Her phone hasn’t rung since the accident, has it?
She digs into her bag, only to find the phone’s battery has died. Lauren doesn’t ever allow that to happen, but since her entire world is right here in this hospital room, there is no one she wants to talk to, so she’s left the phone in her purse, zipped tidily away so it won’t fall out, and it’s dead.
Stop thinking that word, Lauren.
Like Mindy, Lauren doesn’t have any close friends. With Mindy’s activities, it’s always been hard to establish friendships with the mothers of other girls her age. Either they were busy with their own extracurriculars, or too competitive to allow their daughters to spend time with Lauren’s. They are a solid, happy threesome, Jasper, Mindy, and Lauren. Truthfully, Lauren prefers it this way. Their solitude is a comfort to her. She was never much for large groups anyway.
“We should call Juliet,” Jasper says, and Lauren nods. Oh, of course. Juliet. Her little sister. Mindy’s favorite—only—aunt. She must be told. Jasper steps out to make the call.
Lauren is beginning to think she must be in shock. She is not thinking clearly. She watches the blizzard outside the window. The fluorescent lights and kindly nurses are making her so claustrophobic she wants to scream. Her instinct to flee is strong, to run into the snow and go back up the mountain to their house and wake up again and do this day over.
Of course, she can’t. She must stay together for Jasper. She must stay tethered to the real world for Mindy’s sake.
There is a small commotion in the hall. Mindy is arriving.
The techs wheel in the bed. Mindy’s leg is suspended, thin metal pieces disappearing into the bandages like the legs on a butterfly into its thorax. Her foot is half-casted, her toes peeking from their nest, black and blue and a strange orange-yellow—Betadine, from being sanitized before the surgery. She is still deeply asleep, her mouth slightly open. The painkillers must be tremendous to knock her out; her metabolism is Thoroughbred quick, and Lauren hasn’t ever seen anything touch it. She’s never seen her daughter asleep like this, either, unnaturally still, and the word prances in again—dead, dead, dead.
How will Lauren tell her how sick she is? How is this even happening? Mindy has been pale, yes, and she’s been tired, but Mindy thought—Lauren thought?—they all thought Mindy was simply training hard.
Oliver’s nurse watches these proceedings, then straightens a pillow and smiles at them again.
“Mrs. Wright? Ma’am? Is there someone we can call?”
“No, thank you. I’ll charge my phone and make a few calls myself. Thank you. You’re very kind.”
Lauren makes a mental note to send flowers to the nurses’ station. Something cheery, bright. They probably aren’t thanked enough. They work so hard.
Jasper comes back in the room wearing a tight smile, which makes the grooves around his mouth deepen. They are growing older, he and Lauren, but this fact often catches her by surprise. She still sees the young lawyer she married all those years ago. The strands of gray at his temples, the deepening lines—he’s aging very well. Lauren, on the other hand, worries she’s not. Too much sun as a child, too many cigarettes, too much booze in school. Soon enough she will be haggard and drawn, her skin wrinkled and gray.
Is Mindy going to age at all?
At the thought, she has to brace herself not to burst into tears and run screaming from the hospital.
Jasper glances at the metal halo holding Mindy’s leg in place, pales. He licks his chapped lips. “She’s in.”
“What do you mean, she’s in?”
“They called the race. Her points stand. She’s in.”
Lauren laughs, worthless and cold. She can’t help herself. All the work, all the sleepless nights and long, cold days, and the triumph her girl has been working toward is going to be snatched away by a chance encounter with a set of rogue blood cells.
Again, the thought: She is going to be so furious when she wakes.
Mindy caught a terrible cold once, right before a race. They couldn’t give her any medication because of the drug standards for the competition, and she was downright miserable, but she decided she was going to race anyway. She couldn’t breathe, her nose was running, and yet she turned in a personal best time, qualifying for junior nationals, did three TV interviews, and then let her mother coddle her with hot chocolate and chicken soup.
Nothing comes between Mindy and the mountain.
Now, a broken leg and leukemia might.
“They’re playing favorites,” Lauren says. “Won’t everyone complain?”
“Everyone wants Mindy on Team USA. You know how much they all love her.”
This is true. Even the dreaded Janice Cuthbert, a year younger and nearly as good, loves Mindy. Follows her around like a puppy, happy to be anywhere near her hero. Janice won’t make the team now. Lauren is not a vindictive woman, but she is glad, for the moment, that the accolades still belong to Mindy. Though she can’t imagine how her girl will be able to train and go to the Olympics if she is as sick as they say, not to mention heal from the broken leg quickly enough.
For the first time, she prays for a miracle.
*
The treatment plan is set by the next afternoon.
They took bone marrow and spinal fluid while Mindy was out from the anesthesia, so they have a jump start on her status. The cancer is identified as AML—acute myeloid leukemia. Not nearly as common as its sister ALL, it is tougher to cure, which means more aggressive treatment from the get-go. Lauren listens and takes notes, Jasper types on his phone. They will stay up all night reading horror stories, and by morning, will convince themselves that nothing will stop their daughter’s survival. Nothing.
The surgery will complicate the induction period, but they have no choice now. The doctors are very clear. They have to kill the cancer cells in Mindy’s blood, and they have to do it quickly. Or else.
4
Dr. Juliet Ryder hates the smell of hospitals. Ironic, considering she spends her days in a lab. The Queen of Pipettes, that’s what her coworkers call her. As lead DNA tech and lab manager for the Colorado Bureau of Investigation, she accepts the title with grace and aplomb.
She pops a piece of spearmint gum in her mouth to mask the industrial scent and takes the elevator to the third floor. When she exits, she is confused: The walls state she is in the oncology ward. She inquires at the nurses’ station, and is even more surprised when they point her down the hall to a private room.
There must be an explanation.
She hurries down the hall, pausing for a moment outside the room. She hears the television inside, but no voices. She knocks gently and sticks her head in.
Mindy lies on the bed, eyes glazed over, staring dully at the screen on the opposite wall. She is alone.
“Hey, kiddo.”
Mindy turns her head, then brightens and straightens a bit. “Aunt J! How are you?”
“How am I? How are you, kiddo?”
“Stuck here. Bored out of my skull. The blizzard finally let up?”
“Yes. They opened the pass about two hours ago, and I got here as fast as I could.”
“Mom will be glad. She needs you.”
Juliet doubts this will be the case. Lauren hasn’t needed her, ever. She is older. Accomplished. An artist. A mother. Successful, happy.
“What’s going on, sweetie? Your leg giving you problems?”
“Oh, Mom didn’t tell you? Apparently, I have cancer.”
Juliet’s stomach drops. “What?”
“They found it when they were doing blood work for the surgery. Leukemia. I have to do chemo. My hair’s going to fall out.”
Mindy sounds old, so old, worn and tired. Juliet sits on the edge of the bed and grabs her niece’s hand. It is freezing; she rubs it hard between hers.
“Where are your parents?”
“I kicked them out. Mom needed a good cry. Dad needed to comfort her. They couldn’t fall apart in front of me, so I begged for some soup, and sent them both down to get it. They’re in the cafeteria, or the chapel, somewhere where I won’t know they’re freaking out.”