by Lisa Mills
A nurse breezed into the waiting area, wearing hot pink scrubs and cradling a clipboard in her arm. “Trevor?”
Danielle grabbed her purse and made sure Trevor had the bag of toys he’d brought to occupy him. They followed the nurse to a large exam room down the hall. A young man in a lab coat, who came down the hall from the other direction, followed them into the room. “Hi there. I’m Dr. Franklin, oncology intern here at the hospital.” He had sandy brown hair and flawless skin that would make any woman envious. Thin wire-rimmed glasses outlined dark brown eyes. Danielle tried to keep the uncertainty she felt off her face. He didn’t look any older than her. She was putting Trevor’s life in this doctor’s hands, and she wasn’t convinced that someone without a single gray hair could know enough to handle the complexities of treating leukemia.
“We received Trevor’s medical records, and it looks like we have everything we need to get started. I see here that several family members came in for donor testing. Those results are due back any day now. As I think you’re aware, finding a donor is high on our priority list.”
“On ours too,” Danielle agreed. Hopefully one of her family members would be a match and they could get on with the transplant.
“In the meantime, we’d like to run a full round of tests and re-establish where we’re at. We need to keep Trevor on a maintenance chemotherapy schedule until we have a donor. Today’s test results will help us create a plan for him.”
~ ~ ~
The jangle of the telephone rang through the quiet house just as Danielle started up the stairs with a heavy box in her hand. While her muscles weren’t happy about being called upon again so soon, she found her sudden state of inactivity maddening. There was entirely not enough to do at her parents’ house. With her mother home full time and determined to put June Cleaver to shame, the cooking, cleaning, and shopping were done. In fact, Danielle felt sorry for the dust. It didn’t have a chance against her ever vigilant mother armed with a feather duster.
For lack of anything better to fill her time, Danielle had decided to lug the boxes of office supplies upstairs to her room. Setting up her work station would go quickly once Brandon came to help carry the desk up the stairs.
The phone rang again and Danielle remembered that her father had gone across the street to talk to a neighbor. Her mother and Trevor were at the park downtown, which meant she was the only one home to answer the phone.
Carefully, she backed down the stairs and set the box on the floor, regretting that she’d have to pick it up again when she’d taken care of the caller. She darted for the living room and grabbed the receiver. Her “Hello?” came out winded.
“Is Miss Jordan available?” The male voice was vaguely familiar.
“This is.”
“I’m glad I reached you. This is Dr. Franklin from Faith Pediatric Hospital. I’m calling because the lab results came back on the donor testing we did on your family members.”
“Yes? Did you find a match?”
He sighed. “I’m sorry. We didn’t. None of them are a good candidates for donation.”
Danielle’s heart turned to stone and laid heavy in her chest. “What are we going to do?” She’d been so hopeful that one of them would match, that this nightmare would soon be over. But instead of answers, she just encountered more problems time and again.
“Well, for starters, I’d like to get Trevor on a chemotherapy regime. We need to continue treatment until we find a donor. Can you bring him in the day after tomorrow? Say, eleven o’clock?”
She could, but she didn’t want to. Not without an end to this misery in sight. The prospect of prolonged chemo left her stomach roiling. “Yes, we’ll be there.”
“Great. Now, I see here in Trevor’s records that his father has not been tested yet. A parent has a good chance of being a match, so if there’s any way that he could be tested ….”
This again. And why did she feel a pang of guilt each time a doctor brought up the subject of Trevor’s parentage? She wasn’t the one who left. “I’m afraid we lost touch with him years ago and have no idea how to contact him.” What a diplomatic way of putting it, and she’d even managed to keep the rancor out of her voice this time.
“Well, if there’s any way … do your best. Finding your son’s father could save his life.”
And then he had to put it like that and suck all the air out of her bravado. She didn’t even know where to begin, but she would try to look for Kevin again, for Trevor’s sake. Maybe the Internet would yield some clues or someone around town would know. “I’ll see what I can do.”
“Then I’ll see you the day after tomorrow at eleven. We’ll go over Trevor’s chemo schedules in more detail at your appointment.”
“Thank you, doctor. See you then.” Danielle dropped the phone on the end table, and turned toward the front door. She had to get out of here. She had to get some air. This house, her whole life, was closing in around her, and if something didn’t give soon, she was going to lose it.
Outside the humid July air wrapped around her and felt thick and hot in her lungs. She marched down the steps and turned left at the sidewalk. She didn’t look where she was going, didn’t think about a destination. She just let her feet carry her, hoping they’d take her to a place where her problems couldn’t follow. Twenty-five minutes later she realized there was no place to hide, and she was too tired to keep walking.
Breathing hard, she stopped and looked around. She hadn’t paid any attention to where she was going. Her aimless turns had brought her to the park a few blocks from home. Trevor saw her and called out, waving to her from the top of a curly slide. Her mother, who’d been sitting on a park bench in the shade of a tree, turned and waved her over. As Danielle neared, her mother and the woman she’d been visiting with stood.
“Danielle, you remember Nicki Carlisle from school, don’t you?”
The young woman faced Danielle and offered her hand. “Good to see you again.”
Danielle recognized a girl she once knew in the features of the woman before her. Her brown hair was a little shorter, her face a little fuller, but the years hadn’t changed her much. “Yes, good to be back.”
“I have a son that’s about the same age as yours. Your mother says you’re staying in town for a while. Maybe they’ll be in the same class at the elementary.”
“Great, Trevor will know at least one person at school.” If he could even go to school, but bringing that subject up would only lead to questions she didn’t want to answer.
Nicki smiled warmly and glanced at her cell phone. “Well, we’ve been playing for over an hour and it’s time to go home. I need to start dinner.”
“Me too,” Danielle’s mother chimed in.
They walked toward the slides together and called to the boys.
“Good visiting with you, Karen. And welcome back, Danielle. Hope to see you around.” Nicki’s son flew down the slide and scattered the pea gravel with his rough landing. “Let’s go, Zach.” He brushed dust from his shorts and took off at a run toward the only car in the little parking area. Nicki followed at a pace more appropriate for the warm afternoon.
Trevor’s tennis shoes squeaked against the metal of the slide as he made his trip down. He landed on his feet like a gymnast and turned to grin at Danielle. “This is a fun park, Mommy. Grammy says you played here when you was little.”
“You mean, ‘when you were little.’”
His head cocked to one side. “When I was little you played here?”
“No, what I meant was … never mind, honey. It’s not really important. Let’s walk home.”
He shrugged and skipped off toward the sidewalk. Having been to the park several times already, he knew the way. Danielle let him run ahead while she fell into a leisurely pace beside her mother.
They’d walked half a block in silence before her mother interrupted her thoughts. “Did you come down to the park for a reason, Danielle? Is everything okay at home?”
“The ho
use is fine,” Danielle muttered, distracted.
“You look upset. Did something happen?”
Ahead of them, Trevor stopped to pick up a stick that had fallen from a tree. He examined it closely, then held it out before him and began a sword-fight with an imaginary foe as he pranced forward down the walk. Danielle watched, heart aching for him. She’d have to tell him about the chemo tonight. He was going to be upset.
“The doctor called. None of you were a match for donation.”
“Oh.” Her mother’s heavy exhale and crestfallen face conveyed her disappointment. Danielle was perversely happy that she wasn’t the only one upset by the bad news this time.
“I hope you meant it when you said that you’d help care for him. He has to start another round of chemotherapy in two days, and what follows isn’t pleasant.” She turned and studied her mother’s face, monitoring her expressions. “He won’t be able to keep anything down for the first day or two, which creates lots of messes to clean up and extra loads of laundry.”
Her mother’s face firmed into lines of determination. “I meant every word,” she answered with quiet resolve. “He’s part of you, Danielle, and part of me. I know you’ve only been here four days, but I love him so much. I will help him get through this any way I can.”
Danielle let herself feel a bit of relief. “It will be good to have help this time. Twenty-four hour shifts are hard to manage alone.”
Her mother reached out and caught Danielle’s hand. “He’s an amazing child, Danielle. You’ve been a wonderful mother. I wish—” The words seemed to stick in her throat. Danielle kept her eyes straight ahead, too uncomfortable to look her mother in the eye. They’d never done emotions very well.
Her mother cleared her throat and tried again. “I wish things had been different so I could have seen more of him. He must have been a beautiful baby.”
“He was,” Danielle whispered. A swell of maternal pride swept through her at the thought of an infant Trevor, cradled in her arms, staring up at her with his innocent brown eyes and dark fuzz lining his tiny head. She glanced at her mother and saw the tenderness in her eyes. For Trevor? Or maybe for her?
Just ahead, Trevor had reached the house and darted up the porch steps. Her parents seemed to love Trevor, and that love was bonding them all a little more each day. Despite the hurts of the past, it felt good to share her joys and sorrows with someone. It felt good to have family again.
Chapter Twenty
Danielle bent over the small notepad on the kitchen counter, making a list of items she needed to pick up from the grocery store to help Trevor get through the next few days of sickness. Popsicles, Jell-O, and juice were about all he could handle during the height of his nausea. She’d purchased a car that day, so she wouldn’t have to borrow her mother’s minivan for errands and appointments anymore. Twelve years old but with low mileage and in good condition, the vehicle gave her back some of the freedom she’d surrendered when she’d sold her Honda and moved in with her parents. Reclaiming that bit of independence bolstered her energy and put her in a good mood.
The rumble of a motor filled the silence as a vehicle crawled up the driveway and parked alongside the house. The clock on the microwave read five-thirty, time for her father to arrive home from work. A little frisson of dread twirled through her stomach. She drew a deep breath and pulled up the thick defensive walls she’d learned to hide behind when interacting with him.
The back door rattled and he appeared in the mudroom doorway.
“Hi, Dad.”
He paused mid step and looked her over. His gaze landed on her spaghetti-strap tank top with a scowl of disapproval. She’d figured her Floridian wardrobe wouldn’t meet his approval, but she hadn’t had time to do laundry since she arrived. She resisted the urge the fold her arms across her stomach in some pathetic attempt to cover herself. Everyone dressed like this in Florida—some wore a lot less—and she wasn’t going to apologize for trying to keep cool when it was over eighty-five degrees outside and he refused to set the thermostat for the air conditioner any lower than seventy-eight.
After another glare her direction, he glanced around the kitchen and sniffed the air. “Something smells good.”
“Mom made a macaroni casserole for dinner.”
“And what did you do?”
She heard the edge in his tone and felt a chill crawl up her spine. “What do you mean?” she asked softly.
“Did you do anything productive today or are you just kicking back and taking it easy?” It wasn’t hard to tell which option he approved of and which he condemned.
She chose her words carefully, praying she didn’t stumble over some tripwire she couldn’t see. “Trevor and I unpacked our boxes, and then we spent time preparing for his chemotherapy tomorrow. He uses lots of linens and towels and pajamas when he’s sick. I think we’re all set to deal with it.”
She could tell by the look he gave her that nothing she’d done rated appreciation in his book.
“How was your day?” she added lamely.
“It’s not finished,” he said gruffly. “I still have to do the lawn work. Since you’re not doing anything else at the moment, you can push while I edge.” He brushed past her and was headed up the stairs before she could form a response.
She stared daggers at his back and let out a huff of disgust when he was out of earshot. Why did she bother to be so careful with her words when he lobbed them like grenades at her, completely unconcerned about ruffling feathers or hurting feelings? She pressed her eyes shut and reeled in her anger. Showing any resistance, showing any emotion other than submissive obedience, would only make things worse. And worse for her was really bad for Trevor. So she was mowing the lawn. The shopping trip would have to wait until after dinner.
Her father stomped his way down the stairs and gave her a “fall-in-line” look as he passed. Like a small moon caught in his gravity, she followed him out the back door and headed for the garage.
Her mother, who’d taken Trevor outside to work in the flowerbeds, saw them coming and took in her father’s work attire. “You’re mowing now?”
He nodded.
“Trevor and I were about done here. We’ll go sit on the porch swing so we’re out of the way. Come on, Trev.” She held out her hand to Trevor. He ran to catch her and wove his fingers into hers. They disappeared around the side of the house with matching smiles on their faces. Danielle watched them go, marveling at how quickly they’d become great friends. Her mother had a way with him, and Danielle was thankful for the occasional break. That little bit of rest, small blocks of time where she could just be herself—not someone’s mother, or nursemaid, or chauffeur, or provider—refreshed her and made her a better person when she returned to those other roles that she played in her life.
“Danielle!”
She snapped out of her reflections and headed toward the sound of her father’s voice. The interior of the garage was a mess, with tools, boxes, half finished projects scattered everywhere. She stepped over an open toolbox and placed her foot carefully between a stack of wood scraps and a chainsaw.
Her father turned and held out a weed whacker. “Carry this to the yard. I’ll get the push mower.”
Obediently, she accepted her load and lugged the ungainly thing around to the back of the house, wondering how he’d get the push mower out of the clutter. After a few bangs and scraping noises, he emerged, the lawnmower rattling across the pavement before the thick lawn muted its clatter.
He stopped beside her and gave the lawnmower a shake. “Feels like the tank’s about empty. Go get the gas can.”
Danielle set the weed whacker down and hurried back to the garage. A sense of urgency quivered in her chest. He didn’t like to be kept waiting. He’d want the gas can there by the time he had the cap off the lawnmower’s tank. She paused at the edge of the clutter in the garage and scanned the interior for the dented red tank she remembered from her youth.
“Danielle, the gas!” His voice
carried in the quiet evening. Danielle hoped Trevor couldn’t hear him shouting.
She swept the room, right to left, then back again, but the gas can wasn’t in sight. The quivering in her chest built to a definite shake. She waded further into the mess, hoping a different angle would give her a view of the can, hiding in the chaos.
“Danielle!” The shake became an outright tremor as he stormed through the open door like a raging bull, face red, nostrils flared. “What is wrong with you?” Bits of spittle flew from his lips as he snarled the words. “Are you stupid, or what? I asked you to get the gas can.”
She took a step backward, thankful for the piles of junk that provided a barrier between them. Her voice thin and tight—like her throat—she answered him. “I don’t see it. I don’t think it’s in here.”
“Of course it’s in here, you idiot. This is a garage. It’s where people keep gas cans.” He barreled toward the front corner, kicking a coffee can out of his way and overturning a stack of boxes in his anger. With a violent jerk, he yanked a tarp from his path and shoved a small piece of plywood to the side. There sat the red gas tank. “It’s right here!” Grabbing the tank, he flashed her a withering look and stormed from the garage. “Worthless kids,” he snarled under his breath. “Can’t do anything right.”
The words cut into the myriad scars on her heart and drew fresh blood. Sorry to be such a disappointment to you, Daddy. She’d never been able to please him, to do anything to meet his impossible expectations. She doubted that anyone could. Deep inside she knew that the problem wasn’t her, or Brandon, or Mom or anyone else that he yelled at. The problem was in him. But his razor-edged words cut deeply anyway, and they all had scars to prove it.
“Are you coming?” he shouted from the lawn.
Folding her heart in on itself to protect the open wound, she cleared her face of any emotion and made her way out of the garage and to his side. She gripped the lawnmower’s handle while he jerked the starter cord. The engine roared to life, and she pushed the mower forward, starting a path down the edge of the flowerbeds.