Raina's Story

by Lurlene McDaniel

  “I’m supposed to check with the donor services organization and start preparing for the extraction. I have to watch some videotapes—”

  “Wait.” Vicki held up her hand. “Let me check into it first.”

  “What’s to check out? I’m a match. We need to get started.”

  “And I need to know the risks involved for you. No medical procedure is without risks, Raina. I want more information. It’s not an uncomplicated procedure, you know. They’ll stick a syringe into your hip bone. You’ll be sore for days.”

  “But Mom, this woman’s already waited over a month for the results of my tests. She could be in serious trouble by now.”

  “And she has doctors in Virginia to handle her case. So hold on and let me do some homework. Don’t be impatient.”

  Raina knew she had no choice. Reluctantly, she said, “All right, but let me know the minute you hear something.” She bolted out the door before her mother could come up with another suggestion that she didn’t want to hear.

  “I really think it’s over,” Kathleen told Raina and Holly. They were in the library and taking a study break. “Carson hasn’t called once since New Year’s Eve.”

  “Have you called him?” Raina asked.

  Kathleen shook her head. “I wouldn’t know what to say.”

  “How about ‘I’m sorry’?”

  “Couldn’t hurt, might help,” Holly said.

  “I know the two of you think it’s so simple. But it isn’t. Not for me. If he cared …”

  “He can’t read your mind, girlfriend. Especially from a distance.”

  “He saved your mother’s life,” Holly said. “Doesn’t that make him worth a phone call?”

  “Hasn’t your mother noticed that he’s not coming around?” Raina asked impatiently.

  “She asked and I just said we were both busy with school and all.”

  “I’m sure she bought that,” Raina observed dryly.

  “I didn’t want to spill my guts to my mother,” Kathleen said. “Especially now, when life’s going pretty good for her. Did I tell you she was dating a guy from her MS group?”

  “Your mother? Dating?”

  Kathleen looked embarrassed. “It’s a little weird, but I’m handling it.”

  Holly tipped backward in her chair, balancing on the back legs. “Well, now it’s official. I’m a total loser. When a mother can get a date, and I can’t … well, how bad is that?”

  “I’m not dating anyone,” Raina said quietly.

  “And you know my situation,” Kathleen added.

  Holly glanced from one dejected face to the other. She plopped her chair back down on the floor and grabbed for her books. “Then I guess there’s nothing more to do except go eat ice cream.” She stood. “You two coming?”

  By the time Raina arrived home that evening, Vicki was setting the table for supper. “How’s stir-fry sound?”

  “We sort of pigged out at the Dairy Freeze, so I’m not very hungry.” Vicki gave Raina a furtive glance and Raina knew her mother had something else on her mind. “What is it?”

  “I’ve been talking to people at the hospital ever since you told me about the bone marrow test results.”

  “And?”

  “There’s nothing simple about it, Raina. Your life could be at risk, and I can’t go along with something that may harm you.”

  fourteen

  RAINA STARED at her mother, shocked by her about-face. “But we talked about this. You said it would be all right.”

  “No, I said you could sign up for the registry.”

  “And when I got called, you said I could give another blood sample for the bigger test. Which I did. And which is showing that I could be a donor.”

  Vicki pinched the bridge of her nose and sighed. “You’ll be going under a general anesthetic, and there’s always a risk involved when a person goes under a general.”

  “You’re making it sound like I’m getting the transplant. And I’ve always known about going under the general.”

  “You’ll miss several days of school.”

  “As if I’ve never missed school before,” Raina said, rolling her eyes.

  “I’m just not crazy about the idea, Raina.”

  “But you’re a nurse. You understand how hard it is to find compatible donors.” Vicki’s objections baffled Raina. This wasn’t at all what she’d expected, and it made her think there was something going on that her mother wasn’t telling her. Raina was puzzling over it when the phone rang. Her mother grabbed it, but after a few minutes of hearing Vicki’s one-sided conversation, Raina knew the call was connected to her mother’s job. She mouthed, “I’ll be upstairs.”

  Vicki said, “Hold on a minute,” to the person on the phone, covered the mouthpiece and told Raina, “I’ve made arrangements for us to sit down with Dr. Portera day after tomorrow so that he can explain everything to us together.”

  Dr. Portera was a well-known cancer specialist at Parker-Sloan. “All right,” Raina said, and Vicki returned to her conversation. Raina went upstairs, still confused by her mother’s sudden reluctance to allow her to donate bone marrow to an unknown woman, a thousand miles away. A woman whose last chance might be Raina’s healthy marrow.

  Raina was restless all the next day at school. She couldn’t stop thinking about her conversation with Vicki, nor could she get baby Annie out of her mind. During lunch, she called the hospital from the front office—cell phones were banned during the school day—and tracked Betsy down.

  “She’s still hanging on,” Betsy told her.

  The baby had been off the feeding tube three days, and despite knowing that Annie didn’t have a chance, every day that she survived gave Raina a perverse hope that she would magically recover. That the God Hunter believed in would somehow reach down and heal the sick and deformed infant. Fifteen minutes later, Raina passed a note to Kathleen in the hall saying that she was cutting out and going to the hospital regardless of the consequences at school.

  Once in the hospital, Raina went directly to the nursery but was barred because two infants in the neonatal unit were in crisis and a team of doctors and staff were working to help them. “Come back in an hour,” one of the nurses told her. Anxiously, she craned her neck to see if Annie’s isolette was in its regular place, and it was. With time unexpectedly on her hands, she wasn’t sure what to do. Then she had an idea. Maybe she could get in to talk to Dr. Portera right now and save her mother the time tomorrow.

  Up on the floors of the hospital where doctors had their offices, all was quiet, and when she found Dr. Portera’s office, there was no one at the reception desk behind the window. Glancing at her watch, she saw that it was one-thirty and realized that many offices closed from noon until two for lunch. Disappointed, she was about to leave when a side door opened and a man poked his head out. “Can I help you?”

  “I’m Raina St. James, and I’m looking for Dr. Portera.” She held up her hospital ID badge and pointed to her Pink Angels pin.

  “You’re in luck. Here I am.”

  “I didn’t mean to disturb you—”

  “You’re Vicki’s daughter, aren’t you?”

  “Yes. Mom and I have an appointment with you tomorrow, but I thought I’d try to meet with you today.” She was suddenly embarrassed, realizing that it had been brazen of her to simply drop in on a busy doctor.

  “Come on in. I’m just grabbing a bite of lunch and doing some dictation.”

  She followed him into a large, well-appointed office with leather furniture and a wall lined with bookcases. A half-eaten sandwich lay on his desk. “I—I’m sorry. I shouldn’t bother you—”

  “No. It’s all right. Sit down.” He pointed to a wingback chair. “Actually, I was looking forward to meeting you. Your mother explained about your being tapped for bone marrow donation by the registry. I think that’s pretty cool.” He grinned, as if knowing his wording wasn’t doctor-speak.

  “Mom was telling me about the procedure. She’s con
cerned about the general anesthetic.”

  “Sometimes we use a local, but a general is preferred. Let me explain the procedure.” He pushed back in his desk chair. “Are you afraid of needles?”

  “I don’t love them.”

  “Well, you won’t feel a thing. After the donor is out, we put him on his stomach, make an incision on the lower back and put hollow needles into the pelvic bones. Then we attach a syringe and we aspirate—fancy word for suck out.” He grinned again. “We collect about a quart of healthy marrow if the recipient is an adult. Once we’re finished, we put a bandage over the incision and move the donor to recovery until he or she is fully awake. Sometimes the donor is released the same day; sometimes she spends the night. The donor’s sore and stiff, but it doesn’t last long. A representative from the National Bone Marrow Donor Program does a follow-up call a few days later. Your marrow will regenerate itself in a matter of weeks, so you’ll never miss it.”

  It didn’t sound very complicated to Raina. “And the recipient?”

  “Well, the marrow is flown directly to him or her as soon as it’s harvested. Believe me, it’s more complicated to receive than to give.” He picked up a file and flipped it open. “In your case, your recipient is in Virginia. Once the woman is fully prepared, she’ll be infused.”

  “And then?”

  “And then we wait to see if your marrow takes hold and reverses her disease.”

  Raina glanced at her watch and saw that the lunch break was almost over. She could hear his staff rattling around in the hallways. She jumped up. “Thanks for talking to me. I’ll tell Mom so that we won’t bother you tomorrow.”

  “It’s no bother. I really am pleased that you’ve agreed to be a donor. What’s really fascinating to me is how well you matched this woman.”

  “Really?”

  “I told your mother that it’s seldom we get such a good match with unrelated donors. This can mean that the recipient is more likely to not face graft-versus-host rejection as severely. No way to predict, of course.”

  He’d just told her that her marrow had an excellent chance of making the woman well. “Thanks again,” she said, and left his office.

  Raina pondered the meeting all the way to the elevator. Funny that her mother hadn’t mentioned the compatibility equation. How could Vicki possibly object when the chances of the transplant’s working were so good? This wasn’t like her mother. No, it wasn’t at all like her.

  fifteen

  RAINA RUSHED to the nursery and saw that the neonatal unit crises had passed and activity was back to normal. She found Betsy and asked for permission to go inside and hold Annie. Betsy looked harried. “You can, but …” She paused and looked Raina in the eye. “The end is near for her. Her breathing’s shallow and irregular.”

  Icy fear squeezed Raina’s heart. “I—I understand.” There would be no miracle for Annie.

  Once in the unit, Raina lifted the frail baby from the isolette. She weighed almost nothing, as if her bones were hollow, held together only by bright yellow skin. Raina carried her to one of the several rocking chairs kept in the area for parents to sit in and hold their babies. Most of these babies went home once they had gained enough weight or overcome their medical problems. But not Annie. She would never go home.

  Raina held Annie close to her heart and began to rock. The motion soothed Raina. Annie never made a noise. Raina eased aside the blanket that covered the tiny body and saw that someone had dressed her in a buttery-soft pink nightgown decorated with rabbits. One of the nurses, she assumed. Maybe Betsy? Raina slid off the little cotton cap covering Annie’s head, exposing her silky dark hair, soft as down. “Poor little Annie,” she whispered.

  Annie’s breath fluttered on Raina’s cheek, as delicate as a butterfly’s wings. Her chest moved in a peculiar rhythm. Rise, fall, stop, start, rise, fall … Her lungs sounded tired, as if their work was too heavy, too hard.

  Life was abandoning Annie. So long, it’s been good to know you.… She had been born and had lived for a week, three days of that time with only her malformed and barely functioning organs to sustain her after the feeding tube was pulled. Her universe had been these four walls. She had never seen sunlight, felt the wind, smelled flowers or tasted her mother’s milk. She was a phantom, a fragment, an almost-being, created and then forgotten by a medical community that could not fix her. To Raina, she was like flecks of sunlight on a garden wall, dancing shadows that flickered as the clouds passed over. She was a flower, stunted and shriveled in its first bloom from a final wintry blast.

  Raina was afraid for the baby and realized that it would have been helpful, even comforting, if she herself had a belief in a god or in a timeless place where souls dwell after life on earth. She closed her eyes, willing herself to see beyond the void she believed was waiting for Annie. In her mind’s eye, all she saw was Oz—a Hollywood version of a magical setting made solely with colorful lights and beautiful paint.

  She thought about limbo, the place Holly had told her about. Was it real? And if it was, could other babies be waiting there? Would they welcome Annie? Shun her?

  The fear for Annie’s well-being made Raina’s heart beat faster like a scary movie or bad dream would, and she wished Hunter were there. He would comfort her, tell her again that the universe was a created place, fashioned and overseen by a benevolent Being. How much she longed to believe that this was so, but she could not. What kind of being abandons the Annies of this life? Or stashes them in limbo, out of the way, out of existence?

  A thousand unshed tears filled Raina’s mouth. She swallowed them down, smoothed Annie’s hair and kissed the papery skin beneath the baby’s closed eyes. Annie’s breathing had grown sporadic, with longer and longer lapses between breaths. Raina held her own breath, attempting to match the baby’s breathing with her own and dreading the moment when Annie would cross over from life into death. Her crossing came softly. One breath. Long wait. No more. In desperation, Raina pulled Annie’s lips apart, and, planting her mouth on Annie’s, she blew hard. Annie lay limp and perfectly still, and Raina’s breath of life evaporated into the air.

  She lifted the baby to her shoulder, patted her back and waited until Annie’s skin grew cool, until the baby was little more than a doll with stiffening limbs. Raina didn’t know how long she sat there like that, holding Annie and rocking her, but at some point Betsy came over and said, “You’ve been here a long time. Are you all right?”

  “Annie died,” Raina said.

  “Oh, honey, when? Give her to me. She should be pronounced by a doctor.” Betsy lifted Annie from Raina’s arms. She felt for a pulse.

  “What will happen to her now?” Raina asked.

  “Her parents will bury her. Our morgue will call the funeral home they’ve chosen and it will come and pick up her body for preparation, and her parents will grieve all over again.” Betsy carried Annie to her isolette and called to the attending physician, who came over and placed a stethoscope against Annie’s chest.

  Without a word, Raina peeled off her hospital gown and left the area. She went down the hall to a bathroom and was relieved when she found it vacant. She cried until she was empty of tears. She raised her gaze and stared into the mirror. Red, swollen eyes looked back at her. Mascara smudged her cheeks. She’d thought the darn stuff was waterproof. Didn’t anything in this world function the way it was supposed to, the way it was advertised? Mascara shouldn’t run if it got wet.… Newborns were supposed to live and grow.

  She splashed cold water on her face, and patted her skin dry with a scratchy paper towel. She stared at her hands, wiggled her fingers, suddenly grateful and amazed at how well her body functioned. Her heart beat. Her lungs pushed air in and out. The processes were so automatic that she’d rarely noticed them. She turned her hands over, knowing that beneath her skin, millions of blood cells poured through veins and capillaries, carrying oxygen and nutrients to sustain her existence. Her hands held life. And so did her bones. She could not have saved Annie.
She could help save the woman in Virginia with her bone marrow. Raina straightened, tucked strands of her hair behind her ears and headed for the door. She was going to donate her marrow, no matter what her mother said.

  Kathleen waited at the end of Carson’s street for twilight to engulf the world. This was the problem with driving her mother’s huge old wheelchair-adapted van—it was very recognizable and its muffler could wake the dead. She’d wanted to bum Raina’s car, something newer and quieter, but Holly had told her that Raina had jumped school at lunchtime to go to the hospital, so Kathleen was on her own with the big ugly van.

  She nibbled her bottom lip. Her palms sweated on the steering wheel. “This is stupid,” she told herself out loud. “Really dumb.” Why couldn’t she just pick up the phone and call him and say, “I’m sorry. I acted like an idiot. Forgive me”? She lacked the guts. Besides, saying “I’m sorry” over a phone was cowardly. She needed him to see her face and see how sincere she was, and she needed to see his face to gauge how her apology was being received.

  “And so why are you waiting?” she asked herself out loud. “Why don’t you put your foot on the gas and move this tank of a van down to his house? If you want to apologize, then go do it!” Her stern talk to herself did nothing to quiet her nerves.

  She should have brought Holly with her, then remembered why she hadn’t. Holly would have made her follow through. Holly wouldn’t have allowed Kathleen to chicken out.

  “Come on,” she reasoned. “What’s the big deal? What’s the worst that can happen?”

  He can slam the door in my face. “If that happens, you can get right back in the van and drive home and say good riddance.”

  Oh, sure. As if I won’t be crying like a baby. “But I miss him. I lov—” She stopped midsentence and amended, “I like him. I miss him. I want him in my life.”

  Taking a deep breath, and seeing that it was completely dark by now, Kathleen put the van into gear and slowly drove forward. In the middle of the block, she remembered to turn on her lights. As she approached Carson’s house, she saw that the windows spilled soft light onto the hedges beneath—someone was home. She was about to turn into his driveway when her heart seemed to stop and her blood ran cold. Parked far up in the brick driveway, close to the house, she saw Stephanie’s small white sports car. Kathleen froze as the implication sank in and Stephanie’s words rang in her ears. “… he finds a new plaything … but he always comes back to me.”