Dana's Valley Read online

  I headed outdoors, pulling Corey along with me. He trembled a little, so I had him climb on my back piggyback style and walked toward the field. There was a ramshackle tree fort that he’d begun to build. I decided it was as good a diversion as any. Thankfully, his mind was easily distracted from the scene he’d just witnessed. If only I could erase it completely for us both.

  We stayed in the fort until Corey complained of being cold and hungry. I admitted silently that I was too. I knew we had to go back in, and I reluctantly climbed down the makeshift ladder, then stood beneath while Corey shivered his way down.

  There was no one in the kitchen, for which I was thankful. I warmed some leftovers for both of us, and we ate rather quietly. As soon as we were done, I stuck the dishes in the dishwasher and guided Corey up to bed.

  The next morning there was little conversation as a breakfast of sorts was assembled and eaten. I noted there was no embrace between my parents before Dad left for work. He hesitated for a few moments before letting himself out the door, but Mom turned her back and refused to even look his way. At last he kind of shrugged his shoulders and left. I knew he was hurt. It made me angry with Mom.

  Mrs. Ramsay arrived and was given complete instructions on Dana’s care, even though she was a nurse.

  Then Mom waited in the living room for Mrs. Ward. She seemed to have even shut us out. I tried to speak cheerfully with Corey while I scrounged a brown bag lunch for the two of us. Brett had wisely decided to spend the night elsewhere. I wished I had been able to go along.

  I had been struggling with recent school assignments. The work wasn’t any more difficult than it had been before, but my mind just wouldn’t focus on it. I tried to concentrate on the pages of my textbooks, but my thoughts were cloudy and grim. Dana’s face was never really out of mind. Only the rush of a basketball game was able to erase her image for a while.

  Mom was gone when we returned from school. Both Corey and I were feeling awkward now that Mrs. Ramsay had taken charge of Dana. Even Grandma felt out of place and inept with a new caregiver around. She spent most of her time in the kitchen baking more goodies than we would eat in a week.

  With Mrs. Ramsay supervising Dana’s care, we were rarely allowed in her room. We were told that Dana moved around upstairs during the time we were in school. Mrs. Ramsay was careful to spray a generous amount of disinfectant throughout the rooms Dana used, but she seemed to think it was important for Dana to get as much exercise as she could manage. I guess that, being a nurse, she wasn’t as easily swayed from what would be good for her patient just on the basis that Dana didn’t feel up to following the prescribed regimen. I knew Dana had sometimes bucked Mom when she’d been asked to walk around a bit. She said it hurt too much.

  Mrs. Ward told Dad on the phone that Mom slept the entire first day and on through the following night. Mom finally allowed Dad to speak to her on Friday morning, and I think the two of them began to patch things up. When Mom returned on Saturday afternoon, she looked much better. On Saturday evening Dad asked Mrs. Ramsay to stay for just a little longer while our parents had dinner out together. It must have been just what they needed, because they were laughing when they came home. It sounded odd. We hadn’t had anyone laugh in our house for several weeks—ever since Dana had caught her cold from Corey.

  Mom readily admitted that the rest was just what she had needed. I supposed that Dad had forgiven her for her angry response to his “taking charge” and for the ugliness of her reactions toward him. I hoped that I’d be able to do so too—someday.

  Then the day arrived when Dana was to be taken for her chemo treatments. Her temperature was a little high, but no one seemed worried. She rarely had a normal temperature. We hugged her good-bye, turning our faces away so we wouldn’t breathe in her direction, even though she wore a mask over her nose and mouth for protection. It was difficult to see her go—a strange mix~ture of joy that she’d finally be able to begin the road to healing, and yet fear of the unknown agonies that treatment would bring. I watched the car leave the driveway and turned to go attack the recital piece I’d forsaken all the time she’d been home. It brought a small measure of comfort.

  Chapter Eleven

  I’d had no idea what the chemotherapy treatments would do to Dana, but I have never in my life seen anyone as sick as she was. She was so sick, in fact, that I was moved out to the living room couch, and Mom used my bed so she could be near Dana day and night. After a few days of this, I wasn’t sure who looked worse, Dana or Mom. They both were pale and worn out. I wondered if what Dana had was contagious—Mom sure looked like she had caught it. How would Mom ever have managed if Dad hadn’t made her rest up first?

  And then that awful thing began to happen. Dana started to lose her hair. She had said she might, but it was not what I’d imagined. It just seemed to come out by the handfuls. There on her brush—on her pillow. All that beautiful russet hair that folks had always noticed and complimented—it lay all over the place. It didn’t look nearly as pretty in clumps as it had on Dana’s head. I’m not sure what I’d pictured, but I had no idea she meant she was destined to lose it all.

  Dana cried. She wasn’t one to spend much time in crying, but I think the sight of all the hair around her, and the bald spots getting bigger and bigger, made her feel rather sick in a different sort of way. I noticed her deliberately avoid mirrors. She wouldn’t even lift up her eyes when she went to wash or brush her teeth.

  Though I tried my best to pretend it didn’t bother me, I found it disgusting—and I was embarrassed for Dana’s sake. Her bald head was so … gross. Shiny and bare and sort of bony. It made me feel sick inside just to look at her. Now I knew she wouldn’t be going to school for some time. Not even if she did feel better. Dana would never leave the house looking as she did now, and I didn’t want kids laughing at her and calling her names—or even staring. I knew there were those at school who would be cruel with their teasing. I wasn’t even sure that all the members of our youth group would understand.

  Dana’s stomach finally began to settle and grow accustomed to the treatments. She started drinking specially prescribed vitamin drinks that supplemented the IVs Mom said she was getting at the cancer treatment center. Mom just shook her head as she described the number of medicines that the IV pumped into Dana’s shrinking body along with the much-needed nutrition.

  At home she tried eating bland things, but there was little she could keep down. The mouth sores that plagued her made this even more difficult. So she worked at sipping her special drinks almost constantly, and I hoped that altogether this would keep her from starving. But I couldn’t bear to ask questions. I don’t know how Mom had the nerve for her nursing role when it came to giving needles.

  After five long weeks of this, the treatments were finally completed, and Dana’s appetite began to pick up—very slowly at first. She started with things that had been her favorites—ice cream and puddings and such. Gradually she added more. I was so relieved to know she was beginning to eat again. Even though she was home in her own bedroom, the rest of the family saw her infrequently. The Dana I was allowed to visit occasionally was thin and colorless. But each time I went in, I noticed slight improvements. Her eyes began to look just a little brighter. Then her cheeks had a little more flush. Finally I could tell that a smile came easier, and I heard her laugh again. It was like watching a flower blossom—ever so slowly. I began to wonder if her seclusion had more to do with how she looked than how she felt. I could understand either. I could see that she was still weak, and I tried not to resent that we had to continue the strenuous cleanliness program. Dana had to be careful.

  With Dana’s gaining strength, the day finally came when she walked downstairs to sit with us at the breakfast table.

  Our breakfasts had become a hurried affair, each family member finding a bowl of cold cereal or, on occasion, popping some toast in the toaster. Corey often went for a handful of cookies or grabbed a couple of Pop Tarts if I wasn’t there to head
him off. Mom was busy with Dana in the mornings and couldn’t be two places at the same time. But now that Dana was back at the table again, I wondered if we would change back to our more usual routine.

  On her first trip to the kitchen, Dana wore a rather cute hat Mom had bought. It improved her appearance greatly, and we complimented her over and over. That pleased Dana. It had been so long since she had felt attractive at all. In the days that followed, Mom and Grandma made up some more hats. Crocheted ones. Knitted ones. Cloth ones. They made her one for almost every outfit she owned. Some of them were very attractive. Dana started wearing them almost all the time—and soon had made several appearances outside our house. Just a car ride with Dad at first. Then they stopped at the post office to purchase stamps. Next came a restaurant with Mom and me.

  Finally, Dana felt well enough to pay a visit to church. A round of applause from the congregation greeted us when we all arrived and filed into a row as a complete family again. Dana blushed deeply, and I couldn’t help but stare at the color glowing on her cheeks. The people who had not watched Dana fade could never have understood how lovely she looked on that particular morning.

  Brett made his announcement while the two of us were riding together on a Saturday morning. His words made no sense to me at all.

  “I’m not going to church anymore.”

  I was shocked. And the tone with which he had spoken seemed so oddly matter-of-fact. I wondered what he imagined my response would be.

  “Are you crazy?” There didn’t seem to be adequate words.

  “I’m just not going. That’s all.”

  There was something he wanted to say to me. Why else would he even bother to clue me in before he made his declaration to Mom and Dad? And, if I was certain of nothing else, I was sure that this had not yet been announced at home. I could not possibly have missed the fireworks that the event would have lit. I decided to call his bluff. “So why are you telling me? What do you want me to say?”

  He responded rather casually, “I guess I just wondered how you thought Dad would react.”

  “You and I both know how Dad’ll react. He’ll blow. He’ll hit the roof. What do you think?”

  “Well, I hoped he’d think it was important for me to decide for myself if church is the place I want to spend my life. I hoped that he wouldn’t want to watch me sitting there hypocritically every Sunday.”

  “Oh, please! You think you can lay this at Dad’s feet and he’s going to say something like ‘fly—be free’? Are you crazy?” I said again. I knew this wasn’t very diplomatic, but it was all I could think of to say.

  Brett scowled. I guess he’d really pictured the scene as something matter-of-fact like that. “Well, I thought I’d at least get some support from you.”

  “Why?”

  “Because you’re going through all of this just like me. You see how they’ve treated the rest of us. None of us matter anymore. Just Dana. They don’t even bother with Corey.”

  “What do you want them to do? Should they send her away? Should they leave her at the hospital so they can get home and pay attention to you? You’re almost seventeen! Do you really still need a babysitter?”

  This time I’d struck a nerve, and I wished immediately that I could take it all back. The truth was I knew exactly what Brett meant—because I’d had all of those feelings too. The anger. The resentment. I fought it all the time. Why wasn’t there more equity in the way we’d been treated? At the very least, I reasoned, we had two parents. Couldn’t one of them have spent more time with the rest of us? Why did Dana get them both?

  But why this? Why had Brett felt he could improve the situation by leaving the one place where people were willing to put him at the center and listen to anything he wanted to say? There were pastors and youth workers who would have crossed almost anything off their busy schedules just to listen to Brett or me express our feelings. We’d been told that any number of times—all we had to do was call. Day or night.

  I watched him grip the steering wheel and realized that I hadn’t even seen him for weeks. We had shared family meals together—such as they were—driven places in the same car, and passed one another in the hall at school. But I hadn’t truly seen Brett for a very long time.

  It made me remember the morning he’d left the table after he’d been hurt because we hadn’t invited him to the costume party. Dana had been the one who had made things right then. I had been completely inept about how to proceed.

  “She’s lots better. It might be over,” I finally whispered.

  “It’ll never be over.” His words resounded with defiance. “Dana will always need them. She’ll always win.”

  We spent the remainder of the drive home in silence. In the days that followed, I wasn’t surprised to see that Brett was spending less and less time at home. But it hurt me deeply that no one else seemed to notice. He hadn’t found the courage to defy Mom and Dad on the church issue yet. But I had a feeling the crisis might be looming in the not-too-distant future.

  Just when I thought things might be returning to normal, Mom announced in May that Dana would undergo a second series of chemo. I couldn’t believe it. They were going to put her through all that again. Perhaps we’d be able to take some pictures of her fourteenth birthday before the treatments, Mom went on, and I knew she was thinking that with the chemo, her fuzz of new hair growth would fall out again. Well—at least we wouldn’t be shocked when she lost her hair this time. What little she had was short and not particularly noticeable.

  Dana seemed to accept the hair loss with a shrug of her skinny shoulders. “Sondra said it’s always the worst the first time,” she noted simply. “Then you get sorta used to it.” I nodded my reply, trying not to shudder. I wondered why a teenage girl should have to get used to such a thing, but I said nothing. I knew my comment wouldn’t help anyone feel better about it.

  But she was just as sick again. I was glad I didn’t have to share our room. I couldn’t stand to see her so ill. I had thought the treatments were to make one better—not worse. The whole thing seemed so backward to me.

  Dana tried to explain it to me one day when I was rooting through my drawer, trying to find a clean pair of gym socks. Mom hadn’t been able to keep up with the laundry, and my attempts at filling in were rather sporadic, what with school and all.

  “Wear a pair of mine,” Dana managed to utter loudly enough for me to hear.

  “No, you might need—” In her condition, Dana would not be needing her gym socks.

  She shook her head. Her red-checked hat went a bit askew. “No,” she insisted, her voice so low I could hardly hear her. “Not for a long time yet.” She carefully rolled onto her back, a grimace crossing her face.

  “They might try a different kind of drug once my chemo is over this time—it’s supposed to reduce the recovery time and the side effects. Dr. Harrigan says that someday maybe they’ll be able to cure all cancers without making people so sick. I wish you could meet him, Erin. He’s really nice. And you’d like Sondra too.”

  If she expected me to be excited about some obscure future hope, I wasn’t. I wanted a cure right now. For Dana. A cure that wouldn’t make her feel so terribly sick. A cure that would get our family back. And Dana back. I could hardly stand to look at her. She was so … different.

  I pushed my drawer shut rather noisily and pulled out Dana’s sock drawer, helping myself to an old pair of her gym socks.

  “So is this the last time you’ll have to take all these drugs?” I asked her.

  “I don’t know.” Her voice sounded very tired.

  “Didn’t they tell you?” I was impatient with those who were treating her. First they weren’t sure exactly which disease she had, and now they weren’t sure how to make it go away.

  “No,” said Dana quietly. “They don’t know.”

  That made me angrier. They should know. What good were doctors who didn’t know anything? I whirled around, trying to release a little of the pent-up emotions I was
feeling, but she had closed her eyes and her face looked pinched and pained. I knew another bout of nausea was sweeping through her. I made a dash for the basin she used so frequently and yelled at the top of my lungs, “Mom! Come quick.”

  I could hear Mom running, but before she could even get there, Dana was making use of the basin again. I slipped out the door, clutching the socks and feeling guilty and angry and sorry all at the same time.

  Chapter Twelve

  Dana’s health did not pick up again as quickly after the second series of treatments, so Dad suggested hiring a part-time nurse to be with her in the mornings so Mom could get some sleep while we were at school.

  Since summer vacation would arrive in two short weeks, Mom didn’t fight the idea. I think this time she realized immediately that he was right. But even though Dad had good medical insurance through his company, we all knew it would be difficult to pay for such an expense, especially on top of the mounting medical costs.

  The fact of the insurance was gratefully mentioned often during times of thanks in our family prayers. I wondered what people did who had none. It never occurred to me before to even think about such things, but it was only one in the unlimited number of ways that my life and thinking had been reworked by Dana’s illness.

  It had helped all of us to focus on the completion of this new round of treatments and the hope of seeing Dana improve again. But it was disappointing now to see it taking place so slowly. We were anxious to see the color come back to her cheeks and hear the bright laughter again.