by Amy Reed
Stella just died and I might live and I don’t know how I feel about any of this.
twelve.
I COULD BE ANYONE, JUST A REGULAR KID WHO BROKE HER leg doing something normal like riding a bike or climbing a tree. Dr. Jacobs says it’s healing perfectly. Miraculously, no major nerves or blood vessels were damaged; the tissue remained healthy and supple while I was bedridden. The only thing that shows up on X-rays now is the small metal plate in my pelvis and the titanium rod and six screws holding my thigh together.
My white blood cells are at normal levels after being virtually nonexistent. According to the tests and multiple retests, there is cancer exactly nowhere in my body. Nowhere. Nothing. Zero. Zip.
There has been a mistake. Or a miracle. Or some twisted combination of both. Another one of God’s jokes—but I don’t know if I should laugh or cry.
I am the only kid on the cancer ward without cancer. My room is empty. All the decorations have been taken down, all the flowers finally thrown away. I am sitting on my hospital bed, waiting to be discharged.
I’ve already endured Caleb’s tearful good-bye. I promised him I would visit and text, that we’d meet for coffee as soon as he gets out, but all I wanted was to get away as quickly as possible. I don’t belong here now.
Mom is in the hall somewhere, looking for someone to officially sign me out. Jenica and Dad are bringing the car to the front, my suitcase packed and in the trunk. Will and Kasey both wanted to come, but I told them not to. My leaving is already getting too much attention as it is. Plus, we have all the time in the world now. This may be the last hospital room I see for a very long time.
I should feel something. Happy. Grateful. But I keep thinking about how the last thing Stella probably saw was a ceiling identical to this one, an empty expanse of flat, lifeless white. I keep thinking about how she was alone in that room, being kept alive by machines. Until she wasn’t.
After I leave, the hospital sounds will continue without me—the constant beeps, the doors opening and closing, the rattles of equipment being rolled up and down the hallway, in and out of rooms. The low, serious drone of doctors and parents; the high, cheerful voices of children; the hospital’s peculiar duet of laughter and crying.
I hear squeaking wheels and the shuffling of little feet. A girl I recognize from movie nights appears in my doorway, wearing pink footy pajamas that probably used to fit her but now droop off her emaciated frame. She has the look of a lifer, one of the kids who have basically been raised here. I think she’s somewhere around six or seven, but it’s so hard to tell the age of the gravely ill. Teenagers can stay prepubescent for years; little boys can look like haggard old men.
Only a few stringy wisps of white-blond hair are left on her head. Stella would always have a fit whenever people failed to shave their heads when they got to this point. “No self-respect,” she’d complain. “It hurts my eyes.” But maybe this girl’s parents have more important things to think about than their daughter’s hair.
She is dwarfed by the oxygen machine she drags behind her. A floppy stuffed rabbit rides on top.
Before I have a chance to say anything, she walks over and climbs onto my bed.
“Hi,” she says.
“Hi.”
“I’m Carla.”
“Hi Carla, I’m Evie.”
“I know.” She retrieves the stuffed rabbit from its perch on the machine and holds it out to me. “This is Piggy.”
“Hello, Piggy.” I shake his little soft hand.
“Can I sign your cast?”
“Okay.” I don’t tell her that I’m getting it removed tomorrow.
She pulls a pen out of a hidden zippered compartment in Piggy’s back. She has come prepared.
She bites her lip in concentration as she writes the wiggly words in a clean space between the faded names of kids who have come and gone in the three weeks I’ve been in here: “To: Evie. Love: Carla,” then circles it with a heart.
“That looks nice,” she says, nodding her head.
“It does.”
She scoots closer to me. “I have what you had. Ewing’s sarcoma.” The heavy words sound so strange in her tiny voice. “It was in my arm but now it’s in my lungs, too.” She holds out the rabbit and points to its chest. “Here,” she says.
“I’m sorry,” I say.
She looks around my empty room. “All your stuff is gone.”
“I’m leaving today.”
“I know.”
“Oh?”
“Everybody knows.”
“Oh.”
“Evie?”
“Yes?”
Her big eyes blink twice. If they made a sound, it would be plink, plink. “Can I touch you?”
“Why do you want to touch me?”
“Piggy and I were thinking that maybe some of your miracle will rub off. So maybe I can be cured too.”
Before I can even think about what I’m doing, I throw my arms around Carla and press her hard against me. I can feel her brittle bird bones through her skin. If I let go, she’ll disappear. She’ll shatter and turn into dust.
“Ouch,” she says.
I release her quickly. “Are you okay? I’m so sorry.” I look her over for signs of harm.
“This just got knocked a little,” she says as she adjusts the tube in her nose.
“I’m sorry. I don’t know why I did that.”
She just shrugs her shoulders. “You probably needed a hug.”
“I guess.”
She slides off the bed and puts Piggy back in his spot on top of the oxygen machine. “Okay, bye,” she says unceremoniously. I fight the urge to grab her again.
“See you later,” I say, trying to act casual, struggling to not lose it in front of this kid.
She tilts her head to the side and studies me. Plink, plink.
“Probably not,” she says flatly. “I don’t think the hug worked. I don’t think miracles are contagious.”
My mouth opens but no words come out. I watch her shuffle out into the hall, the oxygen tank following her like a loyal pet.
thirteen.
MY BEDROOM IS LIKE A MUSEUM. EVERYTHING IS EXACTLY where it was when I left for my walk with Will at Lake Merritt what seems like forever ago. I can tell Mom washed my sheets because my bed is made, but other than that, it’s like time stopped that sunny afternoon. The book I was in the middle of reading is still lying open on my bedside table. My school sweatshirt is still hanging on the back of my desk chair. A dirty sock lies lonely in the corner.
I know it hasn’t really been that long, but I imagine a layer of dust coating everything. It’s my room, but I feel a strange reluctance to touch anything, as if I’ll get in trouble for disturbing the exhibit. None of these things feel like they’re mine. All these patterns and textures, all these colors besides white, all these smells besides hospital disinfectant—it’s too much. I feel dizzy. So I reach over from my wheelchair and turn off the lights. The darkness makes it a little more manageable.
Dad left my suitcase in the middle of the room, where it now sits awkward, almost menacing. It strikes me that I don’t even want to open it, don’t even want to let the contents touch this air. I will never wear those clothes again, never use that toothbrush, never brush my hair with that comb. That is all Cancer Girl’s stuff. Not mine.
I wheel myself over to the suitcase, wanting to move it somewhere out of sight. Maybe I can push it deep inside my closet, where it will be lost, unopened, and I’ll never have to think about it again. But that’s when I notice something on my desk that wasn’t there before, a square package slightly bigger than a shoebox, wrapped in brown paper and a postage label with my address on it. The return address is the hospital.
Before I even open it, I know it’s from Stella. It’s just like her to send me a package from the dead. As I unwrap the paper, a familiar smell hits me so hard I choke on my own breath—Stella’s smell. The musky men’s cologne she somehow managed to make smell so feminine.
<
br /> I open the box to find Stella’s hat—the smooth black felt fedora, with the oval brim and center crease, like something Al Capone or Indiana Jones would wear, except this one has a special Stella flair with the shiny black ribbon around the crown, holding the iridescent green and blue peacock feather. It is mine now, the place where Stella kept her power. My hands shake as I lift it up, as I discover a second present hidden under it, a small wooden box, a little girl’s treasure chest. When I open it, another familiar smell escapes—the box is stuffed full of more marijuana than I could imagine anyone ever being able to smoke.
A folded note sits among the densely packed buds. I open it to find the smooth, graceful handwriting of a ghost:
Dear Evie,
Don’t forget to live big. Make me proud, Cheerleader.
Love,
Stella
“Honey!” Mom’s voice calls from the living room. “Will’s here!”
I don’t have time to hurt. I don’t have time to miss her.
I put the hat on my head and it fits perfectly. I imagine I absorb some of Stella’s power as it hugs my thin, patchy hair. I hide the box of weed in the back of my underwear drawer and wheel myself into the hallway, my arms stronger than they’ve been in months.
Maybe Will can make me feel better. Maybe he’ll take me into his arms and squeeze some joy into me. But what I really want to do is get into bed and sleep for as long as it takes for me to feel like doing all the things I used to love doing. I want to sleep until I can forget that Stella’s gone.
Will’s face lights up when I enter the living room. He hands me yet another bouquet of red roses. The too-sweet smell overwhelms me as he leans over to kiss my cheek. I feel so small, like I’m his child.
“How are you feeling?” he says.
“Fine,” I say. “Tired. Ready to get out of this chair. Ready to get my cast off tomorrow.”
We come dangerously close to awkward-silence territory, but a knock on the door saves us just in time. Kasey walks in without waiting for anyone to answer, a right she earned a long time ago from being my best friend.
“Evie!” she cries, and runs over to hug me. For a moment, it feels right, and I wish we could just go to my room and lie on the floor in our pajamas and pretend it’s two years ago. But instead, it’s now, and no one knows what to say.
“Well,” Mom says. “Your dad should be here any minute with the food.”
“Isn’t that Stella’s hat?” Kasey says with a hint of a frown.
“Do you like it?”
I can tell the answer is no, but she manages a smile and nods. I haven’t had a chance to see what I look like, but I know this isn’t exactly the style of a varsity cheerleader.
“What does everyone want to drink?” Mom chirps.
“Water’s fine for me,” Kasey says.
“I have iced tea,” Mom says. “Milk. Orange juice. We might have a couple of cans of Coke in the back of the fridge.”
“I’ll have iced tea,” Will says. “I bet Evie wants iced tea too. Right, Evie?” He grins at me, like he expects an award for remembering that I like iced tea, and I’m pretty sure old Evie would have been touched, but I’m not.
“Yeah,” I say. “Sure.” Mom disappears into the kitchen.
“How’s baseball going?” Kasey says to Will.
“It’s all right. Keeping me busy, I guess. But I have to admit, I miss football season.”
“Yeah, me too,” Kasey says. “Cheering for the basketball team just isn’t the same.”
They laugh. I don’t. I can’t even try to pretend I care about sports.
“Do you guys want to sit down or something?” I say. “We’re just sort of standing around. I mean, you. You’re standing. I’m already sitting. You know what I mean.”
“Oh, Evie,” Kasey says, flicking my hat. “You’re so cute.”
The front door swings open and Dad yells, “Dinner’s here!” He’s carrying bags full of takeout boxes, and the sweet, spicy smell of my favorite restaurant, Burma Superstar, fills the house. I’m so excited that I forget to be annoyed with Kasey for being so patronizing.
“Awesome,” Will says.
“Have a seat, everyone,” Dad says. “Plates are already on the table. I’ll grab some serving spoons.” Mom emerges from the kitchen with our drinks just as he’s going in, and she giggles her surprise at their perfect timing, and he kisses her.
“I hope I have a relationship like your parents when I grow up,” Kasey says to me. “They’re, like, perfect.”
“Yeah,” Will says. “They’re pretty perfect.” He looks at me in a way that says he thinks we could be that perfect too. And now, for the first time in forever, we can actually allow ourselves to think in those terms, to think about us having a future.
Jenica skulks out of her room and joins us. We all sit down as Dad unpacks the bags of deliciousness. The smell of coconut and curry waft around the dining room, and my mouth actually waters. This is definitely not hospital food. I am hungrier than I can remember being all year.
“Did you get the walnut shrimp?” Jenica says, systematically inspecting each of the takeout boxes.
“Oh, oops, sweetie,” Dad says. “I forgot.”
“But that’s my favorite,” she whines. “You know that.”
“There are a lot of other great dishes. What about the shrimp and eggplant?”
She frowns as she serves herself. I can almost hear her adding this to her long list of resentments of me, as if I am responsible for Dad’s mistake. Now that I’m back, there’s suddenly room for more than love and sadness, and we can fall back into our good old sibling rivalry.
Luckily, I am able to lose track of the dinner conversation as I stuff my face. “Oh my god, this is so good,” I say. “I forgot what real food tasted like.”
This seems to make Mom and Dad happy. They share one of their looks.
“Evie, how are you feeling?” Kasey says, moving the food around on her plate. She only has some greens, a couple of pieces of broccoli, one shrimp, and about a tablespoon of brown rice.
“Good,” I say. “Hungry.” My parents do their look again, like they need to congratulate each other on everything I do that resembles healthy teenage behavior.
Kasey doesn’t seem satisfied by that answer. She wants something bigger, deeper, more cancer-y.
“It’s so great to have you back,” Will says, placing his hand on mine. He leaves it there, on my hand holding the chopsticks. He is keeping me from my food. “How does it feel?” he says.
“Good,” I say, pulling my hand away to continue eating.
Jenica and I are the only ones eating. Everyone else is just sitting around looking at me.
“So, Kasey,” Mom says, always the first to rescue us from uncomfortable silences. “How is the cheer squad this year?”
“Oh, great,” she says. “There’s a freshman who made varsity who’s been training as a gymnast for the Olympics.” She looks at me guiltily. “But of course, it’s not the same without Evie. We all miss her so much.”
I give her a broccoli-toothed smile.
“Dr. Jacobs says that if physical therapy goes well, Evie could be down to a cane in just a few weeks!” Mom says. “She’s healing so fast.”
“Wow,” says Kasey.
“She’s so strong,” says Will.
I have gotten so used to people talking about me in the third person.
“Our little survivor,” Dad says.
“Our miracle,” Mom says, her voice cracking at the end as her eyes well up with tears.
It goes on like that for another hour. I focus on my food and try not to feel guilty for not feeling the gratitude I know I should. A week ago, I thought I wouldn’t live more than a month, yet now I find myself annoyed that I’m going to be limping around with a cane like an old lady. As we sit around the table sampling the ice-cream flavors Dad picked up from Tara’s—avocado, lavender, white pepper chocolate chip, and Mexican chocolate—my leg starts hurting. It�
�s probably nothing a couple of Advil can’t fix, but I’m grateful for the Norco prescription they gave Mom when I left the hospital. It’s up to me when I need it. All I have to do is ask.
I want to hug Mom when she shoos Will and Kasey away after dinner. “I know you two want to stay and hang out with Evie, but she needs to rest.” They take turns hugging me and telling me how great it is to have me back. I want to agree with them, but something inside me says not so fast. I’m not the girl they remember. I’m not anyone they know.
After they leave, the house is quiet. Mom helps me with the humiliating task of going to the bathroom. “Just a few more days and you’ll be on crutches and you can do this on your own,” she reminds me from outside the door after she gets me situated. Even with the door closed, I am never alone.
I wish Dr. Jacobs hadn’t told her to hold my prescription. I wish I could be in control of how much and when I take it. If it were up to me, I’d take three pills right now, but that is not an option. I’m only allowed a maximum of two every four hours. So I ask Mom for two. I don’t tell her I already took a few Advil. I don’t tell her about the theory I’m testing: maybe the Advil will take care of the dull ache in my leg; maybe the Norco will then be free to work its other magic and make the rest of my life a little softer.
fourteen.
I MISS YOU, SAYS CALEB’S TEXT. I START TO WRITE I miss you too, but then I delete it and change the channel on the TV.
I just got home from getting my cast off and now we’re waiting for the physical therapist to show up. Luckily, Orthopedics is on the first floor right by the entrance to the outpatient hospital, so I didn’t have to go up to the second floor; I didn’t have to go near Oncology or the injection clinic where Stella and I spent so much time together. It was weird to be across the street from the inpatient hospital where I spent the past few weeks, the place where Stella died, where Caleb still is, where Dan, Nurse Moskowitz, Dr. Jacobs, and everyone else are still showing up every day to hang out with sick kids. I used to be one of those kids, one of the sickest, but today I was just someone getting a cast taken off. In and out in less than an hour when only a few days ago I was dying.