Forever Sheltered Read online

  I knew this all too well, when my own mother went through it. Multiple cancers erupted at once, as though her body just gave up on fighting. I was midway through my residency. My involvement with her illness led to switching to oncology. While we struggled to manage her condition, I learned how important holistic care could be.

  We added at least a year — a good productive year — to her life because I was there to help the doctors talk to each other. We coordinated everything from surgery to chemotherapy to nutrition to mental health as a team, even though I was not allowed to oversee her care myself due to the family connection.

  But I ruffled a lot of feathers. Several doctors felt I should have stayed out of it and resented non-medical caregivers recommending changes to her protocol.

  I vowed that from then on I would work only someplace that incorporated holistic care. St. Anthony’s wasn’t quite it, but life had led me here after Mayo turned me down. I’d make the best of it.

  I paused at the desk in the hub of the ward to log in and check which patients I needed to visit, but more importantly, to see if I had a moment to drop by and visit Cynthia before going on the longer rounds.

  Something about talking to Tina made me want to see Cynthia sooner rather than later. I knew she was exhausted from the trip to Houston.

  But we’d been treating her for two years. Inductive therapy. Radiation. Stem cell transplant. She couldn’t go on forever. Damage to her remaining kidney was becoming serious. She’d go into failure soon and end up on dialysis and a donor list. Then everything would change. The minute I stepped up to donate, whether a kidney or another round of stem cells, everyone would know our relationship.

  Screw it. I would see her now. I whirled around and headed quickly back through the ward. Now I knew my reputation was preceding me, as my pace and determination made everyone move out of my way without greeting.

  I couldn’t help that.

  When I got to Cynthia’s door, I paused. Drawings in paint and marker and crosshatched pencil covered all the available space. The art teacher did not seem to realize that the person Cynthia drew holding her hand in so many of the images was her. She probably assumed it was a member of the family.

  I focused on one of the drawings. In it, Cynthia had drawn all three of us — me, Tina, and herself. She positioned herself between us, all holding hands. My throat tightened a little. She deserved so much more than what life had handed her.

  I knocked on the door in case a hospital nurse was with her, but when I stepped in, only Cynthia and the private nurse I had hired were inside.

  “Dary!” Cynthia cried. She disentangled her legs from the sheets and gingerly stepped to the floor to come over to me.

  My heart hurt, as it always did, when her small bare head buried into my belly. She was eight, but her thinness and slow growth made her seem younger. The only thing that kept me going as she fought this battle was that I could be here to manage her care, like I had our mother’s. Rules be damned. I had seen too many doctors with too big a caseload miss important things.

  Nurse Angela adjusted a pair of lime green glasses to peer at her notes. “She’s eaten a little today. Urine a bit concerning.”

  I held the back of Cynthia’s head. “I’ll order a blood test.”

  Cynthia’s face popped up. “Not another one!”

  “You have a new port,” I said, pointing to the neck of her gown. “No more sticks now that it’s working again.” Her central line had stopped functioning while we were in Houston, but I had a new one put in the minute we got back. It was a risk, a surgery when her immune system was down, but we needed to be able to put meds in her, and so many of her veins were already blown.

  Cynthia touched her shoulder. “That’s right,” she said. “My space port is operational.” She laid her cheek against me again, clinging like it was hard to stay standing.

  “She still seems a bit tired, so I canceled her extra activities today,” the nurse said.

  Cynthia popped her head up again. “But I get to go to art, right?”

  “She should go to art,” I told the nurse.

  Angela lowered her glasses and glanced at the clock. “She’s already missed it.”

  “Dary! You promised!” Cynthia’s hands scrunched the fabric of my lab coat.

  “You’ll get to go tomorrow,” I told her. “I’ll make sure.”

  I scooped her up and carried her back to the bed. “I heard about a special kind of marker today,” I said. “One that if you cross one line over the other, it makes a new color.”

  “Ooooh,” Cynthia said. “Can we get some?”

  “We can,” I said. “If you eat your dinner.”

  Cynthia frowned. “But it makes me sick.”

  I squeezed her hand. “Just do the best you can.” I glanced up at Angela. “All okay with the staff?”

  When we were readmitted after the trip, one of the nurses seemed to suspect Angela wasn’t family after all. We created an elaborate ruse that Angela was Cynthia’s aunt. No one could know that Cynthia was my sister, or I’d be taken off her case.

  “It seems all right. I made up a big ol’ story about all the crawfish boils I took Miss Cynthia to when she was a baby.”

  “I even drew a picture,” Cynthia said. She sorted through a pile at the foot of her bed, producing an image of a blood-red crab diving into a pot.

  I hated that she had to be involved in the lie, but she couldn’t tell anyone I was her brother. “That’s real good, Cyn,” I said.

  I had to get back on rounds. Sometimes it felt like an illicit affair, the time I would steal to sneak in and check on Cynthia. I knew of no other way to work these long hours and still stay close to her. “I’ll see you before you go to sleep.”

  “Okay.” Cynthia leaned back against her pillows, pale and fragile with shadows under her eyes. I cursed the genetic marker I’d discovered in both my mother and my sister, one that bypassed me. The tumor suppressing gene T53 was mutated in them both. Mom made it into her fifties before it caught up with her. But Cynthia hadn’t been so lucky. She was only six, just two years after Mom died, when she started showing symptoms of leukemia — deep bruising, weight loss, and fevers.

  This would be a battle all her life. And I would be there to help her fight it.

  Chapter 3: Tina

  I had little time to think of Dr. Darion Marks or his peculiar attachment to his patient as my day spiraled out of control.

  My attempt to teach a set of young teens to paint away their pain had gone completely south when the girls got the bright idea to color themselves instead. Soon I had four giggling rainbow heads and a set of nurses grumbling about the mess.

  I wiped down the tables, still speckled with paint. I couldn’t admit it to anyone at the hospital, but I applauded their misbehavior. They had it tough, running around in hospital garb, no makeup, no dating or school angst or socializing. In their shoes, I would be doing much worse than a bit of temporary color.

  My own teen years were complex and strange. I had gone “goth” and continually covered my pale hair with black dye. I ran with a crowd just like me, full of attitude and railing against authority. Everything had to be about me — my wants, my refusal to assimilate.

  I didn’t get the big picture until life smacked me hard.

  My hand automatically moved to my throat to finger the charm on my necklace, a photo pendant.

  The image was of Peanut, the baby I had when I was seventeen. He was born terribly premature and lived only three hours. Three long, sweet hours.

  His father never acknowledged him or saw him. He ditched me in the hospital during my premature labor. By the time I tracked him down again, he was already poking some other hole.

  I frowned at the dirty cuffs of my sweater, smeared with paint and magic marker. I would love to be able to wear short sleeves to make my job easier, but it seemed unwise. People would notice the scars. I slid the sleeve up my arm. Even five years later, the raised white lines on my wrists were
obvious at a glance.

  I’d been so stupid. So young. So unable to think about anything beyond the pain I was in at that moment and how to make it go away.

  A tiny bare head peeped around the edge of the doorframe. “Miss Tina?” a little voice asked.

  Cynthia. Dr. Darion’s favored patient. She wore a pale blue gown and the nubby-bottomed socks the nurses preferred. She wasn’t hooked up to anything today. No drip or oxygen tube. With her quirky smile and cheerful demeanor, she could be any small girl.

  But a closer look revealed the shadows under her eyes. And of course the lack of lashes as well as hair. Her hands were marred with nicks and scars from IVs. If the neckline of her gown shifted just right, you could see the port they had installed for her chemotherapy.

  I pulled my sleeve down over my own scars.

  “Hello, Cynthia,” I said. “You missed class today.”

  “I wanted to come.”

  “Does anybody know you are here?” I remembered Dr. Darion saying she had lost her mother. He hadn’t mentioned a father.

  “I told Aunt Angela.”

  “Is she in your room?”

  “She said I could come.” She slid into a chair. Her body was tiny, smaller than a typical eight-year-old. More like a kindergartner. She propped her chin on her hands. “She went with me on the trip to Houston.”

  My boss had told me not to ask medical questions of the young patients, but to redirect if they said anything their parents might not like non-staffers to know.

  This policy insulted me on several levels. One, it’s pretty damn hard to do art therapy if you’re not supposed to know how or why they are sick. Two, I signed enough paperwork on privacy to fill a file cabinet. And third — why wasn’t I considered staff?

  But I said nothing. If it wasn’t for this job, I’d be serving coffee with Corabelle and Jenny at Cool Beans. At least they had the excuse of not having their degree yet.

  My other option was worse. Going home and living with my parents.

  I’d rather live in a gutter.

  “Would you like to color?” I asked.

  “Yes, please.”

  I slid a piece of paper toward her and retrieved the bin of crayons. I cleaned each one with an antibacterial wipe before handing it to her. That was another difference between this job and other art positions. The absolute necessity of sterility.

  I sat opposite her. “What do you want to draw?”

  “Something pretty,” she said.

  “A beach?” I suggested. “Or maybe a place you remember from a happy memory?”

  She nodded. Her chin was tiny and pointed. “Can I have two kinds of pink?”

  I sifted through the box. By the time I set the new crayons by her paper, she had already drawn a stage with fancy red curtains. “Did you go to a play?” I asked.

  “My mama was a singer.”

  “Really?” I sat opposite her to watch the scene unfold.

  Maybe I didn’t have formal training in this. But I had done a lot of speaking tours about suicide during the past four years, and I had talked to hundreds of people about their best and worst times. I knew that when you sat down and purposefully brought a memory forward, it was usually one that mattered.

  On center stage a woman began to emerge from the squiggles and lines. Cynthia was fairly typical for her age and skill level. Mostly stick figures with two-dimensional details, like the flare of a pink dress, the kick of the elbows. She did understand feet, though, and instead of making the toes go out like a ballerina’s, her mother’s shoes were at a natural angle.

  “What is she singing?” I asked.

  I didn’t expect what happened next.

  Cynthia stood up from the table and held an invisible microphone in front of her chest. Her arms were all bones and elbows, thin, fragile, like a marionette. She drew in a deep breath, and what came out next blew me away.

  She sang her heart out. “I spent my life in old Kentucky. Moved to Cali when I got real lucky in love.”

  Cynthia nodded and winked at me, and I knew she was playing the role of her mother onstage. She sang with sass and self-confidence. Her voice took on a hint of a twang. “He took me home and showed me lovin’. We had a lotta love but a whole lotta nothin’ but love.”

  Cynthia turned in a slow circle, holding the microphone out, arms outstretched. I could almost hear the interlude of a piano, or a guitar, as she made her way around. “Then you found a whole new love to make you happy. T’weren’t another woman but a job overseas. You traded workin’ for my love.”

  Cynthia took on a sober expression, and the next verse slowed down. “I held our baby tight on the night that you left me. My little golden boy with the eyes of gray. My only love. My own sweet love.”

  I clapped as she bowed. “Wow, Cynthia! I’ve never heard that song before.”

  “My mama wrote it.”

  I stopped clapping. “Really?”

  Her face got all serious. “Her husband left her to get a fancy job in England.”

  “Was he your daddy?” Illegal question, but I asked it anyway.

  She shook her head. “I don’t have a daddy.”

  An elderly nurse stepped into the room. “Cynthia? What in the world are you doing in here?”

  Cynthia turned around. “Where’s Aunt Angela?”

  “Out looking for you,” the nurse said. She placed her hands on Cynthia’s shoulders. “Come on now.”

  The woman narrowed her eyes at me. “She’s neutropenic and high risk,” she said. I had no idea what that meant.

  “I’m sorry,” I said.

  “You should have reported her to the nurses’ desk immediately. I’ll be speaking to your supervisor.”

  I stood up from the chair. She was right. I should have buzzed them as soon as I saw her. Pediatric patients were not allowed to wander. Damn.

  “I don’t want to go!” Cynthia cried. “I want to be here with Tina!”

  The nurse firmly turned her toward the door. “You can come back when it’s time for your class,” she said.

  Cynthia looked back with a mournful gaze, staring at me until she was out the door. My heart clenched for her. I hated rules too. There were always so many things standing in the way of what you wanted.

  I picked up the image of her mother singing. So, if the song was true, then Cynthia’s mother had another child, a son. Probably not much older than Cynthia, I’d guess. Ten, maybe twelve. I wondered where he was. With his father, maybe. Must be quite a story there.

  I set the image high on a cabinet. I would take it to Cynthia’s room later and apologize to the undoubtedly worried aunt. See if I could salvage the situation. My position at the hospital was perilous at best. I had to do better if I wanted to keep it. Even if only to keep my promise to Dr. Darion.

  I leaned against the cabinet, picturing the doctor standing in the middle of my room. That familiar ache pulsed in me again. It had been a while since I’d gotten tangled up with a man. My sociology professor, actually.

  He had so not been worth it. Clammy hands, and gave me a damn B in the class. After that, there had been the rush of moving out of the dorms, scraping up enough cash to sublease the equivalent of a closet in a house owned by a cat lady. It was dumb luck that Corabelle took me to the airport a month ago, then wound up in the hospital around the same time the social services director was giving up on filling this slot with someone who had real credentials.

  I was lucky. I knew it. I could use this experience for something better, as long as I could keep the job long enough for a recommendation. I’d been given a chance to do something real. I couldn’t waste it on attitude or screwups.

  Or blow it with a passionate one-and-done with a handsome doctor.

  Chapter 4: Tina

  I saw Corabelle’s car in front of her apartment, so I wasn’t surprised when she turned up in the kitchen.

  “I’m sorry to be here so late,” Corabelle said. “I just needed to grab a few things.”

  “It
’s your place,” I said. Corabelle had moved in with her boyfriend, Gavin. Their wedding was just a month away. I was living in her apartment until her lease was up or I got fired, whichever came first.

  I was starting to lean toward getting fired.

  “You look sort of strung out,” Corabelle said. Her black hair was tied up on top of her head, so thick and tall even in a bundle that she reminded me of a geisha. She plunked herself down on the sofa.

  I sat on the floor and leaned against the wall. It was a small room without a lot of furniture. None of us had much money, although our friend Jenny had found some rich movie director guy who kept buying her pink furniture and jewelry.

  I kicked off my shoes and set them next to the wall so I wouldn’t trip over them later. “Every day I leave that hospital, I’m shocked I haven’t been fired yet,” I said.

  “It’s because you’re good,” Corabelle said. “Anybody with half a brain would see that you really help those people.”

  I shrugged. “Hospitals are all about pieces of paper. Credentials. Diplomas. And nepotism. Always the nepotism.” I had nobody watching my back whatsoever. It couldn’t possibly last.

  “So, get the paper,” Corabelle said.

  “Paper’s expensive. And time consuming.” I tugged the ponytails from my hair and ran my fingers through the strands. It was getting long. I should cut it all off again. Maybe dye it black again.

  Except, expensive. Blond I would have to stay, unless I found my own sugar daddy.

  “Any sign of that hot doctor?” Corabelle asked.

  She questioned me about this at least once a week. She had been in the room when Dr. Darion first showed up and asked me out for coffee. She thought he would be good for me. Right. Like a needle full of rat poison.