The nurse shook her head. “You must be Carolyn—I was told you’d be spending some time with us … and that I should look out for you.”
“Your reputation precedes you,” Ryan said with a laugh, and Owen joined him. This floor wasn’t exactly full of joy and laughter, so nobody ever discouraged it, no matter how mad the adults might have been at the moment.
Come here, honey,” the nurse said, “tilt your head back.” she held a wet rag over the bloody nose.
“Does this mean I have to stay in the hospital for seven months?” Carolyn asked, as they attempted to stop the bleeding.”
“Don’t worry—you pull a stunt like this again, and you’ll be out of here in no time,” the nurse replied.
Once the bleeding had stopped, and her dress was put back on, the adults left … but with a stern warning that they’d remove the games if any future hijinks occurred.
Owen looked at Carolyn. “I think we’ve got ourselves an honorary cancer-warrior. Your name will be Wall. Because you’re as tough as that concrete wall you crashed into.”
Carolyn looked proud. Her attention was then diverted to the game Ryan had pulled out for them to play. “NHL 94!” she exclaimed.
“You know this game?” Ryan asked.
“It’s the only one my dad lets me play. He says it’s old school.”
“Are you any good, mate?” Owen asked.
“I beat him all the time.”
“We’ll see about that—I happen to be the Daniel’s House champ,” Owen said as he took the controller. “Even with one arm.” The other constricted by the IV.
Carolyn looked confused. “I thought I was playing Ryan.”
“You two play, and I’ll be in charge of the music,” Ryan said, and Carolyn’s eyes practically bugged out of her head when he took out an acoustic guitar.
“Ryan—you have a guitar.”
“That’s the one good thing about being stuck in this place—I’ve picked up a few new hobbies. Do you play?”
“I want to, but my dad says I’m not old enough to have lessons yet.”
“I say if you’re old enough to run into a wall at full speed, then you’re old enough to take guitar lessons,” Owen said.
“I am a pretty good singer though.”
“Let’s hear something, mate.”
Never afraid, she belted out, “Never, ever, ever, ever …”
When she finished, she proudly informed them, “That was Taylor Swift’s song.”
“Like she’s never sounded before,” Ryan tried to be diplomatic.
“I think my ears are bleeding,” Owen not so much.
Carolyn assumed it was a compliment, and smiled wide.
“Can you play a Taylor Swift song on your guitar, Ryan?”
“Sorry—this is a Taylor-free zone,” Owen said.
Ryan and Owen smiled at each other and said, “Kids today,” with shakes of their head. Then Ryan offered, “I thought you said you were old school—how about a little John Lennon?”
Ryan strummed a version of “Watching the Wheels” while he and Owen sang.
Carolyn loved it, and exclaimed, “Watching the wheels go round sounds like fun!”
“In here, sometimes that’s the only choice,” Ryan said.
They then got down to business. Carolyn chose to represent her home state, and play the Hartford Whalers, while Owen took the Pittsburgh Penguins. “Lemieux and Jagr … tough to beat,” Carolyn conceded.
Owen cautioned, “Just so ya know, I’m not going to take it easy on you because you’re a kid.”
He was feeling confident, until five seconds into the game, when she raised her hands in triumph and shouted, “Goal!”
“Lucky break,” Owen grumbled.
Thirty seconds later. “One-timer! Two to nothing!”
When Carolyn scored her sixth goal, Ryan couldn’t hold back his laughter.
“She’s a ringer—you set me up,” Owen bickered.
Ryan shrugged. “She told you she was good, but you didn’t listen.”
“She also said she was a good singer, and she sounded like a broken didgeridoo.”
Owen tossed Ryan the control. “You think this is so funny—let’s see how you do, mate?”
“Can’t do much worse,” Ryan said, still laughing.
As Owen changed seats, he coughed. Then again. After a few more, the laughter fell off of Ryan’s face. “You okay, buddy?”
“Just need a glass of H2O—I’ll be fine.”
But the coughing kept getting worse, and soon Owen was on a gurney, surrounded by his medical team, and his mother, and they were taking him for a chest X-ray.
On his way out, he bumped fists with Carolyn, “Stay tough, Wall.”
She looked disconcerted by the commotion, tears in her eyes. “Same to you, Hen’s Teeth.”
“When I come back I want a rematch.”
She just nodded.
After Owen was wheeled away, Ryan became agitated.
“Do you want to play video hockey?” Carolyn asked.
He shook his head. “I’m not really in the mood anymore.”
“Are you in the mood to play a song on the guitar?”
He raised his voice, “The only thing I want to do, Carolyn, is get out of this goddamn place before it kills me!”
He began walking slowly toward the door, his balance shaky. Carolyn stood frozen, unsure. But as she watched yet another person walk out of her life, and leave her to fend for herself, Ryan turned back to her and said, “Are you coming, or what?”
Chapter 11
Seven months of pent-up anger was oozing out of Ryan. Having watched his friend being carried off like a wounded soldier in battle had been the final indignity. He slammed his fist into the wall of his hospital room, and suddenly grew dizzy. He had to take a seat on the bed before he collapsed to the floor.
“Are you okay, Ryan?” Carolyn asked, still unsure.
“I’m fine.”
“My Aunt Dana always says to count to ten when I get mad, and then take a deep breath.” She counted out loud, before dramatically sucking air into her lungs; her cheeks bulging out like a balloon.
“I said I’m fine.”
“You sure don’t look fine.”
“I will be as soon as we get out of this place.”
“You mean, like leave the hospital?”
“The last few months have taught me one thing: you either live life, or you sit around and wait to die. I choose to live. Are you with me?”
“I told my dad that I would stay here and not get in trouble.”
“Remember when I told you that parents tell us wrong stuff all the time to make us feel better?”
“Keeping it real.”
He nodded. “The only thing that will really make me feel better is getting out of here.”
“So then it would be okay for me to say wrong stuff to my dad to make us feel better?”
“Now you’re catching on.”
She went into a deep thought, a battle waging inside her head. Finally she said, “I really don’t like hospitals.”
Ryan struggled off the bed and ambled his way into a small closet. When he returned, Carolyn broke into laughter. “Ryan—it’s Valentine’s Day, not Halloween.”
“It’s a wig—my teammates gave it to me when they visited. Kind of like a joke, since I was losing my hair with the chemo.”
Carolyn stopped laughing. “That seems like a mean joke.”
“It’s a hockey thing … or maybe a guy thing, I’m not sure. But when you make fun of each other, it sort of means you like each other.”
He moved in front of the mirror, and was horrified by what he saw. Not just the hideous wig, but he had put on his father’s suit, which he had kept in Ryan’s closet, as his parents’ practically lived here these days. It hung off him like he was a little child playing dress up—he’d lost over thirty pounds since entering the hospital.
He returned to the closet, and put on a sweatshirt and jeans
underneath, to fill out the suit. He emerged and took another look in the mirror, then said to Carolyn, “Not exactly an on-fleek look, huh?”
“What’s that mean?”
“Just the way the kids at my school talk. Do you have your ID?”
She proudly pointed to the plastic badge, which was clipped to her dress.
“What do you think of mine?” he asked, and handed it to her.
She looked confused. “That’s not you, Ryan—it’s Billy.”
He smiled. “It might have accidentally fallen into my pocket when we took that photo together. The important thing is that it fools the security guard on our floor.”
Ryan fitted himself with a baseball cap over the wig, before providing Carolyn instructions. “With all the focus on Owen, we should be able to slip by pretty much unnoticed. But we still have to get by the security desk. Just hold onto my hand, and pretend I’m Billy. Can you do that?”
“When Billy and I went to Montreal, I pretended that my name was Abigail and that Billy was my dad.”
“Sounds like you’re an old pro at this then.”
“I just hope this time I don’t get shot. People got really worried about me when I got shot.”
He shook his head. “You’ve got a great imagination, Carolyn, which should make this easy. Just pretend we’re going on a fun adventure. They’re supposed to check people out when they leave, but they always let my dad go through without checking him. And since Billy and your Aunt Dana left with him, I’m betting they didn’t check Billy out either. If they did, he would’ve come looking for his missing ID.”
“But what if they did check him out?”
“I don’t think anyone will shoot us, if that’s what you’re asking. They can’t send us to jail—we’re already there. Are you ready, Carolyn?”
She flashed a big grin. “Yes, Billy.”
“There’s just one last thing.”
“What is it?”
“You’re going to have to leave the hockey helmet behind.”
Her face scrunched. “But I kinda like it.”
“I promise when we get where we’re going, I’ll get you a new helmet.”
She made him double-triple promise, then they moved out into the hallway. After a few steps Ryan felt lightheaded, and could feel the cold sweat on his forehead. Carolyn reached out and grabbed his hand, which temporarily steadied him.
They made their way unscathed to the security desk. The chaos had died down from the emergency, and now an eerie quiet hung over the floor. Events like what happened to Owen served as sobering reminders that you could be next. It wasn’t something anyone wanted to talk about
The guard was new. That was good, in the sense he hadn’t previously met Ryan. But on the downside, he was trying to make a good first-impression, and wasn’t cutting any corners. He gave extra scrutiny to Ryan—ironically, his arrival had been the reason for the increased security. Mainly to combat tabloid “journalists” who were looking to sneak in to get a shot of Guy Borcher’s sick child. He thought they were the ones who were truly sick.
Ryan passed the test, and just as he’d thought, Billy Harper had not been signed out when he left with his father. Then the guard’s attention went to Carolyn, “You’re the one behind the new wing, right?”
“My Aunt Dana and her brothers helped too,” she said humbly.
“Most people are only thinking about themselves in this world. Don’t ever change.”
She smiled a toothy grin at him, as he let them pass by.
They moved into an elevator, but just as the doors were about to shut, a doctor stepped in. Ryan recognized him—he was on his original team during his first few weeks in the hospital.
That horrible day came rushing back to him. He recalled a shortness of breath at his morning skate. But later that day, when he went for the tests—scheduled after his collapse at tryouts—the doctor didn’t seem too worried. They thought he might have had a recurrence of mono. His biggest concern was that he’d have to miss a few weeks of hockey—how stupid did that sound now?
Brad came over that night, and they were playing video games. He remembered his little sisters bugging them because they wanted to watch some Nickelodeon show, and it had to be on the TV that he and Brad were using, even though there were like twenty TVs in the house. He thought about how much they used to irritate him, and spy on him and Scarlet when she was over. And how they were always invading his space. But now there was no greater feeling in the world when they came to visit him.
He remembered being surprised when the doctor called that evening, since they weren’t supposed to get the results back until the next week. And even more so when he instructed his mother to drive him straight to Daniel’s House. He recalled how she was freaking out on the way, and he tried to make jokes, hoping that it would make her feel better.
“But the tests were just precautionary,” he kept telling the doctor, sounding like he was going to sue them for false advertising. A rare form of cancer? How could this be true?
As Ryan relived the nightmare all over, Carolyn took all the attention. When the doctor spotted her, he gushed about her work to help those with GUDs, barely noticing that Ryan was even there. Eventually he looked to him, and said, “You must be really proud of your daughter.”
Ryan forced a smile. “Oh, she’s not my daughter … I’m a friend of the family, Billy Harper.”
The doctor thought for a second, and then realized who he was. “The children’s author? I’d heard you were part of this. My kids love your books. Especially the one where Peanut Butter and Jelly tried to escape the hospital.”
Ryan shrugged. “Couldn’t blame them, right? Who wants to be stuck in the hospital.”
They all had a laugh at that.
After getting off at the lobby, and heading in the opposite direction of the doctor, Ryan whispered to her, “We’re almost there, just keep holding my hand and keep your head down.”
“Where are we going?” Carolyn asked, seemingly having second thoughts. She stopped and froze like a statue. “I got a better idea—maybe we go back to the video game room, and finish the game and then play guitar.”
“Stick with me, Carolyn. We’re going to walk right out the front door and get into a cab. Then we’ll be home free.”
There went the second thoughts. “A taxi cab? That sounds like fun,” she said with sudden excitement.
“Shh,” he quieted her, before she drew attention their way.
“So where are we going in a taxi cab, Billy?” she whispered.
He smiled. “It’s a surprise.”
As hard as she tried, she couldn’t contain her excitement. “I do like surprises.”
Chapter 12
The maître d’ led Chuck and Lindsey to their table, where Guy and Heidi were waiting for them. It was hard not to be awed by the rooftop restaurant in the Liberty Wharf section, and it’s spectacular view of the Boston waterfront.
The Borchers stood to greet them. “You clean up nice,” Chuck said to the stylish looking couple. Heidi especially, who had gone from sleep-deprived mother to Jessica Chastain in a matter of hours.
Heidi got a chuckle out of that one. “Not to brag, but I’ve become an expert at the quick-change in hospital bathrooms. If you can apply makeup with one hand, while holding the upchuck bucket for your son in the other, then you can do anything in this world.”
Guy cringed at his wife’s TMI, but seemed resigned to it. He raised a glass of wine, and toasted, “To a rare night of normalcy.”
After clinking glasses, Heidi looked around the restaurant, full of happy couples, oblivious of how one dizzy spell, some precautionary tests, and an ominous phone call could change everything forever. “So this is what the real world looks like,” she said with an ironic smile.
“To say we don’t get out much these days would be understatement,” Guy added.
“There were times when Ryan was in the ICU, where there were no windows, and I had no idea what day it was
for weeks, or even if it was day or night.”
She noticed Guy’s disapproving look. “He thinks I should be able to put life into boxes, and be able to leave that part behind and enjoy a night out. But this is our life now—it can’t be separated.”
“You must be so proud of your daughter—what a thoughtful child to think to help other children. Such a rarity,” Guy said to Chuck, obviously trying to change the subject.
“I can’t believe she can’t feel pain. I’d never heard of anything like that … it’s fascinating,” Heidi added.
That’s one way to put it, Chuck thought. “We were as surprised as anyone when we got the diagnosis. But looking back, there were plenty of warning signs.”
Chuck continued, “Seeing her in that hockey helmet today brought back memories. After she first learned to walk, Carolyn would run into walls so hard that my wife, Beth, made her wear one of my old helmets. It came down over her eyes, and I think it made things worse. But she was going to do whatever it took to keep her baby safe.”
Lindsey lightly rubbed his shoulder, knowing that the funny memories quickly turned melancholy.
“There were other things; she had a cornea abrasion from getting sand in her eyes that would have sent a normal child to the emergency room.”
“I was her teacher when she tried to prove to the class she was Dracula. She practically bit off her tongue, and it was as if she didn’t feel a thing … I guess because she couldn’t,” Lindsey added.
“We just thought she took after me. Skate full speed into the boards with reckless abandon, if it meant clearing the puck.”
Guy laughed. “Casseau used to play hockey like he had no concern for human life, especially his own.”
“There were no signs with Ryan,” Heidi said, “and I’ve gone over it a million times in my mind. He was the picture of health—if you could have seen him at the tryouts for US Juniors, right before he collapsed. I’ve never seen him skate like that.”
“Scouts I talked to said he had a chance to be the top pick in the NHL Draft when he graduated,” Guy said proudly.
“Which was a moot point, since he wasn’t going to turn professional until he finished college,” his mother corrected.
The Carolyn Chronicles, Volume 1 Page 5