Maybe One Day (27 page)

She smiled and walked her fingers over to mine. Then she fell asleep, still smiling.

Tuesday afternoon, my parents drove me to the hospital. They didn’t come inside with me—Mrs. Greco had made it clear that there were to be no more visitors than were absolutely necessary. I was glad to be necessary, but I was also a little nervous. My mom and my dad both got out of the car and hugged me.

“We’re just going to drive around,” said my dad. “So as soon as you need us, text us and we’ll meet you downstairs.”

“But don’t feel rushed,” my mom added quickly, giving me another squeeze.

“Thanks,” I said. I thought of how they’d sat with me watching
Law and Order
that night when I was freaking out about Olivia. How they were always worrying about whether or not I was okay. How they’d been mad about my having knocked out the taillight in the parking lot in downtown Wamasset (which was the story I’d told them about the accident), but they hadn’t grounded me.

They were okay, my parents. They really were.

The guard at the visitor sign-in desk directed me to a different elevator bank from the one I’d used in the past. When I got off, I wasn’t on the pediatric oncology ward; I was at the
entrance to the bone marrow transplant unit. The second I stepped off the elevator, I was bombarded with warnings about infection, cleanliness, hand washing, sterilization. Before I could enter the unit, I had to Purell my hands, and then I passed through a set of double doors that advertised a stern warning:
NOTE: YOU ARE ENTERING A FACILITY WITH PATIENTS WITH COMPROMISED IMMUNE SYSTEMS. IF YOU ARE (OR IF YOU SUSPECT YOU ARE) SICK OR HAVE BEEN EXPOSED TO ILLNESS, DO NOT ENTER. NO PLANTS OR FRESH FLOWERS. WASH HANDS THOROUGHLY BEFORE ENTERING A PATIENT’S ROOM.

I found myself missing the cheesy seasonal decorations in her old digs.

When I got to her room—after having Purelled my hands yet again, this time using the dispenser outside her door—Olivia was dozing on the bed. Her family was already there, even Jake. He was wearing a pair of sweatpants and a hoodie, and he was sitting in a wheelchair. “How’d it go?” I asked, putting my hand on his shoulder.

“Okay,” he said, putting his hand on top of mine. “They got what they needed.”

“That’s good,” I said. “You okay?”

“Yeah. Sore.” He gestured at the wheelchair. “This is protocol.”

“Got it,” I said.

Livvie heard us talking and opened her eyes. She smiled at
me, and I waved. “Hey,” she said sleepily.

“Hey.”

The twins were squeezed together on the lounge chair, and Mrs. Greco was sitting with Olivia. Mr. Greco stood by the foot of the bed. I thought about what a beautiful family the Grecos were. They should have been posing for their annual Christmas card, not gathered around their daughter’s bed wearing surgical masks. It made me so sad I almost started crying, which would have been
really
appreciated. I went over to the dresser and took a surgical mask out of the box, then put it on just as Dr. Maxwell walked in with a nurse.

“Hi,” she said. “It’s so nice that you’re all here.” For the first time ever, Dr. Maxwell’s entering the room didn’t ratchet up the anxiety level. Maybe we were all already so freaked out there was no way for us to be wound any tighter.

Everyone said hello, but that was it. Dr. Maxwell and the nurse went over to the IV pole next to Olivia’s bed, and the nurse hung a small bag of reddish liquid from it. Then Dr. Maxwell slid the needle into Olivia’s IV.

“Okay,” she said quietly to Livvie. Then she looked up at the rest of us. “It’s started.”

“That’s it?” I asked. “That’s the bone marrow?” The liquid was reddish and murky, and the bag wasn’t even that big.

“That’s it,” said Dr. Maxwell, her hand on Olivia’s arm. “It’s small, but it’s powerful stuff.”

How could that tiny bit of stuff save Livvie’s life? It seemed
impossible. I moved my eyes away from the bag, and for a second they caught Livvie’s. As our eyes held, I thought I saw the same question I was thinking run through her head, and there was a look of fear in her eyes. Immediately, I smiled at her, then realized she couldn’t see my smile behind my mask.

“I’d like to say a prayer,” said Mr. Greco. I blushed. Talking about God always made me embarrassed. But Jake, the twins, and Mrs. Greco just lowered their heads and closed their eyes. Olivia didn’t believe in God, and at first she didn’t do anything, but when her mother put her hand on Olivia’s head, she closed her eyes too.

I knew that Mr. Greco was praying for Olivia to get better, and I imagined his prayers being joined by Mrs. Greco’s. Jake’s. The twins’. Mr. Greco’s parents. Mrs. Greco’s parents. All of Olivia’s aunts and uncles and cousins. Everyone at school. I dropped my head and closed my eyes, and I pictured all their prayers like a giant beam of light shooting up to God at the speed of thought. It would be impossible for any God to ignore that many prayers, that much love.

He would have to let her live.

UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

HarperCollins Publishers

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31

There are two dangers for someone who’s just had a bone marrow transplant. The first is graft-versus-host disease. Apparently the leukemia cells weren’t the only thing Jake’s blood cells were capable of fighting. His cells, released into Olivia’s body, would think they were in their
own
body. Which would mean they could start attacking Olivia’s body, thinking it was an invader, as foreign and dangerous as any cancer. Meanwhile, Olivia’s body would think
Jake’s
cells were invaders. To the extent that her diminished immune system was capable of launching an attack, it would launch that attack as vigorously as it could at the new bone marrow it had received.

But of course, Olivia’s cells, while they were capable of attacking Jake’s cells just enough to make her feel really
shitty, weren’t really capable of
defeating
invading cells, so she was just as vulnerable to infection as she had been with chemotherapy—maybe more so, since this last round of chemo had been so much more lethal than all the others. That was the second danger. Her cells weren’t (as Emma had claimed) well-trained American soldiers. They were crazed terrorists with no allegiance to any country or cause, desperate only for their own survival.

I hated them.

Livvie couldn’t eat fresh fruits or vegetables, both of which could carry bacteria. She had to brush her teeth gently so her gums wouldn’t bleed, and she was showering twice a day with antibacterial soap. Infections were everywhere—not just outside Olivia but in her own body. Mrs. Greco told me about how the antibiotics Olivia was taking to fight infection could make normal bacteria in her body grow out of control and give her fungal infections. Livvie’s mom watched everyone who visited Olivia like a hawk, making sure we didn’t touch our faces or our mouths without washing our hands. Mine were red and raw from all the Purell and soap and water I was using.

As the days passed, Olivia looked worse and worse. She was shaky and nauseous. Her mouth was sore, and it was hard for her to talk. She had diarrhea. Almost every other day, when I called to see if I could visit, Mrs. Greco said Livvie was just too tired.

Meanwhile, we were waiting. Like pandas flown to a zoo
in the hopes that they’ll mate, Jake’s bone marrow cells had been injected into Olivia’s body to
engraft
, which meant to grow and make new blood cells, but that could take anywhere from ten to thirty days. And while we waited for engraftment, all we could do was hope none of the things happening in her body—the graft-versus-host disease, the bacteria growing everywhere, the fevers and the diarrhea and the vomiting—would be enough to kill her.

When I visited, I always wore a pair of latex gloves and a surgical mask. There was a cart loaded with them outside Livvie’s room. Even though Dr. Maxwell had said that the most important thing was that people not visit if they were sick, Mrs. Greco wanted everyone who came into the room to wear the gloves and the mask. I’d gotten so used to wearing protective clothing around Olivia that it would have felt weird not to—like driving without a seat belt.

Time passed. I went to school. I had lunch with people—mostly Mia and Lashanna and Bethany, but sometimes other people too. I went over to Mia’s house a couple of times. But I couldn’t really focus on anything I was doing—not my classes, not my friends. Wherever I was, I’d just fiddle with my phone, waiting for a call or a text from Livvie. It was like I was there but I wasn’t there. The only time I felt like I was actually able to get caught up in the moment was when I was with Calvin. And not just with Calvin but
making out with
Calvin. Sometimes I’d text him from a class, and we’d meet in the parking lot and
just fool around in his car, and for a few minutes the fact that Livvie was so sick would just disappear, erased by Calvin’s lips and hands and body. None of my teachers ever yelled at me for cutting out of class. Unlike my parents, they seemed unwilling to remind me that Livvie’s illness was a tragedy and not an excuse.

We counted the days. Literally. The day of the transplant was day zero. On day ten, there was no sign of engraftment, and Livvie felt terrible. On day fourteen, there was still no sign of engraftment, but when I pushed open the door of her room after school, she was sitting up in bed, and her cheeks were pink. “Hey,” I said. “You look really good.” It was all so relative. For the way she’d looked before she got sick, she looked like shit. For the way she’d looked the last time I’d seen her, she looked amazing.

“I got a transfusion this morning.”

“Vampire.” I sat in the chair Mrs. Greco was usually sitting in. “Where’s your mom?”

“She thought she might be getting a cold,” said Livvie. “Dr. Maxwell said she should stay home for a couple of days. Could you get me an ice pop?” Even if Livvie looked okay, she still sounded pretty tired.

“Of course,” I said. I went out into the hallway and got one of the ice pops the nurses stored in a freezer. When Livvie’s mouth and throat hurt, they were the only things she could eat.

“Thanks,” she said when I came back with the pop. She peeled the paper off it, and I gestured for her to hand it to me so I could throw it out. The nurse had given me a pop also, and we sat eating them in silence.

“It’s so weird how there’s weather out there,” Olivia said finally, watching the icy rain spatter against the window. She looked around the room. “It’s like, what does that have to do with me? I haven’t been outside in weeks.”

“It’s not so great,” I assured her. “It’s a snowless blizzard out there. It sucks.”

“Mmmm.” Livvie slurped on her ice pop. I put a box of tissues on her lap. “Thanks.” She took one out and wrapped it around the wooden stick.

It was quiet.

Too quiet. I didn’t like the silence, and so I filled it.

“So,” I said, sitting back down in Mrs. Greco’s chair, “I tried what you said, you know, with showing the girls some harder steps. It didn’t work out that well. They were like . . .” I rolled my eyes to try to communicate how unenthusiastic they’d been. “Anyway. Then I tried improvising, like we’d talked about. I played them some Tchaikovsky, hoping, you know, just that they’d like it or something . . . but
that
was pretty much a fucking disaster.” I laughed a little at the memory of how not into Tchaikovsky the girls had been. Or fake laughed.

“Oh,” said Livvie dully. “That’s too bad.”

“You know, you’ll be outside soon,” I promised, pulling my
chair closer to the bed. My voice was chipper. “As soon as this is over. And then you won’t even have to go through chemo again! That’s the good thing about your leukemia coming back and your needing a bone transplant and everything. You get to be cured with no more chemo.”

“Who knows,” said Olivia, affectless. “I mean . . .” She shrugged. “Maybe I won’t be cured. Maybe I’ll die.”

“Of
course
you won’t
die
,” I said, rolling my eyes and reaching forward and fussing with her blanket. “You’re doing
great
, Livvie.”

“Did you know AML has a thirty percent survival rate?” Her voice was accusatory, as if I’d known and been hiding the information from her. “I found that on the internet. Dr. Maxwell kept telling me not to go online. Well, now I know why.”

The number made me feel sick. Thirty percent? With all the chemo and the bone marrow transplants they could do, how could seventy percent of people with AML die?

I racked my brain for a reassuring explanation of the statistic she’d quoted, and miraculously, one came to me. “Livvie, it’s an old-man disease, right? So they probably can’t tolerate the drugs as well as you’ve been able to.” I snapped my fingers as I thought of another idea. “And some people don’t even get good treatment. I mean, seriously, what percentage of people with AML actually get to have bone marrow transplants from matched donors at a place like UH?”

She shrugged. “I don’t know. Some.”

“But Livvie—”

“Could you just please not fucking ‘but Livvie’ me?” she cried. “You sound like my fucking mother.” To emphasize her point, she pointed her ice pop vigorously in my direction, and it flew off the stick and across the room, smashing into the far wall.

I could not think of a time in the history of our friendship that Olivia had used the word
fuck
once, much less twice.

“Um, I’ll get that.” I took the box of tissues from her lap and used a couple to pick up the melting ice pop. Then I brought the lumpy, dripping mess over to the garbage can and tossed both that and my own pop. “Do you want me to get you another one?”

Livvie shook her head. Visitors weren’t supposed to use her bathroom, so I used the Purell dispenser to wet a tissue, then started cleaning the wall. The pale red line running down it looked like blood.

“I’m just saying there’s a really good chance I could die, and I fucking wish I could talk to someone about it.”

I was on my knees wiping up the floor. When I lifted my head and turned to look at Livvie, she was looking at me. Her eyes were huge and green, and as I thought about how many thousands of times I’d looked into them all I wanted to say was,
You are not going to die
. Because the alternative was unthinkable.