The Legacy: Making Wishes Come True (5 page)

“He’ll have a long consultation with you when the test results are in,” Grandmother assured her with a smile that never made it to her saddened eyes.

The next morning, after her blood work, Jenny was taken down to radiology for a round of X rays and then to a room with a lab table. Dr. Gallagher greeted her as he pulled on latex gloves. “Hop up,” a young intern assisting him said.

“Why?”

“We’re going to do a bone marrow aspiration.”

“What’s that?”

Dr. Gallagher explained, “I told you last night I would be open with you, and I will. We’re going to put you on your stomach with a pillow under your hips. I’ll paint some Betadine—that’s an iodine-based antiseptic solution—on the skin to kill bacteria, then I’ll give you a little shot to numb the area. Next, I’ll insert a special syringe through the skin, into the pelvic bone, and draw out some bone marrow.”

Jenny gasped. If she could have jumped off the table and fled the room, she would have. “Will it hurt?”

“You’ll feel a sensation of pressure, maybe some pain. It’s different for every patient. But I won’t take long, so it will be over quickly. Maybe five minutes.”

The five minutes seemed like an eternity to Jenny. She tried to ignore the smells and sounds, refusing to watch the procedure by keeping her gaze focused on a small dark stain on the wall in front of her. She attempted to keep track of Dr. Gallagher’s rambling,
constant conversation, but when she felt the pressure deep inside her hip, the pulling sensation as the spongy marrow of her bones was sucked into a needle, she felt nauseated and lightheaded. For a second, she thought she might pass out.

“All done,” Dr. Gallagher announced. “You did well, Jenny.” He patted her arm, and she let out her breath and blinked back tears. “You’ll probably be sore there for a few days, so take it easy.”

“Now what?” she asked.

“Now I send everything to the lab. We’ll have some definite answers by tomorrow.”

At the end of a grueling day, Jenny was glad to be back in her room, even though she was lonely. Mrs. Kelly was nice enough, but Jenny didn’t have much in common with her. When Richard showed up right after supper, Jenny threw her arms around him.

“Nice greeting,” he said, hugging her in return.

Self-conscious about her childlike display of affection, Jenny pulled away. “They stuck needles into my bones, Richard.”

He blanched. “I’m sorry.”

“I hate it here, and no one’s telling me anything.”

He glanced about evasively. “I’m sure they’ll tell you everything once the results are in.”

“It’s my body. It’s
me
this is happening to. Why won’t they tell me anything?” Richard paced to the window and stared gloomily out onto the city below. Jenny caught herself and said, “I don’t mean to take it out on you. It’s just been a long day.”

“You can take it out on me all you want,” he said moodily.

She sighed. “Let’s start over. Come here and tell me about your first day on the job.”

He came back to her bedside, but she could tell he was tense and uneasy. “It went all right. My father was in court most of the day, so one of the junior partners took me under his wing. I’ve got a lot of research to do in the law library for a case he’s prosecuting.”

“Looks like neither one of us is doing what we wanted to do this summer.”

He reached out and brushed her cheek. “So it seems.”

Just his touch set butterflies into motion in her stomach. “When they figure out what’s wrong and I get out of this place, we’ll go spend an afternoon in our cave, all right?”

“All right.” Their gazes held. Richard hated himself for keeping the truth from her. Why had he made such a promise to her grandmother? Why didn’t Marian realize that sooner or later, Jenny would discover the truth and maybe hate them both for keeping it from her? He cleared his throat. “I should be going.”

“You just got here.” She looked hurt. Richard was afraid to stay much longer. He was afraid he’d blurt out something he shouldn’t.

“I’ll be back tomorrow when I can stay longer.”
Besides
, he told himself,
by tomorrow, she might know the truth
.

Marian came by right after Richard left. “What’s the problem?”

“I’m not having much fun.”

Grandmother smiled wistfully. “When you were a child, you used to tell me that on days it would rain and you couldn’t go the beach.”

Jenny felt as if her whole life was being rained on
at the moment. “Do you know what’s going on with all these tests yet?” she asked.

“Not yet.” Grandmother’s mouth said one thing, but her eyes said another.

“You do know, but you won’t tell me,” Jenny accused. When Jenny had first come to live with her grandmother, she had been in awe of Marian, who seemed very stern and businesslike—not at all like the affectionate mother who had kissed her, climbed on a train, and never come home.

Jenny hadn’t been living with her grandmother long when Marian came in her bedroom and discovered her sobbing beneath her covers. Right then, Marian had taken her into her arms and held her. “I do love you, Jenny,” she confessed. “I’m sorry I’ve not made you feel more welcome, less lonely. Please forgive me.”

It wasn’t until Jenny was quite a bit older that she’d begun to appreciate what an upheaval her unexpected entrance had caused in her grandmother’s life. In a week’s time, Marian had learned that her son was dead and that she was going to have to raise his daughter because there were no other relatives to take the child.

Jenny had grown up with life’s fine things—two houses, beautiful clothes, the best prep schools, but those things mattered little to her. Perhaps because she’d lost her parents when she’d been so young, what mattered most to her were the people in her life. Her grandmother, her few friends, Richard. More and more, Richard.

“Jenny,” Grandmother said, lifting her hand from the white sheet of the hospital bed. “When there is something to tell you, we will tell you. Until then, rest and keep your strength.”

Jenny nodded her acceptance, but like a condemned prisoner, she wasn’t sure where she’d find the courage to face the dawn and whatever it held about her future.

She was toying with the food on her breakfast tray and feeling awful when Dr. Gallagher arrived at seven the next morning. Surprised to see him so early, Jenny pushed the tray aside. Even more surprising was seeing her grandmother right beside him. The expressions on their faces told her that the two of them had been discussing her.

“It’s bad, isn’t it?” Jenny’s gaze darted from face to face.

“I told you I’d always level with you,” Dr. Gallagher said kindly.

“Yes, you did.” Jenny took hold of her grandmother’s offered hand. “What’s wrong with me?”

“The tests confirm that you have leukemia, Jenny. A particularly vicious and complicated form of leukemia.”

A
T FIRST, THE
words didn’t sink in.
Leukemia
. “That’s a kind of cancer, isn’t it?” She felt her grandmother’s hand tighten on hers.

“Yes,” Dr. Gallagher said. “What happens is that for reasons no one can explain, a single white blood cell in your bone marrow goes crazy. This mutant cell begins to multiply like wildfire and crowds out normal red blood cells. You become anemic—that’s why you’ve felt tired and listless. Your lymph glands and spleen swell. Yet, your white blood cells are immature, and as they begin to infiltrate your bloodstream and organs, you develop bruises and unexplained fevers.”

Jenny felt detached and numb, as if they weren’t discussing her at all. “Don’t people die from leukemia?” she asked.

“Not if I can help it,” Dr. Gallagher replied. “This is 1978, Jenny. In the fifties and sixties, this disease couldn’t be checked, but we know more about it today.
We have some very potent chemotherapy—drugs to kill off the mutant cells. We use radiation treatments, cortisones, an arsenal of medications.”

Jenny felt icy cold with fear. Tears began to slide down her cheeks.

“We’re going to fight this thing,” her grandmother said, taking hold of her shoulders. “If it takes every penny in my bank account, every cent set aside in your trust fund, we’ll spend it. Nothing’s more important than your getting well, my dear Jenny. Nothing.”

Jenny longed to feel positive about her prospects, but she was so weak, so ill that she couldn’t sort it all out. How could she have possibly gotten leukemia? Why had her body turned on her this way?

“The first thing we’ll do,” Dr. Gallagher explained, “is give you a blood transfusion, which will make you feel better immediately. Next, I’ll start you on a chemo protocol and try and get this disease into remission.”

“Remission?”

“That’s a halt to the progression of the disease. Once it’s achieved, you can go home, and you’ll only have to come in for periodic blood work and chemo sessions.”

Home!
Had a word ever sounded more beautiful to her? Jenny reached for a tissue. “All right. I’ll do whatever you want me to do.”

“That’s a girl,” the doctor said.

He left to write up the order for her transfusion, promising to check in on her later. “I’m scared, Grandmother. I don’t want to go through this.”

“I’m scared too,” the older woman confessed. “But you just remember, you’re from good Yankee stock.” Marian offered a slight smile. “I was a
Winston-Cabot, and your grandfather a Crawford. Our ancestors came over on the Mayflower and carved a living out of the solid granite of Massachusetts—no easy task. You can lick this thing.”

“How long have you known?” Jenny asked. “You didn’t want me to know, did you?”

“Not until they were positive. There seemed no sense in worrying you.”

“Please don’t ever do that to me again.”

Marian gave Jenny a startled look. “Whatever do you mean?”

“You should have told me what they suspected. You had no right to hold back the truth.”

“There was no truth until today. It seemed pointless to let you worry over what could have been a false alarm.”

“But I had a right to know. Richard knows, doesn’t he?”

Grandmother’s cheeks flushed. “He knows what was suspected, but he doesn’t know about the positive lab results.”

“I want to tell him,” Jenny said.

Grandmother started to protest, but decided against it, telling Jenny, “Very well. But please don’t be angry with me. I was only trying to protect you.”

Seeing the pain on her grandmother’s face, Jenny felt a wave of forgiveness sweep through her. “How old was my father when he moved to London?”

“Warren was nineteen when he left home.”

“That’s only three years older than me.”

“Why is that important to you?”

Jenny wasn’t sure. She only knew that somehow, in the last half hour she’d passed from the world of childhood into the realm of adult. The passage had
been quick and stunning and harsh, without time for even a backward glance. “Maybe because I always thought when I was grown, I would understand why he and Mother died. It must be in the same category as why people get cancer.”

Grandmother opened her arms and pulled Jenny into them. “I have no answers for you, my dear. Except to say that if I could have died in my son’s place, I would have. And if I could have this disease in your place, I would get it.”

Together, the two of them wept until a nurse entered, bringing an IV stand and two plastic bags of rich, red, healthy blood for Jenny.

The transfusion took several hours, but Dr. Gallagher had been correct in predicting that she would feel better. By that evening, Jenny felt revitalized. “Now I know how vampires feel after they’ve sunk their fangs into a victim’s neck,” Jenny told the nurse who came to check and regulate the flow of the blood.

With the IV line taped to her arm, Jenny attempted to put on makeup before Richard arrived. She wanted him to see her looking pretty again instead of sickly. “You look great,” he told her when he came into the room.

“The tests came back,” Jenny informed him, without preamble. “I have leukemia.”

His eyes closed, and he rocked back on his heels as if he’d been shoved by some invisible hand.

She didn’t want him feeling pity, so she continued matter-of-factly, “I’ll be starting chemotherapy tomorrow morning. I don’t know much about it yet, except that it’s unpleasant. I—I think it might be best if you don’t come visit for a while.”

“What? Why not?”

She was fibbing to him. She’d read about the side effects of chemo and talked to the nurses about it. She would get sick—deathly sick. At some point, she’d lose her hair, and she’d probably develop skin lesions and grow weak and disoriented as the poisons potent enough to kill the cancer cells killed healthy cells as well. The cortisone would make her face and limbs swell with retained water. The radiation would make her nauseated and ill. She didn’t want him to see her that way. “It’s what I want, Richard,” Jenny said quietly.

“But I want to be with you.”

“You can have a good time in Boston. You don’t need to hang around this place. You can sail over to Martha’s Vineyard on the weekends. Isn’t that girl there? You know, the one from Vassar you told me about?”