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“Oh, no,” she whispered. “What have I gotten myself into?”
Chapter Two
Mark tossed another load of laundry into the washing machine, then wiped off the granite countertops in his kitchen. The tiled floor felt sticky where Angie had spilled her cherry punch and he headed for the pantry to get the mop. As he filled a bucket with hot, sudsy water, he leaned against the refrigerator and stifled a yawn. With two corporate tax returns for clients due tomorrow and Angie’s first chemo appointment in the morning, he’d be lucky to get three hours of sleep tonight.
After he mopped the floor, he skimmed his fingers along the elegantly carved balustrade of the spiral staircase and went upstairs. The thick Berber carpet muffled his steps. He and Denise had chosen nothing but the best for their spacious home. Growing up in a shabby trailer park, he’d spent hours of his youth dreaming of living in an elegant home like this. Now, he’d give it away free if it would heal Angie. The realization that all the money in the world couldn’t make his daughter well again caused him to change his priorities. Maybe he should sell the place and buy a simple three-bedroom house he could maintain more easily.
He’d think about that tomorrow.
Hopefully, Angie was ready for bed. At bath time, he hadn’t rubbed her head too hard because it was so tender from stitches—two hundred and thirteen so far. Angie kept count. Battle scars, she called them.
Poking his head into her room, he found it dark, except for a reading lamp on the nightstand by her bed. Stuffed animals crowded the top of her dresser. Books and trinkets lined two shelves, including a small jewelry box with a dancing ballerina on top and an orange ceramic bowl she’d made in first grade. He loved every one of the drawings and finger paintings she had plastered on her walls. A jump rope, skateboard and hoola-hoop stood propped in one corner. Even if she had the energy to play with these toys, Mark didn’t dare let her for fear she might fall and jar her head. The last thing they needed was another surgery.
Angie sat up in bed, staring at a picture of her mother beside the clock radio on the bedside table.
“Hey, honey-girl, it’s late. You should be asleep.” He smiled, remembering the first time he’d caught her with a flashlight under her covers, reading a Trixie Belden book; advanced reading for a kid barely out of kindergarten.
Her brow furrowed as he sat beside her on the bed. He brushed his knuckles against her temple. “Something wrong?”
“When’s Mommy coming home?” A single tear trickled down her cheek.
Regret swamped him when he thought of all the woulda’, shoulda’, coulda’ things he might have done to keep his marriage alive. He hated that Angie had to pay the price for her parents’ failure.
“Remember, Mommy’s gone to stay with Grandma.”
He couldn’t bring himself to tell her Denise now lived with another man. According to Denise’s mother, the guy was still in college, twelve years younger than Denise. The kid had taken Denise to Europe and the Bahamas, while Angie spent her days with doctors and specialists.
Anger crowded Mark’s mind and he tried to fight off the resentment. He wasn’t ready to ask God’s forgiveness for these emotions, but without God, he believed he would fall apart. And he needed to remain strong, for Angie’s sake.
“Mommy may come to visit us, sweetheart, but she won’t be living with us anymore.” He’d told Angie this before, but she couldn’t seem to accept it.
Neither could he.
Heavenly Father, where are You? How much more can I bear?
In the quiet, Mark heard a still small voice speaking within his soul.
I’m here, son. I’ve never left you.
“But why doesn’t she call us?” Angie asked, her bottom lip quivering. “Doesn’t she love us anymore?”
He scooped Angie into his arms and hugged her tight. As he breathed deeply of her warm, sweet skin, he tried to calm his troubled thoughts. “Of course she loves you. Maybe Mommy’s extra busy and hasn’t had a chance to call.”
Yeah, right. Too busy with the preschooler to call her sick daughter.
Their dogs, Tipper and Dusty, curled up beside Angie—no barking or wagging tails. It was as if the hyper Maltese and toy fox terrier knew Angie was ill and they protected her the only way they knew how.
“Can we call her?” the child persisted, snuggling deeper beneath the flowered comforter.
He’d tried to reach Denise numerous times, but his ex-mother-in-law refused to give him the new phone number. “I’ve already called your grandma and asked her to tell Mom you want to talk to her.”
Thanks, Denise, for leaving me to figure out how to keep from breaking our daughter’s heart.
Angie sighed, with relief or sadness, he wasn’t certain. “Is she mad at me? Because of the brain tumor?”
“Nooo, honey!” He cupped her pale cheek with his hand. “It’s not your fault Mommy left. You had nothing to do with it. She’s fine. I don’t want you to worry about her, okay? Just think about getting better.”
“Can’t you be friends again?” Angie suggested. “Maybe you could say you’re sorry and Mom would come home.”
If only it were that easy.
“We would both have to want that, and right now, Mommy doesn’t.”
In all honesty, he didn’t want it, either. Not after the pain Denise had put him through by leaving him for another man.
Angie nodded, her hollow eyes a haunting remnant of the bouncing girl she’d once been. He’d give anything if it were him who was sick, instead of Angie.
“Dr. Shields is nice,” she told him.
He flashed her a smile. “Yeah, Emma always was nice. And very smart. She knows just what to do to help you get better.”
What a blessing they had found Emma. The moment he’d seen her standing in her office, he’d felt complete trust in her abilities. Though she’d been reluctant to accept Angie as a patient, Mark had no doubt God had sent them to her. With her help, and through God’s grace, they would get Angie well again. He refused to believe anything less.
Mark fingered the thin braid at Angie’s right temple. His throat clogged with tears when he thought of how kind the nurses from Angie’s last surgery had been, making a big deal over an inch-square of long hair because it was all Angie had left on her head. The neurosurgeon had shaved the rest off, replacing it with a melee of stitches.
“Don’t worry, Daddy. It’s gonna’ be okay,” Angie whispered and patted his hand.
Mark blinked. She was comforting him?
The center of his being swelled with hope. If she could have faith, then so could he.
He kissed her cheek and murmured against her ear. “I love you, honey.”
“I love you, too, Dad.”
Tears blurred his vision.
Please, God, don’t take her from me. He prayed the words over and over in his heart.
“What’s up for tomorrow’s schedule?” Angie yawned, her eyelids drooping.
“Tomorrow, we go see Dr. Shields for your first chemo injection.”
Mark had decided not to keep things from Angie. She had a right to know what the doctors were doing to her and why.
“Don’t worry, Dad. I’ll be brave.”
Emotion washed over him and his throat felt like sandpaper. She was the bravest person he knew. “Of course you will. Now, are you ready for prayers?”
Because he didn’t want to jar her too much, he resisted the urge to tickle her like he used to. Instead he knelt beside her bed and waited while Angie folded her arms and began speaking in a hushed voice.
“Heavenly Father, thank You for Tip and Dust and our house and Dr. Shields. Bless Mommy and help her come home soon, and help Daddy and me be brave. And help my tumor die. In the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.”
“Amen.” Mark opened his damp eyes. “Now, lay back and close your eyes again and imagine the tumor in your mind.” He paused, giving her time to begin their nightly ritual—a suggestion from their neurosurgeon. “Can you see it there in your mind?”
“Yes,” she whispered.
“And can you squeeze it tight and see it getting smaller, and smaller, until it just disappears?”
“Yes.” A soft murmur. “It’s almost gone.”
“Okay, kill it, honey. Kill it and tell me when it’s dead and gone.”
Long moments ticked by as he watched her brow furrow with concentration.
“There. It’s all dead.” Opening her eyes, she gave him a smile so bright that a lump formed in his chest.
He held her for several minutes, just because he could, just because she was alive and warm and here in his arms, and one day she might not be—
He wouldn’t go there.
When he saw that Angie was asleep, he pulled the covers to her chin and backed out of the room and went to sit in the dark family room.
Alone.
No lights, no television, no wife. Just him, staring at the time flashing on the DVD player until it blurred and he had to blink.
His hands trembled and his breathing quickened. A hoarse cry rose upward in his chest. Cupping his face with his hands, he leaned his elbows on his knees.
Tears flooded his eyes and he wept.
Chapter Three
“Please, take a seat. Dr. Shields will be here shortly.” Sonja directed Mark and Angie into an examination room.
“Thanks, Sonja.” Mark pressed the palm of his hand against Angie’s back, urging her to sit on the vinyl couch, which had a fresh pillow in a stiff pillowcase lying at one end.
A short stool on wheels and one chair sat beside the bed. The room smelled of antiseptic. Jars of cotton swabs and alcohol wipes rested on the counter beside a small sink. Perched beside the door, a magazine rack held the latest issues of the Wall Street Journal, Newsweek, and various parenting magazines.
Angie settled on the bed while Mark slumped in the chair and stared at a picture on the wall. A ski slope in winter. Aspen, maybe.
Feeling Angie reach over and slip her hand into his, he sat up straighter and squeezed her fingers tight. She wore a worried expression and he gave her a reassuring smile. “Don’t be afraid. You’ve got the EMLA Cream on and it shouldn’t hurt at all.”
Thank goodness their neurosurgeon had given them a prescription for a tube of EMLA. The cream’s topical deadening powers worked wonders the numerous times Angie had to be stuck by a needle.
She nodded, but he sensed her tension. He’d lost count of the needle pokes she had endured. She had never become immune to the pain.
Neither had he.
He wished he could take her place and do this for her. It helped him understand how God must feel as he watched his children down on earth, struggling through their trials.
Sonja opened the door and came in carrying a tray with a hypodermic and a vial of amber liquid. The nurse set the tray on the counter, then prepared the injection.
“The doctor will be right in.” She spoke in a cheery tone.
Mark coughed. “Sonja, how long have you worked for Emma, er, Dr. Shields?”
Sonja chuckled. “I’ve known Dr. Shields long enough that sometimes even I slip up and call her Emma. I met her in a science class at the university when she was an undergrad. I went back to school after my husband died, so I was kind of old to be a student. Emma and I were lab partners. I introduced her to her former husband, David.”
“Former?”
Sonja’s eyes creased with sorrow and she shook her head. “I’m afraid they divorced two years ago. It was pretty hard on Emma. David never was a very supportive husband.”
Mark’s insides went cold. He understood firsthand the sadness caused by divorce.
He was about to ask more, but Emma opened the door and came in, carrying a clipboard. Dressed in a white blouse and black skirt, she wore a white doctor’s jacket over the top, buttoned mid-way up the front. Her blond hair was pulled back in a tight knot at the base of her neck. She wore wire-rimmed glasses low on her nose. Even with the severe hairstyle, he remembered how stunning she could look when she let her hair down and smiled.
The moment she entered the room, he felt as though he’d come home. Safe. Like a breath of fresh air after being locked in a tiny closet for six months. Her presence soothed his jangled nerves, offering hope in a weary world of fear.
Old feelings of affection crowded his heart. Wow, it was good to see her!
His gaze darted to her left hand where a gold wedding band circled her fourth finger.
How odd.
She’d been divorced two years, yet she still wore her ex-husband’s ring. After two years, he would have thought she would be over the guy. He was definitely over Denise. He realized his priorities had changed since Angie’s birth, but Denise hadn’t changed one bit. Somehow, the distance between them had grown to unrecognizable proportions.
Mark looked away but couldn’t help wondering if Denise had hocked her garish wedding ring at a pawnshop. No doubt, she could get a tidy sum for the diamonds.
At one time he hadn’t cared. Now he wished someone in this world loved him enough to wear his ring. But even if he found that special someone, he doubted he’d have time to build a relationship. Angie was his first priority and kept him more than busy. He couldn’t afford the luxury of a romance right now.
“Hello.” Emma glanced at him, then turned to smile at Angie.
“Hi, Emma.” His voice sounded unusually low and he cleared his throat.
Pen in hand, Emma sat on the stool and began scribbling notes on her clipboard. “Angie’s blood count looks good right now. This blood test was performed yesterday?”
She peered at Mark over the rim of her glasses, her clear blue eyes showing a dazzling depth of intelligence and—
Barriers.
“Yes, at the blood lab,” he said.
Her gaze returned to the clipboard. “Okay, after each injection, we’ll monitor Angie’s white blood cells to make certain they don’t get too low. If they do, we’ll skip one treatment to give her blood levels time to recover, then pick up again the following week.”
“I understand.” Mark nodded.
“I don’t. How come?” Angie asked.
