Confessions of Jove

October 27, 2008

2008-12-27T17:03:00.000-08:00

When we got to the soccer fields, I told Eliot and Jeremy to go to one field and I’d go to the other. That way, we could check all four goals to find this clue.

It wasn’t that I expected it to be hard to find it or anything, but I think I was expecting something bigger. The last clue seemed like the most important. Shouldn’t it be at least a little bit flashy?

But no. Of course it was the most unexpected thing imaginable.

The first goal I checked had nothing. When I got to the other side of the field nothing on the new goal stood out immediately. But there was a soccer ball sitting beside the post.

When I picked it up for further inspection, I found the initials JC on one white patch. It was my soccer ball. I flipped the ball over. There was a pink Post-It note stuck to it. In black pen, it said;
Mom’s keys should be answer enough.

What did mom’s keys have anything to do with this?

I raced back for the bikes, not even waiting for Eliot of Jeremy to get back, and took off for the house. Why would Cam need keys to hide? Where could she have gone that needed keys?

Two blocks away from home, I heard someone shouting behind me. “Jove!” I glanced back. Jeremy was standing up and pumping hard on the pedals, pounding them as if it would force the bike faster.

“Wait up, man!” Eliot was close behind him.

I didn’t stop until I’d made it to the front yard, leaped from the bike before it stopped rolling, bounded through the house to the back door where the key rings were kept, and pulled mom’s keys from the rack. Jeremy and Eliot came just as soon as I’d caught my breath.

Since they hadn’t read the note yet, I shoved it at them and began shifting through the keys.
Jeremy nodded after he’d read the note. “She’s smarter than I thought she was.”

“Mmm.” I continued my search. What was missing? I knew that there were supposed to be five keys. One for the house, one for her work, one for he car, one for the garage, one for—

“The storage garage!” Jeremy punched the air with his fist, shouting, “Eureka!”
We were on our bikes and down the street before Eliot could even get past the fact that Jeremy had actually yelled “eureka”.

He caught up to us before we got to the end of the third block. “You think she’s at your storage garage?” His breath was coming quick and sharp, as though it hurt to breathe.

The air was growing steadily colder and I shivered. “Yeah,” I said, “it was the only key that was missing.”

Jeremy’s eyes were bright and wide against the dark air that blasted us as we raced down the street. “And we haven’t used it for a couple months now,” he added. “It’d be an ideal place for a hideout.”

We rode in silence the rest of the way. When we got into the country and turned onto the side road that led to the rental storage garage unit, I was just beginning to see my breath. It came in soft puffs and flew back into my face as I pedaled.

The crunch of gravel began when we entered the lot. I stopped in the light of a streetlamp at the corner of the lot and put my foot down to steady the bike.

“You want to find her yourself,” Jeremy whispered as though he might disturb something if he were to talk normally.

I realized that he meant it as a statement before I objected. “Yeah,” I said. “It seems like—“

“She wants you to find her. We’re unneeded at this point,” Eliot said as he smiled. “We’ll wait here.”

I stepped off my bike, smacked the kickstand down with my heel, and noticed for the first time that I was shaking. My fingers, with nothing to hold onto, quivered at my sides.

“Thanks, guys.”

They stayed behind like Eliot said they would as I made my way down the row of ten or so garages.
My shadow fell in front of me gradually, keeping pace with my every step. My fingers continued to twitch, so I clenched them into fists to keep them from knocking against my legs.

Our garage was the second to last in the row. There was a garage door that opened up for easy access, but there was also a door to the left of it. It was just as big as a normal door. When I reached for the handle, my fingers stopped shaking. I knew then that Cam would be in there.

The doorknob turned when I tried it. Sure enough. I pushed the door open hesitantly with my shoe. Nothing of interest immediately caught my eye.

I stepped through the door. There, in the middle of the room, was an old metal fire pit raised up on three legs. There was a fire in it, of all things. A couch and an old chair had been arranged around it, but weren’t right beside it, in case sparks happened to leap from the fire.

On the couch, there was a small person huddled in a blanket, eyes staring into the flames. Her long blonde hair wasn’t anything like Cam’s short brown hair. I realized that I’d also been looking for Gwen along with Cam.

There was someone else sitting in the chair. “Cam?” I stepped towards the middle of the room, my hands clenched again to stop the shaking.

The girl in the chair looked up. It was Cam, her bright green eyes speaking more than she’d ever really said to me in her life. She leaped from the chair, the blanket she’d had wrapped around her shoulders falling to the floor, and nearly tackled me right off my feet.

“Hey, girl.” I hugged her and smiled. It was the first time I’d hugged her since the diagnose.

“I knew you would look for me,” she whispered into my shoulder, squeezing me as though I were a stuffed teddy bear.

“Why wouldn’t I,” I asked. “You’re my sister.”

She shrugged and released me to step back. “I’ve been a jerk to you. And I was scared that you wouldn’t want to talk to me anymore, since I haven’t been . . . talking to you.”

“No,” I said. “I’ll always talk to you. Even when you don’t want me to.”

She grinned and tapped me on the shoulder with her fist. “Good thing you found us today too, cause it was getting stuffy in here.” She glanced back at Gwen. “And we only had one more days worth of food.”

“Lets get you home then,” I said. “Your mom has been worried about you,” I told Gwen.

She shrugged. “It’s good for her. I’m always the goody-two-shoes around here anyway—thought I should do something rebellious for once.”

We got them home soon after seven that night. Jeremy and I rode with Eliot to his house and then went to Brad’s to drop off the bikes. No one would answer the door, so we chained them to a tree in his backyard.

When we got home, mom didn’t say anything to us about Cam being home. Neither of us mentioned it either.

Cam told me later that she and Gwen had still been able to go to school, filthy as they were. She said it wasn’t worth missing school over and the teachers would have noticed if their absences had been called in.

Every morning, they would get on the bus to go to school like everything was normal. Then when they got back to town, they would walk out to the garage and stay there until the next day.

I told her I was glad they were able to take care of themselves after all that. But I also told her “No more hide-and-seek.”

From now on, we’ll be talking to each other like real siblings.

October 26, 2008

2008-12-26T21:41:00.000-08:00

(It’s still the first day I realized she was missing, the 23rd, that I wrote this. But really, who would read a super long blog? Certainly not anyone I know. So I put it into a few different parts to make it a little easier to read.)

All four of us were on our knees, digging, before we actually found Cam’s money. It was buried eight inches deep and two inches away from the cement that held the post in the ground. Our hands looked as though we’d sorted through a months worth of compost.

What we’d dug up looked like a little cardboard jewelry box—one that had been plastered with pink, blue, and white tissue paper like paper mache. On the lid, there was a slip of ripped up paper taped to the top. On it, in tiny printed letters, was scrawled

for jupiter.

Jeremy smiled and handed it to me. “If that isn’t all the evidence you need, I don’t know what else there is. She definitely wants you to find her.”

I stared at the words for a minute or so before Eliot slapped me on the back from impatience.
“Open it, man!”

It wasn’t that I didn’t want to open it. It was more that I couldn’t. Why would she leave anything for me, when I’m the one who she was running away from in the first place?

When I worked up the courage to pull the lid off, a wad of dollar bills popped out at me.

“Geez, she rob a bank or what,” Brad asked. Jeremy gave him a look.

I pulled the wad out and handed it to Jeremy. “Count it.” There was something else in the bottom of the box—a folded note.

Jeremy separated the bills into three piles and gave one to Eliot and Brad each. “Help,” he said.
As they counted, I unfolded the note and read it. It went

jove.

i know your probly tired of looking for me by now but this is important. i dont know how to tell you that I still love you as my brother and it seemed like this was the only way that didnt include me telling you myself. i dont have words like you do. and i guess you figured out by now that i read your blog. ellie told me about it. it made me realize how much of a jerk ive been to you since the cancer diagnose. im sorry. anyway, there are only two more clues that you have to find. think you can make it?

cam.

p.s. jeremy should know what to do with the money. it will take you to the next clue.

When I looked up, I realized the others were done counting.

“You’ve read that, like, three times over,” Eliot said. “Done yet?”

Jeremy smiled before I could answer. “We’ve got a little over thirty bucks here. Thirty-four, isn’t it, guys?”

Brad and Eliot nodded.

“But what are we supposed to do with it,” I asked Jeremy, unable to hold back.

He shrugged. “How should I know?”

I held the note out for him to see. “This is how.”

He read over it once and shrugged again. “I dunno what she means by that.”

Eliot snatched it from him.

“But don’t you have any idea,” I asked Jeremy. “There’s got to be something. Anything.”

“What about when you said that she told you that she had enough money for a costume,” Brad said.

Eliot nodded slowly as he set the note down. “It does say that Jeremy would know. Why else would she tell you about getting enough money for a costume if she wasn’t going to spend it on herself?”

“Well . . .” Jeremy stood and walked a quick circle around the STOP sign. “She said something about wanting to help you buy food for the dogs—“

I was up and to my bike before he’d even finished the sentence. “We’re going to our house. Hurry.”

By the time we got there and to the animal’s shed, it was starting to get dark out.

“How long do you think she was prepared to stay hidden,” Brad asked. “Cause if it wasn’t more than a couple days . . . she’s gotta be starving by now.”

Jeremy’s fists began to ball up, but I grabbed his arm. “She’ll be fine,” I said. “Don’t hit him again.”

Eliot and Brad headed back to Brad’s house to get the dogs and bring them back while Jeremy and I searched the dog’s area of the shack.

I was rummaging through a cupboard as I went through the basket of dog treats when Jeremy yelled, “Found it!”

It was a small pink Post-It note with two words written on it with blue ink pen. Goal Post.

“The soccer field,” I said. Jeremy nodded.

We waited until Eliot and Brad got back with the dogs, got them settled on the shack and headed for the field.

“So you think the final clue is at the soccer field,” Brad said.

“Yup,” I said.

Jeremy rode at my side, smiling.

“What is it,” I asked him.

“I was . . . so worried that she’d actually run away. And then we find out its all just a game.” He laughed a little. “I could hurt her.”

“We all could. Except mom, maybe. She’s in denial for sure.”

He nodded.

“It’ll be okay now,” I said.

Eliot rode up behind us, gripping about Brad being too heavy again. “Are you two done with your heart-to-heart yet, cause it’s getting kinda cold out here and I’m tired.”

I scowled at him. “Sure. You don’t have to come if you don’t want to.”

Brad sighed. “My mom probably wants me home for dinner.” He hopped off Eliot’s pegs and staggered a little before catching his balance.

Eliot scoffed. “Yeah, right.”

Jeremy shrugged. “Whatever.” He continued on but I stopped beside Eliot.

“You sure, man? We could call her, tell her you’ll be late—“

“No.”

I noticed that a bruise had begun to form on his jaw where Jeremy had hit him.

“Okay,” I said and rode off, wondering if he’d say anything. Eliot followed.

Brad didn’t.

October 25, 2008

2008-12-20T20:35:00.000-08:00

It was about two blocks later that Brad called from behind, “Do we even know where Prospect is?”

“Uhh,” I said.

Jeremy looked back and cursed under his breath. I almost yelled at him for cussing, but Eliot
interrupted my train of thought.

“We could get a map from my car.”

Brad laughed. “You mean your grandparent’s car.”

Eliot huffed. “But still. I’m the only one who ever drives it anymore.”

“Fine,” I said.

After we’d gotten the map and looked up Prospect, we found that it was about half a mile west of Jeremy and I’s house.

“You’d think they’d be more original in their hiding,” Brad said. “It’d make it more fun.”

Jeremy socked him in the jaw for that and Brad stumbled back, shocked at the anger in Jeremy’s usually calm eyes.

“Don’t you ever say that looking for my lost sister is funny again,” Jeremy yelled at him. Then he stalked off to his bike and pulled it up from the lawn.

“Um.” Eliot and I stared at Brad’s split lip and he scowled. “That was a cheap shot.” He whipped the blood away with his wrist and shrugged as though it didn’t hurt.

I followed Jeremy and got on my bike. Before I followed him down the street, I glanced back at Brad.
“You okay?”

He waved me off and got on Eliot’s pegs, ready to go. “Whatever,” he muttered.

To say the least, I was glad Jeremy socked him one. He’d deserved it. For one, he was out of line.
For another, I’d wanted to hit him for a long time. It bugged me that he’d think that looking for my missing little sister was fun. I was terrifying, to tell the truth. Every turn down a different street, I half-expected her to be there, only strewn to the side of the road, dead from being hit by the nearest car.

I tried my best to shake the disturbing images from my mind as we rode toward Prospect. What were we supposed to find when we got there, anyway? Her?

No such luck.

When we got to 121 Prospect, we came upon an empty, weed-infested lot.

“Well.” Eliot stepped into the calf-deep tangled grass and looked around. “That was worth every back-breaking pedal with Lard, here, riding on the back pegs.”

Brad came up behind him, ready to tackle, when I sighed. “But she wouldn’t lead us here for nothing . . . right?”

“If that was even what she meant to do,” Jeremy said.

“True,” Brad piped up. “We could have been wrong from the start.”

Eliot tramped through the lot, looking at the ground, or what he could see of it, the whole time.
“Maybe she left a clue?”

“Start looking,” I told the other two, agreeing with Eliot.

We combed through the lot several times before flopping down on the sidewalk, ready to give up.

“There’s got to be a better way to do this,” Brad said.

Jeremy nodded. “You’d think a girl would leave easy clues to find!”

“Obviously, she isn’t as stupid as you thought she was, Jeremy,” I retorted coldly. Just because she was a girl and his sister didn’t mean he had to belittle her.

Then something at the edge of the field caught my eye. There was a systematic patch of weeds missing.

“Guys!”

I scrambled to it on my knees I was so excited and leaned over it. It resembled a rectangle, but in dirt, the weeds pulled away from the ground to reveal the dir beneath. The rectangle formed an arrow with the two meeting sidewalks on Prospect and McKinley Ave.

“Found it!” I pumped my fist in the air and whirled on my knees, ready to see the great sign from God that my sister had meant for me. But . . .

There was little more than a STOP sign.

Jeremy was crouched beside me now, staring at the arrow. “How disappointing,” he muttered, still looking the ground but knowing that my elation had been completely deflated.

“Well that stinks,” Eliot said, now on his knees in the grass beside the arrow. “It doesn’t point to anything—”

“Except the STOP sign,” Brad finished for him.

I stood and went to the sign—walked a full circle around it. “Nothing,” I said.

“We could have been wrong from the start,” Brad pointed out. “Would she really lead us to an empty field and then expect us to find this,” he motioned to the arrow, “that points at a random sign?”

Jeremy stood and huffed aloud, his eyes still on the arrow. “Well . . . yeah.”

I nodded. “The contact in her phone. That’s me, you guys. The god Jupiter was called Jove sometimes.”

They all stared at me.

“Then why,” Eliot finally said,” did you not tell us this before?”

I shrugged. “Thought it was stupid to say. That’d she’d want me to find her, I guess. Since she’s been hiding from me since the . . .”

Suddenly, Jeremy dropped to his knees by the sign post and started pawing around at the base, digging away at the dirt and weeds.

“What are you doing, weirdo?” Brad nudged him with his foot, but Jeremy kept working.

“Help me here, man,” he muttered as he dug, his fingers already filthy. I got down on my knees again and started at the other side of the pole. Eliot and Brad just stood where they were, staring at us like we were out of our minds.

“What are you even looking for,” Eliot asked, his voice on the edge of a you’re-insane-and-I-knew-it-all-along tone.

Jeremy sighed and sat back. “The other day, Cam mentioned that she’d gotten enough money for a costume, but that she didn’t want to spend it on a costume.”

“And you think she buried it,” Brad asked, crouching down beside us.

Jeremy shrugged. “Pretty much.”

“By a STOP sign,” Eliot said.

I grinned. “Some treasure hunt.”

October 24, 2008

2008-12-19T20:53:00.000-08:00

After Brad had locked the dogs in his garage (he called them a nuisance) and had gotten Jeremy and I each a bike from his basement, we were ready to go.

“Get anything from her cell phone,” I asked Jeremy.

He was busy flipping though contacts and old messages. But he shook his head. “No . . . nothing.”
Eliot scowled and grabbed the phone from him. “Man, you don’t know squat.” He clicked through a menu or two, then stopped. “Here, it says “Oct. 21”. That’s the day she left, right?”

We both nodded. Brad leaned against the side of the house, watching us.

“She got four messages that day. See?” Eliot pointed to a new screen as he turned the phone to face me.

Jeremy grabbed it back and read through the messages. “There’s this one . . . it says, ‘she fell for it. meet you at park at five.’”

Brad smiled. “Sounds like she’s got a partner in crime.”

“Then this other kid must be missing too!” Jeremy glanced at the sender’s number and dialed it into his own cell. “Guess we’ll find out.”

While we waited for him to get off the phone Eliot ran his fingers through his hair and I paced. Brad stayed against the house, thinking I would assume.

“Uhh,” Jeremy came up behind me. “This is my brother. Repeat what you just told me.” He shoved the phone at me and I pressed it to my ear.

“This is Cam’s brother?”

“Yeah, I’m Jove.”

“Your brother Jeremy says that Cam has gone missing.”

“She isn’t at your house?”

There was an uncomfortable silence.

“Well . . . no. My daughter was supposed to spend the night at your house two nights ago. She never came home, and I thought she must have stayed longer.”

“Your daughter? What’s her name?”

“Gwen.”

“Okay, Miss . . .”

“Mrs. Cramer.”

“Okay, Mrs. Cramer, we’re going to try and find my sister and your daughter. Please don’t call the police yet.”

“I won’t. Gwen has never been in trouble before . . . and she’d never run away—“

“We’re pretty sure she did,” I interrupted. “But please, we’ll call you again if we find anything.”

There was silence and a bit of static at the other end, but the she said, “Thank you Jove. Goodbye.” Click.

I snapped Jeremy’s phone shut. “We’ve got two runaways. Cam and her friend Gwen.”

Jeremy nodded. “Sounds like they planned it ahead of time.”

Brad sighed. “There aren’t many places two thirteen year olds can run away together . . .”

“Not really,” I said.

“Might as well start looking,” Eliot muttered. “We’re not going to get anywhere like this.”

Jeremy was looking through Cam’s contacts again.

“Hey . . . Jove, look at this.” He held the screen up fro me to see. He’d highlighted a contact that said “Jupiter”.

That stopped me cold. Jupiter . . . Phoenix had told me that Jupiter was sometimes called “Jove”. I could feel my eye widen at the thought.

Could she have known that I had a blog all this time? And actually read it?

“What’s the number?” Brad took it from Jeremy and recited “121-37767328”.

“That can’t be right,” he said as he looked at it closer. “There’re way too many numbers.”

Eliot sat down on the pavement and crossed his legs Indian-style. “But numbers can mean letters too. Try that.”

We all set to work on our own phones, trying to figure out what it could be—if that was even it.

“The ‘121’ can’t be a word. An address number maybe?” Jeremy looked up at me and I nodded.” Yeah, try the other eight letters now.”

“A street name,” Brad mumbled. He ran inside to get a piece of paper.
He came back with a pen and notebook with letters already scrawled over the front page. “Here, this is what I have so far.”

1. Srospeat
2. Prospect
3. Qrosrect

“You’re ridiculous,” Eliot laughed. “Prospect is the only street possible out of those combinations!”

“Then let’s get over there!” Jeremy was already on his borrowed bike and flying down the street before we could even get on ours. Brad rode the pegs of Eliot’s bike since he’d lent both his bikes to me and Jeremy.

All I could think as I pounded the pedals, standing up to force the bike forward, was “You’d better be there Cam.”

October 23, 2008

2008-12-19T12:05:00.000-08:00

It seems that today, I remembered that I haven’t seen Cam in two days. When I asked Jeremy about it he said, “She’s been staying at a friend’s house.”

I asked mom about it. She said the same thing.

“But have you heard from her? Has she called . . . why has she been gone so long?”

She gave me a look. “Since when are you so worried about your sister? You’ve been neglecting her ever since you got back.”

The anger that rose in my chest at what she’d said almost exploded in the nastiest string of words I could ever think of, but I bit my tongue instead.

“Is it a crime to worry about my sister,” I retorted, and then slammed the back door, headed for the animal’s shack. She didn’t follow. I was glad she didn’t.

I got the dogs ready for their walk as they bounced excitedly around my legs, temporarily tangling me in a mess of leashes. After I got them sorted out and we’d left, I decided that I would go look for her. But first . . . I had to get something.

There was a skinny tree in front of our house. I tied the dogs’ leashes to it and ran inside. I hadn’t gone in Cam’s room in forever, but I knew that she kept her cell phone under her pillow. (I’ve helped mom play “Tooth Fairy” on several occasions.)

So the first thing I went for when I got to her room was her bed. Her cell phone was there. For a second, I couldn’t believe it. My fingers began to shake as I pulled it from under the pillow.

It was hers alright. A palm-fit US CELLULAR. A nice, little silver LG camera phone—a flip-phone.

I got dizzy just looking at it. Why I’d thought that it might still be there, when she wasn’t, I don’t know. She never goes without her phone. I mean never ever. It’s her life, basically.

At that point, I wasn’t sure what to do. So I yelled for Jeremy.

“Jeremy!! Get in here!”

There was the sound of pounding feet, a thud, then harsh breathing.

“Geez, man, don’t give me a heart-attack like that again—“

I turned around, still holding the phone. His face ran pale. “Oh my God.”

“Hey!”

He grimaced. “Sorry.” His breathing slowed as he leaned against the doorjamb and rubbed his knee. “Tripped on the stairs, dangit.”

“We have to go. Now.” I stuffed the phone in my pocket and pushed past him. “Something’s wrong.”

“But we can’t—“

“Yes we can. Mom won’t do anything about it. We will.”

I took the stairs down two at a time and bounded out the door for the dogs. By the time I had them untied, Jeremy was beside me.

“I’ll help.”

“We’re getting Eliot and Brad too.” I tossed him my phone. “Call em. Then check Cam’s phone for messages.”

We got to Brad’s house before Eliot. Since it was about halfway between our houses, he said it’d be easier for him to meet us there.

Jeremy was just getting through with telling Brad what had happened when Eliot rode up through the yard on his bike. “Hey, where’s the fire?” All Jeremy had told him over the phone was that we needed him. Soon.

“No fire,” I said. “We think Cam . . . ran away.”

He hopped off his bike and dropped it on the lawn. “Sounds like she is the fire.”

Jeremy glared at him. “Try having your sister run away and your mom not even care.”

“You forget,” Eliot said, his index finger in the air as if he were stating a fact. “I have no siblings. And I live with my grandparents.”

I rolled my eyes. “Come on guys, this is serious.”

Brad stood from where he’d been sitting on the step. “Then what are we waiting around here for?"

October 22, 2008

2008-12-16T16:49:00.000-08:00

Halloween is coming up. I’m not sure if I’ll go to the party that Brad is having at his house. It’s a costume party, and I have nothing to wear. And I have no idea what I want to be anyway . . . so that doesn’t help much.

It falls perfectly on a Friday, so the junior high is having a dress-up day. Dress up for a dollar. Ellie is all for the idea, while Cam is still undecided.

From what I’ve heard from Ellie, Cam says it’s dumb that she has to pay to dress up. I heard her complaining to mom that she didn’t have enough for a costume either. But mom wouldn’t give her the money.

Jeremy says it’s all just stupid junior high stuff.

“I remember that. So dumb.” He laughed at the idea of dressing up. “Like we’re little kids again!”

“That isn’t always a bad thing,” I told him.

But Ellie jumped at the idea. She’s even going so far as to making her own costume, since she learned how to sew in her Home Ec. class. She plans on creating a bird costume.

“With feathers and everything!” Her eyes radiated excitement at the thought.

I drove her to the Wal-Mart about half an hour away so she could buy her feathers and material.
When they didn’t have the shade of green she’d wanted, we had to look for another color.

“How about yellow,” I suggested.

“And look like Big Bird?” She rolled her eyes at me and poked my shoulder. “You know I can’t do that.”

We gave up on the yellow. So we had to settle for blue and purple, and a darker green feathers and material. She said that she’d be able to work it into the costume so that it would look like she was a multi-colored tropical bird.

“Whatever works,” I said.

October 21, 2008

2008-12-15T20:07:00.000-08:00

We made our way around the hospital until I found a good grassy spot on the side of a slight incline around the back.

“Here?”

“That’s fine.” Iggy hadn’t crossed his arms since we’d left the hospital doors. I took that as a good sign.

I took the blanket from him and put it down, then helped Iggy out of his chair and onto the blanket. I sat beside him and flopped back, the grass tickling me through my cap.

“Whew!” My heart was still beating faster and harder than it had in a long time.

Iggy was silent for a minute or two, then said, “Man, can you ever run. Even when you’re sick!”

“Ha. My little sister used to say I should go out for track.”

“You have a sister?”

“Two, actually.”

“Hm.”

He fell back beside me, his hands forming a pillow behind his head. “I haven’t been outside in . . . since the surgery.”

“When was that?”

“Almost a month ago.”

I wasn’t sure what to say, so all that came out was a muted, “You’re crazy.”

He laughed, but it sounded forced. “Yeah, really.”

We were both silent until the sun had set and darkness had settled, the stars just beginning to pinprick the night sky.

“Jove.”

Eh?”

“You’re crazy too.”

“How’s that?” I turned my head a bit, eyes straining in an attempt to see his face in the dark.

“You actually talked to me after the surgery. Most of the nurses tried,, but I always glared them
down or didn’t do anything at all.” He sighed heavily. “I was such a jerk . . .”

“But you aren’t anymore,” I said, looking back up at the stars.

“I was to you. I am. Still, really.”

“I don’t mind. It makes things more interesting. Frustration sometimes, but then again, I always did like a challenge.”

“So you still want to help me, even though I’m a wreck?”

I laughed at that. “Everyone’s a wreck, dude. Everyone. And if we didn’t help each other, where would we be?”

“True. But still. After all I’ve put you through. I still get prosthetic legs, so it isn’t like I’ll be wheelchair-bound the rest of my life but—“

“It’s a coping strategy, Iggy. Don’t say you shouldn’t have felt sorry for yourself. It just takes different people different lengths of time to recover from something.”

“Like cancer. You don’t seem like it hurt you much.”

A snort escaped my nose. “Yeah, right. My friend dies of cancer, and you tell me I seem unchanged. You didn’t know me before it.”

“Oh. Right.”

He was quiet for only second, then said, “You’re still cooler than anyone I’ve known. Despite everything.”

I smiled to myself and nudged him with my elbow. “And you aren’t too bad yourself, once I got past the onion-exterior.”

“Thanks.” He paused, thinking about what I’d said. “Wait a minute . . . hey!”

Next thing I knew, my mouth was full of a clod of grass, dirt, and whatever other worms and muck that could fit into Iggy’s hand.

“Don’t think you being nice to me brings on any exception to the rule!”

All I could do was laugh through my mouthful of (once dirt) mud, sputtering to get it all out.

“You’re one crazy kid, Iggy.” I managed to say before I had to roll away to avoid another handful of crud headed for my mouth.

October 19, 2008

2008-12-13T20:54:00.000-08:00

Iggy sat in his wheelchair beside me on the elevator; his arms crossed as usual, and eyes fixed straight ahead on the doors.

I smiled to myself. It hadn’t taken much convincing to get him out of his room after he’d ended up in mine. It was seven in the evening (the same day I’d met Iggy’s father) and we’d gotten permission to go outside after dark. When it actually happened, it was . . . sometime in late August.

“You know I’m not going to like this,” he muttered.

“Say whatever you want, you stubborn bull.” I nudged the side of his head with my elbow. “You just don’t want to admit that you’re actually happy I’m dragging out of that old room.”

He grunted, clearly disinterested—which was good, in a way. It meant he’d recovered from the shock of his dad showing up out of nowhere, drunk, and with a hangover of all things.

The doors slid open and he grabbed the wheels of his chair, as though he were afraid of rolling right out of the elevator.

“Oh come on. It’ll be fine.”

“But my legs. People are gonna stare at them. “

“We already went over this,” I huffed, then took hold of the handles on the back and pushed the wheelchair out before the doors closed again.

We’d covered his legs with a blanket from his room, but we both knew it wouldn’t be enough to cover up the fact that half of them were missing. Needless to say, Iggy was scared of other people’s reactions.

So instead of making him worry more, I leaned down and whispered in his ear so none of the passing nurses could hear me. “We could go fast, if you want.”

He was quiet for a second, then smiled slightly. “Really fast?”

“If you want.”

“You’re on.”I took the handles in my hands the best I could and muttered, “brace yourself.”
Then we were off, racing down the hall, Iggy barking a “HONK, HONK” at anyone who might be in the hallway.

“Faster,” he yelled to me, pounding the armrest as though he were a little kid again, demanding to go faster in a shopping cart through a parking lot.

But I couldn’t go any faster, knowing that we were already going to be in trouble. I figured that helping Iggy find his life again made up for any punishment we would get.

Now that I think about it, I can only imagine what anyone passing by must have thought. A bald, wild green-eyed boy with a navy blue cap on, pushing a wheelchair at high speeds through the hospital, the younger boy ( who still wasn’t very young) in the chair, slapping the armrest for all it was worth, yelling “honk, honk,” and “faster!” every other second, a white blanket with blue stripes flapping to both sides, exposing his stub-legs with their folded-up pajama pants for all to see. And for the first time, in a very long time, their eyes smiling wider than the grins plastered across their faces.

At least that what I see. It’s crazy, to say the least.

After we reached the lobby (it was a straight shot from the elevator, so we raced down the whole hall), I slowed to a walk and smiled at the secretary and receptionist. They both stared at us like we were looney-bins.

We left through the doors, the secretary calling after us, “Be back by eight!”

We weren’t back until 9:30.

October 18, 2008

2008-12-08T19:52:00.000-08:00

I woke up in Iggy's room in the morning, curled up on his couch. We’d spent most of the previous night talking about pointless things and I figured that I’d fallen asleep before I’d realized it.
As I sat up and stretched out my stiff legs, I took a quick glance around the room. A tiny warning buzz went off in the back of my head.

Iggy wasn’t in his bed. And the wheelchair was gone from beside it.

He hadn’t left his room once since I’d met him. No way he’d leave now! I jumped up and bounded for the door. Where would he have gone; there was no where for him to go. Why’d he leave?

When I stuck my head out the door, I almost fell over. There was a man standing right in front of me, stunned at my sudden appearance.

“Who’re you,” he slurred lazily. His eyes were half-open and hos shoulders were drooping even more. He looked about to collapse. I didn’t answer him, because the instant I opened my mouth to respond, the distinct smell of alcohol hit me. Hard.

Instead of words coming from my mouth, it was last night’s dinner that ended up all over the floor.

“Ergh,” I muttered and hurried down the hall in search of a nurse. My knees shook as I peeked into one room after another. In the fourth room I checked, she was there, taking a patients temperature.
She looked up the instant I stepped into room.

“Jove? Something wrong—“

I pointed towards the door and collapsed against the wall, my knees buckling beneath me. “Drunk guy in the hall.”

Her eyes widened and she whispered, “My Lord. Not that awful man again.” To the kid in the bed, she said, “I’ll be back,” and rushed from the room.

I stumbled out after her, my strength recovering slightly. (Just a forewarning. Chemotherapy and the smell of beer don’t mix well. At all.)

When I caught sight of the nurse again, all I could tell was that she’d panted herself in the doorway of Iggy’s room, eyes fierce. “I’m not asking you to leave, Mr. Nole. I’m telling you.”

The man staggered to one side and spit at the floor. “I can see ma’ boy any time ah want, lady. Get outta ma’ way.”

She didn’t budge, still glaring him down. Right about then, a doctor started down the hallway. Fast. I leaned against the wall, too nauseated to keep myself standing any longer.

The doctor took hold of Mr. Nole’s arm. “Sir, please come with me. We can get you something for that headache you’ve got.”

“Ah wanna see ma’ boy. Don’t got no headache.”

“A hangover, then. Sir. You can see Indigo after you’re feeling better.”

At this, Mr. Nole seemed to relax and allowed himself to be led down the hall, away from Iggy’s room.

And it was then that I let myself slide down the wall, afraid I’d barf again. The nurse hurried to my side and crouched beside me. “I’ll get a wheelchair. You stay put.”

After she’d gotten it and helped me into it, she wheeled me to my room. She helped me into bed, gave me something to help me sleep and I was out.

“Dude, you sleep forever . . . dude. Hey. Wake up! Dude! Hey! Jove!”

“Mmm.” I rolled over and opened my eyes the tiniest bit. “What’d you want?”

It was Iggy, sitting in his wheelchair, scowling at me with arms crossed. “You’ve been asleep almost all day. Time you got up, don’t you think?”

“Not really.” Everything came back to me in an instant and I suddenly blurted, “Where were you this morning?”

“Huh?” His jaw fell open and he sat there like that, eyes extremely dull-looking and slack-jawed.

“When?”

“When I woke up . . . and you were gone. Then that guy came and—“

“That ‘guy’ was my dad.”

That shocked me enough to stay quiet, but only for a moment. “He was—“

“Drunk. Nothing new.” Iggy shrugged. “He’s showed up like that before. Almost hurt one of the doctors trying to get to me.”

“An alcoholic, then?”

He nodded.

“Where were you, though?”

He looked down at his lap and smiled sheepishly. “Under my bed. I collapsed the wheelchair and stuffed it under with me.”

“Why?”

“He’s scary when he’s drunk.”

And that’s what we left it at. The disappearance of Iggy had been solved.

October 16, 2008

2008-12-07T20:13:00.001-08:00

At first, Iggy refused to speak to me the next day and I sat on his bed most of the time, watching him bump his way around the room in the wheelchair, trying to figure out what to say. I knew I couldn’t throw any of those sayings that Gabe had given me, because they definitely rub off on him like they had on me. I knew that much already. And they wouldn’t help him any.

Maybe only make him even more bitter.

So I had to figure out a way to bring him back to life without putting too much pressure on him.
Thing was, I wasn’t sure how to do that.

I finally decided to start in on him slowly, and work my way towards what made him tick. Just maybe . . .

“So how old are you, Iggy? Really.”

He gave me a look and crossed his arms. “Fourteen. Why the heck would you want to know?”

I ignored him and kept talking. “Have any siblings?”

“One.”

“Sister . . . brother?”

“Sister.”

“How old?”

He glared at me. “Looking for a girlfriend or something?”

“You just keep telling yourself that. How old?”

“Twenty-three.”

I nodded. “You talk to her much?”

“Not really.” Iggy looked down at his lap and fiddled with his folded up pant-leg. “She lives in France . . .”

“That’s pretty far away.”

He nodded. “Yeah. She always hated the States. And thought Dad was too controlling. When she turned eighteen, she moved out and ran away to Chicago.”

“She didn’t go to school after high school?”

“Not until she moved to Italy when she was twenty. She quit after two years and moved to France.”

“For the last year, then?”

He sighed. “Dad isn’t sure where she is anymore . . .”

“Oh.”

“Yeah. Scary, huh?”

I stared at him for a moment. “You mean you haven’t heard from her in a year?”

A tiny nod. “We aren’t sure if she’s even . . .” He fell silent and bit his lip.

“Alive . . . ?” I finished hesitantly, unsure of what he was about to say.

“Yeah,” he whispered.

I wasn’t sure what to say. And he surprised me by speaking first.

“Thanks.”

I glanced at him. “For what?”

He shrugged and said, “You gave me a reason . . . to live. I’m not going to be like her. I don’t want to run away from my problems. Not like she did.”

“But you shouldn’t make it your reason to live just because it was her reason not to.”

He rolled his eyes and stopped his ever-moving wheelchair right in front of me. “Can’t accept a simple thanks, can you?”

I smiled slightly. “Guess not.”

So I guess I saved him after all. But he did most of the saving himself. I just needed a confidence boost from Gabe.

October 15, 2008

2008-12-03T20:42:00.000-08:00

My next mission was to set out and save Iggy. But I wasn’t sure of myself at all. There wasn’t anyone else I could talk to about it, except the nurses. (And they weren’t much for conversation.)
But I met a man the day after Iggy told me about his diagnosis. And I’m positive he was a guardian angel.

(Don’t call me crazy yet. I still haven’t gotten to the story!)

I was sitting in the lobby, trying to get away from my stuffy room, and was in the process of deciding whether to read a Time magazine or a Nick when this guy sat beside me.

At first, I didn’t look up, but something didn’t feel right. Everything was too . . . calm. When I finally looked up, I came face-to-face with the most peaceful looking man I’ve ever seen. Don’t get me wrong. He sure didn’t look like what I’d imagined an angel would, maybe the exact opposite of that actually.

His hair was black—about shoulder-length—and pulled back into a ponytail. Eyes of the lightest gray made his face seem paler than it would have been had they been a more vibrant color. A small scar fell just below his left earlobe and stretched to the bottom of his jaw. And he was smiling slightly at something he was reading in the National Geographic he’d picked up.

When he noticed my eyes on his face, his lips twitched into a smile and he gave me a side-glance.
“Yes?”

I wasn’t sure what to say, and I was so shocked that he’d spoken to me the two magazines in my hands fell to the floor with a plomp.

He set NG down and turned in his chair to face me. “Something wrong?”

“Course not,” I said as I fumbled for the magazines, trying to regain my thoughts.

“You’re a patient here, aren’t you?” The man glanced over my clothes and I nodded. But how could he know so easily if I was wearing loose jeans and a hoodie?

He must have seen the question in my eyes, because he nodded at the cap. “The hat, kid. Covers the bald head, keeps people from staring.”

“Oh, yeah.” I nodded. “You’ve got that down, alright.”

His smile disappeared and he leaned back in the chair, head no resting on the wall. “Someone gave that to you.”

“The cap?”

“Statement. And yes.”

I looked him over a little more and realized he couldn’t be much older than in his mid-twenties. And his eyes gave nothing away. Unlike most people, I couldn’t read them.

“Yeah.”

“Who?” He still stared at the opposite wall as he spoke, eyebrows wrinkling together as he thought something through.

“A girl.”

He got a funny grin on his face at that. “Girlfriend?”

“Heck no!” Why was I telling this guy the details of my life anyway? “A girl and only a friend.”

“Why so defensive?” He glanced at me again. It was unnerving the way he did that.

I couldn’t help but give him the evil-eye. “She died.”

The smile dropped from his face and his eyes fell away from mine. “I’m sorry to hear that.”

“That’s what everybody says, you know. After someone dies and they didn’t really know the person.”

“Glad to be informed I’m part of a majority.”

I glared at him and turned away. “No you aren’t. What makes you different than all the others who’ve told me they were sorry to hear my best friend died—but didn’t know her?”

“I’m here talking to you.”

That stopped my sudden anger towards the man in its tracks. “Very true,” I managed to choke from my throat. A lump had formed unexpectedly and I hated the thought that I might actually cry in front of this man.

“Something else is bothering you.” Out of the corner of my eye, I could see him lean forward in his chair and prop his head up with his fists, elbows on knees. He was looking at me from the side again.

“Yeah,” I said, looking away from him. “A friend of mine . . . he lost both legs from Osteosarcoma. He can’t walk.”

“As would be the normal prognosis for ‘no legs’.”

His hint at humor fell to deaf ears and I continued. “And he’s stopped believing in life.”

“He . . . doesn’t see anything worth living for, then?”

“Right.”

Prolonged silence ensued, but I kept hopeful that he would just understand that I needed answers.
And he did.

“Just because he has lost sight of that which is good does not mean he cannot be brought back to the light.”

I wasn’t really looking for an answer like that, so I said, “English, please".

He laughed softly and said, “A life lost has yet to be regained. You can do it, Jove.”

When I realized he’d said my name and looked over at him, he wasn’t there anymore. It was all I could do to scramble from the chair and stumble to the hall. He wasn’t there either.

Where could he have gone in two seconds?

I hurried to the front desk and asked the secretary if she’d seen the man I was talking to leave. She only shook her head. “You were talking to someone? I never saw him . . .”

I stumbled away, confused. Had it all been in my head?

When I got back to my room, I opened the window shade to look down at the parking lot and there he was, head tilted to the sky, eyes closed as the sun fell on his seemingly statue-like chiseled features.

With no regard for what he might be doing, I flung the window open and yelled, “Hey!”

His eyes opened slowly and found me after a moment of searching. His lips twitched into a smile.
“Yeah?”

“What’s your name?”

“Gabe!”

Something struck me. “As in Gabriel?”

Gabe nodded and called in farewell, “good luck, Jove!”

“Wait!” I waved frantically as I tried to keep him in one place. “How’d you know my name?”

But he’d already turned and started down the lot, disappearing before he had a chance to see my waving arms.

And that is how I met an angel.

October 14, 2008

2008-12-02T20:18:00.000-08:00

On the way to Iggy’s room the next day, I grabbed a pair of scissors and a tape dispenser from the main desk (after the secretary permission) and managed to snatch a few sheets of blue, yellow, and white construction paper.

When I got to his room I was greeted with an open door.

“Wow. Am I actually welcome today,” I asked after I’d dumped the art supplies on his desk.

He grunted and swung the wheelchair around so he could hop into it from where he sat in bed. “I thought I might as well let you in before you start bugging me.”

I nodded. “Good idea.” Then I set to work.

He scowled at me as he slid off the shorter-than-normal bed that was designed for him so he could get in and out of it easily without help. “What’re you doing?”

I ignored him and began chopping away at the construction paper.

“Stupid,” he muttered.

“Yup.” And I continued.

About a half-hour later, with him leaning over my shoulder the entire time, I was ready to begin my plan.

“You won’t go outside, right?”

He raised an eyebrow at me and sighed. “We’ve been over this.”

“Then the outside will come to you.”

Iggy huffed at me. “You can’t be serious.”

“Very.”

I stood and taped the first little square of blue onto the wall, then a small white cloud on top of it.
“Hey! Stop!” He shoved me out of the way and reached for the patch of color on the white-washed wall. But his hand fell short by a foot from the tape that held it to the wall.

“Take it down!” He strained for the paper, lifting himself off the wheelchair with one hand on the armrest, ever-reaching, but still fell short a few inches.

I felt bad for him, but decided I needed to keep pressing the matter. So I moved along the wall, taping up squares of blue and placed their own cloud on each. On the last square, I added a cloud and a large yellow circle. The sun.

Iggy had given up long before I’d finished with the taped squares all around the room, always just out of his reach, and now he was glaring at me with arms crossed over his chest.

“You’re an idiot,” he said, so sure of himself that I felt my smile waver.

I knew what I was doing was cruel, to a certain extent, but this kid needed to see what was still out
there. Not only what was going on right now, in his room that he refused to leave.

“I know,” I said. “But I’m not letting you hurt yourself more than this already has.”

I didn’t find out what had happened to his legs until three days later when he finally warmed up to me the tiniest bit.

Turns out he’s got a type of cancer, called Osteosarcoma, that affects the bones. The veins and arteries in his legs were threatened by the cancer, so they had to be amputated. There was no other way to save him than to remove both legs below the knees.

And he was still at the hospital because he was receiving treatment for the rest of the cancer in his upper legs that didn’t pose any life-threatening circumstances. So it was able to be treated normally.
But he would still never walk or run without prosthetic legs--or play football like he’d dreamed since he was ten-years-old. And that was why he wouldn’t leave his room.

“I can’t face everyone at school again.”

“What do you think they’ll say?”

“I don’t know.” He stared at the floor. “That’s why I can’t go back there.”

“But it doesn’t mean you should just give up, you know.”

He shrugged. “Doesn’t mean I should keep going either.”

At that point, I wasn’t sure how to prove him wrong. But I did know that he would have to find his own will to live. Without me, he’d have to find it.

I was just there to help him along.

October 11, 2008

2008-12-01T19:49:00.000-08:00

Maybe I’m just a jerk for not talking more about Phoenix after she died. But, really, there isn’t anything else to talk about. Why drag it out? There isn’t anything else that needs to be said, even though I feel guilty for some reason.

And I didn’t have much time to mourn either. I went into a sort of depression after she died because of not being able to visit her and all. I didn’t leave the room and refused to watch “Lucy” DVDs. But I knew I would eventually have to return to myself. It didn’t feel right—being sad for her. She’d want me to be happy, right?

And it didn’t last long. Only two days after she died, one of the regular nurses, Susan, finally told me out-right that I needed to get off my tail-bone and do something.

“And if I were you,” she’d said, “I’d stop feeling sorry for myself and start spreading a little joy with the talent that I have.”

“What’s that?”

She only smiled. “Try starting with the boy in the room beside you.”

So she introduced me and this boy. And it turned out so much different than I’d imagined it would.

“I’m Jove,” I said, not sure whether I should hold my hand out to shake or not.

The boy stared at me with hard, cold eyes; gray eyes that could have only been meant for an old man. He couldn’t have been older than fifteen or sixteen. But he had lost both legs from the knee down.

Susan only smiled and nodded. “I’ll be back in a little while to check on you two.” Then she left.
I wanted to call after her, “Wait! Don’t leave me with this iron-faced kid!” But I bit my tongue and forced a smile.

We sat in an awkward silence for the longest time, until he said, “You aren’t going away, are you?”

I shook my head. “Might as well start with your name.”

He rolled his eyes. “Call me Iggy,” he huffed as he forced his clunky wheelchair around to face the window. I assumed it was my cue to leave. But I wasn’t about to be turned away. Not after I’d actually come out of my room to talk to him.

“Cool name,” I said.

“Not really. What else can you get from ‘Indigo’?”

“That’s really your name?” I stayed put where I was, in my own wheelchair about halfway in the room but not quite welcomed in yet. “That’s even cooler!”

“You lie.”

That was basically the content of our first meeting together.

But I went back.

“I have leukemia.” It was the first thing I said the moment I got through the door the next morning. He only grunted in reply. This time he was in bed, seemingly enthralled in an old western movie.

“I’m seventeen.”

Nod.

“My best friend died three days ago.”

Glance.

“She lived here. Her name was Phoenix Sky Ryder.”

Nothing.

“She made caps. Loved them too. Gave them to everyone she could find.”

Nothing.

“I have a lot. Want one?”

At first, nothing. Then he shook his head. “Already got one.”

“And the rock speaks,” I muttered.

He chucked a pillow at me. “Why don’t you leave if I don’t talk to you?”

“Because you need someone besides the voices in your head.”

Another pillow was whipped ninja-star-style at my face. I caught it.

“You know,” I said, “The fountain outside is a good place to get into trouble.”

“Not interested,” he said, eyes back on the T.V.

“We could—“

“I’m not leaving this room.”

I could see that he wasn’t budging in his decision. So I sighed. “Fine.”

But the next day, I was ready for him. And I had a plan.

October 9, 2008

2008-11-30T19:32:00.000-08:00

It’s been a while. I’ve been trying to get back to reality little by little. I now wear caps to school, a new one every day of the week, because I counted the other day and found that I have seven.
And all of them are from Phoenix.

So I mix and match a lot, with what I’m wearing because Ellie won’t let me got to school mismatched. I would never think about it, but she catches me whenever I don’t color-coordinate very well.

House life has been okay, I guess. Mom and I have been ignoring each other to some degree, occasionally speaking to say “pass the salt” at the dinner table. Things like that.

Ellie is as happy as ever, almost always at my heels when I do the chores out in the animal’s shack. It’s really cool how she’s rebounded from the time I was sick. Her smile has been never-ending and I much rather prefer the present Ellie than the Ellie that I touched base with the day I told about my cancer. The picture of her in my mind has changed drastically. She is no longer a red, puffy eyed Ellie, but the eternally-full-of-happiness Ellie.

Cam hasn’t changed much at all. I still haven’t seen much of her around the house. And when I do, she ducks into the nearest room. It hurts to think that she might be scared of speaking to me because of the cancer. The times that I’ve tried to talk to her before she has a chance to run away, all I’ve gotten in response is a mumbled, “I’m busy.”

And surprise of all surprise, Jeremy has started to come out of his shell. It’s amazing how my being gone has turned him into someone I feel I can actually have a conversation with.
He doesn’t shut the family out anymore by cranking up his iPod every time two words are said to him. He turns it off now. (And I’d forgotten how deep his voice had gotten before he stopped talking!) He helps me with the animal’s shack sometimes and takes the dogs for walks with me when I ask him to.

And there was a really cool conversation we had yesterday while we were walking the dogs out in the empty field behind the house.

He’d said something like, “You know how you were gone for a month?”

“Yeah,” I said.

Then Jeremy looked out over the field and smiled sadly. “Don’t you be going anywhere else but the hospital.”

I thought it over for a couple minutes, then said, “What do you mean?”

He glanced down at the dogs, then up at me. “We need you here. And you’re still here now, aren’t you? God hasn’t taken you yet.”

I nodded. “But—“

“We all need you, man. You’re not done with this earth yet.”

“And what am I not done with?”

He shrugged. “Your dreams. Life after cancer. Us.”

I stumbled over a crunchy brown, ankle-high corn stalk and stopped suddenly.

“I don’t plan on going anywhere soon,” I told him.

Jeremy stopped beside me and smiled. “I know you don’t. But He knows when that’ll be.” He looked to the sky and said, “And I’m not holding you back. When the time comes, know that I can take it.”

It isn’t like I haven’t thought of death yet. (Of course it isn’t!) It’s just that it never hit me that hard before and to hear the acceptance of death coming from my younger brother’s mouth was the hardest thing ever.

Jeremy seemed perfectly okay with the idea that someday soon, I might die. I’m not sure if I’m hurt by that or not. But, somehow, in that conversation, I know that something was being said underneath the true message.

And while we were talking, something occurred to me.

What if the cancer does come back?
And what if I don’t beat it a second time?

September 30, 2008

2008-11-30T19:29:00.000-08:00

I went back to school today. It wasn’t anything big. Some people realized who I was, even without hair. Some asked if I was a new kid. Freshman stared. Sophomores balked. Juniors ignored. Seniors welcomed me back.

Elliot and Brad were the biggest help of all. Neither of them had all their classes with me, but they’d managed to keep a close eye on me anyway. Elliot even skipped his lunch hour to stay in class with me to make sure I was doing okay. And Brad skipped his gym period to sit through
lunch with me.

I thought that was pretty cool. It meant the most, though, when Elliot fended me off against a couple of Juniors. This is how it went.

There were two Juniors sitting at the next table in Art and I could tell right away they were
slackers. The stereotypical “cool guys”, someone might say. And they decided that I was their target of ridicule for the day.

They were goofing around while they were supposed to be working on their projects and one ended up flicking paint at my head. Since I hadn’t had the guts to ask the principle if I was allowed to wear a cap, I had gone bald-headed. (Or however that’s said.) So now I was bald and had gray paint running down the side of my face.

At first, they didn’t do anything else and I swiped the paint away before Elliot could see what had happened. Then the other guy decided that he wanted to join in the fun too.

By the time Elliot found out what they were doing, and since I wasn’t about to say anything about it (hey, who wants to start an unneeded fight?), there were faint streaks of all colors down the side of my face. He was furious when he caught sight of my face.

“Where’d that come from,” he asked through gritted teeth.

I bit my lip and nodded towards the slackers. “Them. But don’t—“

Before I could finish he had stalked over to the first guy and pulled him up from his chair by the collar of his shirt. He was seething by now.

“Elliot, stop—“

“You did that to Jove?” Elliot stabbed the boy in the chest with his index finger, then pointed to me.

The boy pushed Elliot away from him and was about to slug him when Mr. Nelson, the art teacher, stepped between them.

“Office,” he said. “Now.”

They left. So did the second paint-flinger. Then Mr. Nelson told me to wash my face in the restroom.

Okay, so I’m half-ashamed that I didn’t take those guys on myself. But what was I supposed to do? Punch the living daylights out of them? I’m still weak from the chemo treatments and not much exercise.

I hate that I wasn’t able to save my own face from the paint-streaks. But they washed off okay, so I can say that I don’t regret not trying to do anything to the guys.

But I do regret getting Elliot In-School-Suspension for a day for “fighting”. He’s tried to convince me that it isn’t my fault . . . but, really, I’d be the one in suspension, if I’d actually stood up for myself.

Has having cancer reduced my self-esteem? I was never like this before . . . what happened to me at that hospital?

September 26, 2008

2008-11-27T20:04:00.000-08:00

The next day was another rough one for her. So I sat in her room for most of it, making trips to the bathroom quite often because the chemo had really gotten to me.

Most of the time, we sat in silence. She wasn’t up to talking; knitting or crocheting either. It made me want to cry, to think that her treatments (whatever they were) had reduced her to a mere shell of herself.

She no longer attempted to wear her wig, and any caps that she made were sloppy and laced with blacks and grays. White had disappeared from her drawer of yarn altogether along with most of her other colors.

Dark rings circled beneath her eyes and she stared at the ceiling for a lot of the time I was there. Ms. Ryder paced.

So I sat in the desk chair beside her bed and tried to think of something to say to her to bring her back to the present. The only thing that came to mind was the song “Amazing Grace”. For the second time in three days, I sang the words to her.

For a minute after I’d finished singing it, she didn’t respond. Then, she turned her head toward me until she was looking right into my eyes.

And she smiled.

“Middle,” she said. “I’ll see you there someday, Middle.”

“Phoenix, I—“

Ms. Ryder was immediately at her bedside, eyes wide. “Phoebe, stop speaking such nonsense. You’re not going anywhere.”

“Mom.” Phoenix stared at her and sighed. “Maybe you should get the doctor.”

Ms. Ryder’s eye grew even wider. She nearly flew from the room.

Then Phoenix turned back to me. “I have something for you under the couch cushions. You should get it.”

I wasn’t sure if I should turn my back on her for even a minute, but I did as she said anyway. Her eyes had a certain urgency about them that I didn’t understand.

When I pulled out a ball of yarn from under the cushions she said, “Bring it here.”

I handed it to her and she pulled a sting loose on one end. The yarn ball unraveled into a three-foot long scarf. That’s when I realized what it really was. It was the braid I’d helped her make the first day she showed me how to weave her dark yarn into the colors. She had knitted it into a scarf.

There were new white strands that held the braid together and had transformed the twelve-foot long braid into a very thin scarf.

“Phoenix, you—“

She handed the scarf to me and said, “I’ll see you there, Jove No-Middle-Name Caraway.” And she smiled for the second time I’d met her.

“Thank you.” It was all I could say. Because I already knew that she’d made up her mind that she was ready.

She reached for my hand and squeezed it. I told her hand in both of mine. “Thank you, Phoenix.” I managed a smile, but couldn’t hide the shine of coming tears from her.

“You saved me, Jove. Jesus saved me.” Her lip trembled once, but never wavered again as she said,

“He has come to take me home.”

Then she closed her eyes and her hand went limp in mine almost instantly.

I left before Ms. Ryder got back. I couldn’t bear to watch them try to revive her. She was at peace now. No more pain. No more suffering.

I knew I shouldn’t have been sad . . . at the very least, I should have been happy for her. As happy as I’d been when I found out that David had gone into remission.

But I still cried until Ms. Ryder came into my room that night while I was trying to watch the “Iron Man” movie one of the nurses had lent me.

All she could do was smile sadly and try not to cry as she handed me the scarf that I’d forgotten in Phoenix’s room when I left so quickly.

“She wanted you to have this.” She chewed her lip in an attempt to keep from sobbing, and could only say, “She told me that you were her best friend.”

I cried harder after that. But eventually went to sleep and woke in the morning with a horrible, dull ache in my chest.

September 25, 2008

2008-11-25T19:38:00.000-08:00

Two nights later, she snuck into my room between check-ins by the nurses.

It was about two in the morning when I heard the knock on my door, and that wasn’t unusual. But when Phoenix came in and flicked on the lights, I knew something was up.

“I couldn’t sleep,” she said, though not apologetically. In her hand, she held a new cap. “And I made you a better one this time.” (And, no, Ellie, she never did stop making her caps.) It was a green, blue, and purpled striped cap this time.

“Phoenix, you need sleep. Not more caps,” I scolded gently. I slipped from bed and took the cap from her. “You can sit on the bed if you want. It’s softer than the couch.” She nodded and pulled her frail self onto the bed and fell back onto the pillows.

I settled on the couch and pulled the window shade up so I could look out at the cars below in the parking lot.

“Did you need something,” I asked as I pulled the old fire-theme cap off and tugged on the new one.
“Thanks for the new colors,” I added.

She nodded. “No problem. Got any of those “Lucy” DVDs you always bug me about?”

“I don’t always bug you about them.”

“Do too,” she said, matter-of-factly.

“Don’t,” I muttered and retrieved the DVDs from on top of the desk. “Which one you want?”

She shrugged. “Whichever you want.”

I popped one in the player and rolled my eyes. “Sure, Miss Picky.”

“Who’s being picky?” She glanced at me and pulled the covers over her and turned to sort the pillows out around her head to get comfortable—and to tell me that she was staying the rest of the night without actually saying anything.

After about two episodes, I fell asleep on the couch, but was soon awakened by the nurse who was checking in on me. She smiled and went about her business, clicked her tongue in disapproval at Phoenix, and left without a word. I was glad for that, at least.

After a while, Phoenix fell asleep too, the covers pulled up tight around her chin, the perpetual flat-lined lips still in place. I turned the TV off and was just about to go back to sleep on the couch when she suddenly jerked awake.

“I was watching that!” Her eyes were the widest I’d ever seen them and when she looked to me, all I could see was the fear.

“Phoenix . . . I turned it off—“

Her eyes darted around the room and I guess she must have realized where she was, because she settled back against the pillows and sighed. She didn’t say anything else except “I want to watch ‘Lucy’.” So I turned it back on and we watched the same disk twice over before she fell back to sleep.

I was able to get two hours of sleep that night. The slept through most of the next day, except for chemo and Ms. Ryder’s visit to thank me for taking care of Phoenix the night before. I could only tell her that it was no problem.

September 23, 2008

2008-11-24T20:33:00.000-08:00

So the next day, I was sitting beside her in her room again, trying to figure out why she was suddenly so depressed. Before, she had seemed as though she were a little slow, as though she were just tired. But by then, I was beginning to see that it wasn’t just a passing thing.

Her mom stayed with her that night, to make sure she was okay. I talked with her a little while Phoenix was asleep.

“Why does she knit and crochet all the time?”

Ms. Ryder smiled and set her book down on the couch. “You feeling up to a little walk?”

I shrugged. “I’m fine. Whatever you want.”

So we walked to the lobby and back a few times, not speaking most of the time. But what we did say was important enough.

After a few minutes of quiet, Ms. Ryder broke the silence by saying, “her grandmother taught her how to knit. I taught her how to crochet once when she had the chicken pox. She was bored out of her mind . . . and I felt bad for her. That was about a year ago.”

“And she’s done it since then?”

She nodded. “Yes.” Her lips fell into a sad smile she sighed. “She believes that if she does enough “good” things, like make caps for everyone, God will let her into Heaven.”

At this, I almost choked. “What?” I couldn’t believe what she’d just said. “You mean she thinks she’s going to—“

“She says that she wants to do it for the other kids, but that’s really what its all about. I wish she would listen to me when I try to talk to her about . . .” she trailed off as she stared at the floor as we walked. “There isn’t much I can tell her. Is there?”

I wasn’t sure what to say. So I didn’t reply.

The next day, I was pushing Phoenix’s wheelchair down the hall, a brand new cap of a fiery red, orange, and black pulled down over my bald head. She didn’t say much, only sat in the chair and eyed the open doors we passed.

When we reached the elevator, she huffed. “Middle. You know I’ll get sick on that thing,” she said. “It makes me light-headed.”

“You’ll be fine. Just . . . pretend you’re on a . . . um . . .”

“I’m not pretending anything, Middle.”

“Fine. But you’re still going no matter what you say.”

We made it down to the main floor without incident. Then I headed down the hall.

“Where are we going,” she finally asked.

“Somewhere special.”

She didn’t ask again. By the time we got there, her flat-lined lips had turned down in a frown. “Middle.”

“Just wait a second,” I said.

When we got to the double doors with the stained glass, she jerked upright. “No.”

“Yes,” I said, and pushed the chair through the open door. There was no one else there and I pushed the wheelchair to the front of the chapel, positioning it to the right of the wooden cross sitting beneath the spotlight.

Pews lined the room, only one open aisle down the center. The pews were wood too, and I knew they would hurt to sit on. So I sat beneath the cross on the mauve-colored carpet.

Phoenix refused to look at me when I glanced up at her. But I knew I had to say something to her.
But I wasn’t sure what to say.

After sitting beneath the cross for a while, my hands folded and head bowed, I began to sing “Amazing Grace”. I knew it wasn’t the most appropriate song for the moment, but it was the only song I knew by heart.

Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound
that saved a wretch like me . . .
I once was lost but now am found,
was blind, but now, I see.

I didn’t know the next few verses, so I skipped to the end instead.

When we've been here ten thousand years...
bright shining as the sun.
We've no less days to sing God's praise...
then when we've first begun.

And then I was silent.

After a while, there was a sniff from behind me. “Do you think God would do that for me, Middle?” I turned and she was holding her hand out to me, fingers trembling as her shoulders shook with the effort of holding back tears.

“He would do it for anyone, Phoenix.” She reached towards me and I went to sit in the pew I’d placed her wheelchair by.

“Middle,” she said. I took her hand in mine. “Middle, I need God to do that for me. To save me.” Her voice caught on the word “save” and she paused before going on.

“Do you want Him to right now,” I asked before she could speak again.

She nodded and whispered, “yes.”

Phoenix accepted Christ that day. I wanted to scream to the heavens, but couldn’t, unfortunately. For one, when my heart actually got the feeling that everything was going to be okay, I had just taken Phoenix back to her room. For another, her mom was asleep on the couch.

But that didn’t stop me from waking her up and dancing around the room with Phoenix watching us like we were lunatics.

September 22, 2008

2008-11-22T20:05:00.000-08:00

Mom and I fought again today. This time, it was about how I “mope around the house all day.” And, stupid me, I yelled back, “Maybe if you cared, you’d actually help me find something to do.”

All she did was stare at me, eyes wide as a deer-in-headlights. Then she mumbled something and left the room, her bottom lip quivering on the verge of tears. I felt a little bad after I thought about it later, but I’m not sure if I could have said anything else. Recently, she hasn’t talked to me at all. Or as little as possible, whichever is convenient for her.

I’ve been going to once-a-week check-ups at the doctor’s office to see if the cancer is still in remission. She drives me there and drives me back home without a word.

What kind of mother can watch her own child slip away from the world and actually help with his disappearing act?

So the days went by like that, with Phoenix and I walking our days through the hospital and around it occasionally, or visiting each other when we were to sick to leave our beds. There was one day . . . in mid-August when I went to see if she was doing okay, because she hadn’t come to my door early like she usually did.

When I knocked, there was no answer. “Phoenix?” I reached for the doorknob, but changed my mind.

No . . . she was probably just . . .

Then the door flew open and I came face-to-face with the startled gray eyes of a woman with brunette hair pulled back into a loose ponytail. “Hello—“

I knew it was rude, but I couldn’t stand not knowing. “Is Phoenix okay?”

The woman stared at me for a moment, then realization seemed to click in her eyes. “Phoebe? Yes, she’s fine.” She smiled reassuringly and opened the door a bit further. “Come in, will you?”

“Thanks.” I stepped past her into the room and the first thing I saw was another mound of yarn on the black shag rug. But this time, there were colors no less depressing than gray. No blues, or reds, or yellows. Only black, gray, and white.

“Phoenix . . .” I looked up and saw her propped up in the bed with six or so pillows. Today, she was wearing a white cap with tiny black and gray flowers stitched all along the top edge, as though they were growing from the hem. But there was something different about her.

On the bedside, there was a Styrofoam head with blonde hair that reached to the table-top. A wig. Before now, I didn’t even know that her hair wasn’t real.

Her eyes followed mine and she shrugged. “It gets itchy.”

“I’ll bet.” I grabbed the desk’s chair and pulled it up to sit beside the bed.

Suddenly Phoenix looked up and at the woman who had seated herself on the couch to read a book.

“This is my mom. You can call her Mom if you want. Or Ms. Ryder.”

I smiled. “Ms. Ryder sounds okay to me.”

But then from the couch she said, “you can call me whatever you want, Jove.” At my quizzical expression, she added, “Phoebe has told me a lot about you.”

Phoenix nodded and picked at the little fur her plush cat still had. She sighed and lay back on the pillows. “Something about having to lie still drives me crazy.”

“Me too. Maybe watching a movie will help?”

She shook her head. “Nah. Never does, really.”

“I have 'I Love Lucy' DVDs. Want me to—“

“No.”

From her abrupt response, I could tell she didn’t want to do much of anything. So all I said was, “I’m still here for you, you know.”

She nodded. “Yes.” Her fingers shifted to the quilt and tapped out an unrecognizable rhythm. We sat for a while and I thought she was asleep after she’d had her eyes closed for ten minutes or so.

But she surprised me and asked, “Can you help me get out of bed?” Her eyes were still closed, but I sat up a little straighter. Whatever I needed to do to help her feel better, I would try it.

“Yeah. What do you want me to do?”

Her eyes came open and she pushed the quilt off. “Help me walk. I . . . my legs are like rubber.”

“Alright.” I wasn’t the strongest in the work myself, but I was able to half-lift her out of bed while Ms. Ryder watched out the corner of her eye, though she tried to not show it.

When Phoenix’s feet were on the ground, she clutched me around the shoulders with one arm and I helped her across the floor to her mound of yarn. When she had settled on the floor and I’d arranged pillows around her in such a way that she was able to lean on them, she began to braid like the first day I’d been in her room.

But this time, there was no beauty in it. Only dark colors. It was depressing to say the least and nothing short of Gothic.

“Phoenix.”

She continued working without looking at me, the tip of her tongue sneaking out of her lips in concentration. But I couldn’t stand to watch her weave those awful colors together. Not Phoenix. It was a though she were admitting defeat. As though someone had knocked the rainbows colors right out of her.

So I stood and went to Ms. Ryder, whispered to her as not to disturb Phoenix, “where is the rest of the yarn?” She motioned to the desk drawers. I hurried to it and riffled through, searching for the brightest color I could find. The brightest it got was a lilac purple with tiny pink and green sparkles that freckled it.

I cut about a twelve foot length out of the ball of yarn and went back to Phoenix. She still hadn’t looked up. I proceeded to slip the purple into the still-large Gothic mound. When I was done and sat back to watch Phoenix, she gave no indication that she had seen me.

And when she caught hold of the purple, it was woven into the braid all the same. Just like the dark had been woven into the rainbow that first day. All I could do was think, “Your ray of sunshine, Phoenix.”

As the braid grew longer, the sparkles began to rub off on the black, gray, and white. At that point, Phoenix stopped and looked it over. She hesitated. “I didn’t put that in . . .”

“Yes you did, Phoenix Sky Ryder.”

“But it wasn’t how I wanted it—“

“It’s your ray of sunshine. You need it.”

She looked me right in the eyes for the longest time, searching for something. “Middle,” she said.

“Middle.” And that was it. Nothing was in her voice, no disappointment, no happiness, no hurt, nothing. All I could hear was my name. And all I could see was that one ray of the dark braid. It was beautiful.

September 18, 2008

2008-11-21T20:20:00.001-08:00

I really didn’t expect Phoenix’s story to take up so much space. But I guess it’s a good thing. Maybe.
Now to continue . . .

Phoenix Sky Ryder teetered on the edge of a fountain that stood about waist-high, walking it like a balance beam or a tight rope. Her arms were spread wide, as though she might be able to fly if only she were able to balance for a minute. But she always slipped off the instant I thought she was going to be able to do it.

The fountain sat outside the front entrance to the hospital and it was as far as we were allowed to go. The nurses could keep track of us better that way.

“So, Middle,” she said. For some reason, my name had gone from “Jove No-Middle-Name-Caraway”, to “No-Middle-Name”, to “Middle” in one afternoon. “Where are you from,” she asked.

“Illinois.” I smiled. “And what about Phoenix? Arizona, maybe?”

She rolled her eyes and hopped back on the fountain’s wall. “Very funny. I’m from Ohio.”

“The Phoenix from Ohio. They could write a book.”

“They?”

“Ah, you know.” But I didn’t know either. What was I talking about? Something to avoid the inevitable that loomed ahead, maybe . . . just maybe.

But then she said it.

“And Middle has what kind of cancer . . .” she suddenly stopped to flail her arms around in an attempt to stay on the wall, but fell back to earth all the same.

“Acute Monocytic Leukemia. And Phoenix from Ohio has . . .” I paused for her answer.

She turned slowly towards me and her eyes met mine. They were the saddest, oldest eyes I’d ever seen, and I’m sure I’ll never see any like them again. There was so much heartbreak there, so much pain, that I thought my own heart may crack right down the middle. But it didn’t and I just ended up with an empty ache in the middle of my chest.

She never did tell me. And I’m not sure if I’d want to after the way she looked at me. But I still wish I’d have learned more about her in the short time we had together. And not only that day. The whole three weeks we had were obscured by insecurities and things we held from each other. Even so . . .

The next day, she led me around the hospital in her wheelchair because she was too weak to walk.

This time, she wore a zigzag-rainbow pattern cap and had her brown/white dirty-patches cat on her
lap the whole time. And that day we pushed past the barrier of small talk.

“What is your family like,” she asked. (It was the only question she had time to ask.) And I told her about how Jeremy was on his search for self-identity, how Cam was a prep in the making, and about what mom and I had fought about most recently. But mostly, I talked about Ellie.

How she was always there or me, how she had cracked the code to a human heart, and how she seemed to be the only one who was with me in the whole cancer thing; but mostly just random things about her. Stories from when she was little and about our animal shelter and Creature came up. The other animals, Brad and Eliot, my youth pastor . . . and everything else that didn’t have to do with her came up too.

And when I realized we had reached Phoenix’s door and I was sitting on the floor leaning on the wall as I talked, Phoenix had started to yawn and try to cover it up. But I knew it was just because she’d been out of bed so long and I’d been jabbering about everything for the past hour and a half, maybe.
I stopped and said, “Sorry, Phoenix. I didn’t mean to make you so tired.”

She waved me off and shrugged. “You don’t need to say sorry to me. What you need right now . . . is a friend.” Then she wheeled herself through the door and paused just before she closed it.

“I’m here for you.” She held out her hand and turned in the chair. “Let me be your friend.”

I wasn’t quite sure what to do, but I knew that what she was doing for me was symbolic. So I took her hand in mine and said, “And I’ll be here for you.”

A smile crossed her eyes, but nothing showed on her flat-lined lips. “Thank you, Middle.”

September 16, 2008

2008-11-19T20:30:00.000-08:00

I wasn’t able to finish the last post like I wanted to because Ellie got after me for staying up too late. Ah, well. I like it that someone is actually attempting to take care of me.

I haven’t gone back to school yet. Mom says I’m still too weak and I still throw up every now and them. My body just hasn’t adjusted to being back at home yet. She also said that I’m more likely to get an infection at school than at home in my room. So I’ve been homeschooling with her.

She isn’t really a very good teacher, so most of the time, I teach myself. It works, I guess. Whatever helps me get by.

Now for the story.

So the next day, after I was done with chemo for the day and thought I was feeling okay, I went to Phoenix’s room like she’d told me. The door was open a crack, so I tapped once and pushed it open a bit more. She was sitting cross-legged in the middle of the floor, staring at a mound of yarn as she pulled some strands from the others.

When she saw the door out the corner of her eyes, she nodded. “You can come in.”

Today, she wasn’t wearing the same black cap. It was a powder blue with two pompons hanging from strands of yarn that were connected to the top of the hat.

“Nice hat,” I said as I eased myself down on the floor beside her on the black shag rug. Her forehead furrowed in concentration and the tip of her tongue stuck from between her lips. The only acknowledgement I was given was a tiny flick of the fingers in my direction.

So I watched her pull the yarn from her mound. She seemed content to do just that. It was only after she had begun to braid three pieces together that I realized why she had a mini-hill of yarn in the middle of the floor. But I didn’t speak so I wouldn’t break her concentration.

Her eyes followed her fingers with great care and the braid grew gradually longer and became a splash of color as she pulled more strands into the braid as the others began to run out of string.

Purple, green, and blue began the braid, then faded into deeper shades, then lightened into red, orange, and yellow and darkened again. When she was about the reach the end (and when the braid was about twelve feet long) she pulled three new pieces from the pile. Black, white, and gray.

Before she began work with these, she stood and went to a desk that stood in one corner of the room next to a pink-flowered couch. She took something from on top of the desk and sat back down with it. It was a little silver hook with an even tinier hook at the end.

With the three new strands and the stick-hook, she began to weave them into the braid—lacing them through each loop and crevice to intertwine the dark with the beautiful colors she’d woven together with her small fingers.

Suddenly, she stopped. She studied her work for a moment. Then she held the braid out to me. “You try.”

“But—“

“I’ll show you. Here.” She handed me the silver stick-hook and had me hold the braid in one hand.

“This is a crochet hook,” she said as she held up the stick. “You can use it to crochet or . . .” she paused and touched the braid lightly, “do this.”

“Which is?”

“I don’t know. I made it up.” She pulled the black yarn through the tiny crevice the green and purple made and flipped it back around the weave back through the purple and blue. “Like that. But keep the lengths even so you don’t end up with a mess.”

“Umm . . .” I had no idea how to do it, she showed me again. When I actually got around the trying it, it did end up a mess, but as she said, “a very sophisticated mess.”

After I was done weaving the last strand into the braid, she took it from me and got two knitting needles from on the desk, then changed her mind before she sat down again.

“How good are you feeling today?”

“Pretty okay, I guess. Why?”

“Good.” Her eyes shifted to the bed. “I made you a new hat this morning.” She glanced at the one already on my head and sighed. “Do you really like that one?”

I nodded. “You bet.”

“Well . . . okay.” She crossed the room to the bed and pulled the braid after her, laying it out
carefully on the quilt and setting the needles beside it. Then she slipped a navy blue cap from beneath her pillow and tugged off her powder blue one. “Which one?”

I startled when I realized she was asking me which looked better on her. “I like both,” I said because I was uncertain as to what exactly she was asking.

“Just pick one, Jove No-Middle-Name Caraway.” She gave me a look.

“Oh. Well, I guess the navy blue.”

“Thank you.” She pulled it on over her blond hair and tossed the other onto the bed beside the braid.

Then she crossed the room to me and took my hand, tugging it to pull me to my feet. I stood and saw for the first time that I was a whole head taller.

“We’re going for a walk, No-Middle-Name.”

September 15, 2008

2008-11-18T20:13:00.000-08:00

I guess I forgot to mention that I went into remission. Well. I did. End of story, I guess. Now I just have to wait until it comes back. Chances are, it will. So I just look at it like, “what’s the harm in betting it’ll be back?”

And, for the first time, mom let me keep Percy in my room. She said it wouldn’t do any harm, but if I get sick, she’s out of the house for good.

Mom never really came to visit much over the last month. She had a bunch of excuses like, “Today is Cam’s volleyball game,” or, “I haven’t been shopping for groceries for two weeks, Jove!” So, finally, after three weeks of excuses, I gave up asking if she’d come.

So instead I made a few new friends. One is David. The second is Phoenix Sky Ryder. (And, no, I’m not making that name up.) I met her in the hospital’s lobby three days after David left.

There she was, sitting alone in a wheelchair, reading a Nick magazine. She wore a black knit cap on her head and her blonde hair fell past her shoulders. On her lap, there was a brown plush cat. (It looked at though it could have been white at one time and as though it had been furry, but there were only a few choppy patches.)

When she felt me looking at her, she looked up. Her eyes drilled me with a gaze that could have shamed a charging rhino. I looked away quickly and found a new Time and settled into a chair.

Since there was no point in me just hanging out in my room all the time and I felt alright that day, I’d decided to walk around a little. And my feet took me to the lobby. Weird place to go, I guess. But I’m glad that’s where I ended up, despite everything.

Next thing I knew, her wheelchair was right next to my chair and she was tugging a cap over my now bald head. All I could do was stare at her, questions caught on my tongue.

All she said was, “It suits you.”

“Thanks,” I said as I reached up and touched it.

“It’s dark green. Sorry. It was the last color of yarn I had. If you want a new one, I can get my mom to—“

“No, it’s perfect.” I smiled. “Did you make it yourself?”

She nodded.

We were silent for a while as I glanced through the magazine, but I couldn’t just ignore her like that.

But I wasn’t sure what to say. She didn’t even know me and she’d given me a hat already.

Then she asked, “What’s your name?”

I tossed the magazine onto the table to my other side. “Jove Caraway.”

“Jove.” She tilted her head to one side. “That was what Jupiter was called sometimes. Any middle name?”

“No. You have a name too, cap-girl?”

“Phoenix Sky Ryder.” And she gave me a look. “Cap-girl?”

I gave her a look back. “Phoenix?”

Her eyes softened and I thought I could see the traces of a smile cross over them. “Yeah. My real name is Phoebe Sky Ryder. But that just sounds stupid. So I changed it.”

“Oh. Well. I was never “Jupiter” or anything.”

She poked me. “Who would ever name their kid Jupiter?”

“You don’t know my mom.”

She nodded. “Very true.”

We were quiet again while we watched a young couple leave with a baby.

“So.” She finally said. “Jove. How old are you?”

“Seventeen. You?”

“Thirteen. Not much of a talker, are you?”

“You either,” I smirked.

She shrugged. “Well.”

And that was it. That was all we said to each other before she asked me to take her back to her room.

“My arms get too tired pushing these darn wheels,” she explained. After we got to her room and I was about to open the door, she swatted my hand. “Come tomorrow. What’s your favorite color?”

“Um . . . navy blue.”

“Okay, I’ll have my mom pick up some more yarn.” She opened the door herself and wheeled through. Before she closed the door, she said, “and you’d better come tomorrow, Jove No-Middle-Name Caraway.”

“I will,” I said. “But you really don’t need to make—“

The door shut in my face. “A new hat . . .” I muttered at the wall.

September 12, 2008

2008-11-16T19:38:00.000-08:00

Much to Ellie’s dismay, my hair all fell out. She’s told me so many times that my “pretty auburn hair” brought out the green in my eyes. All I can do is laugh at her.

I came home four days ago and just now I’m starting to get around the house. I lost a lot of weight since I left . . . in July. It seems like such a long time ago. It’s hard to get back into the swing of things.

And when I got home . . . wow. I’m not really sure what I expected, but it was definitely not a party.
That took the energy right out of me. The whole town (or a great majority of it) turned out for it. It seemed like Brad and Eliot had spread the word as quickly as possible.

My church even started a prayer group for me and had a weekly prayer vigil every Saturday.

So much has happened since I left. It’s so different. I have so many new stories to tell. Only one for now, I guess. (Ellie has appointed herself as my personal caretaker. She has given me orders to be in bed at 9 p.m. with lights out at 9:30. Haha, silly girl.)

I met a boy named David. He’s seven-years-old and loves to play with dinosaurs and Spiderman action figures. And he was also diagnosed with AML type M5. He’s had it since he was three.

I only knew him for a few days, though. After I got to the hospital, mom left right after I got settled in my room and Ellie had to go with her. She cried and clung to me like it was the last time she’d see me. I managed to smile for her.

The next day, I woke to find a little boy standing at the foot of my bed, head tilted to one side and a brontosaurus clutched in one fist.

“Hello?”

“I am David.”

I sat up and started to get out of bed.

“You don’t have to get up. I needed to say hi.” He paused and held up his dinosaur. “And Bruno wants to know your name.”

“Well, David. You’ll have to tell Bruno that my name is Jove.” I smiled and nodded at Bruno. “You have any other cool dinosaurs?”

A smile tugged at his lips. “Yes. You want to see them?”

I nodded.

So it began. The next few days, I was his buddy. He chattered to me about almost everything. But his favorite thing to talk about was how he loved the Green Goblin. Since I’d never seen the movie or really read any comics about Spiderman, all I could do was nod and act like I knew what he was talking about.

And, always, when he was done talking, he would demand I play Jurassic Park with him and Bruno. What could I do but agree? But it was getting harder to play with him and actually pay attention.

Since the chemo treatments had started the day I’d arrived, the pain and nausea was getting harder to deal with.

So the first day I had to stay in bed, he came in and sat beside my bed in silence, as though he knew what was going on.

“How bad is it,” he finally asked.

“Not very,” I muttered, trying to keep the queasiness in my stomach at bay.

He stuck his tongue out at me. “Bullpoopy.”

I started to laugh, but had to bolt for the bathroom instead. When I got back and fell on top of the covers, he stuck his tongue out again. “See? Bullpoopy.”

All I could do was shake my head in exhaustion. “Hey man . . . I think I just need to sleep.”

The look on his face nearly crushed me.

“Is that okay, David?”

He sighed from the very bottom of his heart. “I guess so.”

The next morning I woke up to find Bruno on my bedside table and thought I’d better return it before a really cranky and tired kid came storming down the hall because he forgot his best friend.

So I went to his room and knocked. There was no answer. I knocked again. Still nothing.

All I could think about was the 31 percent. He’d already lived four years with the same cancer. No way he’d die now!

Just as I was about to fall into an emotional wreck right in the middle of the hall, a nurse came by.

“Jove? What are you doing?”

“Erm. Just trying to give this back to David.” I held up Bruno.

She stared at me for a moment. “He didn’t tell you yesterday?”

“Tell me what . . . ?”

“He was scheduled to go home today. He went into remission a week ago.”

I nearly jumped for joy right in front of her. But I hurried back to my room and threw up before I could do much of anything. Then I opened one of the windows and stuck my head out, yelling,

“Thank you, God!”

Chemo does funny things, I tell ya.

But, really. I was nearly ecstatic when I found out. He was so frail and such a bright little guy. I couldn’t bear to think that a little child had something as horrible as what I have.

That night, I found a large sheet of yellow construction paper with red permanent marker scrawled across the front in the first drawer of the bedside table. In large, carefully printed words was a note.

Thank you, Jove. Bruno said he wanted to stay with you. I hope you love him as much as I love you.
~David

I cried. The nurse told me to sleep.

I couldn’t. So I watched “I Love Lucy” DVDs all night.

July 28, 2008

2008-11-02T20:37:00.000-08:00

Today I told Brad and Eliot that I’d be gone for a few weeks—and why I’d be gone.

We were at the soccer fields (with a ball this time) when Eliot asked me why I seemed really spacey. All I could manage was a mumble about being tired.

At that point, I still wasn’t sure what to tell them. It seemed there was no way to break it to them. But when I ended up getting nailed in the forehead with the soccer ball, I knew I had to tell them sooner or later.

I was lying on the ground after getting smacked in the face with the ball, watching the clouds when they both ran up to me at the same time.

“You okay, man?”

All I could do was shake my head.

Brad glanced away for a moment and bit his lip. “I thought you were open—“

“It isn’t that,” I said as I sat up and tugged nervously at the grass beneath my fingers.

They both stared for a second, and then sat down too. They’re always good at knowing when I really needed to talk about something.

“So what’s up?” Eliot grabbed the ball and balanced it on top of his head while he waited for me to speak. Brad just watched my fingers tug the grass.

“I . . . I’m leaving tomorrow. For chemotherapy.” Right as I said the words, I could have smacked myself. That was no way to say that I had cancer, especially to my friends.

The ball fell from atop Eliot’s head and his mouth fell open. “For what now?”

So I ended up telling them about how I was diagnosed and about mom and I’s fight and all the crazy stuff that’s happened the last few days. All they could do was stare at me like they’d been struck dumb.

After I’d finished telling them everything, I asked, “so?”

Brad was the first to even make a sound. But all it was only a tiny squeak that barely escaped his lips.

Then Eliot said, “You’ve got cancer.”

“Yeah,” I whispered. When I looked at Brad again, he was watching an ant that was crawling around his finger. Then he flicked it away and looked back to me. “31 percent, huh?”

This time, the whisper was even quieter. “Yes.”

“Dude.”

And that’s all any of us said for the next ten minutes. Then Eliot said, “I’ll be waiting for you when you get back.” His usual troubled frown was suddenly replaced with a soft smile. And Brad grinned. “Me too, man.”

Their reactions didn’t surprise me. Not really, anyway. It was comforting, to say the least, that they actually listened to me and didn’t say anything stupid to make things worse.

The town I live in isn’t really a “town” at all. It’s hardly big enough to even be listed on the map of Illinois. Population, 276, the sign says when entering “city limits”.

This won’t be only a family, friends, and close relatives matter if I tell others that I’m leaving. This will be big.

The whole town will find out before I even get the chance to tell the Kiddie College or my church.
But I have to tell someone else. If I just leave without telling anyone else besides Brad and Eliot, I’ll go crazy and so will everyone else. No one will know where I went! Then again, if I do, everyone will have their own opinion about what I should do-and most won’t be afraid to say it.

I’m not sure I could deal with that.

No. I’m just being difficult again, like Nikki said. I have to tell someone else.

But who?

(Okay, this is about two hours later. I postponed the posting a bit so I could add what happened.)

I ended up calling my youth pastor and telling him to put me on the prayer list for church. Guess what he said?

“Pray, Jove.”

It was about all he said. But he did say, “I can’t make any promises, but I know that God has more plans in mind for you. All you can do now is pray.”

It’s extremely stupid how I didn’t think of that before. I mean, sure, I asked to be put on the prayer list and all, but I’d never really thought of asking God to help me through this. I had to do a facepalm right there while I was on the phone.

So now, I guess the news is out.

Jove has cancer. Jove is leaving tomorrow for chemo.

And Jove is scared.

I’m not sure if I’ll write again. Maybe, maybe not. It may depend on whether I survive this or not. After chemo, I’m going to try and get my life back together—somewhat normal.

I guess we’ll have to find out if can beat this.

I’m betting on it.

July 27, 2008

2008-10-31T20:20:00.000-07:00

There are only two more days until I leave for chemo. It’s weird to think that only six days ago, life seemed to be the greatest. Now I just feel rotten.

Instead of just staying home today, I decided I should show up at the Kiddie Kollege before I disappeared into oblivion. (Or somewhere like it. I don’t exactly look forward to leaving for chemotherapy.) So, around ten, I went to see the kids.

There were only twelve or so there, so I was put in charge of a select few with the help of another volunteer, Nikki. (She’s 10 and the Kiddie Kollege Director’s daughter.) We had one girl and two boys to watch: Stefanie, Jack, and Eddie.

At first Nikki just stared at me like I was crazy. “You need more sleep,” she finally concluded.

“Thanks,” I grinned at her. She stuck her tongue out at me. “No problem, Bag-eyes.”

I rolled my eyes and took Stefanie by the hand. “Let’s color,” I told her.

She knew exactly where to go and led me to the table, plopped down, and shoved a box of crayons at me. “Pooh Bear is yellow,” she said. Then she snatched a pink crayon from the box and proceeded to smear it on Piglet’s eyes.

I took another book from the pile, since it seemed she wanted me to color a Pooh Bear yellow.

“So how old are you, Stephanie,” I asked as I flipped through the book.

She didn’t even look up when she said, “three and a half.” But when she glanced up and saw what page I was on, she squealed. “Not that one!! It’s got Rabbit in it!” She scowled and her nose wrinkled up. “He’s green.”

“Umm . . . okay. So what page should I color then?”

She tilted her head to one side and looked at the page sideways. Then she flipped one page and pointed to a picture of Pooh Bear and Eeyore pretending to be pirates. “That one.”

“Alright.”

I let her work then, just to be fair. I figured I’d bothered her long enough. After I’d just finished Pooh and was starting on Eeyore’s droopy eyes, she sighed and said, “goldfish don’t like jello.”

That one wasn’t worth asking about.

When it was my turn to be with Jack and Eddie, I knew they’d be a lot harder to entertain. And neither of them really knew what they wanted to do.

That led to some interesting stuff to talk about. The first thing Eddie said was, “don’t lick a slug. They taste funny and then your tongue gets numb.”

“You licked a slug?” I couldn’t help but raise my eyebrows at him.

He grinned as though he were proud of himself and pointed to his mouth. “Yup! My tongue just got better before I got here.”

“And when did you lick this slug,” I asked.

Again, his grin beamed wider than before. “This morning when my mom told me to go outside and play and dad was reading the newspaper.”

At this, Jack piped up. “Did you know that you can’t put a marshmallow on the microwave?”

What happened with that, I don’t think I’d want know, and I didn't have to. Nikki had to leave to go to the YMCA for her swimming lesson and her mom asked me if I could walk with her.

The weirdest thing happened on the way there.

“So why are you walking with me, Bag-eyes?”

“Your mom told me to.”

“Why do you always volunteer?”

“I like to, that’s why.”

“How come you’re so tired today?”

“Why do you think?”

She huffed at me. “No fair. You can’t answer a question with another question.”

“I just did, didn’t I?”

Her eyes rolled and stopped when she was looking right up at me. “You’re just difficult.”

To say the least, I was surprised to hear that come out of the mouth of a girl less than thirteen years old. Before, I’d actually thought that only Cam could say that and make it seem true.

“Maybe you’re right,” I said.

She stopped suddenly and turned to me. “Life is really weird, isn’t it?”

“Yeah, I guess.” I wasn’t sure what to say, since she’d brought it up so quickly.

“It’s a lot of ups and downs, huh?” She smiled at me for the first time and said, “Except I’m usually going sideways.”

“Yeah, me to, kid,” I wanted to say, but I caught myself before I could.

For some reason, hearing that from a ten year old felt so much better than if it’d come from anyone else. A girl I hardly know, even. And she just said it outright, like it was a given fact that she’d always be moving against the current and in all sorts of which-ways that weren’t meant to be.

Cancer isn’t such a big deal if the numbers aren’t involved. It’s just a word that means “sideways”, in a weird twisted sort of way.

That was about the best thing that’s happened in the last few days. Nikki taught me more about life in one sentence than I’ve learned in five days.

Imagine that.

July 26, 2008

2008-10-29T19:32:00.000-07:00

I still haven’t talked to mom much. I’m not sure if I’ll be able to speak to her with respect again. And I’m beginning to think of time as Before Cancer (B.C. in my terms) and After Diagnose (A.D., also in my own terms) now. Things have changed around here. It’s weird to think that I’m going to be leaving in three days to begin chemo.

This morning, the thought of having cancer really hit me for the first time. I woke up to the dogs’ barking and Percy wailing at my window—and I sleep on the second floor of the house. (She can climb anything, I swear. Once, I had to pull her down from the middle of a telephone pole before she chased a squirrel all the way up ((and ended up on the street—dead like the squirrel.)) She’s insane!)

But before I managed to get out of bed, the ginormous 31 finally got out of the way of all the rest of the information. All of a sudden, all the other information slapped me right across that face. And I cried for the first time since I was diagnosed.

I hate myself for it. I know it’s understandable to cry and all, but it took me . . . what? Four days? Yeah. It took me four days to actually feel something for this weird new thing going on with my body. And when it actually hit me hard enough, I cry about it. Somehow, I don’t think Brad or Eliot would cry about something like this. They don’t seem like the kind of guys that would wimp out about a life-threatening illness. Then again, maybe I don’t either.

It’s not like it hurts. I’ve found other weird bruises on my wrists the last few days and one really big one on my back. Right now, it’s about the equivalent of a puke-green color. But this morning was the first time I actually felt my heart start to hurt. Like an inner pain that leaves me feeling like I may not have a heart left.

Remember how I said that I’ve been thinking in B.C. /A.D. time now?

Well . . . Before Cancer, mom was always trying to smile and make things seem like they were all okay no matter what. (Not that it was always a good thing that she did that . . .) Jeremy would at least acknowledge that I existed and Cam wouldn’t completely avoid me. And Ellie thought I was the best in the world.

After Diagnose, though, things have gone batty. Mom can hardly take one look at me without her eyes misting over and she doesn’t try to makes things seem better than they really are. Now, everything is just the way it was meant to sound. Like “31 percent survival in the first three years.” That sounds pretty bad the way it is. But I’d much rather not have mom throwing more “honeys” and “sweeties” my way.

Jeremy doesn’t even pay me recognition anymore. It hurts to think that he doesn’t want to have anything to do with me, now that I’m the “sick brother” or something like that. Cam is almost just as bad. She keeps herself looked in her room when she’s home and tries to get out of the house as much as possible. It’s almost like she can’t bear to look at me either. The only two words I’ve heard out of her since the twenty-second were “It’s good,” when I asked her how school was going lately.

Then there’s Ellie. She hasn’t changed a bit and I thank her for that—for being the one constant in my life right now. There’s just too much uncertainty right now, I’m not sure I would be able to deal with her falling apart too. Thanks for that, Ellie.

And I still haven’t decided whether I should tell anyone else about the diagnosis yet. I don’t think I could stand another shrug like Jeremy’s or another run-away like Cam. And especially not tears like Ellie’s.

Today was hard for me. I spent most of it sitting on the animal shack’s roof with Percy. She didn’t seem to mind staying in one place nearly the whole day.

But I got to thinking, if something does happen to me, who would take care of the animals? I knew that Ellie would gladly step up to the plate, but she’s just the helper right now, and can’t do much on her own. And she can’t even get a real job yet to pay for all the supplies.

And who would volunteer at Kiddie Kollege and help the kids learn the alphabet and how to count to a hundred? My youth pastor wouldn’t have anyone to scare into thinking they’ll “drop dead” in front of the whole church, and no one to help him when he needs it. And someone has to help the other guys get the pastor’s sermon on the radio.

And Ellie wouldn’t have her brother.

Who’s going to do all that stuff?

I’m irreplaceable in more ways than one, especially in the hearts of others. I don’t think I can stand to break anyone’s.

July 25, 2008

2008-10-28T19:12:00.000-07:00

We saw the doctor again today. All he could really do was refer us to another hospital and say “good luck”. Ha, thanks, buddy. I’m sure that’ll help a lot.

So after we got home from the other hospital, mom said I needed to get some rest. But I’ve lost almost all of my respect for her. The fight yesterday really defined what she thought of me. I always knew I wasn’t her favorite or whatever. Really, I’m sure she’d prefer having Cam and Ellie over Jeremy or I any day.

Our dad was a regular kind of guy, I guess. But he walked out after Ellie was born when I was five. The only memory I have of him is when I went to the park and he almost catapulted me right off the see-saw. It was the funnest thing next to Saturday-morning cartoons at that age.

But, really, that’s the only thing. Some kids would become bitter after a parent leaves them or they would want to meet them or give them a piece of their mind. I’d rather not do anything. My way of looking at it is that God put him in my life for such a short amount of time so I’d learn something from him. (Maybe how to not catapult little kids from see-saws?)

Seriously though, things—and people—happen for a reason. I guess the saying “life happens” is true, though I’d rather admit it wasn’t. (That saying has always bugged me, even though it’s now truer than ever.)

Okay, that was a bit off topic. So after mom told me to get some rest, I left the house without telling her where I was going. I just don’t feel like I have to listen to her anymore, I guess. And I took the dogs for a walk. They haven’t been out for a while, besides to go to the bathroom in the field just past our house.

We ended up passing the soccer field on the way home and I couldn’t resist. I tied the dogs’ leashes to a park bench and called Brad and Eliot on my cell phone to come play soccer with me. We used to be on a league in junior high, but it died after we got into high school because most of the guys became “too cool” or whatever.

When they showed up a little while later, I realized that I’d forgotten to tell then to bring a ball. All I could say was “my bad.” Brad nearly slugged me in the shoulder, but Eliot got this crazy grin on his face and backed slipped his hand out from behind his back.

“Hey, Jove.” The grin grew larger as he spoke.

“Do I even want to know?”

Brad glanced between the two of us, then at the little dachshund sitting at his feet and wagging his tail like a nut. He raised an eyebrow at the pup and chuckled. “This little guy a new one?”

But I wasn’t about to be distracted. “Eliot! What is it?”

His grin burst into laughter and he pointed behind him breathlessly. “See for yourself,” he gasped between breaths.

I looked back and saw . . . nothing. But that was it, wasn’t it? Nothing?

Then I suddenly realized what he was talking about. “Holy crap, Eliot!” He’d let the other two dogs loose while Brad and I weren’t paying attention.

“You’d better not lose them, jerkface!” I vaulted over the bench and tore across the lawn toward the dogs’ escape route.

All I could hear behind me was the sound of Eliot and Brad’s laughter.

It sent a pang down my spine when I finally got back home and had all the dogs back where they belonged.

What am I supposed to tell everyone else?

July 24, 2008

2008-10-27T20:49:00.000-07:00

Mom tried to talk to me today. But I’m not sure what she was thinking—or me either for that matter—because we ended up yelling at each other. This is how it went.

—knock on door—

Me: Come in.

Mom: —pushes door open hesitantly— Is there anything you want to talk about, honey?

Me: I’m fine, mom.

Mom: —sits down on edge of bed where I’m pretending to be engrossed in an old Time magazine—

Me: Mom. I said I’m fine. —turn page—

Mom: —reaches for my hand— We’ll pull through this, Jove. You’ll see, sweetie.

Me: —snatches hand out of her grasp— Whoever said we wouldn’t?

So finally, I guess she got fed up with my “I don’t care” act.

She said “Maybe if you stopped denying what’s really going on, you’d be able to move through this.”

At this, I slapped Time down on the bed and sat up. “Me? You’re saying I’m the one who needs to move through this?”

“Well . . . yes, honey, that’s what I’m—"

“If you haven’t noticed, I haven’t been the one crying for the last three days!” Then I stomped from the room and slammed my door in her face before she could follow.

By the time she caught up with me, I’d made it out the door and into the animal’s shack.

“Don’t you dare speak to me like that, young man.” She stood in the doorway, her eyes shiny from holding back tears and a wrinkle standing out on her forehead.

I grabbed the parakeets’ cage from its perch and pushed past her. “Where do you think you’re going,” she demanded.

“To clean the cage,” I snapped back.

She followed me, her voice softer now. “Honey. Jove, sweetie.”

That’s what happens when she has nothing else to say. She says “sweetie” or “honey” or something to sugarcoat things that she’s not sure will hurt or not.

“It isn’t that bad of a percentage, honey. You know . . . a 31 percent is—"

“Is an F- if that were possible,” I cut her off. The parakeets squawked in protest at the pitch in my voice and I set the cage down before I turned and looked at her.

“It isn’t like that, sweetie.” She smiled weakly to sugarcoat the sentence even more and said, “its a three-year average. You’re strong. I know you can beat it those three years.”

“And what if I don’t?” By then, my eyes were on fire.

She hesitated again and took a step towards me. “Jove, swe—"

“Don’t “sweetie” me, mom! I know all you’re going to say is, ‘Oh, you can beat it. We can get through this.’ But you know what?”

“I—"

But I didn’t give her time to answer.

“Has it ever occurred to you that the percentage means that only 31 out of 100 survive those first three years?”

Her bottom lip quivered, but I kept pressing.

“Did it occur to you before I told you that a 31 percent is an F and the average grade among the seniors graduating next year with me?”

“Honey, I—"

“No, mom! You’re only going to say that an F is fine as long as they’re trying their hardest. But what about my life? Is it trying hard enough if I join that stupid percentage? An F, mom?!”

“Jove—"

By now, the parakeets were going batty. Their cage rattled as they flapped about it frantically.

“Jove. I had no idea you felt that way.” She’d finally gotten past the sugarcoating.

“Yeah, well. News flash for you,” I muttered and reached for the cage.

Then she said the worst thing of all. “But that other 69 percent . . . they lived for another three years, honey.”

The cage, now in my hand, crashed to the ground as I stood before her in horror.

“And only three more years with your son is good enough for you?”

To that, she couldn’t answer me.

July 22, 2008

2008-10-27T19:15:00.000-07:00

The three-year overall survival rate for M5 type leukemia, or Acute Monocytic Leukemia (AML), is 31%. Not a very good average if you ask me.

And today, I was one of the 44,270 predicted to be diagnosed in 2008 with leukemia to actually be diagnosed.

I have to admit, though. It doesn’t surprise me much. I mean, there was that first initial shock when I heard the doctor say “I think you’re strong enough to hear the truth” and then told that I may not be alive in the next three years or so, maybe even the next few months. (Okay, so he didn’t say it exactly like that. But that's what he meant.)

Really, I’m not sure how it happened. The other day, I found this weird bruise on my wrist that I couldn’t remember getting. And during the night, I fell out of bed and I guess I hit my head pretty hard, because when I woke up the whole right side of my face was a deep bluish-purple.

Mom said it was nothing and shrugged it off. By the end of the day, I had a fever of 103.2 degrees Fahrenheit. Not fun. Well, next thing I know we’re at the doctor’s office with them all over me, drawing blood and taking tests. Joy.

Four hours, three blood tests, and two finger pricks later, I’ve been officially diagnosed with AML.

I’m not quite sure what to think yet. I guess the first thing that came to mind was “chemotherapy” and “will my hair fall out”. Stuff like that. But I thought the part where I’m scared or sad would set in sooner. It’s really weird.

It isn’t like I’m in denial; at least I don’t think that’s it. It’s just that the huge 31 in my mind hasn’t quite gotten out of the way of all the other information yet. I can’t really say what I’m thinking right now.

All mom has really done in the last few days is cry. Whenever I talk to her she’ll try to hide it, but the red rims under her eyes tell the whole story. Yesterday, I almost yelled at her. She doesn’t seem to get that I can’t deal with her blubbering on like that. She thinks that she’s the one who has to cry?

Okay, so maybe I’m being a bit unfair. I am her son and all. It just doesn’t feel right when she’s the parent especially when it feels like she can’t be strong enough to hold her tears for me just a little bit longer. At least until I’m out of the house or something.

We haven’t told any relatives yet. But, of course, the siblings know. What hurt the most out of all that was how Jeremy stared at me with his sad green eyes . . . and then just shrugged it off and went back to listening to Linkin Park as though nothing had happened.

The only response I got out of Cam was a slight tremble in her lip. Then she was grabbing up all her books from the kitchen table, where she’d laid out her homework, and skittering from the room as though a ghost were after her.

And Ellie . . . Ellie didn’t take it too well.

She was eating a chocolate chip cookie and sitting on the counter with her legs swinging when mom broke it to her. At first, there was nothing. Then, slowly, the color drained from her cheeks. Next was the cookie to fall from her fingers and crumble on the ceramic tiles beneath her now frozen legs.

Then her mouth opened in a little “O” of surprise. “Wh . . . what di-did you s-say?” The pain was so apparent in her voice, I couldn’t bear to hear mom answer her.

“Honey . . .” mom started. But before she could continue, Ellie burst into sobs right there on the counter.

I couldn’t just watch her cry like that, so I crossed the kitchen floor to her and held her in my arms, unsure of what to say. All she could do was press her nose into my shoulder and cry.

That was two nights ago. Now, I’m not so sure what’s going to happen. I’m still strangely numb to this news that seems to have affected everyone in the family but me. (If not Jeremy and Cam, I’m not sure, though.)

That night I sat on the animal shack’s roof and Percy came up to join me. (The only other cat we shelter besides Creature.) She seemed to be smiling at me through the moonlight and her whiskers quivered as she rubbed against my arm and welcomed a few scratches behind the ear.

It was the first time I managed to smile that day.

July 18, 2008

2008-10-26T20:14:00.000-07:00

A year ago today, Ellie found an abandoned kitten in a ditch near the highway. She came home crying and begging mom to let her keep it.

“No way are you keeping that creature inside this house, young lady.” (Exact words too. No way would I ever forget something like that. I mean, calling a kitten a “creature”?)

But I couldn’t bear to see the little thing get kicked out on the streets again. So I told Ellie that I would make the kitten a wooden box so she’d be safe sleeping in the garage that night. The look on her face was thanks enough.

So I made the box for Ellie’s kitten, now named “Creature”, and she was placed in the garage for that first night. But I should have known that Ellie wouldn’t let it go after that. The next day she was following mom around the house, constantly asking if she was allowed to keep Creature.

Eventually, I figured I couldn’t stand another “why can’t Creature stay mom”. So I told mom that I could make a shelter in the backyard for the kitten. She gave me one of her looks, so I just thought it was okay to go ahead and do it.

Pretty soon, though, Ellie started bringing all kinds of animals to our house and asking if we could keep them until we found their owners—if they had any. (Most of them didn’t.)

Three months later, I had a full-blown 20x15 foot shack. Ellie paid for three-fourths of the wood and shingles, while I got a few donations from mom and saved up for weeks to make up the difference. But it was worth it. (And we live on the very edge of town, so we don’t have to worry about disturbing the neighbors with all the noise.)

Now, we have three dogs (a Dachshund, German shepherd, and a Yorkshire terrier), two cats (Creature and a little tabby named Percy), four rabbits (just space-eaters, all of them!), two parakeets without names, and five adopted hamsters all in the same shack.

Ellie works (unofficially) at a donut shop in town to help pay for the supplies to take care of them all and I tutor first-eighth graders during the school year for a price of five dollars per every half hour. (I just can’t stand the thought of working at a fast food place somewhere and it pays better too!)

And to add to my busy schedule, I volunteer at the yearly “Kiddie Kollege” during the summer as much as I can. Whenever mom mentions it, she tells me that I could be doing something much more useful with my time. It doesn’t seem right though; for me to not go and be with the kids there would feel like I was abandoning them in someway. Almost like if we’d have kicked Creature out of the house.

So to keep her off my back long enough for me to not worry about it, I tell her that it’s my way of getting out of the house. But, really, it’s all for the kids. Somehow, she just doesn’t understand how important it is for me to work and talk with little kids. They say the coolest things sometimes. (I’ll have to remember to add some quotes later.)

I’m also really involved in my church. I sing in the choir and help with getting the pastor’s sermon on the radio. And my youth pastor says that I can help him with Youth Group when I want to, but only when I’m not too busy with everything else.

He’s told me before that someday I’m going to fall asleep in the middle of the special song during church, which the choir sings. It honestly scared me into getting more sleep at night because I was bound and determined not to “drop dead” in front of the whole congregation.

July 17, 2008

2008-10-25T21:28:00.000-07:00

I was never very good at writing and I don’t think a blog will make much difference. Essays in English class were never my thing, anyway. So . . . maybe it won’t be so hard. I mean, a blog is about my life, right? Not some character’s personality or some essay that tears a story to pieces. But, anyway, I guess I’ll give this blogging thing a shot and see how it goes. Who knows? Maybe I’ll like writing for once.

Well. What else does one say on a blog? It’s like a diary, right? Where I share my deep and inner secrets, huh? Ha. Yeah, right. Ellie (my little sister) must think I’m really stupid. The next thing she’ll be asking me is what kinds of stories we rip to pieces. This whole thing was her idea in the first place.

Hmm. I guess I could always talk about my family. There’s mom, Jeremy, Cam, and Ellie.

Mom is just like any other, I guess, except she makes breakfast for us every morning because it “brings us together as a family”. Usually, it just ends up with Jeremy ignoring us to the tunes of ACDC on his iPod at full blast, Cam texting one of her “friends” while completely failing to notice we exist, and Ellie chattering mom and I’s ears off.

Jeremy is 15 and trying to find who he is. It’s interesting, to say the least. It’s hard to watch him hang out with all those really dumb skater kids. And I’m not just saying that. I’ve talked to them before. If one jumped off a bridge, the others would all follow.

Cam is a regular thirteen year old prep. All she can think about is what she’ll wear to the school dance that’s a month away, what guy she’s got a major crush on, and why her “best friend” called her a not-so-very-nice-word-I’d-rather-not-repeat.

And then there’s Ellie. She’s 12—the odd-ball out. Her way of doing things is far from anything classified as conformity. She’s the very picture of inconsistency. And she’s the “baby” of the family.

Then I guess there’s me. I’m Jove and the oldest of my siblings at seventeen. And I’m not really sure how to describe myself. Guess you’ll just have to do the describing yourself, huh?

DISCLAIMER

2008-10-23T20:57:00.000-07:00

This blog is solely for the purpose of documenting a story I'm working on. To get into the mood, I really needed to start a blog, rather than just write on paper. Part of my inspirational process is to get into character. And to do that, I had to create a real blog. Hope this clears things up a bit.

And this will not be a continuous thing, because the story takes place over a week or so. That's how long it will be, depending on if I decide to make it longer or not.

From here on out, every post will be in character and is not to be taken seriously as pertaining to my real persona. (And just to get this out of the way, my character is a boy--I am a girl.)

Even the comments are part of the story. They are posted by myself as characters who can interact slightly within the story, while still staying out of the way. (So, anyone else who reads this, do NOT comment, please! But if you absolutely can't STAND it, you may comment under the name "notacharrie" if you'd like. Otherwise, do not comment.)