by Will Hobbs
Neal held up his left hand, and we both saw something new. Blood was streaming down his forearm. I stared but still couldn’t make sense of it.
“It can’t be that bad,” Neal said. “I didn’t feel a thing. Slip the welding glove off for me, will you, Shannon? Slow and easy.”
I worked it off as gently as possible, only to discover that the buckskin glove underneath was completely soaked with blood. Then I saw. Neal was cut clean through the inside glove too. His thumb was laid back, laid completely open. Just like raw meat. Tendons cut, his whole thumb askew like it could fall off. I was going dizzy and had to fight turning away.
Uncle Neal’s eyes went wide. “I didn’t feel a thing. I didn’t even know it got me.”
I was so stunned, all I could say was the obvious: “This is bad, Uncle Neal.”
He was still looking at his hand like it was someone else’s. He said calmly, “I can’t believe I lost my focus like that.”
“You have a first-aid kit in the ambulance, right? Where is it?”
“The medical kit is under the back seat. We’ll get some bandages.”
“Let’s get going, then,” I said urgently. “Cody!” I yelled. He was pretty far off, kicking golf balls, soccer-style, into the net.
The hawk beat its wings, then was still again. Neal looked up at it. The hawk blinked at him fiercely. Upside down in the net like that, who would have thought it could have been a threat?
“Not without the bird,” Uncle Neal said. “If we leave the hawk, it’ll die.”
He shucked the welding glove off his right hand and fished a pocketknife out of his jeans. “Open it up for me, Shannon.”
“Uncle Neal, forget the bird.” Tears burned at my eyes.
He shook his head. “I can’t just leave him. Not to mention Jackie is crazy about redtails. She’d skin me alive.”
I opened the blade and handed it to him. Neal stepped onto the folding chair and started hacking at the net around the bird. “At least it didn’t get my right hand.”
Meanwhile Neal’s left hand was hanging at his side, streaming blood.
By this time Cody was standing there, wondering what was going on. From my voice he knew that something was very wrong. He hadn’t noticed Uncle Neal’s left hand yet, didn’t have a clue.
“You can’t do that one-handed,” I said. “Let me do it.”
Uncle Neal got down off the chair, handed me the knife, cradled his left hand with his right. Then Cody saw. He went pale and looked away.
“Just don’t come near those talons,” Uncle Neal warned me.
“Don’t worry, I won’t.” The knife was sharp, thank goodness. I cut a wide circle around the bird.
“His left foot isn’t tangled at all,” Neal said with sudden understanding. “I just assumed it was. He’s holding himself with that left foot, and the back talon is free. Look, Cody, that back talon is what got me.”
I don’t know if Cody looked. I sure didn’t. I was keeping my eyes on what I was doing and working as fast as possible without cutting my fingers off.
“Will they get mad about their net?” Cody wondered.
Through gritted teeth, Neal said, “They can patch it back together.”
With a quick glance at his face I saw the pain had kicked in, extreme pain. “We have to save this bird,” Neal said, “or this is all for nothing.”
The more net I cut loose, the more the bird got tangled. I had to keep one eye on its talons so I didn’t get anywhere close to them. “Get the carrier ready, Cody.”
Eyes big as saucers, Cody jumped into action.
“There,” I said, holding the tangle of net with the hawk inside as I cut the last strand. I stepped down with the bird and eased it through the carrier door. “Let’s get you to the hospital,” I said to Neal.
“University Medical Center,” he said. “It’s not far away. Great job with the bird, Shannon.”
We boarded the cart and drove straight to the door of the van. Cody threw the door open and whipped out the medical kit. I managed to remove the buckskin glove from Uncle Neal’s injured left hand without pulling off his thumb, which was a minor miracle.
His hand was a gruesome sight. I wrapped it around and around with gauze bandaging, firm enough to slow the bleeding. I stowed the carrier in the back and then we were out of there.
“Drive carefully,” I told Uncle Neal. “I’m sure you’re in shock. Cody, is your seatbelt fastened?”
“Got it.”
I said to Neal, “You’ve been feeling it awhile now.”
“Oh yeah, I can feel it.”
At the emergency room, they told Uncle Neal he was in luck. The best surgeon in Seattle for what he needed was here in the hospital and not operating at the moment. They’d send for her right away.
“I’ll call Jackie,” I told Uncle Neal. “She’ll take care of everything.”
“That she will. You guys take care of Sage, Jackie will take care of the hawk.”
Uncle Neal was led away to an examining room. I called the center and got Rosie. Jackie was away releasing animals, but Rosie was going to come as soon as she could. She would bring another driver for the van. As I hung up I realized that Neal hadn’t given me the keys.
I got Cody settled in the waiting area off of the emergency room. All of a sudden he got this intense look as he reached for a magazine. On the cover was an erupting volcano.
I told the emergency room receptionist my problem. She said she’d get the van keys for me. I asked if I could go myself and tell Neal what they said at the wildlife center. “First room on the right,” she said. “He’s still waiting for the doctor.”
I hesitated as I approached. There were voices from inside the room, Neal’s and a woman’s. The doctor was already there. I sat down on the chair outside and waited.
“No medications since the first of June? Where do you stand with your treatments?”
“I’m in a wait-and-see. I have an appointment for the twenty-fifth of August—that’ll be thirteen months after I got the diagnosis.”
“How did you handle the chemotherapy?”
“I was up and down with it. I just hope it’s all behind me.”
Chemotherapy. The word hit me so hard I couldn’t breathe.
Chemotherapy. Doesn’t that mean cancer?
Of course. Of course. It was all starting to make sense. The chemicals in the medicines make your hair fall out. That’s why he started shaving his head.
Chemotherapy. That’s what made him so thin, so weak.
“You have damage to tendons and nerves,” the doctor was saying. “That hawk missed the artery feeding your hand, just barely. We can be thankful for that. I’m going to have to put you under, and it’s going to be a lengthy operation. No allergies to any anesthesia we might use?”
“Just one question.” Uncle Neal joked. “Who’s going to end up with my thumb, you or me?”
I got up quietly. I’d tell the receptionist I couldn’t find him. She’d bring me the keys.
Cancer. Of course. No wonder he doesn’t look the same, no wonder he had to give up climbing, no wonder!
Uncle Neal, Uncle Neal…Why didn’t you tell us?
12
LIFE CAN BE LIKE THAT
It was terrible leaving the hospital without Uncle Neal, but the surgery was going to be long and hard and complicated. After he was out of surgery it was going to take him a while to come out of the anesthesia.
As we started back to the center, Rosie handed me her cell phone and told me to call Jackie, who was on her way back from releasing a spotted owl in the Cascade Mountains. As calmly as I could, I told her what had happened to Uncle Neal. I told her that the hawk was in the van, which was right behind us on the freeway. “Neal wouldn’t leave the hawk behind,” I said, “even after it hurt him so bad.”
“That’s Neal,” Jackie replied, her voice cracking.
“Actually, he said you’d skin him alive if he left it.”
“That’s Neal too.
He went up on a slippery roof during a lightning storm once and came down with a redtail. Your uncle claimed I would have wrung his neck if he didn’t rescue it. I just hope everything goes well with his operation. You guys hurry home.”
Rosie’s car was awful quiet as she drove north. It was tight with the three of us squeezed in the front, but the closeness felt good. Cody said, “If Dad wasn’t in Pakistan he could fix Uncle Neal up. ”
“That’s right,” I said. “Dad does that kind of surgery.”
“But he’s in Pakistan.”
I hugged my brother. “That’s right, Cody. Peshawar, Pakistan. With Mom, doing fine. Helping all those families who live in tents.”
“I’m still mad at that hawk.”
“I know you are. But think how scared the hawk was, hanging upside down in that net. It’s such a wild thing, and it was afraid. Not that I’m not mad at it too.”
Rosie gave Cody a pat on the knee. “They’ll fix your uncle up just fine.”
I thought, I’m even madder at Uncle Neal for not telling his family he had cancer. First chance I get when it’s just the two of us, I’m going to let him have it.
I wanted to talk to Rosie about what she knew about the cancer, what Jackie knew, but not in front of Cody. Now I knew what Jackie had been getting at, that first morning at the center. We were talking about Neal, things my mother didn’t know about him. Jackie had looked at me funny and said, “Anything else she doesn’t know?”
That’s exactly when Jackie figured out that Neal still hadn’t told us.
Now I knew why Jackie flinched as we were feeding the baby squirrels, when I asked if Neal had been making night runs with the ambulance even before he was laid off by Boeing. Had he actually been laid off?
It was all coming together, finally. Duh, it had taken me long enough to figure it out. Boeing started laying workers off soon after the attacks of September 11, when lots of people suddenly stopped flying. The demand for new airplanes was taking a nosedive. After September 11, that’s when my mother thought her brother had quit working, but it must have been a month or so before. Neal would have left his job to start the chemotherapy treatments, which were going to make him sick. He was already on medical leave when the World Trade Center and the Pentagon were attacked.
And he hadn’t told his sister. That’s the part that really got me. He didn’t want her to know he had cancer. When Boeing started laying people off, he let his sister think he was unemployed, not sick.
My uncle had told me he wasn’t such a great communicator. Well, that was the understatement of the year.
Time dragged. At last we got off the interstate. I wanted to talk with Jackie so bad. Finally Cedar Glen came in sight, and at last the JACKIE’S WILD SEATTLE sign. Did everybody at the center but Cody and me know? What kind of cancer was it? One of the really awful kinds?
At last we were back. There was Jackie, waiting in front of the office. We jumped out of Rosie’s car and flew toward her. “I just talked to the hospital,” Jackie said. “Neal is still in surgery. We can see him tomorrow morning.”
Jackie’s eyes went to the wildlife ambulance pulling in behind us. “I better take care of the hawk,” she said. She kissed each of us on the cheek.
Cody was about to cry. “I’m gonna see Chuckie,” he said, and ran into the clinic.
I grabbed Jackie by the arm. “I need to talk. As soon as you can.”
She saw how intense I was. “Where will you be?”
“In your office. I’m going to check my e-mail.”
I jumped on the computer. Whether or not I’d heard from my parents, I had news to report to them. Uncle Neal news. I’d start with what the hawk did to his thumb, then I’d tell them about the cancer.
I caught myself. It was okay to tell them about the hawk, but the second item, that would be a bombshell, especially for my mother. And I still knew next to nothing, not even what kind of cancer it was.
I typed in my password. I had mail.
It didn’t mean I was finally hearing from my parents. I’d been getting e-mails from my friends in Weehawken right along.
This time, I found one from Lisa, one from Rebecca, one from Matt, and then, almost too good to be true, there they were: one-two-three from my parents.
I scanned them as fast as I could to find out if anything was wrong. As far as I could make out, there wasn’t. I went back and read every word. The first message, from my mother, said they were fine. Everything was okay. They’d just heard from Doctors Without Borders that we hadn’t been getting their messages. They were so sorry. Their palm device had been receiving our messages just fine. One of the doctors being rotated out would send these new ones from Islamabad.
The second message, from my father, told where they actually were:
Our camp in the Pakistani desert near Peshawar is called New Jalozai. We can only guess at its population, still tens of thousands. Every day more families leave for Afghanistan even though there is little to go back to after twenty-four years of war, and the drought hangs on. Next door to us is Old Jalozai with well over a hundred thousand last winter. Your mother and I are in the midst of the greatest refugee crisis in the world—more than a million victims.
I am performing operations in the clinic (such as it is) night and day. As I stumbled back to our tent to sleep this morning I came upon a boy flying a kite above the open sewer that runs through the camp. He smiled at me. There was still a child inside him, still hope, and that was wonderful to see. I have never felt better about being a doctor. Thank you, Shannon, thank you, Cody, for your love and support. Jackie’s center sounds fantastic. Have a happy summer with Uncle Neal rescuing the animals. We think of you all the time, we miss you, and we love you. Dad.
I was already bawling before I started my mom’s next message:
Cody, don’t worry about our safety. You too, Shannon. People in the camp are so kind. What they went through to get here is nearly beyond belief. In the remote areas of Afghanistan, many died last winter—from cold, disease, and starvation. The food from the relief agencies never got to some of them. They mixed grass with the little flour they had in order to make bread for their children. For years, one out of every four children has been dying before the age of five. The smiles of the kids would break your heart. I am vaccinating against measles and polio, seeing to the women who have been neglected for so long.
We’re proud that you are helping your uncle and the wildlife center this summer. You are helping to heal the world. Each of us can only make a small difference but together we can make a big difference. I’m so happy you have this chance to spend “quality time” with Uncle Neal. Be brave, Cody. That little beaver sounds so cool, and good luck with Sage. Don’t fret, Shannon, all will be well, I promise. Enjoy your summer, take care of each other. With hugs, love, and kisses to all three of you, Mom.
The door opened. It was Jackie. Her eyes were wide, seeing me so emotional. “I finally heard from my parents,” I sobbed. “They’re fine, everything’s fine.”
I stood up and went to her. She held me and I just kept sobbing.
Jackie stroked my hair and held me close. She said, “I just can’t tell you how happy that makes me to hear that.”
I recovered enough to stand back and wipe my eyes. I reached for the tissues on her desk.
“I’m so relieved,” I said. “I’m just so relieved.”
“Do you want to run and get Cody and tell him the news?”
“Not yet,” I said. “First, can we talk about Uncle Neal? Did you know about him having cancer?”
Jackie was taken aback. “So you know…. Yes, I’ve known it almost a year. Did Tyler tell you?”
I shook my head. “Why did you say that?”
“Well, he knows. I’ve been half-expecting he’d tell you, or tell Cody.”
“He didn’t. I overheard Neal and the doctor talking in the emergency room. But I don’t know any more about it. Tell me everything you know.”
“All righ
t, I’ll do my best.” Jackie ran her hand through her gray hair. She looked old and worn-out. “Neal had been real tired for months, but kept thinking it was just the hours he was working—full time at Boeing and weekends here. Then he discovered a lump under his arm, a swelling that didn’t go away. When he finally went to the doctor about it, they did some tests and said he had lymphoma, which is cancer of the lymphatic system. They took out some lymph nodes and gave him radiation at the site. Then he had a long course of chemotherapy to attack it wherever it might be spreading through his body. I’m so sorry about this, Shannon. It must be such a terrible shock for you.”
“I just really wish I had known. My mother doesn’t even know. Do you realize that?”
Jackie heaved a sigh and nodded.
“I mean, he didn’t even tell his sister. Why? Why wouldn’t he?”
“Neal hates like the dickens the idea of anybody feeling sorry for him. We both know he isn’t so good at sharing his feelings. My guess is he didn’t want to tell his sister, didn’t want to worry her, until he knew he had the battle won, or knew he’d lost it, for that matter.”
“Then why do people at the center know?”
“We were going to be seeing him every day. With all his doctor’s appointments, and the times he’d be sick from the treatments, well, he had to level with us. But he let it be known he didn’t want to have to talk about being sick. He’s very big on positive thinking, trying only to think about being well.”
I stood there shaking my head. “I can just picture how he got into this situation with me and Cody coming out even though he was sick. When my mother called him a few weeks before school got out, she was all fired up to answer the call from Doctors Without Borders. Actually, I heard her end of the conversation. She didn’t realize I was listening, but I was. She called up Neal all excited for him to say yes. What choice did he have?”