She walked to her car, envisioning long stretches of highway to drive so she could think for as long as it took to make sense of her life—but it would never make sense. And she barely had the strength to make it three miles to home.
Her next-best scenario was to sneak into the house and up to her room, close the door, and shut out the world. But when she walked through the garage door and into the kitchen, Lance was the first thing she saw.
Now late morning, she was getting hungry again, but she kept moving. “I don’t want to talk right now,” she said.
“Kendra, we need to talk.” Lance followed. “I want to hear how the appointment went, and I need to talk to you about last night.”
She turned before she reached the stairs. “Oh, about Adrienne? Or about our complicated non-relationship?”
“That’s why I need to talk to you,” Lance said. “Adrienne told you about a conversation we had almost two months ago. I told her last night that you and I are in a relationship . . . and that I love you.”
“It doesn’t even matter.”
“What doesn’t matter?”
“Whether we’re in a relationship. What does that even mean? I don’t know what anything means anymore.” She went up a stair and turned back. “No, here’s a better way to say it. Nothing means what it used to anymore.”
“So you’re saying it doesn’t matter to you if we’re in a relationship?”
“I’m saying the relationship doesn’t matter, period. How could it?” She threw up her hands, forgetting it hurt her arms to do so. “There’s no future. And the little future I thought I had is dwindling.”
He stepped closer. “What did Dr. Contee say, Ken?”
Kendra took a breath, feeling the weight of the doctor’s words again. “She said we’re not getting the tumor shrinkage they hoped we’d get. My interpretation: I’ve had four cycles of aggressive chemo, four cycles of intense pain . . . for nothing.”
“No way it’s been for nothing,” Lance said. “I know Dr. Contee didn’t say that.”
“She’d never say what the real deal is. You have to read between the lines.” Tears came. She couldn’t hold them any longer. “What she might as well have said is that I’m part of the statistic for whom the ‘treatment regimen’ doesn’t work. Somebody has to be in that statistic, right? Why not me?”
“What is she going to do?” Lance asked.
“Change the chemo cocktail. Use different drugs.”
“That sounds positive,” Lance said. “I’m sure it’ll work much better.”
He pulled her to himself, but she backed off.
“I really need to plant myself in reality.” Kendra dried her tears. “I can’t do the fake optimism of ‘this’ll work great’ and ‘hope for the best.’ I can’t.” She flinched when he tried again to hold her. “And I can’t tell myself this ‘relationship’ can work and then look out the window and see what a real relationship for you could look like.”
Lance’s eyes welled up. “Don’t do this, Ken. You’re tired, probably hungry, and you got less than favorable news—”
“And none of it means I can’t think clearly,” Kendra said. “I was thinking about this before today. The appointment only sealed it.”
“Sealed what?”
Kendra looked into his eyes. “You asked if I would let you love me, but I can’t, Lance. It would be selfish of me.” Her tears were back, because of his. “It’s all one-sided. You give, and I take . . . of your time and your energy and your strength. You were having so much fun outside dancing, just loose and . . . unburdened. I want that for you. You don’t have to shackle yourself to my illness.”
He wiped her tears. “That’s not what this is at all. I love you, Ken. That was just one dance, mainly because Brooklyn—”
“See, now you’re justifying why you were having fun.” Kendra shook her head. “No, Lance. Have fun. Please. You shouldn’t be worrying about me. You’re not even working like you used to.”
His eyes held a sadness she’d never seen. “I’m going to let you rest,” he said, “and we can talk about this later.” He took her arm to help her upstairs.
Kendra stiffened. “I drove to a breakfast place and to the doctor’s this morning,” she said. “I can walk up the stairs.”
Lance let go and she could feel him watching as she made her way up. Going ahead with her next-best scenario, she closed the door and shut out the world.
CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR
“THIS IS SO LIKE A FIELD TRIP.”
Lance looked at Molly. “It does feel like that, doesn’t it? Except, who takes a field trip to church?”
“Hokey people like us,” Timmy said.
Lance laughed as he walked into Living Word with Trey, Molly, and Timmy. Molly couldn’t remember the last time she’d been to church. For Timmy, it was never. But they’d been hanging at the house last night, asking questions about what Living Word was like and the kinds of things they did, and Lance suggested they come check it out.
“But seriously, do I look all right?” Molly smoothed her ripped jeans and plucked at her platinum-red hair. “I look too crazy, don’t I?”
“Since when do you care?” Trey asked.
“Oh, Moll, I forgot . . . ,” Lance said. “Actually, they won’t let you in the service without a skirt and brown, black, blond, or naturally red hair.”
Molly stopped, eyes wide.
Lance pulled her along. “Girl, get in here.”
She trudged forward with a side-glance at Lance. “Dude. Seriously.”
Lance had told them they could drive separately and meet him for second service in the main building, but they wanted to check him out, too, as he led the youth. Their field trip would span the entire morning.
Timmy watched the people filing in. “I find it fascinating that scores of teens fill this building every week,” he said. “They’ve probably heard Bible stories and messages all their lives. And others like me have heard nothing. I want to tap them on the shoulder and say, ‘Don’t take this for granted. Soak it up.’ ”
Lance nodded. “It’d be nice if we could pour the knowledge and wisdom we’ve gained into the next person so they’d get it and run with it.” He eyed a particular circle of teens who’d grown up at Living Word and gotten caught up in bad behavior. “But God has to do an individual work in each heart. It’s amazing, really, how personal He is.”
“I’ve seen it this summer more than ever,” Trey said. “I didn’t think I could experience God in such a personal way.”
Lance noticed Molly was quiet. “You okay, Moll?”
A couple seconds lapsed, and she nodded. “I’m cool.”
“All right, guys,” Lance said, “I have to make sure everything and everybody’s set for service. I’ll see you after.”
Lance couldn’t help praying for them as he walked away. He cared for them as if they were his own kids. Lord, I pray right now that they would each know You in an intimate way.
The service kicked off with worship, then Lance had everyone sit to hear a testimony from a young woman named Heather who’d started a ministry for women dealing with heart issues surrounding sexual immorality. Lance didn’t mind the guys hearing, since they needed to know those issues, too, and would hopefully think about it next time they were tempted to lead one of these young women astray. Next week, a guy would talk to them about the same issues from a male perspective.
Heather took the stage. In her twenties, dressed in faded jeans with blond hair in a high ponytail, she looked as youthful as the teens.
“My name is Heather Anderson, and I want to talk to you about sex. And don’t look embarrassed because I know among this very group of high schoolers, some of you nice, Christian kids are having sex.” She walked to the edge of the stage and looked from side to side, scoping them out. “Uh-huh, and I know exactly which ones.”
They laughed, pointing at one another.
“How many of you have heard that sex before marriage is wrong?”
“How many of you have heard that you should be striving to remain pure?”
Hands went up again.
“How many of you have heard these things from a fornicator and adulterer?”
The room went quiet as the kids exchanged glances, looking as if they weren’t sure they’d heard correctly.
Heather raised her hand high. “I’m that person. I didn’t make the right choices. In fact, I made terrible choices. But I’m not here to talk about the rightness and wrongness of those choices. You all already know right from wrong.” She took her time, letting her gaze crisscross the audience. “I want to talk about the heart behind those choices. What’s going on in the heart of a young woman who gives herself to guy after guy? Why would she so freely give her body to someone who’s given her, not a wedding ring, but a few crudely strung together words in a text message?”
Hoots and hollers sounded around the room now, from girls affirming the lame communication efforts by the guys.
Heather waited until the noise died down. “I’ll tell you what’s going on, more often than not, in the heart of that woman . . .”
Lance, Trey, and Timmy were ready to head over to the main building, but Molly was still talking . . . to Heather. Heather had told the young women she’d love to talk or pray with them afterward. Lance knew from experience that many of them wouldn’t, self-conscious as they were about what others thought. But to his surprise, Molly had gone right up to Heather as soon as the group was dismissed, and the two were now sitting down and talking.
“I’m wondering if we should wait,” Lance said. “Molly won’t know how to find us.”
“I’ll text her and tell her to come to the main building when she’s done,” Trey said. “Then she can text me, and I’ll go get her.”
“Sounds like a plan.”
The three of them walked across the parking lot and into the main building, where it was always crowded as first-service people left and second-service people arrived.
“Lance!”
He turned to see Cyd coming toward him and walked to meet her. “Cyd, Heather was awesome, just like you said. I’m glad you told me about her ministry.”
“I wanted to be there,” Cyd said, “but I got held up with Kendra when I stopped by with a breakfast casserole.”
“Did something happen?”
Cyd looked perplexed. “Did she say something to you about changing her treatment regimen?”
“Yes, the doctor told her the chemo cocktail will change.”
“No, not that,” Cyd said. “Kendra says she researched alternatives online, and she’s no longer doing aggressive chemo.”
“What do you mean, no longer doing it?”
“That’s what she said. That it didn’t make sense to go through all the pain for nothing.”
Lance was ready to run out the door to talk to her. “The thing is,” he said, “she doesn’t know it’s for nothing. It could extend her life significantly.”
“You know,” Cyd said, “I had a friend who opted not to do aggressive chemo and radiation because she preferred a better quality of life for the time she had remaining. But she’d really prayed about it and consulted with her doctors and family.”
“That’s the problem,” Lance said. “I’m worried because Kendra’s not herself right now, and she’s not listening to the people around her.” He sighed. “I’m praying she doesn’t make a life-altering decision in this state.”
CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE
“SO, THIS MUST BE AN INTERVENTION.”
Kendra watched as Trey, Molly, and Cyd filed into her room.
Trey nodded without apology. “That’s exactly what it is, Ken. You’re saying you’re not going to do chemo.”
“I’m not,” she said. “I’m talking to Dr. Contee about it today.”
Her friends positioned themselves at various spots on her bed. Lance had tried yesterday, but he didn’t get farther than the door.
“It sounds like you’re giving up,” Trey said, “and we want you to fight.”
“You want me to fight.” Kendra had been on a low boil for days, and it didn’t take much to turn it up. “Do you even know what that means?”
Trey sat closest. “Ken, I know how hard this is. I know—”
Kendra raised a hand partway. “All of you are here out of love, and I appreciate that. But please don’t tell me you know how hard this is. You can’t know. I don’t even tell you because I’d be talking about it 24-7.” She looked away. “You have no idea.”
“Can you tell us?” Molly asked.
“Tell you what?”
“Help us understand what you go through,” Molly said. “We see you wincing and commenting here and there, and even getting sick sometimes. But what’s it actually like for you, going through chemo?”
Kendra gave it some thought. Not to search for words—she had the words. But she wasn’t sure she wanted to talk at all, let alone about her illness, especially when the stated intent of the visit was to change her mind. But maybe she could help them see where she was coming from . . .
“Right now,” Kendra said, “it hurts to talk to you. It often hurts, but I’ve just gotten used to talking through it. The inside of my mouth has sores that get so painful, sometimes it hurts to swallow water. The other day a pill got stuck in my throat. Wouldn’t go down, couldn’t spit it back up. After several minutes of panic, it finally moved.”
Cyd moved up quietly and rested a hand on Kendra.
“And speaking of my mouth,” Kendra said, “most of what I eat tastes like a metal ashtray. I don’t complain because I don’t want you all to feel bad when I can’t enjoy the food you cook. And everything I eat gives me bad acid reflux and burning indigestion, plus other issues that send me to the bathroom. And speaking of the bathroom, it hurts to pee, hurts to brush my teeth, hurts to get in and out of the shower, hurts to look at myself in the mirror . . .”
Kendra took a big breath. No one said anything to fill the space.
“My breast . . . ,” Kendra continued. “I don’t talk about that. You can see it’s swollen to a size much bigger than the other, but it’s also hard and uncomfortable, and it hurts. And it’s ugly. And whenever I look at it, I’m reminded that cancer is ravaging”—she closed her eyes, waited—“ravaging my body. I have pain spasms that wake me from sleep. They hurt so bad. Something always hurts. Always.” She showed her discolored fingernails. “I didn’t know fingernails could hurt.”
Molly’s eyes started to fill. She stuck her fingers in their corners.
Kendra shifted positions. “Stiffness,” she said, since she was feeling it. “Much of my upper left side feels stiff at times. And you already know about the constant fatigue and weakness.” She sighed. “The hospital side of things is its own beast”—she lifted her arms from under the covers to show the tracks of bruises, then let her head rest on the pillow propped behind her. “There’s more, but that should give you an idea.”
“Kendra, that was the physical side,” Cyd said. “And as horrible as it is to go through, I can only think that the mental and emotional aspects are just as rough.” Her hand lay still on Kendra’s leg. “Can you tell us about that too?”
Kendra stared at the ceiling. “I can’t even describe that,” she said, letting silence enfold them several minutes more. “If it’s possible, those aspects are even harder. When I got the diagnosis, devastating as it was, I kept thinking, ‘I can get through it with Derek.’ ”
She took a steadying breath. She hadn’t gone back to those emotions in a while. And never had she voiced them.
“He rejected me. He pushed me out into an Arctic blast to fend for myself and shut the door. I’d never felt so alone and scared in my life.” Kendra let the old feeling pass, refusing to cry for him. “Coming back home, being around all of you, it’s been amazing. You’ve been amazing. Cultivating a relationship with God . . . even more amazing. But there’s still mental and emotional grief. Yo
u know?”
Her voice broke. “There’s the grief of knowing what you’ll never do or be or have. There’s the grief of feeling completely robbed, like a cruel joke. All the things you grew up looking forward to . . . won’t happen. There’s the grief of watching everyone else live happy, normal lives, and wishing you could have problems like a bad cold or strep throat, like they do.”
She played with the sheet, folding the top of it over her hand, then unfolding. “And there’s the grief of . . . of loving a man like you never thought you could love, and knowing that can’t be either.”
Kendra crumbled. “And you tell me to fight?” She looked at her brother. “Fight to extend the physical, mental, and emotional pain? Why? Don’t we believe things will be better on the other side?”
No one answered.
CHAPTER FORTY-SIX
KENDRA HEARD THE KNOCK ON THE DOOR BUT KEPT HER FACE to the pillow. “I’m lying down,” she said.
“You’re always lying down. The question is, are you asleep?”
Kendra laughed inside. “Come in, Brookie.” She turned onto her back as the door swung open and Brooklyn skipped in.
“How was school today, sweetie?”
“Good. Guess what? I got a new bike, and Mom said I could ride it down here.”
Kendra brought her arm from under the covers and high-fived her. “Pretty awesome.”
“Can you come see it?”
“Your bike?” Kendra said. “Where is it?”
“Downstairs,” Brooklyn said. “I brought it inside just for you.”
Kendra eyed her. “You want me to get up and walk downstairs to see your bike?”
Brooklyn grinned, nodding fast.
“Only for you, Brookie.”
Brooklyn knew the routine. She pulled back the covers and helped lift Kendra to a sitting position, then helped her stand. Kendra walked barefoot in her tried-and-true yoga pants, thankful for the bright spot in her life that Brooklyn was.
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