“Actually, not bad—especially if more people are willing to become donors. Imagine, if every eligible donor in the United States were entered into the registry, we’d be able to do numerous HLA matches. We’d have a constant source of marrow donors at our disposal if for some reason a patient’s family situation didn’t work out. Like in your case.”
“So, why don’t you have it?”
Dr. Hernandez shook her head. “Sadly, we simply don’t have enough volunteers. People are pretty good about donating blood, but most don’t know about the bone marrow program. Also, marrow donating is a little more complicated and, therefore, more trouble.”
“So, I lose. Is that it?”
“Maybe not. We are going to go ahead and start a computer search on your behalf. Who knows—maybe we already have marrow to match yours.”
Sarah wasn’t very optimistic. “Sure. Maybe.”
“We’ve put up quite a fight against your cancer so far. We can’t give up now,” Dr. Hernandez insisted. “Don’t be discouraged.”
“What happens in the meantime?”
“We continue with conventional treatments while looking for a compatible donor.”
“Then I can go home?” For the first time, Sarah dreaded the thought. At least, here in the hospital she didn’t have to face her friends and the life she’d left back home. What would they think when they found out she was adopted?
“Yes, you can go home. You’ll still be taking medications, and you’ll have to come back for blood work, but you’ll be able to resume a normal life while we hunt for a match.”
A normal life. Sarah felt like laughing in the doctor’s face. Her life would never be normal again. She shut her eyes.
Dr. Hernandez patted her arm. “Sarah, your parents understand the risks. For your sake, for your health, you all need to pull together.”
Sarah forced a tentative smile to assure the doctor she understood. How could they pull as a team when she felt fragmented into a hundred pieces? How?
Sarah woke with a start. Her room was in semi-darkness, and she was alone. She heard the dinner cart rattling down the hospital corridor and realized that she’d slept most of the day. At first, she felt disoriented and confused, but then reality started bombarding her. She remembered Dr. Hernandez’s visit. She remembered her mother’s coming in and trying to talk to her. She recalled asking her to please go away.
With a groan, Sarah sat up in bed. Her sheets were drenched in perspiration. She needed to ring for a nurse. There was a time when her mother would have changed her sheets and had dinner in the room with her. Sarah guessed her mother was down in the cafeteria. She flipped on the light over her bed and blinked from the glare.
She reached for the buzzer to summon a nurse and saw a long white envelope on her bedside table. She picked it up. Her name was written across it in a beautiful script. She turned the envelope over and discovered it had been sealed with red sealing wax, imprinted with the monogram OLW. “Pretty,” Sarah said aloud. “I wonder who …” She shrugged her shoulders and broke the seal. After all, it was addressed to her. Sarah reached in and pulled out two sheets of paper. One was a letter. Lifting the pale parchment paper to the lamplight, she began to read.
Five
DEAR SARAH,
You don’t know me, but I know about you, and because I do, I want to give you a special gift. Accompanying this letter is a certified check, my gift to you with no strings attached to spend on anything you want. No one knows about this gift except you, and you are free to tell anyone you want.
Who I am isn’t really important, only that you and I have much in common. Through no fault of our own, we have endured pain and isolation and have spent many days in a hospital feeling lonely and scared. I hoped for a miracle, but most of all, I hoped for someone to truly understand what I was going through.
I can’t make you live longer. I can’t stop you from hurting, but I can give you one wish, as someone did for me. My wish helped me find purpose, faith, and courage.
Friendship reaches beyond time, and the true miracle is in giving not receiving. Use my gift to fulfill your wish.
Your Forever Friend,
JWC
Sarah reread the letter. She turned it over. The back was blank. Who in the world could have sent it? She racked her brain to think of anybody she knew with the initials JWC and drew a blank. She had no friend, knew no one, with those initials. “It must be a joke,” she told herself.
She fumbled for the second piece of paper, held it up to the light, and saw that it was, indeed, a check. It was made out to her in the amount of one-hundred-thousand dollars! Sarah’s eyes grew wide, and she went hot and cold all over. She dug inside the envelope for other clues. She found nothing. She had only the letter and a check from the One Last Wish Foundation. Neither one made sense to her. Who was JWC? Why was this foundation choosing Sarah to receive such a large sum of money?
The letter said it was a gift with no strings and that she was free to spend it on anything she wanted. “Wow …” Sarah whispered, dumbstruck. “Double wow.” Her mind raced over hundreds of things she would like to buy, but nothing seemed important enough for such a generous gift.
“Slow down,” she told herself. “No need to rush.” The letter didn’t put any time restrictions on her spending the money, so if the money really and truly was hers, then she could spend it whenever she felt like it.
With her thoughts spinning, Sarah decided to keep the gift a secret for the time being. She slowly got out of bed and tucked the envelope into an inner side pocket of her tote bag, which she shut securely in the closet. She smiled over the enormousness of her secret. Just knowing she had so much money at her fingertips picked her spirits up considerably. This money would really make a difference. Sarah didn’t know how, but she knew most definitely that it would.
Sarah was released when the induction phase of her chemotherapy was completed. During the drive home, Sarah sensed that her mother wanted to discuss all that had happened, but the heavy doses of chemo that had put her into remission had also left her sick and weak, without much energy. Sarah didn’t feel like discussing anything.
When they arrived at the house, her father carried her inside. A huge banner was stretched across the living room. It read, “Welcome Home, Sarah!” in letters that sparkled. Streamers and balloons were hung everywhere.
“Do you like it?” Richie asked, pointing to the banner. “I put the glitter on the letters all by myself.”
“It’s nice. Thank you,” Sarah told Richie. She remembered the time she’d returned home after her first hospitalization. She’d hugged all of her family and actually bent down and kissed the floor. Somehow, now the house looked different to her, smaller and less homey.
Up in her room, her father settled her in her bed. She told her family she was tired and asked to be left alone.
“What do you want me to tell your friends?” Tina asked. “They keep calling and want to come over.”
“Tell them to give me a few days. I’ll let them know when I want visitors.”
Tina looked puzzled. She obviously remembered Sarah’s previous homecoming, when Sarah had demanded that every friend she had in the world rush right over to see her. “If you say so,” Tina said.
“Let’s give Sarah some time to settle in,” her dad suggested. Minutes later, he cleared everyone out of her room and left, too, closing the door. Sarah lay still, listening to the murmur of voices. She knew that she was hurting her parents by pointedly ignoring them and their efforts to make her feel comfortable. She didn’t care. They had hurt her.
There were gardenia bushes planted in front of the house, and a soft April breeze lifted their scent through her open window. From the kitchen below, Sarah caught the aroma of chocolate chip cookies—her favorites—baking in the oven. She also caught the smell of her mother’s favorite perfume, and her father’s aftershave. She’d grown up with these scents. Once, they had represented security and contentment. Now, they seem
ed foreign, part of the conspiracy to conceal from her the truth of who she was.
Sarah felt tears fill her eyes. Who was she? To whom did she belong? She wadded sheets of tissue in her fists and bit her lip as the sounds and scents of home and family settled around her. A family she’d never really been a child of in the first place.
* * *
“Welcome back, Sarah. How’re you doing?”
Sarah was sitting in a lawn chair on the wooden deck at the back of her house, thinking of ways to spend a hundred thousand dollars when the sound of Scott’s voice startled her from her semidrowsy state. Her eyes popped open. “Scott! I didn’t hear you come over.”
“When I saw you out here, I hopped the hedge. How’s it going for you?” He sat down on the deck next to her chair.
“It’s going,” she replied without much enthusiasm.
“I was planning to come over last week when you came home, but Tina said you didn’t want to have visitors.”
“The ban didn’t include you,” Sarah said. “I should have told her that. Thanks for the cards you sent while I was in the hospital,” Sarah told him. “They really perked me up.”
He cocked his head. “You look as if you could use a little perk-up right now. What’s the matter?”
She told him about needing the bone marrow transplant. She concentrated on the medical particulars, explaining it in as much detail as possible. “They’ve programmed my information into a computer bank,” she said. “If they can match me with a donor, I’ll go for it.”
“How long will it take to find a donor?”
“They don’t know. They search until they find someone.” She had purposely left out the part about siblings being the best donors, because she couldn’t tell anyone about being adopted. For some reason, she felt ashamed of it.
“When can you come back to school?” he asked.
“In a couple of weeks. As soon as my resistance builds back up.”
“Are you telling me everything, Sarah?”
“What do you mean?”
“Look, we’ve been friends all our lives. You get a funny little expression in your eyes whenever you’re fibbing.” Scott grinned, and Sarah felt a hot flush sweep over her.
“That’s not true,” she protested. “I’m not fibbing about any of this. Why would I?”
“I believe you about the transplant, but are you sure there’s nothing else going on?”
“Of course not!” It bothered her that he’d picked up on what she was trying to hide.
“This is your ‘bestest-ever friend,’ ” Scott joked, using the words she had used when they’d been three. “And your fiancé,” he added. “I know you like a book, and I think you’re not telling me everything.”
Caught in the web of her confused feelings, Sarah glanced away. “If there is something else, I can’t talk about it now.”
Scott’s smile faded. “Hey, this is serious, isn’t it?”
“Yes.”
“It’s more than the bone marrow transplant, isn’t it?”
She nodded.
“You can tell me,” he said.
She shook her head. “Not now.”
“But you will?”
“Maybe.” Sarah felt doubly uncomfortable, not only because she wasn’t leveling with Scott, but because she still couldn’t put all her emotions into words. “It’s hard, Scott. Can you understand?”
He reached out and took her hand. “I know it must be hard enough to think about going through a bone marrow transplant. Whatever else is bothering you must be pretty grim, too, or you’d be able to tell me about it. Listen, I understand. If you feel like talking about it, call me, all right?”
“All right.” She watched him stand. He looked lean and tall, hardened from weeks of training for track. “How’s Susan?” she asked, mentioning the name of the girl he’d been dating before Sarah had gone off to the hospital.
“We’re history,” Scott told her with a casual shrug. “There’s no one special right now.”
“Too bad,” Sarah said. But deep down, she wasn’t very sorry at all. Not one bit sorry.
Six
SARAH’S MOTHER CAME into her room that afternoon holding a hatbox. “I bought this for you. What do you think?”
Sarah opened the box and removed a Styrofoam wig stand holding a cascade of golden brown hair. The wig was as close to her own hair color as she’d ever seen. “It’s nice,” Sarah said, but she felt awkward. They hadn’t discussed getting it.
“I had it specially made up. I brought them photographs and a sample of your hair I saved from when we cut it. The wig makers are experts. They do a lot of their business with theater people and for cancer patients, too.”
“It looks expensive,” Sara remarked.
“It doesn’t matter. We wanted you to have the best.”
The expense part bothered Sarah. She knew her cancer treatments were costly and her father’s insurance didn’t cover everything. She felt guilty, too, because she knew she had the certified check still hidden away. She could have easily afforded the wig. “You should have asked me before buying it,” Sarah said.
“Your father and I wanted to surprise you.”
“I’m tired of surprises.” Sarah saw her mother flinch and realized that her comment had stung.
Her mother sat down on the edge of Sarah’s bed, her expression somber. “We need to talk about your adoption, Sarah.”
Sarah recoiled. Talking about it made her feel angry, as if she’d been victimized. “I don’t want to.”
“You’ve got to forgive us for not telling you sooner. Your attitude is putting a strain on the rest of the family. Most of all, it’s not good for your health to have this thing eating at you.”
“I don’t have health. I don’t have a family. I don’t have anything right now.”
“Of course you have a family,” her mother insisted in a rare display of temper. “We’ve raised you since you were an infant. You’re as much mine as Tina and Richie are.”
“No, I’m not! I don’t even look like the rest of you. I was just some kid you ordered, paid for, and brought home.”
“How can you say such a thing? I told you how badly we wanted a baby. You were a blessing, Sarah. You were special, an answer to our prayers.”
“Well, I don’t feel very special. I feel lied to and cheated.”
“We never lied. We simply didn’t tell you the whole truth.”
“Excuse me. I didn’t know there was a difference.” Sarah’s tone sounded harsh.
“There’s a big difference, Sarah.” Her mother stood abruptly, and Sarah could tell she was quite upset. “Sometimes, the whole truth hurts. It hurts because it isn’t what we want to hear or need to hear. Dad and I tried to protect you. Maybe that was wrong. It’s obvious you think so right now. Hurting you was never our intent. What we did, we did because we loved you. When you feel like discussing it, let me know.” Her mother swept out of the room.
In the silence that followed, Sarah felt pangs of regret. She knew she was being unreasonable and unforgiving, but she couldn’t seem to help herself. She wanted her parents to pay for hurting her, for deceiving her. Why couldn’t they appreciate the depth of her hurt? Someone had to pay for all the lies. Sarah started trembling, then she wept.
Sarah returned to school on Monday. She wasn’t feeling recovered from her chemo treatments, but just sitting around her house and waging a silent war with her parents was making her feel worse. She put on plenty of makeup, a new outfit, and the wig. Except for being thin, she thought she looked fairly normal.
As she came down the hallway at school, her friends squealed and ran over to her. “You’re back!” JoEllen cried. “When we talked on the phone last night, you didn’t say you were coming back today.”
“I wasn’t sure I would feel like it.”
“Honestly, I’d have stayed out the rest of the year, if I were you,” Cammie insisted.
“I like school,” Sarah said as she fumbled with
the combination lock on her locker.
“Only you, Sarah,” Natalie joked. “How about lunch today? Can we sit together in the cafeteria, like always?”
“Sure,” Sarah replied.
“And how about cheerleading? Are you coming back on the squad?” JoEllen asked.
“I can’t handle that much exercise right now. Maybe in another month.”
The three girls glanced at each other guiltily, and Sarah realized they were keeping something from her. Was the whole world conspiring against her? “What is it?” she asked. “What’s wrong?”
“Um—Miss Connors sort of replaced you,” Natalie told her.
“How was I ‘sort of’ replaced?”
“You shouldn’t have found out this way, Sarah.” JoEllen gave Natalie a scathing look. “Some people have no sensitivity.” JoEllen turned to face Sarah squarely. “The truth is, the squad needs six girls to perform the routines. Miss Connors had to choose someone to take your place. I’m sorry.”
“You should have told me. Someone should have told me.” Sarah could barely contain her anger as she glared at her three friends.
“We just wanted you to get well. We didn’t want you to be thinking about something you couldn’t change.”
JoEllen’s words hit Sarah like cold water. Something she couldn’t change. That was her problem with everything in her life—her leukemia, her adoption, being bumped from the squad. She couldn’t change any of it. She had no control over her life, no choices about anything. She felt her anger ebb and depression settle in its place.
“Are you all right?” Cammie asked. “We didn’t mean to ruin your day.”
Sarah shrugged wearily. “It doesn’t matter. I guess Miss Connors had to replace me. I’m really in no shape to do the workouts, and I don’t know if I will be before school’s out. It’s no big deal. Forget it.”
JoEllen looked as if she didn’t quite believe her. “There’s always next year,” she offered cheerily.
Mother, Help Me Live Page 3