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When you’ve got cancer, people talk to you different. Sometimes they whisper. I want to tell them that cancer doesn’t hurt my ears, and that it’s okay for them to talk normal.
Since I got cancer, my brothers have turned all weird, too. I think Daddy had a talk with them. They used to hide my dolls, and throw the ball too high for me to catch, and laugh when I did a ballet twirl and fell down, but now they don’t do any of that stuff. I wish they still did. I don’t want them to be nice to me just because they think I’ll die before them.
That day I had to tell the kids at school that I had cancer was two years ago. I’m in second grade now. Only I can’t go to school these days. If I get well, I’ll have a lot to catch up on.
I was thinking about that day in kindergarten because today is Thanksgiving, and Mom said we should count our blessings, and the main one, she said, is that we’re here in Atlanta so I can get well. We missed having turkey with my brothers and Daddy, though. They’re at home. Mom and I FaceTimed with them, then she went out in the hall with the phone and talked to Daddy by herself, and when she came back in, she smiled the way she does when she’s sad and doesn’t want me to know it. But I know it anyway.
She laid down with me, and pulled me close to her, and we watched the parade on TV. I wish I could go to that parade and see the Rockettes. Mom said we will next Thanksgiving. But I don’t think we will because Dr. O’Neal would have to kill my cancer first.
She’s a special doctor for my kind of cancer. There are all different kinds, you know. Mine is in my bones and blood, and it’s a bad kind to have.
But Dr. O’Neal can kick its butt. That’s what Daddy told me when I left to come to the hospital here. He winked at me. Probably because he said “butt.”
When Dr. O’Neal and Mom talk about my cancer, they go outside my room in the hall. Sometimes Dr. O’Neal puts her hand on Mom’s back and rubs it and looks sad. That’s when I know the news isn’t good. Not as successful as we’d hoped. That’s how the doctors say that the cancer is getting worse.
My treatments cost a lot of money. One day, I heard Dr. O’Neal tell Mom not to worry about that right now. She really wants to kill this cancer.
Dr. O’Neal is my best friend even if she is old. She likes me. Sometimes she tells Mom to take a break, and even if Mom says no, Dr. O’Neal shoos her out and stays with me for a while. We talk about a lot of stuff. Everything but my cancer. I think she doesn’t want me to know how bad it is, but if it wasn’t bad, I wouldn’t be here, would I?
We talk about how being a ballerina must be the best thing in the world to be.
She brought me a coloring book with just ballerinas in it. We’ve colored nearly all the pages, but she said that when that book is full, she’ll get me another one. She painted my toenails pink, the color of ballet slippers. She says someday I’ll be a famous ballerina, and she’ll come to see my show and wave to me from the audience.
But I might be a Rockette instead. She could still wave to me.
Dr. Lambert would probably never come to see me in a show. He’s very busy and always in a hurry.
Yesterday, Dr. O’Neal brought me a Thanksgiving card. On the front was a silly turkey wearing a Pilgrim hat. I put the card on the table next to my bed. Dr. O’Neal wished me a happy Thanksgiving and told me she had something very important to do, but that she would be back soon.
She hasn’t come today, though. But maybe she will. I hope so. I need to tell her that I don’t feel good. I hate to tell her that. But she needs to know if she’s going to kick the cancer’s butt.
But I don’t want Mom to know that I don’t feel good. She’s already scared I’m going to die.
Chapter 18
6:27 p.m.
Rye left Brynn sitting on the bed and went into the bathroom to wash his hands. He wrapped a cloth around the leaky cuts. When he came back, he opened the minibar fridge. “Name your poison.”
“Water, please.”
“It’s on Dash.”
“Just water.”
He passed Brynn a bottle of water and opened a can of Coke for himself, then dragged the desk chair over and straddled it, facing her.
“Who’s your patient, Brynn?”
“A seven-year-old girl named Violet.”
“She’s dying?”
“Probably before she turns eight. Unless I’m granted a compassionate use exemption for her.”
“She’s the patient you applied for?”
“To no avail.”
