Chapter 77
The next
few days passed in a blur for Nick. He
slept, he ate, he drank (a lot). He
talked to the guys on the phone when they called, concerned about him, and one
day he drove to Orlando to hang out with Howie.
But most of the time, he just sat around his house, bored, depressed,
and alone.
That
weekend, when he knew Claire would be in Gainesville, he went up to the
hospital to see Casey. Though it made
him feel guilty to admit it, he didn’t really want to – in fact, sitting around
the oncology ward at the hospital was about the last thing he felt like doing. But he had an obligation to. Nick was not going to abandon Casey, the way
Claire had walked out on Nick.
Ugh, why does everything have to
remind me of her? he
thought miserably as he navigated the familiar hallways that led to Casey’s
room. But the fact was, this whole place
reminded him of her. For a long time,
her face was the only memory here that wasn’t painful; now thinking of her
caused him just as much as pain as anything else.
Stopping
outside Casey’s room, he took a deep breath and pushed all thoughts of Claire
out of his head. It was about Casey
now. The door to the room was partway
open, so he knocked lightly and then peeked in.
The lights were off, and the room was dim, illuminated only by the
lights of the hallway and the faint rays of sunlight poking through the blinds
on the single window. Casey was lying
down, the head of his bed just barely propped up. Unable to tell if he was sleeping or not,
Nick took a few hesitant steps into the room.
His stomach
constricted when he got a good look at Casey.
He hadn’t seen him in almost two months, and those couple months had
certainly taken their toll on the kid.
At first, Nick wasn’t even sure he had the right room… but the chart in
the slot on the wall outside had said Brenner, Casey, and the name on
the chart at the foot of the bed matched.
But… that couldn’t be him, could it?
The child in the bed was skin and bones, his complexion almost as white
as the pillowcase on which his perfectly bald head rested. Casey had been thin and losing his hair when
Nick had left, but… not like this.
Even more
alarming was the addition of various pieces of medical equipment, almost all of
which, sad to say, Nick recognized.
Heart monitor, oxygen, more IV bags than he could count, and a thin tube
that snaked out of one of Casey’s nostrils and was taped to his cheek. Nick couldn’t be sure, but he had a sinking
feeling that that was a feeding tube.
Studying
Casey’s still form, he swallowed with difficulty; his throat felt like it was
closing up, making it harder to breathe.
He had known all along that Casey was very sick, and Claire had warned
him that he was getting worse. Still, he
had come in expecting to find Casey sitting up and talking, playing the video
games he’d bought for him. Weakened, no
doubt, but still very much alive.
Nothing had
prepared him for this.
Still in
shock, Nick took a step backwards. Casey
was sleeping, and perhaps that was a blessing – Nick wasn’t sure he could
handle being in this room much longer.
He could remember seeing Claire in the hospital, looking not much better
than this when she was fighting an infection she’d gotten after her
transplant. And hell, he was sure even
he had looked about this grim at the times when he was the sickest.
But seeing
Casey this way was much harder to accept.
He was a kid, for God’s sake, still two years shy of being a
teenager. And although Nick had been
visiting sick children in hospitals for years, he had never seen any of them in
such bad shape.
Despite his
best efforts to keep it hidden away in the depths of his mind, a dark thought
surfaced. He’s not going to get any
better than this.
Nick took a
shaky breath, hearing the air rattling in and out of his lungs, and stepped
backwards again. All at once, Casey
jerked, and as Nick froze in panic, he saw the child’s dark eyes flutter open. “Nick?” he called weakly. And Nick knew he wasn’t going anywhere.
He cleared
his throat as he shuffled forward again, coming around to one side of Casey’s
bed. “Hey, Case,” he said rather
hoarsely, forcing a big smile. “It’s
good to see ya, kid. Sorry I haven’t
been by in so long.”
“It’s
okay,” Casey replied, and he smiled back, causing Nick to relax just a
little. “How was California? Is your CD done?”
“Not yet,”
Nick told him, relieved to be talking about anything other than the hospital
and cancer. “You’d be amazed how long it
takes to make a CD. We record lots and
lots of songs, see, and then we pick which ones we want to put on the album. It’s a big process. But it’s fun; it’s what I like to do. And California’s cool. I’m heading back out there after Christmas so
we can finish up the CD.”
“Cool. I wish I could go to California. But I’ll probably be stuck in this place for
Christmas,” sighed Casey, his eyes clouding.
Nick
shifted his weight awkwardly and reached to pull a chair up for himself, hoping
the movement would break up the uncomfortable situation. But even once he was sitting at Casey’s
bedside, he knew he still had to say something.
“That’s no fun,” he replied sympathetically, making a face. “I think Santa still hits the hospitals
though… in fact, I heard they’re his favorite places to go, cause he can just
drop his sleigh right down on those helicopter landing pad things on the roof –
no trying to squeeze his fat butt down a chimney.”
Casey
cracked a smile, but it was accompanied by a begrudging look. “I don’t believe in Santa anymore,” he said
flatly.
Nick
flashed him a look of mock offense. “Why
not??” he demanded, as if he considered doubting Santa Claus’s existence
absurd. “You gotta believe in stuff like
that – otherwise, where’s the fun in it?”
Casey just
gave him a skeptical look and did not reply.
“Okay,
fine, don’t believe in Santa. See if he
leaves you anything, you good for nothing kid,” Nick teased him gently, hoping
to get another smile out of him. But
Casey’s expression had turned very solemn.
“Nick?” he
asked, after a long pause. “Can I ask
you something?”
“’Course,”
said Nick, sobering as he looked at Casey.
“What is it?”
Casey’s dark, serious eyes bored into his.
“When you were sick… did you ever think you were gonna die?”
The
question caught Nick off-guard, and his stomach gave an uncomfortable
jerk. He didn’t want to answer that
question, but he knew he couldn’t avoid it.
Licking his lips nervously, he thought for a moment, his mind taking him
back a year, when he’d lain in this very hospital, waiting to find out what was
wrong with him after he’d collapsed backstage at the charity concert…
No news was good news, as far as he was concerned. Because eventually, he knew, there would be news, and most
likely, it would be bad. Something was
wrong. Twenty-four-year-old men didn’t
cough up blood, hyperventilate, and pass out for no reason.
Twenty-five, he thought.
I’m almost a twenty-five-year-old man.
Yeah, in like two months. What
if he didn’t make it that long? What if
he didn’t live to see his twenty-fifth birthday?
Stop it, he scolded himself.
It’s not like you’re dying. You
may be sick again, but you’re not dying.
But what if he was? He’d
coughed up blood. He couldn’t
breathe. That was serious. That was more than a few pains in his leg,
some unexplained weight loss, and all the other minor symptoms he’d overlooked
before his initial diagnosis.
What if it was back again?
What if, this time, there was nothing that could be done?
What if he really was dying?
He’d made
it to twenty-five alright… but for as long as he lived, Nick would never forget
the terror of thinking – no, knowing – that there was a very real chance
he wouldn’t.
His eyes
had drifted downward as the flashback had taken over his mind, but now he
looked back up to find Casey still staring at him, waiting for his answer. He took a deep breath and looked Casey in the
eye. “Yeah… I did,” he told the
eleven-year-old. After hesitating a
moment, he added, “The last time I relapsed, the cancer came back in my lung… I
had a tumor growing there.” He placed
his hand on the left side of his chest, picturing the scar that remained there,
an ugly remnant of the surgery he’d had to cut the tumor out. “The doctors basically told me I needed
surgery to take it out, because chemo and radiation probably wouldn’t
work. If I didn’t have the operation, I
would probably die… but the operation could kill me too. It didn’t, obviously… but it could have.”
“Were you scared?” Casey’s voice was but a whisper.
Nick nodded
slowly. “I was really scared.”
Casey was
silent for a moment. Then he asked, “Do
you think an operation would make me better too?”
Nick felt
his face heat up as he struggled to think.
Casey had leukemia, like Claire… he knew leukemia was a cancer of the
blood… it wasn’t like the kind of cancer he’d had, which had formed tumors in
his bones and in his lung, tumors that could be gotten rid of. “I… I dunno, Case,” he faltered, twisting his
hands around in his lap. “I’m not a
doctor, so I really can’t say. You could
ask your doctor though.”
Casey
turned his head on the pillow, looking away from Nick. After a few seconds, Nick heard him mumble,
“I don’t really want to have an operation.
But I don’t want anymore chemo either.”
Nick
swallowed hard. “I hated chemo too,” he
said, “but you have to think, even though it makes you feel crummy, it’s really
helping you.”
Turning his
head back the other way, Casey surveyed Nick for a few seconds before saying,
“That’s what they say too. My mom and my
doctor. But… I don’t think it’s helping
anymore.”
Nick’s
stomach lurched, as Casey’s voice fell to a grave whisper.
“I don’t
think I’m gonna get better.”
The
positive thing to say formed automatically on Nick’s tongue – Don’t say
that; of course you will! But would
he? Hadn’t Nick just thought the very
same thing, not half an hour ago? That
Casey wasn’t going to get better. It was
a horrific thought… but Nick wasn’t naïve, or stupid. And neither was Casey. It wasn’t right to feed him a bunch of
sugar-coated bullshit. He may have been
a kid in years, but his illness had forced him to grow up way before his time. He was searching Nick’s eyes for the truth,
and he deserved to have it.
“Listen…”
he said quietly, forcing the words to come out.
“I think you should talk to your mom about this. Or your doctor. Either one.
Tell them what you just told me and see what they say. I can’t give you medical advice; I had a
different kind of cancer, and it was… just… different.” He faltered; was he saying the right
things?? He had no idea how to handle
this situation, how to talk to this poor kid, who thought he was, and very well
could be, dying.
Casey gave
him a miserable look. “I tried to tell
my mom I hated chemo, but she always says, ‘Always try to look on the bright
side.’ I don’t wanna make her sad. She’s sad enough already.” Nick raised his eyebrows questioningly, and
Casey added, “She cries a lot, when she thinks I’m asleep.”
A lump rose
in Nick’s already-tight throat; he swallowed thickly, trying to get rid of it,
trying to stay strong in front of Casey.
“That isn’t your fault, Casey,” he managed to say. “You can’t help what’s happening any more
than your mom can, and you’re not going to disappoint her if you tell her what
you just told me. And if it helps,
Case,” he added, remembering something, “I quit my chemo.”
Casey’s
eyes widened.
“Yeah,”
Nick said, swallowing, “The second time I was on it, it was making me miserable
and sick, and I hated it. So I went off
it. I’m not sure if it was the right
decision to make or not… but at least I felt better.”
“That’s
what I want,” replied Casey. “I don’t
wanna feel sick anymore.”
Nick
nodded. “Try talking to your mom
again. And if she won’t listen, just
talk to your doctor. Okay?”
“Okay,”
Casey whispered, looking appeased and, yet, terrified. Nick reached out and gave his bony shoulder a
gentle squeeze, forcing himself to smile in what he hoped was a reassuring way. He felt his face tighten as his lips curved
upwards… but on the inside, he wanted to cry.
When he
left Casey’s room awhile later, he noticed a vaguely familiar-looking,
dark-haired woman coming towards him from the opposite direction. As she grew closer, he realized who she was.
It was
Casey’s mother.
He
hesitated just a second, and then reached his hand out. “Excuse me,” he said, “Mrs. Brenner?”
She
stopped, startled, and blinked up at him.
She could see the recognition slowly dawn on her face. “Oh… Nick!”
Nick smiled
grimly. “Yeah. Hi.
Um, I was just in there hanging out with Casey… I hope you don’t mind.”
She smiled
a tight smile. “No, not at all. He talks a lot about you, you know, about how
you’re in California, working on a CD…
He admires you a lot.” Nick
blushed, but before he could reply, she continued quickly, “And I hope you know
how much I appreciate you and Claire taking the time to visit. I’ve cut my hours at work significantly so I
can spend more time with him, but with his father out of the picture, I have to
do everything on my own, and it’s just next to impossible to be with him as
much as I want to… which is every second of the day,” she added, as if he
wouldn’t believe her.
“I
understand,” Nick replied softly.
“Listen, I won’t keep you from getting in there to see him, but I wanted
to tell you something. I… I know you
don’t know me very well, so maybe it’s not my place to say this at all,
but…” He hesitated on the brink of
saying what he wanted to say, wondering if he was right to do so. Then, throwing all caution to the wind, he
forged ahead anyway. “Casey and I were
talking, and he told me that he doesn’t think the chemo is helping him. He wants to stop it, but he doesn’t want to
let you down.”
He watched
Mrs. Brenner’s face as her eyes widened, her brows creasing together. She raised a hand to her lips, slowly, and
blinked; a sheen of moisture had appeared in her eyes. “Oh my… h-how could he think that? That he would… let me down? He could never let me down.” She shook her head, the tears beginning to
fall. “Never.”
Nick
swallowed, very uncomfortable by now. “I
know. I just thought you should know
that… so you can talk to him.”
She nodded
tearfully. “I will… I will. Th-thank you.”
He gave a
short nod, anxious to leave. The hallway
felt as if it were getting narrower, closing in around him. He needed to get of there; he didn’t think he
could handle it another minute. “Good
luck,” he whispered, touching her briefly on the arm as he slowly moved past
her.
He started
down the hall, glancing back over his shoulder once to find her still standing
there, wiping her eyes as she tried to compose herself. Feeling as if he had interfered enough, he
kept walking, quickening his pace until he reached the refuge of the elevators.
***