Taken by the Cowboy (31 page)

When we finally brought
Megan home, I came to realize that Michael was not only the perfect
husband, but the perfect father as well.

He was nothing like my
own father, who had always maintained an emotional distance. No…
Michael changed diapers and couldn’t seem to get enough of our baby
girl. He carried Megan around the house in his arms. He read books
to her and sang songs. A few times a week, he took her for long
walks in the park so I could nap or have some time to myself,
simply to shower or cook a meal. I felt like the luckiest woman
alive.

Later, when Megan was
out of diapers and had finally given up drinking from a bottle at
the age of two, I began to feel that I was ready to start writing
again.

Michael – always so
generous and supportive – suggested that he take Megan to
Connecticut every Sunday afternoon to visit his sister,
Margery.

It worked out well.
Margery was thrilled to spend time with them, and those happy day
trips out of the city created an even stronger bond between Michael
and Megan.

It wasn’t long before I
was submitting feature stories to a number of national parenting
magazines. Always, in the back of my mind, however, was the dream
of returning to the New Yorker, perhaps when Megan was older.

Sometimes I wonder if I
would have done anything differently in those blissful days of new
motherhood if I had known about the bomb that was about to drop
onto our world. I believe I will always wonder that, and there will
be no escaping the regrets, rational or otherwise.

Chapter Five

When Megan was
three-and-a-half years old, my father came to visit us in New York.
It was the first time he had seen our house (we lived in a
brownstone in Washington Square), and he mentioned repeatedly that
he was sorry for not coming sooner. He said he was a “terrible
grandfather.”

“Don’t worry about it,
Dad,” I replied as I passed the salad bowl across the table. “I’ve
been terrible about visiting you, too. Life just gets so busy
sometimes. I understand. It’s hard to get away.”

It was a lie, casually
spoken, and we both knew it. Nothing had ever been easy between the
two of us. There was an awkward tension that was obvious to
everyone, including Michael, who was the one person in my life Dad
actually approved of.

“You caught yourself a
good man there,” he gruffly said on our wedding day, then he patted
Michael on the back and left early.

But of course he would
love Michael. Everyone loved Michael. He was a handsome, charming,
witty, Harvard-educated lawyer. A good provider and a devoted
husband. As far as my father was concerned, Michael’s small-town
upbringing on a farm in the Midwest was the icing on the cake. I
think Dad was still in shock that I had managed to marry such an
amazing man.

We finished dinner and
dessert, then Dad went off to bed at nine, not long after Megan
fell asleep.

He planned to stay only
twenty-four hours.

The following day, I
worked hard to keep him busy and avoid any awkward silences or
conversations about the past. Mom especially. It was not something
we ever talked about.

Megan and I took him to
the top of the Empire State Building, then we visited the Museum of
Natural History, and of course, Ground Zero.

As he drove away,
waving out the open car window, Megan slipped her tiny hand into
mine, looked up at me with those big brown eyes and asked, “Will
Grampy come back again?”

I hesitated a moment,
then wet my lips and smiled. “Of course, sweetie, but he’s very
busy. I’m not sure when that will be.”

We went back
inside.

Michael was at work.
The house seemed so empty and quiet.

“Want to make some
cookies?” I cheerfully asked.

Megan gave me a
melancholy look that will stay with me forever, because it was the
first sign of the terrible nightmare that was about to befall our
family.

I didn’t know that
then, of course. At the time, I didn’t know
anything
.

“Okay,” she
replied.

I picked her up and
carried her into the kitchen.

* * *

The following morning,
Megan didn’t wake until 8:30, which surprised me, because she was
usually climbing onto our bed at six a.m. sharp. She was more
dependable than our digital alarm clock.

When eight o’clock
rolled around and she was still sleeping, I assumed she was tired
from our sightseeing trip the day before.

I was wrong about that.
It was something else entirely – something I never imagined would
ever happen to us.

That was our last day
of normal.

Chapter Six

Over the next seven
days, Megan grew increasingly lethargic and took long naps in the
afternoons. Her skin was pale and she slumped in front of the
television without ever smiling – not even for Captain
Feathersword.

By week’s end, she was
irritable and couldn’t bear it when I touched her, so I made an
appointment with our doctor, who told me to bring her in right
away.

As I was dressing Megan
for the appointment, I noticed a large bruise on her left calf and
another on her back. I mentioned this to the doctor, who sent us to
the hospital for blood work.

Everything happened
very quickly after that. The results came back an hour later, and
Michael and I were called into the pediatrician’s office for the
results.

* * *

“I’m so sorry to have
to tell you this,” Dr. Jenkins said, “but Megan is very sick. The
tests have indicated that she has acute myeloid leukemia.”

She paused to give
Michael and me a moment to absorb what she had told us, but I
couldn’t seem to process it. My brain wasn’t working. Then suddenly
I feared I might vomit. I wanted to tell the doctor that she was
mistaken, but I knew it wasn’t true. Something was very wrong with
Megan, and I had known it before the blood work even came back.

“Are you all right,
Mrs. Whitman?” the doctor asked.

Michael squeezed my
hand.

I turned in my chair
and looked out the open door at my sweet darling angel, who was
lying quietly on the vinyl seats in the waiting area with a social
worker. She was watching television and twirling her long brown
hair around a finger.

I glanced briefly at
Michael, who was white as a sheet, then faced the doctor again.

“I’d like to admit her
through oncology for more tests,” Dr. Jenkins said, “and start
treatment right away.”

No. It wasn’t true.
It wasn’t happening. Not to Megan
.

“Mrs. Whitman, are you
all right?” Dr. Jenkins leaned forward over her desk.

“I’m fine,” I said,
though I was nothing of the sort. There was a crushing dread
squeezing my chest as I imagined what was going to happen to Megan
in the coming months. I knew enough about cancer to know that the
treatment would not be easy. It was going to get much worse before
it got better.

She was just a child.
How was she ever going to cope with this? How was I going to
cope?

“You say you want to
begin treatment right away,” Michael said, speaking up at last.
“What if we don’t agree? What if we want to get a second
opinion?”

I glanced quickly at
him, surprised at the note of accusation I heard in his voice.

“You’re welcome to get
a second opinion,” Dr. Jenkins calmly replied, “but I strongly
recommend that you allow us to admit Megan today. You shouldn’t
wait.”

Michael stood up and
began to pace around the office. He looked like he wanted to hit
something.

“Is it that bad?” I
asked. “Is there no time?”

There was an underlying
note of confidence in the doctor’s eyes, which provided me with a
small measure of comfort. “Of course there’s time,” she said. “But
it’s important that we begin treatment immediately. It’s also
important that you try to stay positive. You’re going to have a
difficult battle ahead of you, but don’t lose hope. The cure rate
for leukemia in children is better than seventy-five percent. As
soon as we get her admitted, we’ll prepare the very best treatment
plan possible. She’s a strong girl. We’re going to do everything we
can to get her into remission.”

My voice shook
uncontrollably as I spoke. “Thank you.”

I stood and walked out
of the office in a daze, leaving Michael behind to talk to the
doctor. I wondered how in the world I was ever going to explain any
of this to Megan.

Chapter Seven

There is nothing anyone
can say or do which will ease your shock as a parent when you learn
that your child has cancer.

Your greatest wish –
your deepest, intrinsic need – is to protect your child from harm.
A disease like leukemia robs you of that power. There is no way to
stop it from happening once it begins, and all you can do is place
your trust in the doctors and nurses who are working hard to save
your child’s life. You feel helpless, afraid, grief-stricken, and
angry. Some days you think it can’t be real. It feels like a bad
dream. You wish it was, but you can never seem to wake from it.

* * *

The first few days in
the hospital were an endless array of X-rays, blood draws,
intravenous lines, and lastly, a painful spinal tap to look for
leukemia cells in the cerebrospinal fluid.

Not only did Michael
and I have to get our heads around all of those tests and
procedures, we had to educate ourselves about bone marrow
aspirations, chemotherapy and all the side effects, as well as
radiation treatments and stem cell transplants. In addition, we had
to notify our friends and family. Everyone was supportive and came
to our aid in some way – everyone except for my father, who
remained distant as always.

He sent a get well
card. That was all.

I pushed thoughts of
him from my mind, however, because I had to stay strong for
Megan.

I promised myself I
would never cry in front of her. Instead, I cried every time I took
a shower at the hospital (I never left), or I cried when Michael
arrived and sent me downstairs to get something to eat. During
those brief excursions outside the oncology ward, I would take a
few minutes in a washroom somewhere and sob my heart out before
venturing down to the cafeteria to force something into my
stomach.

It was important to
eat, I was told. The nurses reminded me on a daily basis that I had
to stay healthy for Megan because she would be very susceptible to
infection during treatment, and a fever could be fatal.

So I ate.

Every day, I ate.

* * *

Michael had a difficult
time dealing with Megan’s illness. Perhaps it had something to do
with the loss of his brother when he was twelve. Some days he
wouldn’t come to the hospital until very late, and a few times I
smelled whisky on his breath.

One night we argued
about what we should say to Megan. He didn’t want me to tell her
that the chemo drugs would make her throw up.

I insisted that we had
to always be honest with her. She needed to know that she could
trust us to tell her the truth and be with her no matter how bad it
got.

We never did agree on
that, but I told her the truth anyway.

Michael didn’t speak to
me for the next twenty-four hours.

* * *

“I don’t want my hair
to fall out,” Megan said to me one afternoon, while we were waiting
for the nurse to inject her with a combination of cytarabine,
daunomycin, and etoposide. “I want to go home.”

I dug deep for the
strength to keep my voice steady. “I know it’s going to be hard,
sweetie,” I replied, “but we don’t have a choice about this. If you
don’t have the treatment, you won’t get better, and we need you to
get better. I promise I’ll be right here with you the entire time,
right beside you, loving you. You’re a brave girl and we’re going
to get through this. We’ll get through it together. You and
me.”

She kissed me on the
cheek and said, “Okay, Mommy.”

I held her as close as
I could, kissed the top of her head, and prayed that the treatment
would not be too painful.

* * *

Megan’s hair did fall
out, and she was extremely ill from the chemotherapy, but within
four weeks, she achieved complete remission.

I’ll never forget the
day when those test results came back.

Rain was coming down in
buckets outside, and the sky was the color of ash.

I was standing in front
of the window in the hospital playroom, staring out at the water
pelting the glass, while Megan played alone at a table with her
doll. I told myself that no matter what happened, we would get
through it.

We would not stop
fighting.

We would conquer
this.

Then Dr. Jenkins walked
into the room with a clipboard under her arm and smiled at me. I
knew from the look in her eye that it was good news, and my relief
was so overwhelming, I could not speak or breathe.

A sob escaped me. I
dropped to my knees and wept violently into my hands.

This was the first time
Megan saw me cry. She set down her doll and came over to rub my
back with her tiny, gentle hand.

“Don’t cry, Mommy,” she
said. “Everything’s going to be okay. You’ll see.”

I laughed as I looked
up at her, and pulled her into my loving arms.

Chapter Eight

After a short period of
recuperation, Megan entered a phase of post-remission therapy,
which consisted of more chemo drugs to ensure that any residual
cancer cells would not multiply and return.

I wish I could say that
our lives returned to normal, but after facing the very real
possibility of our daughter’s death, I knew the old “normal” would
never exist for us again. Our lives were changed forever, and some
of those changes were extraordinary.