Dana's Valley

by Janette Oke

  My grades had improved a great deal. I was back to the level I had been accustomed to before Dana’s illness began. And I was enjoying my classes too. In addition, the basketball season had started again. My family sat in the center of the stands for some of my games, shouting and cheering us on. Now and then Brett was there beside Corey. It was so good to have everyone together and happy.

  One February morning I came down for breakfast and sniffed deeply. Mom had made bacon and eggs—on a Saturday, no less. We usually had to fend for ourselves on what she referred to as her “morning off.” I joined her in the kitchen, said good-morning, and took the stack of plates that needed to be set around the table. I could hear her humming to herself. Then I caught an odd whimpering sound. Mom hummed a little louder.

  “What was that?”

  “What was what, honey?”

  “That sound. It sounded like … crying.”

  Her reaction seemed far too subdued. “I don’t know what you mean.”

  It came again. From the garage. All at once an explanation began to bubble out of Mom. “Oh, Erin. Don’t tell. Please don’t tell. Dad and I want it to be a surprise. We got her for Corey. I just thought it was time.”

  I moved past her and opened the door to peek into the garage. My eyes fell on a whirling, squirming mass of black fur that scurried across the floor. Before I could stop myself I had jumped back in surprise.

  Mom laughed at me, and then laughed again with pleasure. “What do you think?”

  I couldn’t believe my eyes. They had gotten him his dog. “Does Dana know?”

  “Sure. She helped me pick it out this week. We could hardly keep from telling you, but we wanted you to be surprised too. It seemed more fun that way.”

  They had surprised me, all right. I was shocked. “Is it going to live in here? With us, in the house?”

  “Oh, she’ll be in and out for a little, while she’s young. Once she’s bigger we’ll keep her outdoors.”

  “It’s a she?” I stooped down to run a hand over the wriggling puppy. “She is sweet.”

  Then we heard Corey approaching. I closed the door quickly and resumed setting the table. As usual Corey chattered away as he entered the kitchen. There was little chance he’d hear a whimper from the garage—just so long as the little thing didn’t decide to bark.

  We didn’t have to wait long. Dad arrived at the table, and then Dana. Mom placed the plate of bacon in front of us and then announced, “We have a little surprise.”

  Corey speared a slice of meat and dropped it onto his plate. When no one else moved, he looked up from under his mass of red-blond hair and dropped his fork back down beside his plate. “Oops. Sorry. I should wait.”

  Dad spoke. “I think you need to take a look in the garage.”

  “I thought I did put my bike away, Daddy. I really thought I did. I don’t know how it got out.” He was walking obediently to the door, still trying to defend himself. Then he heard a noise. “What’s that?” He shot a look back at us and reached for the doorknob. We had already begun to follow him.

  “What—?” The puppy made a dash for him before he’d even had a chance for a good look. “A puppy! You got me a dog!” Two little bodies wriggled in a mass of movement. The rest of us stood and watched in awe.

  From then on, the little black furry body was at Corey’s side every opportunity. Corey named her Max after a dog in a story he’d read. We tried to tell him that it wasn’t quite appropriate, that it made her sound like a boy. But Corey just responded by saying, “Some girls are called Max when their name is really Maxine. Katie Brewer has an Auntie Max.” Who could argue with those facts?

  The only trouble with Max was the yipping she did when she wanted to be let in. And she always wanted in. I could never prove it, but I had a theory that Mom kept the pup inside while she worked at the kitchen table. She now had a part-time job transcribing some kind of medical files. Max seemed so surprised when she was relegated to the garage after supper. And she seemed especially fond of Mom—next to Corey, of course.

  Max grew more quickly than we could believe. In a week or two, she’d almost doubled in size. Even Mom was surprised. Then she seemed to double again during the following month. When Corey walked her on the leash, she already pulled him along behind.

  He worked with her every day in the driveway, the big melting mounds of snow on each side making it messy to work anywhere else. He taught her to sit and stay and come. We were impressed. She picked up on his commands quickly and seemed eager to please him. But once they struck out together on a walk, she had little patience for being made to move quietly beside him. She sniffed and loped and darted back and forth. Corey tugged back on the leash, but it did little to slow her down. I supposed he’d have to do some more growing of his own before he could adequately control her.

  That was when Brett stepped in. How it was he felt qualified to train a dog, I wasn’t entirely certain. But at least he had the necessary strength. He took the leash from Corey and looped it several times around his hand so that it was much shorter. Then, in a deep voice, he commanded Max to “heel.”

  She wiggled a bit, trying to scoot away from him, but was given no choice. Brett began walking forward. Max fell in beside submissively, until she lunged away at a squirrel darting along the branches of a tree. Brett jerked the leash up, hard enough to bring her to a stop, and then commanded her again. “Heel.” Max cast a curious look upward at him but fell back in step alongside.

  “You did it, Brett. You made her walk with you.” Corey trotted along beside them and cheered.

  “Oh, she hasn’t learned yet. She needs a lot more practice. But I think she’s smart. She’ll catch on. You’re just not quite big enough to make her obey. It’s all right, though. She’ll catch on.”

  Corey’s face was beaming with admiration. “You did it, though. You made her.”

  It was spring break, and Travis had been over often. In fact, he’d called Brett immediately when break started, asking when they could get together. Now Travis had stopped by on a Saturday afternoon to help Brett with his car. From the kitchen, where I was completing homework I’d been procrastinating on, I could hear a third male voice. It couldn’t be Dad—he was out shopping with Mom and Dana—so I went to check it out and found Graham with the other two. It made me blush a little.

  “Hi, Erin.” He had already noticed me in the doorway.

  “Hi.”

  Brett and Travis moved off toward Brett’s car, some of Dad’s tools in their hands, but Graham made no move to follow. Instead, he stood in the entryway and attempted to explain his presence. “I came with Travis. They’re going to work on Brett’s car.”

  “I know.”

  He waited a little awkwardly for a moment. I couldn’t think of anything to say either.

  “How’s your dog?” He suddenly asked, no doubt glad to have thought of a coherent question.

  “She’s good. Want to see her?”

  He seemed relieved. “Sure.” So we headed out into the garage, where Max was penned, and let her out to run behind the house.

  Graham didn’t look as if he was planning to join Brett and Travis. We played with the dog for a while, chatting about church and our youth group calendar. Then he followed me back into the house. I wasn’t sure what to do. I had homework spread out all across the kitchen table, and I needed to get back to work.

  With a motion toward the opened books, I informed him, “I’m finishing an algebra assignment.” I tried to say it casually, but I hoped he’d catch on.

  “Oh yeah? I like math. What’re you doing?”

  I showed him my textbook and the page I was working to complete. Instead of heading out, he pulled up a chair and offered to help with the assignment. The truth was, I could really use the help. Graham had a quick mind for math—and computers and science. I enjoyed English and history classes much more. Math required extra effort—especially when it came to story problems. The kind that started, “If a train is heading we
st at eighty miles an hour, and another train is heading east …” made my head spin.

  “All right. I’m stuck on question six,” I told him.

  Graham leaned forward over my book and read it aloud. Then he began an explanation, asking me questions until I understood the direction he was headed to find the answer.

  It wouldn’t have taken nearly as long to finish my assignment if we hadn’t stopped for something to drink, then chatted about what was going on back at his school—which was my old one. He had a couple of “Marcy stories” she had somehow neglected to share with me. I laughed at her school antics, secretly wishing I could have participated. He even updated me about the church web page and his plans for it. With all of the extra talk, I still had moved more quickly than usual through my assignment because of the help Graham had given me. We were on the last question when the door from the garage opened and Brett and Travis entered.

  They looked over at us, and then glanced at each other, apparently struck by the same thought, though neither expressed it.

  Brett opened the refrigerator. “Want something to drink, Travis? You can wash your hands in the sink. Mom’s got soap on a shelf behind the cupboard door on the left.”

  I laid down my pencil. “I think I can finish the last one myself, Graham. I guess you’re ready to go.” My voice was low in an effort to keep Brett from hearing, but I knew he and Travis were listening.

  “It’s all right. I don’t think we’re in a hurry.”

  “No, I can do it. You’ve already helped a bunch.”

  “Go ahead and help her,” Travis called over to us. “Brett and I can go shoot some hoops.”

  “Yeah,” Brett agreed. “Take all the time you want helping my sister.”

  They grinned at each other and left again through the garage door.

  “Sorry, Erin. I didn’t mean to embarrass you.”

  “Oh, I’m not embarrassed,” I hastened to answer, trying to hide the fact that I was. “Brett just acts that way sometimes.”

  We finished the last of the assignment, and I began closing the books. Graham took our glasses to the sink and then walked back toward me. He cleared his throat. “I wanted to ask you. Would you like to catch a movie with me sometime? Even tonight—if you’re free. I mean, I’m going with my parents, but I already checked to see if you could come along. We wouldn’t have to sit with them.”

  I smiled. “Now that I’m done with my homework, maybe I could.”

  “Can you call and let me know? We could pick you up around six. That way we could get something to eat first.”

  “I’ll ask my parents. And I’ll call you.”

  “Okay.”

  We walked outside together, and I waited on the porch with him while Brett and Travis finished their game. They were puffing and sweating by the time Brett finally conceded defeat. But they grinned at each other again.

  I waved good-bye as Graham got into the car with Travis, and turned to go back into the house. The clock said three-twenty. Mom and Dad had planned to be home by four. I could hardly wait to tell Dana that I’d just been asked on my first date. And with Graham—well, Graham and his parents. But I still could scarcely believe it.

  Chapter Fifteen

  I was totally unprepared for the report Dad and Mom brought back from a routine trip to the cancer treatment center in May. We all knew Dana had not been feeling quite as well, but we supposed that it was another flu bug—or at the most, that her medication required adjustment.

  Dana went immediately to her room, and Mom followed a few minutes later. When Mom returned, she and Dad gathered the rest of us in the kitchen to bring us up-to-date. I could see that Mom probably had spent a good deal of the trip home crying. I noted that Dad’s hand trembled as he reached up to run fingers through his hair. I knew, even before he spoke, that something wasn’t right. And then he said it. Right out front. “We have bad news. Dana’s cancer has returned.”

  After extensive tests and consultations, the doctors had called in our parents and informed them that Dana’s leukemia was no longer in remission. It was back. Back, and they feared, more invasive. She had been free of the disease for almost exactly one year.

  I wanted to deny it. To argue. It couldn’t be. She was in remission. The doctors had said so. Her blood count had been fine. Didn’t that mean she had been cured?

  But I just stood there and stared.

  Corey started to cry. I wasn’t sure Corey started to cry. I wasn’t sure if it was because he understood better than I what it all meant—or that he didn’t understand at all.

  Brett, who had been summoned up from the basement, pushed back from the table and started for the door. Dad called him, but he didn’t turn around, just kept walking, his jaw clenched as though he was deeply angry. I stood. I wanted to run after him, to go with him—but my legs wouldn’t work.

  “Erin?”

  I heard someone speak my name, but it didn’t really register. Then it came again, along with a touch on my hand. It was Dad. “Erin … are you okay?”

  I shook my head to clear the cobwebs. I wasn’t sure. We’d likely have to go through all the months of agony again. The disruption and pain and weariness and uncertainties … and the struggle to pay bills. I shook my head again.

  Dad gently guided me down on the chair that Corey had vacated for Mom’s lap. For a moment I wished I were small enough to be held and cuddled like that. But Dad was speaking to me again. “They are still undecided about just what approach to take. We need to take Dana back to the cancer treatment center, and they’ll do more tests to assess just what has been affected. After they get that all figured out, they’ll know better how to progress with the treatments.”

  My eyes traveled beyond the kitchen to the door into the little suite where Grandma Walsh had stayed. Apart from our old television and a few throw pillows, it had remained empty. There would be no grandmother to stay with us this time while Mom and Dad spent long days in the city with Dana. What would we do? Would they leave us on our own? The very thought troubled me. How could I take care of Corey alone?

  “They may do another series of chemo. They may move on to stem cell transplantation. They’ve had some good results with that. They may use autologous blood stem cell transplantation, or they may seek a donor. But whatever …”

  But I had tuned Dad out. I didn’t want to hear about it. All of those big words that I didn’t understand. I didn’t want to understand them. It wasn’t fair that we had to be thinking of things like cells and transplantations. It wasn’t even fair that we had to be hearing words like leukemia and cancer. What had we done to deserve this? What? Why was God so angry with us? Or if not angry … uncaring? I thought He had answered our prayers, but He hadn’t. He hadn’t done anything at all. Just … just given us false hope. We all thought that Dana was better. That things were as they should be, but they weren’t. I’d prayed often, thanking God for giving Dana back to us. Now I was so mixed-up. I just wanted to run away and cry.

  Mom was speaking. “Erin,” she said softly. “I think Dana needs you right now. This is very difficult for her. You’ve always been able to bring her some comfort. She’s up in your room and she—”

  Without even thinking about it, I was off my chair. I headed for the same door Brett had. I heard my name, but I didn’t turn around. I just kept running. I had to get away. Somewhere alone. Here I was with the whole world collapsing in on me, and Mom was expecting me to be of comfort to Dana.

  Blindly I ran from the house, slamming the door behind me. I wished I had the luxury of a car. Then I’d drive and drive and drive until I was far away from all of the pain and suffering of my household. But I was stuck. There was really no way to escape. I headed for the tree fort and groped for the nailed-on ladder rungs. Up I went. It was hardly big enough for me to lie facedown without legs and arms dangling over the sides, but I sprawled right where I dropped. I buried my face in my arms and cried and cried until there were no more tears.

  At fi
rst all I could think of was my own suffering. My life had already been torn apart because of Dana’s illness. Now—just when things were beginning to be normal—we were to go through it all over again. It didn’t seem fair. I didn’t think I could do it.

  Then suddenly I thought of Dana.

  How could she stand it? How could she go through all the sickness … the pain … the loss of her hair … everything that was wrong? It wasn’t fair.

  My tears changed to tears for my sister. For one moment I was almost ready to sacrifice for her. To take her place if that could be arranged. And then I got real. I would never be able to stand the suffering as silently—as sweetly—as Dana. I would rage and storm against the disease. I would scream at God for letting it happen. I would be so angry. So bitter.

  But not Dana. She had spent her days of suffering reaching out to others with similar pain. Through her little notes of encouragement and her e-mail messages, she had managed to find a way to bring comfort to others who were also struggling. I couldn’t help but admire Dana—even when I wished to escape from the presence of her illness.

  Once my thoughts were transferred to Dana, I began to remember other things. She had spent the year trying to catch up with her class. Dad had hired a tutor for her math course. She had almost completed her freshman year of high school. I still vividly remembered the first day she returned in the fall. It had been an exciting day for both of us. And Dana had fit right in again. Her hair, not quite the same color that it had once been, had grown long enough to cap her head in a cute, curly ’do. It was now a softer shade, just a hint of red highlighting the soft brown. But it was long enough and thick enough for her to visit the hairdresser and have it shaped into a style that was becoming. I almost envied her. I’d never yet been to a stylist, and I recognized that her haircut was much more in than mine. She had put on some pounds too, so her clothes were actually fitting—not just hanging, as they had when she’d been so thin. In fact, Dana was turning a few heads. I’d seen it happen when she walked down the school hallways. Guys would stop what they were doing and turn to get another look at her.