Chapter Twenty
Dax was right, Kyra decided. She couldn’t spend another moment beating herself up with bad-mother guilt. For Ruby’s sake, she had to focus on the positive. So she picked herself up and clung to the fact that Dr. Green was still optimistic. That was her new mantra—optimism in all things.
But privately Kyra couldn’t stop comparing Ruby’s situation to her mother’s. She even called her dad one night, needing to commiserate with someone else who understood. It had been months since she’d talked to him—they’d drifted so far apart over the years that now their only communication seemed to come around the holidays.
“Haven’t heard from you in a while,” he said when he answered the phone.
For the record, Kyra hadn’t heard from him, either. “I have news,” she said.
Her dad was silent as she told him about Ruby: the seizures she didn’t know were seizures. The tests, the tumor.
When at last he did speak, he asked, “Is it hereditary?”
“I don’t think so. The doctor said probably not. But I . . . what do you think?”
“I guess it could be.”
Kyra squeezed her eyes shut. What she really wanted was for her father to tell her that it was impossible, that everything was going to be okay. She didn’t know why she thought he would give her that, really—he’d never been able to assure her, not even when she was twelve and had needed his reassurance so deeply. “I don’t know what I’m going to do, Dad,” she said quietly.
“You’re going to put one foot in front of the other, that’s all you can do.”
“Yeah,” she said.
“I’m sorry this happened,” he said and then changed the subject. He began to talk about fishing, which seemed to be the only thing he did these days.
Kyra took his advice and worked to keep one foot in front of the other. But she was distracted, plagued by so many what-if scenarios.
For two days, she and Dax both went through the motions. They had dinner together. They walked along the lakeshore and watched Ruby and Otto run ahead, picking up things, discarding things, chattering about nothing and everything.
When Friday finally rolled around, Kyra was up before dawn. She would miss a good shift today, traded to Deenie for her Monday shift.
Dax was all smiles when he showed up on their porch to escort them into Manhattan for Ruby’s doctor appointment. If she couldn’t put up the necessary front, he would do it for both of them.
“Where are we going?” Ruby asked. She was dressed in a yellow dress with bumblebees embroidered in dizzying patterns. Kyra had put her hair in a high ponytail. She had on her pink boots and looked adorable.
“To the doctor, sweetie.”
“For me?”
“Yes, you.”
Ruby frowned. “I’ve already been to the doctor. Why do I have to go again?”
“Guess what?” Dax said. He was leaning against the door frame, and Kyra was momentarily struck by how strong and confident he looked. She wanted to sink into his arms and bury her face against his chest.
“What?” Ruby asked.
“We’re going to McDonald’s today.”
Ruby gasped. “We are?”
“We always go after a doctor visit.”
She giggled. “We don’t always go,” she said. But she walked out the door and down the steps to Kyra’s car.
An hour later Kyra, Dax, and Ruby were in a glass high-rise in midtown Manhattan, in the offices of the neuropathologist, Dr. Mehta. After what felt like an interminable wait in the waiting room, they were finally shown into an examining room.
Dr. Mehta reminded Kyra of a mad scientist. She was short, wore a white lab coat, and her short hair, streaked gray, looked as if she’d been shoving her fingers through it all day. She carefully reviewed Ruby’s films as Ruby played with Kyra’s phone, then performed a cursory examination of her.
“Well,” Dr. Mehta said when she’d finished examining Ruby and Ruby’s attention was focused on Kyra’s phone once more, “let’s start with the good news. The growth in Ruby’s head is quite small.”
Kyra sat, waiting, immobile. That was not good news. She didn’t care how small it was, it didn’t belong there.
“That’s good,” Dax said.
“That’s very good,” Dr. Mehta agreed. “It’s an easier surgery.”
“Surgery,” Kyra slowly repeated. Of course she knew it would require surgery, but she needed to say it aloud.
Dr. Mehta fixed a dark, brown-eyed gaze on Kyra. “We’re going to want to get it out of there, obviously, and have it biopsied. It’s on the cerebellum, just behind her ear, which is easy to reach. I think we have an excellent chance of getting it all.”
“Then what?” Kyra asked.
“Then, depending on what the biopsy reveals, we’ll hopefully need only to monitor her for seizures and keep an eye on her to see if it comes back. Often, these types of growths in kids don’t come back.”
“And . . . if you can’t get it all? If it’s malignant?” Kyra asked flatly.
“Well, then we’ll have to talk about radiation and maybe chemo,” the doctor said. “Even if it’s benign, if we can’t get it all, we would not want to risk a malignancy.”
Kyra said nothing, processing that news.
“I don’t understand any of this,” Dax said. “She had the classic symptoms of absence seizures.”
Dr. Mehta nodded. “Focal seizures can look exactly like absence seizures,” she said. “It’s not common, but it happens. This is all good news, Mrs. Kokinos. If your child has the misfortune of being diagnosed with a brain tumor, this is really the best of all possible worlds. I’ll have my surgical coordinator get in touch with you to go over insurance and procedures. We’ll want to get another MRI before the surgery to see if anything has changed. Sound good?”
No, it sounded like a nightmare.
Dr. Mehta moved to the door. “Take all the time you need,” she said.
When the doctor had gone out, neither Kyra nor Dax spoke, both of them lost in thought, both of them staring at the bland tile floor. Ruby came around and stood in front of Kyra, and when Kyra looked up, she started—Ruby looked furious. “Mommy, you said I wasn’t sick,” she said accusingly.
Kyra didn’t know what to say. “I don’t think you’re sick, pumpkin,” she said, cringing inwardly at her lie. “But the doctors want to make extra sure.”
“Can’t you just tell them I’m not sick?”
She swallowed. “I can, pumpkin, but they want to make sure. Because if you are sick, they want to make you better.”
“I don’t like the doctor,” Ruby said.
Kyra reached for Ruby and drew her into her embrace. “I know. I don’t like any of this, either. I hate it. You know how bad I hate it? I want to stomp it into the ground like we stomped on the mud patties last week.”
Ruby smiled a little. “I made a huge splat.”
“Yes, you did.”
“Can we go to McDonald’s now?” Ruby asked.
“Yes,” Kyra said and ran her hand over Ruby’s head. “You bet.” Today Ruby could have whatever she wanted.
“Yay!” Ruby said and ran around Kyra to pick up Kyra’s phone. “Can I play on your phone until we get there?”
“Yep.” Kyra stood up and looked at Dax.
He reached for her hand and gave it a reassuring squeeze. It was all he could give her. There was nothing in this world that could possibly make this better for any of them except for that tumor to disappear.
Kyra had to hand it to Dax—over the next few days he did everything he could to cheer them all up. He made Ruby a set of furniture for her Barbies that she thought was the greatest thing to be produced in the history of toys. He made Ruby and Kyra homemade pizza Saturday night and produced an expensive bottle of wine.
“You’ve been holding out on me,” Kyra had said when she looked at the pizza. “Who knew a guy like you could make a pizza like this?”
“You have no idea of the depth of my talents,” he’d said.
“I think I have an idea,” she’d said, winking at him.
Dax laughed and glanced at Ruby. “What do you think, Coconut, is it okay if I kiss your mom?”
Ruby looked up from her dolls. “Why?”
“Because I like her. I like her a lot.”
“I know you like her,” Ruby said and looked at Kyra.
“I like him, too,” Kyra said. “Do you like him?”
Ruby giggled. “Is he your boyfriend?”
“Ah . . .” Kyra glanced sidelong at Dax. “Yep. He is my boyfriend.”
“Then okay,” Ruby somberly agreed. “Kiss her.”
Dax wrapped his arm around Kyra and kissed her squarely on the lips for the first time in front of Ruby. And then he bent down, grabbed Ruby up, and kissed her, too, while she writhed and laughed and said, “Don’t kiss me! I’m not your girlfriend!”
Sunday, they went to the movies, Dax’s treat.
“You’re doing too much,” Kyra said. She knew he was trying to help, but it was beginning to feel like charity.
“Stop counting,” Dax said and shoved a big bucket of popcorn at her. Kyra wasn’t feeling so indebted as to protest popcorn. But she was aware that it was too much, that she’d sprung too much on this man too soon in too short a time. It wasn’t fair. None of it was fair, but it especially wasn’t fair to him.
Kyra took another day off work and went back into the city to meet with the surgical coordinator, who basically explained that anything short of cutting into her daughter’s head wasn’t an option. They reviewed Kyra’s sorry insurance and all the things that were covered. Then they reviewed all the things that weren’t covered. The bottom line was that no matter how many procedures were covered, it was still going to cost Kyra a pretty penny. She would sell her soul if she had to, but the question of where she would possibly get the money she needed weighed on her.
Forget studying—it was impossible for her to concentrate. So Kyra funneled her restlessness into work as much as possible. For the first time since she had moved in, her cottage was spick-and-span. She worked as much as she could at the bistro. She was able to pick up an extra shift or two and made up some of the money she’d lost to missed shifts because of doctor appointments.
And then the call came. In three weeks Ruby was required to get a follow-up MRI. The surgery was scheduled about a week after that, and Ruby would have that horrible tumor removed.
Kyra didn’t know how she’d endure it, and she was grateful to have Dax to lean on. She didn’t know how she would ever make this up to Dax. She didn’t know if it was even possible. But she was so grateful to him for his support, so indebted.
Too indebted. As much as she needed him right now, their budding relationship felt dangerously out of balance.