have cancer, and I’m gonna die, and my mom doesn’t want to tell me.
Though Josh said his mom lost all her hair after her injections. And that hasn’t happened to me yet. Thank goodness.
I reach up now and clutch at the strands with my free hand, being careful not to jostle my left arm where the needle is taped into my skin. It used to bother me. The needles, the medicines, the people with masks over their mouths and those funny blue caps over their hair.
I’ve never seen the faces of the nurses that come in and follow Dr. Schwab’s orders. Just their eyes, which are always kind. Their voices are too. Especially if I get a little scared, because sometimes the medication they give me burns when it hits my veins, like fire. Like that time I accidentally touched the wood stove at Grammie and Pop pop’s when I was six and burned the palm of my hand. Sometimes it’s cold, so cold that it also burns. Like when you spend too long outside in the snow and your skin starts to turn red and tingle and then hurt.
I asked about why they give me different medications, why they feel different when they go into my body, and Dr. Schwab just patted my hand and told me they’re looking for the best treatment for my condition.
What that condition is, again, I have no idea. Even though I’m ten now and could totally understand it, if only they would tell me.
The door to my treatment room opens and Dr. Schwab enters, his eyes on the clipboard in his hand. Brown eyes flick up to me, take me in, gripping my hair like my life depends on it, and he lets out a low chuckle. “I’ve told you, Sadiecakes, you’re not going to lose your hair.”
My lips twitch into a small smile and I release my silky light brown strands to let my hand flop onto the seat of the reclined chair I’m sitting on. “I know, Dr. Schwab,” I say. “Josh Keller’s mom lost all her hair when she had cancer.”
He wheels a rolling stool over to the side of my chair and sits on it. “I guess it’s a good thing that you don’t have cancer then, huh?”
I frown at him. “What’s wrong with me?”
He sighs and rests his elbows on the arm of my chair. “Its complicated, Sadie. Not something you need to worry about. But just rest assured that we’re doing everything we can to help you. All you have to do is keep coming back here, and we’ll take care of everything.”
I frown again, deeper, my bottom lip pushing out into a pout. I want to believe him. Dr. Schwab has been nothing but nice to me every time we come here, but the lack of information is frustrating, even to my ten-year-old self. I want to know what’s wrong with me. I’m old enough to know.
“The kids at school say I’m not really sick,” I whisper, like it’s a secret. “They say since I don’t know the name, it’s not a real sickness. That I’m lying about it.”
He glances around the room. “I suppose we just do all of this for fun?”
I shrug. “Maybe? I never feel sick, Dr. Schwab. I feel fine all the time, except for right after you give me my medicine. That’s when it hurts.” I usually spend the next day feeling too hot, but shivering, with my arms and legs aching.
“That means it’s working,” he says softly, reaching out to tuck a strand of hair behind my ear. “I know it’s hard for you to understand, Sadie, but you're helping here. Helping so many people by just coming in to get your medication.”
My eyes grow wide at his pronouncement. “How am I helping?”
A small secret smile curls his mouth and then he shakes his head. “I’ll tell you when we have good news for you, Sadie. I’ll explain everything then.”
By good news, I assume he means when I’m healed, better, when I no longer have to come in twice a month for an injection.
Except… that conversation never comes. Even when I’m given a clean bill of health in my last years of college. Even when he told me I’d no longer have to come in for injections, but he wanted me to keep up my medication at home.
I never was told what was wrong with me.
By then, I was just so relieved to not have to worry about it, so used to not knowing, that I let it drop.
I was healthy and nothing else mattered.
Chapter 1: In which I receive an exclusive invite
