by Paul Mosier
Echo runs back into the room. “Turn off the light! I’m tired!” She falls onto the bed. “I’m tired of being bald!”
She laughs and climbs under the covers.
I turn off the light and shut the door behind me. I stand in the hall. I’m tired, so I don’t want to go into the living room. But I don’t want to go into the bathroom to brush my teeth, because I don’t want to see Mom sweeping up Echo’s hair. And I can’t go to sleep because I don’t want to go into our bedroom, where I imagine Echo’s head is shining like the moon.
8
THE NEXT DAY Octavius sits with me at lunch. I don’t invite him to, and he doesn’t ask. He just sits across from me, and as soon as he does I realize how much I was hoping he would.
“Hey,” he says.
“Hey.”
“What’s for lunch?”
I show him the crust of my sandwich and the container of pomegranate seeds.
“You win,” he says.
I look at the four compartments of grayish food on his tray. “I guess so.”
“So,” he begins, “I made you something.”
I don’t smile, because I don’t want him to know how exciting this sounds to me. “Really? What is it?”
He leans toward me. “Really everyone in your family can enjoy it.”
“Let the enjoying begin,” I say.
“I need your phone number.”
I lean away from him and fold my arms. “Why?”
“So I can text it to you. It’s a playlist. A music file of a sampler I made. A bunch of songs to rally your family to kick cancer’s butt.”
My arms fall to my sides. This sucks. Instead of something just for me, for El, it’s something for El, sister of the girl with cancer. And everyone else in the family. I try to manage a smile, but I can’t feel it. The corners of my mouth cannot turn up.
Just then Sydney—the mean girl who sits to my left in Mr. D’s class—walks by, staring at me like I’m some kind of freak. Worse, she’s staring at me as I’m looking supremely disappointed.
“What?” I blurt at her.
“Nothing!” she fires back.
“Stop staring at me!”
She stops before me, eyebrows raised in protest. “I’m not!”
I see my hand reach for the crust of my sandwich. My hand disappears behind my field of vision, briefly, and reappears as the crust is flung in the direction of Sydney. By my hand. It bounces off her forehead, leaving a small spot of almond butter and blackberry jam where it hits, and falls to the tray of food in her hands.
There’s a moment of calm. The sounds of conversation from other tables prevail.
Sydney slowly looks down at the crust of sandwich on her tray, then up at me. Her eyes hold a glossy fury.
“You did not!” she seethes.
I briefly consider telling her that apparently I actually did. But instead I just watch as she sets her tray down, takes hold of her spoon, and uses it to fling a quantity of mashed potatoes at me. But my view of the mashed potatoes traveling toward me—in a glob, which tumbles end-over-end as it flies through the air—is obscured by the figure of Octavius, who stands and takes the hit for me. In the eye.
“Whoops,” Sydney says.
“Ouch,” Octavius answers, scooping the potatoes from his eye. “That’s kinda warm.”
She picks up her tray and storms away.
Then I turn to Octavius. His eyes are big. One eyebrow has mashed potato in it like he’s been trudging through a blizzard. I point to it and he wipes it off with his napkin.
“What was that about?” he asks.
“Nothing,” I answer. “She just despises me. She always looks at me like she hates me. She complains whenever Mr. D thinks I’ve done something well.”
Octavius stares at me like he thinks I’ve got it all wrong. He opens his mouth like he’s gonna tell me as much, but he doesn’t say anything.
“What?” I ask.
He smiles, just a little. “Your phone number. So I can text you the playlist.”
I roll my eyes, but I don’t really mean it. Then I give him my digits, because it’s good that I have a friend who will take a hit of mashed potatoes in the eye for me. And it’s good to have a friend who already knows how miserable my life is, so there’s no need to explain.
The next day, Echo receives exactly twenty-three hats, bandannas, wigs, and turbans by delivery, thanks to Dad posting a picture of her bald head on Facebook with the caption I wish I could lose my hair so gracefully. Echo is weirded out by all of it, the hats and wigs, and doesn’t take to them so well.
After school, I’m looking at the recent arrivals. “This wig is cute!” I say, holding one of them up.
Echo frowns. “It’s blue! If I wear it people will wanna eat me!”
“Echo, nobody is going to eat you.”
She gives me a fake disappointed look. “Why not? I’m delicious!”
Mom appears in the doorway of our bedroom. “She’s got plenty to choose from if she ever feels like wearing one. And we do want her to wear something on her head whenever she’s out in the sun.”
“I’m never out in the sun!” Echo shouts. She’s not really mad, but she means what she says. “I’m just stuck in here!”
Mom looks at the clock on the wall. “How about a walk, all three of us? It’s nice out. And if we stay in the neighborhood where the sidewalks aren’t so crowded you won’t have to wear a mask.”
“Why can’t we make all the people at the library go away so I can go there and not wear a mask?”
Echo hates wearing the masks. They keep her from breathing in germs, but she thinks the dinosaurs printed on them make her look like a baby.
Mom picks up Echo’s boots. “Put these on, and maybe a sweater. And we should do a hat since it’s still sunny on the street.”
“Ugh!” Echo pulls the knitted hat over her eyes.
When we finally get down to the sidewalk, the shadows are long. It’s still beautiful outside, and Echo is happy to be out. She’s wearing the knitted cap with a monkey on it, and when we pass people on the sidewalk, walking their dogs or heading home from work, I look at their eyes to see if they notice there’s something wrong with her. With the cap on, all we get are smiles.
Before we even reach the corner, we pass a man who coughs. He sounds really snotty. This makes Mom stop cold in her tracks.
“All right. There are lots of people out on the sidewalks. We should do the mask just to be safe.”
“I hate the mask!”
Mom reaches into her bag. “I was on the Centers for Disease Control website, and it says that flu season has already begun. We can’t take the chance.”
Echo scowls. “This is the worst day ever!”
“Mom, she hates the mask!”
Mom shoots me an angry look. “She’s already been to the ER twice since she got out of the hospital. Do you want her to go back to the ER and spend the night? I sure don’t want to.” She adds a cuss word that she only says when she’s really mad.
Mom straps the mask over Echo’s mouth and nose. Echo hangs her head.
“I know you don’t like it. None of us like it.” We begin heading toward the corner, and Mom has a new uprightness in her walk that seems fake. “But this is our new reality.”
“It isn’t gonna be like this forever,” I say.
“Right. It’s our new, temporary reality.” We arrive at the corner. “And since it is our new, temporary reality, why don’t we stop by the bank and the bodega? We still have lives to live. We still have errands to run. I have a check to deposit, and then we could get some ice cream for after dinner.”
“Ice cream!” Echo shouts through her mask.
The bank is another block away, and we have to walk quickly to get there before it closes. We pass through the glass doors and are met by a security guard, tall and beefy.
“Sorry, there’s no masks allowed. You’ll have to remove it.”
Mom looks from the guard to Echo, and ba
ck to the guard.
“What?”
“He can’t wear a mask. Security reasons.” He gestures through the lobby behind him to the bank beyond. “This is a bank.”
“She’s a girl. And I know it’s a bank. I’ve been banking here since I was her age.” She gestures to me.
The security man hooks his thumbs in his belt, which has a gun and other serious-looking things attached to it. “Sorry, ma’am. The mask has to go or he has to go.”
“Are you kidding me? She’s six. And her immune system is suppressed from undergoing chemotherapy because she has cancer.” At the last word, Mom’s voice cracks, and she goes from looking like the beautiful, strong mom I’ve always known—the mom who could always make everything okay—to the mom who could be undone by a security guard saying something that doesn’t make sense.
“I’m sorry, ma’am, but evil takes on many disguises.”
At this, I can’t help but crack a smile. I look to Mom, who’s trembling with anger.
“He thinks I’m a bandit!” Echo says through her mask. “Stick ’em up!” she shouts with glee.
But Echo is the only one laughing. Mom’s hands shake as she removes Echo’s mask, muttering to herself. When she’s finished and stuffed the mask away in her coat pocket, the security guard shifts his weight from one foot to another.
“You know what, it’s fine. She can wear the mask.” He looks embarrassed. “I’m sorry for the trouble.”
Mom stares at him for a second. Then her expression softens. “Thank you.” She retrieves the mask from her pocket and puts it back on Echo. Then she takes Echo by the hand and leads her through the lobby and into the bank. I follow close behind.
At the teller window, there’s a glass jar with a picture of Echo on it, smiling. The teller, a young woman, is also smiling.
“Hello, Grace! Hello, girls!” Her eyes are misty.
Mom says hello. I smile. Echo looks at her own face on the jar. There are jars with Echo’s picture at every teller window, about a dozen of them.
“Thank you guys. For doing this.” Mom taps the jar with a fingertip.
“It’s nothing.” The woman hands Mom a receipt for her deposit. “If you don’t object, we’ll deposit it to your account every Friday at closing.”
“That’s fine. That’s wonderful. Thank you.”
Mom wipes away a tear. The woman behind the teller window wipes away a tear. But they’re both smiling. And the security guard even bows to us like we’re royalty and opens the door on our way out.
It’s our favorite cancer story so far, and it’s our favorite even though it started out as a bad story. It’s a terrible story that turned out great, and it teaches me that we can still laugh, we can still smile. It makes me think that maybe there’ll be more bad stories that end this happily.
When we stop at the bodega for ice cream, they have a jar for Echo, too. The owner says he’s counting all the donations and letting us spend the donated amount at the store. There’s already a few hundred dollars of credit, so we walk away holding ice creams with Mom not having to open her purse. The ice cream keeps us happy all the way home.
After dinner, Dad and I go to the grocery. It’s a long walk to Food Fight, but it’s pretty much the only decent-size grocery in this part of Manhattan. The aisles aren’t as cramped as the bodegas, or stacked as ridiculously high, and it’s more cheerful. I was more than happy to accompany Dad when he asked, especially to get away from the apartment and everything sad that creeps into my head when I’m there.
“Here,” Dad says as we enter, and tears off the lower half of a shopping list. “You’re good at picking the produce. Whoever gets done first finds the other, okay?”
I take the list from him and smile. “Got it.” We each grab a basket and part ways.
The list is even more produce-heavy since Echo’s diagnosis. Everything has to be organic, everything has to fight cancer or prevent it, or help build blood cells.
I head to the produce area and look down at the list. I don’t think about cancer while picking out organic rainbow chard and organic cauliflower and organic brussels sprouts and organic mangoes and organic cherries. And parsley, also organic. And if I did think about cancer I’d be thinking how it was gonna get its butt kicked by such a colorful basket of organic produce.
“El,” says a familiar voice. “Are you okay?”
Standing in front of me, holding a bag of apples, is Mr. D, my English teacher. He’s wearing a gray sweatshirt that says Some College.
“Huh?” I ask.
“You were talking about kicking somebody’s butt.” He smiles.
“I was?”
“If I heard right. You were kind of muttering.”
“Hello,” I say, because I’d forgotten to. “Are those apples organic?”
Mr. D looks at the label. “Yes. Or so it says.”
“Can you hand me a bag?”
He gives me the bag he’s holding and grabs another for himself.
“Thank you.”
“No problem.” He drops the bag into his cart. “Listen, I’ve been meaning to talk to you.”
“Oh.”
“But it seems you’ve been trying to avoid talking to me.” He puts his hands on the cart, then takes them away and puts them behind his back. “The first day of school you seemed so eager to learn, and—”
“I’ve been getting good marks.”
He nods slowly, then begins again. “Yes, your work has been good. More than good. But I’ve been worried you haven’t seemed happy. Are you having a hard time adjusting to a new—”
“My sister has cancer.” I just blurt it out. “It’s called rhabdomyosarcoma. Only five kids in a million get it. So she’s lost her hair and she’ll lose some of her teeth and who knows what her face will look like. And she has to get chemo every Thursday, and three times a day she has to do this mouth care that makes her throw up sometimes, and on weekends she has to take this gross-tasting medicine twice a day, and she can’t go to school.”
His face looks stricken. “I’m so sorry.”
“And she’s only six.”
He takes a deep breath, like he’d forgotten to.
“And she hardly ever complains, but I know it’s hard for her.”
“I’m sure.”
“So that’s why I keep my head down in class, and why I haven’t made any friends, and why the girl you saw on the first day of school is not the girl you’ve seen every day since.”
“I understand. I understand completely. Look, maybe you’d benefit from seeing the school psy—”
“Her name is Echo. And she has cancer. And it isn’t fair.”
“No, it isn’t,” he says.
Then we stand there looking at each other. After a few seconds of trying not to cry, a big hot tear rolls down my cheek.
“Can I have a hug?” I ask, my voice cracking. “I need to be picked up. Figuratively speaking.”
He doesn’t answer right away, and I know it’s because it’s weird for a guy teacher to be hugging girls from his class in the produce section of Food Fight.
“It’s okay,” I say. “I shouldn’t have asked. Anyway, it was cancer’s butt I was muttering about kicking.”
He opens his arms to me.
I set down my basket and move in for it. He smells like his aftershave, and also the way Dad smells at the end of the day. After a few more seconds I want to pull away from him, but I don’t want him to see my face. Finally I do anyway.
“Sorry,” I say.
“No need to be sorry.” His sweatshirt is stained with my tears.
“Hello,” says Dad, who has just appeared. The tone of his voice is one of curiosity.
Mr. D steps toward Dad with his hand extended. “Are you El’s father? I’m Mr. Dewfuss, her English teacher.”
“Ah, I’ve heard good things about you.” They shake hands.
“El was just telling me why she’s not been feeling like herself. About how upset she is about her little s
ister.”
Dad looks to me.
“I have been,” I say.
“I didn’t say you hadn’t,” Dad says. “I just—”
“But I feel like you’ve forgotten about me. I know Echo has cancer and it’s toughest on her, but it’s tough on me, too.”
“I know, honey.” With the sad expression on his face he looks suddenly beaten down. “It’s tough on all of us.”
“Can I have a hug?” My voice cracks again.
Dad smiles and puts down his basket. He welcomes me into his arms.
My cheek against his shoulder, I close my eyes to shut out the fluorescent light. I smell oranges and Dad’s deodorant. I hear the whistling of the produce man as he stacks plums.
“It was nice meeting you,” says Mr. D, and rolls his cart away. I’d momentarily forgotten he’d been standing there.
“You too,” Dad answers.
I draw away from Dad. I see the teary stain I’ve left on his shoulder.
“Feel better?” he asks.
I nod and pick up my basket of produce. “Next time I cry over Echo it’s gonna be her college graduation.”
He smiles. “I like the way you’re thinking.”
“Or her wedding. Because she’s gonna have a long, happy life.”
He reaches for my hand and we walk toward the checkout.
While Dad and I were at Food Fight, someone on the second floor of our apartment brought us homemade daal. It’s an Indian lentil meal that smells heavenly, but since we already ate dinner, we’re going to have it tomorrow night. Mom lets me have a small bowl of it for a snack while I’m doing my homework.
After brushing my teeth I slip into the bedroom. I leave the door open just a little so the light from the fixture in the short hall can find its way in.
I make my way over to our bunk bed and look at Echo. She’s there on the lower half, sleeping, her bald head glowing like the moon. I pull the kitten quilt up to her shoulders. Echo rolls over onto her other side so she is now facing me. She mumbles something in her sleep, and I wonder what thought is behind her words.
I reach down and run my hand over her head. I can feel the peach fuzz. I think of how she likes to show me that smoothing the sides down with water makes the few stray hairs show up more. See, she says. It’s growing back. But it isn’t growing back, and it won’t really grow back until the twelve weeks of chemo are over with.