The Legacy: Making Wishes Come True (9 page)

“After two weeks, we’ll take you off this stuff and put you back on more conventional therapy,” Dr. Gallagher told her. “So keep the faith.” He used his familiar words of encouragement and squeezed her hand.

At the same time Jenny was being pumped full of the potent new chemical, Noreen’s doctor scheduled her for surgery to remove the tumor in her stomach. The night before she was to be taken down for the operation, the four roommates huddled together in their room. “I hope this guy knows what he’s doing
and doesn’t take out my whole stomach,” Noreen grumbled.

Jenny could tell Noreen was trying to keep up a brave front for them as well as her family, who had just left amid promises to be back at the crack of dawn.

“Think of the bright side,” Elaine offered. “You would never have to worry about dieting again.”

“Plus, what they’re taking out of you won’t show up on your outside,” Kimbra said, waving her stump of an arm. “That should count for something.”

Noreen pulled her covers up to her chin. “Do you have any books to take my mind off tomorrow, Jenny?”

“All I can think of is some of the psalms in the Bible.”

Noreen made the sign of the cross. “Ma told me our parish priest is coming with them tomorrow to wait through my surgery. I guess if things don’t go right, he can give me last rites.”

“Stop talking like that,” Jenny’s voice sounded muffled because of the mask, but her tone was sharp enough to make Noreen look startled. “You’re going to come through this just fine. In fact, after it’s all over and you’re back down here with us, I’ll throw you a party.”

Noreen perked up. “What kind of party?”

“What kind do you want?”

“Something with a gigantic cake. And ice cream.”

“You’ll have a vat of the stuff.”

“And a rock band.”

“The loudest.”

“Can I have my brothers and sisters come too? And some of my old friends from school and the neighborhood?”

Just then, the medications nurse, Mrs. Henry, entered the room carrying a tray of assorted pills and cups of liquid medicines. “Teatime,” she announced. Then, glancing at their faces, she asked, “What are you four cooking up?”

“Us? Why nothing,” Kimbra replied innocently.

“Then why do you all look as if you’re up to something?”

“Jenny’s going to throw me a party after my surgery,” Noreen explained. “Something small and private.”

Nurse Henry still looked suspicious. “Since when have any of you done anything small and private? I mean, who started the war during last week’s art therapy session?”

“Oh, that.” Jenny said, recalling how during the session, Noreen and Kimbra had decided to decorate each other, in addition to their crafts projects, with gold and silver glitter. Soon, the entire room had erupted into chaos, and glitter had fallen like rain.

“Yes, that.” The nurse tried to keep a straight face. “I hear that the janitors are still picking glitter out of the carpet.”

“I’m still finding it embedded in my head,” Elaine said, rubbing the top of her bald head with her hand.

“And you expect me to believe that you’re going to have a sedate little party?”

All of the girls exchanged glances. “Let’s just say it won’t be boring,” Jenny replied.

“Well, I think all of you should take your medicine and turn out the lights. Noreen has a big day ahead of her tomorrow.”

“I’d almost forgotten. Why did you have to remind me?”

“Will you make sure someone keeps us informed, since we can’t go into the recovery room and check on her ourselves?” Elaine asked.

“Someone will keep you posted,” the nurse assured them.

“We have to stick together,” Kimbra told her. “We
are
the Four Musketeers, you know.”

“More like the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse,” Mrs. Henry said with a wry smile.

After she left, Elaine turned to the others. “Who are the Four Horsemen of the whatever-she-said?”

“I’ve heard of them,” Noreen replied. “They’re in the Bible.”

“I think they’re associated with major calamities,” Jenny said. “Like pestilence and famine.”

“Who mentioned famine?” Elaine asked. “I’m so hungry, I could eat the paint off the walls.”

“You’re
always
hungry,” Kimbra insisted.

“How can you talk about food when I’m about to have my stomach amputated? Give me a break!”

“You’re not thinking about the bright side—diets will be a thing of the past,” Jenny told her returning to what Elaine had said earlier.

Noreen let out an exasperated screech, which started them giggling. An hour later, they turned off the lights for the night, but lay in the darkness and talked until one by one, they fell asleep.

Jenny felt as if she’d scarcely closed her eyes when she heard the orderlies come to take Noreen down for surgery. In the semidarkness of the room, Jenny was instantly awake. “Keep the faith,” she told Noreen. “Make sure that surgeon gets all the bad stuff.”

Jenny knew her friend had been given preop medication, which would make her groggy. As she was rolled past on the gurney, Noreen held up her thumb and offered a lopsided smile. Jenny felt her heart clutch.
“Be all right,”
she whispered to the darkness after Noreen had been wheeled from the room.

Neither she, Kimbra, nor Elaine felt like doing anything that morning. They lounged around their room, reading and watching TV. Outside, it poured rain, the weather matching their glum moods.

“I would have won ten thousand dollars if I’d been on that game show,” Elaine said halfheartedly during a particular program. “Maybe someday, I’ll go on one, and they’ll have a category on cancer. I’m sure I could answer every question.”

“What would you do with ten thousand dollars if you won it?” Jenny asked.

“She’d probably fritter it away on hamburgers,” Kimbra answered for Elaine.

“A lot you know,” Elaine said with toss of her head. “I’d save it and go to college.”

College
. The word pricked Jenny. Naturally, college had been in her plans. Her grandmother had spoken often about Wellesley as a fine place for “proper young women.” At the moment, Jenny couldn’t remember the last time she’d thought about school, much less college.

“Why is it taking so long?” Kimbra blurted, irritated. “They should have finished by now.”

“Maybe her doctor’s just slow,” Jenny offered.

“This whole place is slow. We all should have been out of here ages ago.”

“I wish—” Elaine began.

“Well, stop wishing,” Kimbra snapped. “Wishing
for something is dumb and stupid. Wishes don’t ever come true, so why bother?”

Jenny felt sorry for Elaine, who seemed more optimistic about life overall, but she certainly understood where Kimbra was coming from. Girls their age with cancer had to be practical. Pollyanna thinking led nowhere.

As the day dragged on, their collective mood grew more gloomy. It was almost suppertime when Shannon, one of Noreen’s older, married sisters came into their room. She looked haggard and red-eyed from crying.

“What’s wrong?” Kimbra jumped from her bed and rushed over to Shannon. “How’s Noreen?”

“She’s out of surgery and in the recovery room,” Shannon said with a quivery voice.

Jenny sagged with relief. “But that’s great news,” she said.

“Yes and no.” Shannon wiped her eyes on a wadded tissue.

“Explain.” Kimbra used her best no-nonsense voice.

“Before her surgery, Noreen made me promise to come and tell you three everything.”

“What’s everything?” Elaine wanted to know. “Didn’t they get all her tumor?”

That possibility hadn’t crossed Jenny’s mind. She had assumed that once the doctors operated, Noreen’s stomach tumor would be a thing of the past.

“Not exactly.” Shannon blew her nose. “Her doctor told us that when he opened her up, he found other tumors. Many others. In fact, there were so many that he couldn’t begin to get them all. So, he
took out the largest ones, then sewed her back up. As soon as Noreen recuperates from the surgery, they’re going to send her home. You see, there’s nothing else they can do for her. Nothing. My sister’s going to die.”

“N
OREEN’S DYING!”
J
ENNY
sobbed to her grandmother that evening when she came for a visit. “Noreen’s just fifteen! She’s younger than me.”

“I’m so sorry, Jenny.” Grandmother stroked Jenny’s back, attempting to calm her.

“It’s wrong! Why is this happening to her? Why can’t the doctors
do
something to save her? Why did they put her through all the torture of chemo and radiation if it wasn’t going to make her well?”

“They had no way of knowing, Jenny. They had to
try.”

“Try! I’m sick of hearing
try
. Why can’t they make her well?”

“You’re getting yourself all worked up over something you can’t change. It isn’t healthy.”

“Nothing’s healthy, is it? And I don’t care if I’m all worked up.… I want to change things for Noreen. I want to make things different for all of us.”

Grandmother looked distraught, and Jenny realized
that her anger was only upsetting the woman. She wanted to stop her tirade, but couldn’t. It was as if her frustration had reached volcanic proportions and she was helpless to control the eruption. In despair, Jenny buried her face in her hands and wept bitterly.

Her grandmother stroked her tenderly. “I wish I could change all of this for you, Jenny. I wish I could make it all go away with a wave of my hand, but of course, I can’t. Sometimes, I weigh all of what’s happening to you … to us … against other calamities that have occurred in my life. I remember the day your father and I had our disagreement.”

Jenny’s sobs quieted as she listened. Grandmother rarely talked about her son—Jenny’s father.

“Warren had spent the summer in London and had come home on fire with idealistic dreams about changing the world. He’d also met your mother and fallen in love with her. I refused to listen to him, refused to believe that he could want anything other than the plans I had made for him. We had a terrible fight.”

Jenny looked up, wiping her cheeks with the hem of the bed sheet. Her grandmother’s eyes had taken on a faraway look.

“He stormed out of the house and returned to London. In reality, he stormed out of my life. Do you know, we didn’t speak again until you were born?”

Jenny shook her head. “They never told me.”

“You were the magnet that brought us back together.” Grandmother smiled wistfully. “It was a tentative union, but at least, we were on speaking terms. He and your mother, Barbara, came for a visit when you were only three months old. I was prepared
to dislike her and be indifferent to you.” Another smile. “Instead, I discovered a lovely young woman who adored my son and their child, and the most beautiful baby girl I’d ever set eyes upon.”

“I didn’t know,” Jenny said.

“When they returned to London and got an assignment with the Peace Corps in Africa, I was heartbroken. Even then, I assumed your father wanted to return to my world. He did not, of course. He had his own world. And when he died, my world changed forever.”

“You inherited me.”

“Yes.… Barbara had no family to speak of in Britain, so you came to me. You were a frightened child, all alone in the world. I was terrified about raising you.”

“You were?” Jenny never thought her grandmother was afraid of anything. She always seemed so confident, so in control.

“I hadn’t been around a child in years, and suddenly, I was responsible for my granddaughter.”

“I don’t remember much about that time. I only remember being scared.” She remembered Richard and the day of her parents’ funeral, when he’d taken her hand. From that moment, she had begun to adore him. “Everything here was so different. The weather was cold, and I couldn’t run around outside and play. And I missed my parents.”

Grandmother traded Jenny a wad of clean tissues for the soaked hem of the sheet. “Certainly not what either of us planned for, was it?” Jenny shook her head. “But after having you with me for a month, I realized how empty, how hollow my life had been until you came into it.”

“I remember running through your living room
and breaking your good vase. I thought you would send me back to Africa.”

“The vase meant nothing, Jenny. By then, I had learned that the only thing that counts in this life is relationships. I had learned that the plans we make for our lives can’t always be fulfilled, but that sometimes the change is extraordinarily wonderful.

“And over the years, I’ve realized that something good can come out of the darkest moments of life if we simply wait out the darkness.” She arched an eyebrow and added, “Not that I like having my will thwarted, you understand.”

Jenny managed a smile. “Are you telling me you’re stubborn?”

“I call it Yankee determination.”

Jenny toyed with the wad of tissue. “What good can come out of this, Grandmother? I want to believe what you’re telling me, but I can’t see what good can come from Noreen’s dying at fifteen and my being sick with leukemia.”

“I don’t know either,” Grandmother admitted. “But for some reason, some of us are asked to walk more difficult paths than others.”