Chapter Three

Denise

“How about we go play with the cars in the playroom?” Allison says while she tries to pry Alex out of Max’s arm, but she leans away from her mother while shouting, “Dada.”

“I’ll come with you,” Max says and looks at me, giving me an I’m sorry to ambush you here look. “Jack, would you like to come and see Michael’s car collection?”

“I have Hot Wheels,” Michael looks at him and tells him, “with remotes.” He turns and runs into his playroom, and Jack follows him.

“I’m sorry to ambush you here,” Zack says out loud, and I just look at him. He has the look that all the parents have when they are faced with the rude reality that they could be burying their child. “I had no choice.”

I shake my head. “Have you tried to contact me and I haven’t gotten back to you?” I ask him, and he just nods.

“I’ve been calling you nonstop for a month now,” he tells me. “Your voicemail is full.”

“Fuck,” I say out loud. “Let’s go in the other room and talk,” I tell him, and he follows me into the formal living room. I sit down, and he sits next to me on the same couch. Turning to face him, I fold one leg under me. “Tell me what happened.”

He looks down at his big hands. I watch him fidget with his thumbs before he looks up at me, and his crystal blue eyes are clouded over. Tears pool in them, and I reach out, putting my hand on his hands, and squeeze. “Breathe.”

I lean back and wait for him to talk. “About a year ago, we noticed that he would get bruises easy. So easy.” He shakes his head. “He would bump into things, and it’s normal, he’s a kid, but the bruising was nonstop, so I forced my wife to take him in.” I want to ask questions, but I’ll wait for him to finish. “It took them a month to diagnose him. He has ALL.” His voice cracks when he tells me his diagnosis.

It’s worse than I thought. I close my eyes to stop the tears. “What did they say?”

“At first, they said he was in the standard risk,” he says, and I nod my head. That’s what they usually say. “But then we started chemo, and his white blood cell count went past 50,000, which meant it was refractory, so we tried a stronger dose, and it seemed to be working, but then it just stopped.”

“Two rounds, that’s it?” I ask him.

“Nothing was working, so they basically just gave up. But then one of the nurses mentioned you,” he says, looking me dead in my eyes, and the pull is stronger than I thought it would be. “She said if anyone can give him a fighting chance, you can.”

“Where does Mommy stand in all this?” I ask him. It’s better to get both parents on the same page than ones who fight with each other.

“She isn’t involved,” he tells me and then inhales. “She basically checked out when they gave him the diagnosis.”

“I’m sorry. That can be harder on the patient than you know,” I tell him. “So what do you want to hear?”

“I want to hear that you’ll help save my son. I want to hear that I didn’t come all this way for nothing. And most of all”—a tear escapes his eye—“I want to hear that I won’t have to bury my son.”

“I can’t promise a specific treatment or outcome until I read his file, but I will take his case,” I answer honestly. “I need to know exactly what I’m dealing with.”

“But you’ll help?” he asks.

I smile at him, this time not a doctor smile but a smile from one person to another. “The good news is survival for children has increased from under 10% in the 1960s to 90% in 2015.”

“Another thing,” he says, and I look at him; this man looks like he is carrying the weight of everyone on his shoulders. “I don’t want you to sugarcoat anything. I want honesty. I can’t deal with the bullshit.”

“Deal,” I tell him. “It’s the only way I can be a good doctor,” I say. “It’s not going to be easy, and we may lose him.” The thought makes my heart hurt. The hardest part of my job is losing a patient. “But that’s the rude reality to all this. Cancer is its own boss.”

He nods his head. “Thank you,” he says, leaning back a bit on the couch, “for listening to me and not telling me to fuck off.”

We both laugh now. “Let’s go and meet my new patient.” I get up, and he follows me, placing his hand on my lower back as we walk into the playroom. Jack and Michael are both giggling, and he now has his hat off.

“Hey there, buddy,” Zack says, going to him. “You took off your hat?”

“Yeah,” he says, not even paying attention to him. His eyes focus on the cars going around and around. “It was itchy.”

“This is the first time he’s taken the hat off when he wasn’t at home,” he tells me in a quiet whisper. “He hates to take it off.”

“Well”—I lean in to him, and the smell of his woodsy aftershave hits me—“maybe he feels like he’s at home.”

Zack puts his hands in his back pockets. “I really hope so.” I watch him watch his son, and he smiles when he sees Jack laughing.

“I’m going to go and help Aly,” I tell them and walk into the kitchen where my sister-in-law is taking a tray out of the oven. “Smells good in here.”

“It’s not because of me. I picked up this lasagna at Tony’s,” she says of the to-die-for Italian restaurant we frequent. She puts on the oven mitts and turns around and looks at me. “So?”

“So?” I sit on the stool at the island.

“What did you decide to do?” she asks me, standing in front of me.

“Was there even a decision?” I tell her. “Honestly, how can I say no?”

“I knew you wouldn’t the minute Max told me the story.”

She smiles. “It’s so sad.”

“It is, and like I told him, I can’t guarantee anything, but I can guarantee I’ll do whatever I can for him.”

“And that, my favorite sister-in-law”—I laugh and roll my eyes—“is why you’re the best at your job.”

“Yeah, yeah,” I say and then look down. “I hope I can save him.”

“If anyone can, it’s you,” she says, and I just nod my head. “And off topic,” she says quietly, looking over my shoulder to see that it is just the two of us, “his eyes are to die for.” She starts to laugh and then stops when she sees Max standing at the entrance of the kitchen.

“What is to die for?” he asks, glaring at his wife with my niece in his arms, perfectly content to be on his hip. I get up from the stool.

“I’ll go set the table.” I smile at him, and he glares back at me. “By the way, I need to kick your ass for ambushing me.”

“I know,” he says, looking at Alex, who looks up at him and smiles. Drool comes out of her mouth, landing on her I love my dad bib. I reach out for her, and she starts to fuss. “She’s teething,” he tries to tell me.

“She’s been teething since she was born,” I tell him, and he brings her head to his chest. “Leave her alone. I leave tomorrow, so I need all the cuddle times.” He looks at her, and she smacks his chest with her fist. “Isn’t that right, princess?”

“Fine, have her; it’ll only be a matter of time before she’s calling her cool aunt Denise to complain about what a drag her father is,” I tell him over my shoulder, walking to the dining room to set the table.

Zack comes in. “What can I do to help?” he asks me, and I hand him the forks.

“Where are the boys?” I ask him, and he puts the forks down, walking around the table to each place setting.

“Playing Hot Wheels,” he says, and then I watch him. “He didn’t really have friends back in Arizona.”

“Really? How come?” I ask, unsure whether it’s the right thing to ask.

“His mother isn’t someone you get along with easily.” He looks at me, and I take in his face; his cheekbones are defined perfectly, his nose a touch crooked, no doubt from being broken a time or two. “He has had a nanny since he was born. She would try to bring him to the park, but then he would come home dirty, and Chantal would go mental.”

“She sounds delightful,” I say and then catch myself ready to apologize when he throws his head back and laughs.

“That’s a good one,” he says to me, and I expect him to be mad. “My mother saw it early on that Chantal didn’t have the ‘motherly touch’”—he uses his fingers to make air quotes—“but I just brushed it off till I saw it for myself when she got mad at him for spilling grape juice on the white rug.”

“Oh, dear,” I say, thinking she would hate my rug, which has coffee stains, Coke stains, and very recently, vodka cranberry stains.

He shrugs his shoulders. “I wish I could say it got easier, but it didn’t. She didn’t cope well with Jack being sick and never ever wanted him to take his hat off in public.” He shakes his head, and I have this sudden hatred for a woman I have never met.

“I’m sure she had her strong suits.” I try to be positive.

“Yeah, no one can rack up an AmEx bill quite like she could.” He laughs. “We were married for ten years, so I should be sad it’s over, right?” He looks at me, and I have this sudden urge to go to him, to hug him, to hold his hand, to take care of him. I don’t know what their story is, but at this point, I don’t care. My main focus is Jack.

“Dinner’s ready.” I hear Allison yell from the kitchen. The kids run into the dining room, and Michael looks over at Jack.

“You can sit next to me.” He points at the chair as he climbs up on it.

“Yeah,” Jack says, and I watch him look at Michael and laugh. “Is it spaghetti? I love spaghetti.”

“Me too,” Michael says, “but I think it’s lasagna.”

“Daddy.” Jack looks up at Zack. “Do I like lasagna?”

He goes to his son and kisses his cheek. “Yeah, buddy, you do.”

I watch him doting on his son and always keeping an eye on him. I watch him making the most of every single moment he is with him. I watch him and pray that I can save him.