UNTIL ANGELS CLOSE MY EYES
Chapter Eighteen
Jack was much calmer after
telling Rose about his two previous bouts with leukemia. He leaned wearily
against the back of the couch now, Rose’s arms around him.
"My God, Jack. I never realized
how much you’d been through."
"I don’t usually want to
talk about it much. It wasn’t much fun."
"I’ll say, though I guess
parts of it weren’t so bad. Do you ever talk to Susanna anymore?"
"We e-mail each other
sometimes. She’s a year older than me, so she graduated from high school last
year—the cancer held her back, too—and now she’s at NYU, and doing pretty well
from what she says." He laughed slightly. "She’s studying art."
Rose laughed, too. "I guess
your sketching got her started. You’ve got more influence than you know,
Jack."
They were interrupted when the
front door opened and James came in, several bags of groceries in his hands. He
frowned when he saw Jack and Rose huddled together on the couch, Jack looking
exhausted. "Jack? Rose? Did the doctor call?"
Jack got up slowly and headed for
the counter separating the kitchen and the living room. Rose followed, a
comforting hand on his back.
"Yeah, Dad, he called."
He slumped against the counter, a look of misery crossing his face. "I’ve
relapsed again."
"Jack…" James set the
bags of groceries of the table and went over to the counter.
"Dr. Stellar wants you to
make an appointment with him as soon as possible," Rose told Jack, putting
her arms around him.
"Does your mother
know?" James asked, putting a hand on his son’s shoulder.
Jack nodded. "I called
her—she was pretty upset at the news, but she had six people waiting to see
her, so she said she’d be home as soon as she could."
"Okay." James looked at
the clock. "While you’re waiting, Jack, why don’t you call Dr. Stellar and
make an appointment? The sooner you start treatment again, the better your
chances of another remission are."
"Sure, Dad." Jack
pushed himself away from the counter and went to get the phone, his mind going
over the grim statistics for someone in his position. The odds of getting
better weren’t good, but he reminded himself that some people did beat a second
relapse of leukemia, and he’d managed to remain healthy for more than two years
after his last bout with the disease, even when he hadn’t been seeing a doctor.
Rose and James stood across the
narrow counter from each other, both trying not to listen in as Jack spoke to
Dr. Stellar. Finally, Rose whispered to James, "Do you think he’ll get
better this time?"
"I don’t know, Rose. If
anyone can beat this three times, Jack can. He’s got a strong will to live, and
even though the statistics don’t look so good, he’s a fighter. If he can get
better, he will."
Rose nodded, remembering Jack’s
story of how he had survived the antibiotic-resistant infection after his
splenectomy, but then she remembered him standing in the kitchen, reaching
towards the rack of knives, and she wasn’t so sure. She didn’t tell James about
that, though. Jack had, after all, changed his mind.
Lorraine came in just as Jack was
getting off the phone. She dropped her purse and the remaining bags of
groceries from James’ car on the table and rushed to her son.
"Oh, Jack!" She hugged
him tightly. "I couldn’t believe it when you called and told me the
leukemia was back. I wanted to rush home, but those people had been waiting for
more than two hours, and some of them had long walks home. I couldn’t just tell
them to come back tomorrow."
"It’s okay, Mom," Jack
assured her, hugging her back. "It’s rude to make people wait a long time
and then tell them they have to come back another day. I’m glad you helped them
first." He looked up as Rose came towards him. "Rose stayed with me,
anyway."
"Thank you, Rose."
Lorraine looked at her gratefully, aware of how Jack could get when he was
given a diagnosis that wasn’t good.
"I didn’t mind. We had a
good talk—he told me about when he had leukemia before." She looked up at
Jack. "Were you able to get an appointment with Dr. Stellar?"
Jack nodded, going to sit down on
the couch again. "Yeah. I have an appointment with him at nine o’clock
tomorrow. He said he’s going to try to arrange for me to be admitted to the
hospital at Loma Linda University as soon as possible—in the regular oncology
ward this time, instead of pediatric." He put an arm around Rose as she
sat down beside him.
James and Lorraine sat in the
easy chairs facing the couch. "Did you ever find out why you weren’t
referred to an adult oncologist when you turned eighteen?" Lorraine asked.
Jack nodded. "Yeah…yeah, I
did. I called on Monday, and they said they did refer me, but I was supposed to
call and make an appointment when I got the referral letter in the mail. I
never got the letter, though, and when I asked why, someone looked through the
mailroom and discovered it with the mail that had been returned. They called
back yesterday and said that it had been returned to them with a message
scrawled on it that no Jack Dawson lived in the apartment complex."
"Apartment complex?"
James frowned.
"Yeah…apparently the post
office delivered it to the apartments across the street from the high school,
and the manager there sent it back to the Riverside Medical Clinic. They read
off the address they’d sent it to, and it was this one, but the post office
messed up."
Lorraine sighed, putting her head
in her hands. "Jack, I wish you’d checked with the clinic when no letter
arrived."
Jack tensed. "I didn’t know,
Mom, okay? I thought the fact that I never heard from them meant that I was
better. I didn’t know they were supposed to send me a letter."
"Jack, you know that two
years isn’t enough to be considered cured."
"I wanted to believe I was
cured, okay? It was stupid, but that’s what I thought."
"Let’s not argue about
this," James suggested, glancing at Rose, who looked uncomfortable with
the tension in the room. "What we need to do is get you the best treatment
possible, as soon as we can."
Jack sighed, leaning against the
back of the couch. "I know. And I’m going to see Dr. Stellar
tomorrow."
"I’ll give you a ride if you
need one, Jack," James told him.
Jack nodded. "Thanks, Dad.
I’ll see if I feel up to driving tomorrow…can you get a sub on such short
notice?"
"Other teachers can cover
for me, if necessary…I don’t miss work often, so they shouldn’t be too
mad."
"Jack," Rose spoke up,
"I’m going to stick with you all through this. I’m not going to be like
your friends who got scared and abandoned you."
Jack looked at her gratefully.
"Thanks, Rose. That means a lot to me."
"I know it does." She
leaned closer, whispering so that only he could hear, "I love you."
"I love you, too,
Rose."