The mood was somber that night despite everyone’s best efforts to make it not so. Grant was sitting on the floor, surrounded by Christmas gifts opened early. Leah was sitting in his lap, her face snuggled easily against his chest as she held a little, cloth doll with pigtails as red as her own.
“David,” Emily said as she leaned close to him, pointing to a line on the paper she was reading. “I don’t understand what everything means.”
“Honestly, I don’t either, Emily,” David shook his head.
“Come here, Em,” Grant motioned her over.
Emily sat down next to Grant; tears rolled down her cheeks as she leaned over and rested her head against his shoulder.
“Don’t cry,” Grant whispered.
“Don’t cry,” Leah repeated.
Emily smiled at Leah as she wiped her own tears.
“Look,” Grant said, his voice so controlled and confident as he spoke to Emily that everyone smiled admiringly at him. “This represents white blood cells, which are the ones that fight infection. This right here represents red blood cells which contain iron and carry oxygen and carbon dioxide throughout the body and keep your energy level up. This stands for platelets, which help your body clot bleeding. These types of blood cells are all produced by your bone marrow.”
All eyes were on Grant as he spoke.
“Basically, this sheet of paper says that my white blood cell count is elevated because an over abundance of immature white blood cells have built up and are preventing my healthy cells from working properly to fight infection. It says that my red blood cell count is low, which means that I am anemic, and that’s why I’ve been feeling so tired lately. This right here shows my platelet count, which is low and is the cause of the bruising and nosebleeds.”
Hailey closed her eyes as she sat on the couch wearing Grant’s hoodie. She took a deep breath, inhaling the faint scent of Tommy Hilfiger cologne that lingered. She heard Grant talking, sounding too academic and factual as he explained his diagnosis using words like hematocrit, thrombocytopenia, neutropenic, neutrophils, monocytes, lymphocytes, myelocytes, hematologist and oncologist.
“Tomorrow they want to do a spinal tap,” Grant shrugged. “So that’s where we stand right now.”
“What’s a spinal tap, Baby?” Rachel cried.
Grant shrugged. “It’s the medical community’s deceptively nice name for lumbar puncture! Basically, they’ll put a big needle in my lower back and start chemotherapy directly in the spinal canal to lessen the chances of the Leukemia developing in my central nervous system. Once my treatment protocol is determined by my doctors, they will most likely insert a central venous catheter into my chest where all of my medication and any blood components I need will be administered from that point on.”
“That thing will stay in your chest?” Melissa gulped.
“Yeah,” Grant nodded. “You know, in the vein below my collar bone.”
“Wow, so that’s gonna leave a scar, huh?” David winced.
“And let me tell you, that scar is my leading cause of concern at the moment,” Grant grinned sarcastically. “That and the whole hair debacle.”
“Grant,” Hailey frowned.
“You’re gonna like my battle scar, aren’t you, Hails?” Grant smiled. “Scars are sexy, right?”
When Hailey refused to engage in their usual witty repartee, Grant lifted Leah from his lap and stood up. He stepped over presents as he made his way to the sofa and sat down in Hailey’s lap. “Grant!” Hailey chided. “What are you doing? You are heavy!”
“I like this,” Grant grinned at her. “You thought about slapping me just now, and you had to think better of it! Am I right? Oh, how I have longed for this day!”
Hailey rolled her eyes. “Stop.”
“Come-on, Baby,” Grant smiled. “Laughter, it’s the best medicine, right?”
Hailey smiled concedingly.
“There’s that pretty smile that’s gonna get me through every single day,” Grant said as he kissed her lips. “Are you still gonna love me when I’m bald instead of blond?”
Hailey looked past Grant at everyone gathered around. “What makes you think I love you?” she said with Academy Award winning conviction.
Grant’s forehead wrinkled, and Hailey snorted as she laughed, which made Grant fall over on her laughing. Hailey wrapped her arms around Grant’s waist, and she melted into him as her laughter changed to tears.
As they stood in the hospital listening to the results of Grant’s blood tests, Nora reached instinctively for Randy’s hand and, with that single touch, she felt the wall she had built up between the two of them begin to crumble.
Now they stood in the hallway outside of Grant’s room, peering into the small, glass window on the door as their youngest child slept.
Nora stood by her husband’s side as he watched Grant through the window, his heart breaking as he witnessed the early stages of his son’s fight for the life he had only just begun to live. Nora looked with compassion into the hard eyes of a man who had faced many enemies, known many tragedies, yet now, facing a silent killer as deadly and as unpredictable as any army in the world, faced his greatest challenge yet.
Nora’s eyes filled with tears as she brought the heart-shaped necklace she was wearing to rest against her lips, and, as Randy shifted his eyes away from the window and down to meet Nora’s, a tear fell from his face onto hers. “I love you, Nora,” he grimaced.
“I love you too,” Nora wept as she buried herself in Randy’s embrace, and they stood there in the hallway holding on to one another as Christmas Eve faded into Christmas day.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Jack sat next to Hailey, his arm draped purposefully around her, recalling a similar night when he and his baby girl had sat in the same hospital years earlier. His daughter had lost her mother that night. She didn’t remember that time in her life; she didn’t know the pain, the heartache, the tears that were shed in that very room, nor the helplessness Jack had felt when doctors told him the person he loved would not survive…and he sat there now, desperately praying that she never would.
“Any change?” Joanna asked hopefully as she stepped over Jessica, who was asleep on a pallet on the floor.
