Redemption Song

by Melodie Murray

  “. . . and don’t get me wrong, I’m glad I was able to meet you,” he continued. “But I guess I’m just wondering why you had to stay with her in the first place. Do you not have any other family?” Ethan stopped them in the middle of the hallway, next to a long line of windows that overlooked downtown Birmingham. “I’m sorry. You don’t have to answer that if you don’t want to.”

  Alaina took a seat on a wooden bench that rested against the window. Ethan sat down next to her. “There’s really not a lot to tell,” she said. “My mom and dad were both only children. My grandparents on my dad’s side both passed away when I was little. My mom’s mom was put in the nursing home with Alzheimer’s a few years ago and died shortly after that. My mom’s dad ran off when my mom was a baby. I’ve never met him.”

  “Wow,” Ethan breathed. “So you have been dealing with . . .” he looked down both sides of the hall “. . . all of this all on your own?”

  “Not all on my own,” Alaina said. “I’ve had your grandmother, which has been an absolute Godsend, and I’ve had the people from my church. And then, of course, there are Ben’s nurses.”

  “But how did you get to keep Ben?” Ethan said. “I thought that they usually split kids up when stuff like this happens. Foster homes and stuff. How’d you get out of that?”

  Alaina sucked in a breath through her teeth, making a hissing noise. “Now that is not such a simple story. Turns out, my parents had named me sole guardian of Ben in the event of an accidental death—who knew that would ever actually happen—but that was only valid after my eighteenth birthday. So I went to court and filed for a petition of guardianship that would hold until my birthday. I had to prove that I had a stable home for Ben—thanks to your grandmother, I did—and that I had financial means to support both of us. Granny Mae explained that she would be funding all of our utilities and food. Ben and I would go back to school like normal, and I would work to save up some money so that when I turned eighteen, we’d find our own place. It was a miracle, and we had to fight really hard for it, but it worked. They granted the petition.”

  “Then you found out Ben was sick?” Ethan asked.

  “Yep. We got the news just a couple of weeks after our court date,” Alaina replied, “which actually turned out for the best, because if we’d known beforehand, they probably would not have granted the petition.”

  “So where does all of this fit into the plan?” Ethan asked. “I know cancer treatment can’t be cheap. How are you guys affording all of this?”

  “I work at the restaurant to make enough for the minimum insurance payments. Ben qualifies for all kinds of free healthcare because of our situation, but it still doesn’t pay for everything. So we carry extra insurance to help make up for some of the slack.” Alaina rose from the bench and held her hand out for Ethan. “That’s my story.”

  Ethan took her hand and rose to her side. He draped his arm around her shoulder and continued their walk down the hall. “That’s some story.”

  “It sure is,” she said. “And also one that I don’t tell many people. I’m not even sure why I told you, but I guess there’s no taking it back now.”

  “No. I’m glad you did,” Ethan said. “It’s not just a story, it’s your life . . . and that’s something I’m very interested in.” He glanced down at her and cast a shy grin.

  Alaina actually felt a little better after talking to Ethan about her life. People all over town knew bits and pieces of what she had been through, but she didn’t dare talk to any of them about it. It wasn’t their burden to bear. It was hers. But recently, it had begun to feel as if a heavy backpack was permanently stitched into the skin of her back so that she was meant to carry the weight of it around forever. Explaining everything to Ethan, actually saying it aloud, seemed to help lighten the load at little, as if maybe just a little something had been removed from the backpack.

  “So tell me about your life,” Alaina said, realizing how very little she knew about Ethan outside the shelter of his grandmother’s house. “Everyone has a story with their parents. What’s yours?”

  They rounded the corner and walked through the cafeteria area of the hospital. Up ahead was another long corridor with winding hallways splitting off on both sides. At the end was an elevator that would take them back up to Ben’s floor.

  “Oh man,” Ethan said. He looked thoughtful. “Well, my dad also ran off when I was little. It’s just me and my mom now.”

  “Oh, I’m sorry,” she said.

  “No, it’s cool. I don’t even remember him. My mom was raised in Fairhope, but on a college trip with friends to New York City she met my dad, got pregnant with me, and moved up there hoping to find a way to make him stay with her. When it didn’t work, she just stayed there.”

  “So where is your dad now?” Alaina asked.

  Ethan gave a charismatic shrug. “Still in the city, I guess. Last I heard, he’s some big advertisement executive.” He paused. “As far as I’m concerned, he doesn’t exist.”

  An empathetic look crossed her expression. “So your Mom never married?”

  “Nope. She’d just started dating a little when my video got discovered on YouTube. After that, things got crazy and we started traveling all over the country. There’s not a lot of time for a social life when your kid’s on tour.”

  “Imagine what it’s like for the kid . . .” Alaina said under her breath.

  “Hey now, don’t start that again.” Ethan stopped at the end of the hall, near the elevator. He pulled his fingers up to Alaina’s chin and forced her to look him in the eye. “Ali, we’ve already talked about this. We’ll make it work, okay?”

  Alaina nodded, not wanting to expend the energy it would take to argue with him. Instead, she turned away and pushed the button on the elevator.

  When they reached the treatment ward, Alaina led Ethan back toward the visitor’s waiting room. But on their way, they had to pass by the nurse’s station. Kat approached as they got to the counter.

  “Alaina, Dr. Rouse informed me that we got the results back on Ben’s blood work.”

  Dr. Rouse was Ben’s oncologist. During their last visit, Ben had given more blood and tests were being run to see if the chemotherapy was making enough difference in the reduction of cancer cells. Ben suffered from Acute Myelocytic Leukemia, which was a type of cancer that affected the blood-forming cells in his bone marrow. The "acute" part meaning rapid onset, Ben’s cancer had attacked him fast and hard, and Alaina knew he was losing the battle. Today was the last session in his third round of chemo, and blood tests from the previous week would tell them if enough difference was being made to give them reason to hope for a chance of remission.

  “He wants to meet with you, hon,” Kat continued. Alaina could tell that she was trying to keep a straight, non-revealing face, but Alaina knew these nurses too well by now. They cared for Ben as if he was their own kid brother and she could tell that Kat wasn’t happy with the news.

  Alaina steadied her feet, trying her best to calm the dizziness in her mind. She’d known the test results were coming, but she’d expected to receive a phone call or a letter or something. She didn’t realize she was going to have to face them that day.

  “Um . . . when does he want to see me? Is Ben awake yet?”

  “Dr. Rouse is in his office now,” Kat replied. “And Ben just woke up a few minutes ago. He’s watching cartoons right now and I think Rache’ is taking his vitals.”

  “Okay.” Alaina cast a quick glance at Ethan, not sure what to say. “I guess I’ll . . .”

  Ethan interrupted. “I’ll go hang with Ben. You do what you need to do and we’ll be here whenever you’re ready, okay?”

  The look in his caring blue eyes made Alaina think that maybe Ethan meant "whenever you’re ready" to not necessarily mean when Dr. Rouse finished talking to her, but when she was actually ready to face Ben.

  “Thanks, Ethan,” she said. He pulled her in and gave her a quick peck on the forehead before turning toward t
he hall to Ben’s room.

  “Okay, Kat,” Alaina sighed. “Let’s get this over with.”

  Kat led Alaina to the far end of the treatment ward, to an office that Alaina had been in way too many times before. When she reached the door, Kat knocked lightly, cracked the door and said, “I’ve got Alaina here, Dr. Rouse.”

  Dr. Rouse rose from his desk chair, opened the door for her and held his hand out toward the chair opposite his desk. “Good afternoon, Alaina,” he smiled.

  Dr. Rouse had been wonderful to Alaina and she really liked him. It was hard, on occasions like these when she expected to hear bad news, to not hate the man just because he was the messenger, but she honestly didn’t think she would have ever picked a different doctor to deal with Ben’s illness. Dr. Rouse didn’t treat Alaina as a child, as most doctors they’d previously seen tended to do. He understood her situation. That she was the person taking care of Ben at home. Dr. Rouse talked to her like an adult. He didn’t sugarcoat information and hobble in circles around what she needed to hear. He gave her the facts, followed by their options, and gave her the ability to make decisions on Ben’s behalf. She respected him for that.

  “Have a seat, Alaina,” Dr. Rouse said kindly.

  Alaina reluctantly took a seat and waited for the doctor to do the same. She cleared her throat hoping some of the nervousness would subside. “So, Kat told me we got the results back on Ben’s blood work.”

  “We did,” Dr. Rouse replied, rustling through a file on his desk and pulling out some papers. “Here is a copy of his lab report.” He passed a paper across the desk to Alaina.

  She had become accustomed to reading these over the past several months; understanding the meaning of the number counts of white blood cells, hematocrit, and platelets. And she knew instantly what the numbers on this current lab report meant for Ben.

  “The chemo isn’t working, is it?” The question came out as a half whisper, while Alaina prayed with all her heart for him to say she was wrong.

  Dr. Rouse replied slowly. “No . . . it’s not working.”

  Alaina opened her mouth to reply, but nothing came out.

  “I’m afraid it’s just the opposite,” the doctor continued carefully, but still using the same matter-of-fact tone that Alaina normally appreciated from him. “The number of cancer cells seems to be increasing. All the chemo seems to be doing is helping to destroy what healthy cells Ben has left.”

  Alaina fought back tears as she tried to muster the strength to ask her next question. It came out frail and staggered. “Wha . . . what do we . . . do next?”

  The doctor answered with a steady tone, but it was obvious to Alaina that he wished he didn’t have to answer her. “I would suggest the next step we take needs to be looking into long-term pain management routines. We also have counselors available to help with making your home a comfortable place for this transitional phase. If you would like to speak with one of our Emotional Outreach Counselors, we can arrange . . .”

  “How long?” Alaina interrupted. She had heard all of his words, but they were all spinning around in her mind in a jumbled up mess of denial. “How long does he have?”

  “I really can't tell you with any kind of certainty,” Dr. Rouse replied. “It varies with each patient.”

  Alaina continued to remain silent, willing away the tears that wanted nothing more than to pour out of her eyes like tiny waterfalls. She’d known this news was coming. She even thought Ben had been expecting it—something in his eyes told her so. But none of that made hearing the reality of it out loud any easier for her.

  The remainder of her visit with Dr. Rouse consisted of discussions over their plan for Ben’s pain management. She signed all the necessary paperwork and asked all the appropriate questions. She was given pamphlets on things they could do at home to help keep him comfortable and pamphlets from every church in the region that had people willing to talk to her. Alaina took it all in stride, with a strength that she knew in her heart was not her own.

  When Dr. Rouse finally excused her from his office, Alaina insisted that he let her walk back to the nurse’s station alone. When she was on the opposite side of his closed office door, she felt her composure dwindling. She looked in both directions, not seeing anyone down either side of the hall, and took off in a sprint towards an unmarked doorway at the end of the hall.

  To a normal visitor, this door would look like the entrance to a patient’s room or another office, but after having countless hours to kill in this hospital, Alaina had managed to roam every nook and cranny to discover that this door was actually an unmarked stairwell. The door at the top of the stairs led to an office floor that was restricted to visitors. Luckily for Alaina, not one of the hospital staff ever used it. And she knew this because this was not the first time she’d needed to take advantage of the privacy it offered. The cancer ward offered rooms for families to use for grieving, but Alaina just found something odd about asking a nurse to let her in a room so she could bawl her eyes out for a few minutes. Alaina was much fonder of finding her own little hiding place to temporarily lose her mind.

  And as she burst through the stairwell door and collapsed in a ball in the corner beneath the stairs, that’s exactly what she did. She finally gave way to the tears, and the hurt, and the anger, and the unfairness of it all, and let it out. Having a lot of practice crying so that no one could hear her, in a silent moment of despair, Alaina buried her head between her knees and allowed her body to quake in remorse for her brother and what she was going to have to tell him. She prayed to God for His strength and guidance, because she knew without Him, she would not make it through this.

  And there, desperately out of hope, crouched underneath an abandoned staircase in the middle of her nightmare, Alaina felt God fill her up with exactly what she’d asked for—the strength to be still and know that, through Him, she could do anything.

  Chapter 20

  Ethan

  “So you really think I did awesome?” Ben exclaimed with excited eyes.

  Ethan nodded. “Yep, I really do. Way better than my first performance.”

  When Ethan had left Alaina to go hang out with Ben, he’d entered his room to find him engrossed in an enthralling episode of Ben 10 Alien Force on Cartoon Network. Rache’ had detached his IV, taken his vitals, and gotten him another three Popsicles since he’d awakened. “What can I say?” Rache’ said. “The kid loves Popsicles and I love the kid.”

  Now, with Ben back in his signature ball cap, looking more and more like the kid Ethan knew (aside from the dark circles under his eyes and the paleness to his skin), they sat together watching cartoons and waiting for Alaina to come back and give them the okay to head back to Fairhope.

  Ethan wondered what the doctor had told her. By the look on her face as he’d left her, he didn’t imagine that she expected good news. His heart went out to her and he wished he could help her in some way. He had money. It wouldn’t be the slightest inconvenience for him to simply pay off every debt Alaina owed, but Ethan knew she’d never accept it. Alaina was independent and headstrong. She’d consider it pity money. What could he do? There had to be something.

  Suddenly, Ben jumped up and shot into the bathroom like a lightning flash, leaving Ethan dumbfounded in the seat beside his bed. He was about to ask Ben if he was okay, but then he heard it. The sound of Ben heaving up every single Popsicle he’d ate that day. Ethan had heard that puking was a side effect of chemo. Poor Ben.

  Ethan heard the toilet flush and the sink run a few seconds before Ben sheepishly opened the door and exited to crawl back into his spot in the bed beside Ethan’s chair.

  “You okay, Ben? Ethan asked once Ben didn’t offer up an explanation on his own.

  “Yep.”

  The kid was just as headstrong as his sister. He’d acted the same way when he’d almost drowned at the beach. Pretending like nothing was wrong.

  “Does that happen every time you have to get a treatment?” Ethan asked slowly.

/>   Ben shrugged. “Not every time. Just sometimes.”

  Ethan sighed, wanting to find a way to talk to Ben and let him know that he was there for him. Granny had said that Ben looked up to Ethan as a role model and Ethan took that much more seriously now than he had a few days ago.

  “Does it hurt?” Ethan said hesitantly.

  “Does what hurt?” Ben turned to him with curiosity swimming in his big brown eyes.

  “Cancer.”

  Ben sat thoughtfully for a moment. “It does sometimes. But then God puts me to sleep so that I can’t feel it.”

  “God puts you to sleep?” Ethan didn’t mean to be skeptical, but . . .

  “Yeah. When it does hurt, it hurts all over. So I just close my eyes and ask God to make me go to sleep so that I can’t feel it. Then I wake up later and the pain is gone.” Ben smiled as if every word he said made perfect sense.

  “Ben, are you sure that’s not just the pain medicine they give you?”

  “Nope, I can tell a difference,” he said matter-of-factly. “It’s definitely God.”

  “But how do you know?” Ethan realized in that moment that he was not asking this question to sway Ben from his belief, but to help his own mind come to understand something that had awakened inside of him since he had met Alaina.

  “I don’t know,” Ben said. “I just feel it, you know?”

  “Yeah,” Ethan said quietly. “I think that maybe I do.”

  “Know what?” Alaina reached the doorway at that moment. Ethan noticed instantly that’d she’d been crying and had unsuccessfully tried to wash her face and hide it. On the outside, she was smiling at her little brother, but Ethan saw in her eyes that it was all for show.

  “Uh . . . we know that Ben has officially set the hospital record today for the most Popsicles eaten in a single visit,” Ethan joked.

  Ben laughed. Alaina gave Ethan an odd questioning look, but let it go quickly. He could tell that all the fight was out of her for the day.

  “Well, Ben-ben, you think you’re ready to make the trip?” Alaina asked.