Before I could stop it, an image of Tanner lying weak and crying filled my head. “And if I’m not a match?”
“We find one,” Parker answered. “Before Tanner’s leukemia beats us.”
The sentence hit me like a wild punch. I drew in a slow breath, fighting the grief, the anger threatening to overwhelm me. Parker regarded me, his expression contemplative. Perhaps he was waiting for me to crumple again? Perhaps he knew I needed the time to digest the finality of his statement.
I sat motionless, the faint pulling sensation in my arm telling me Carla was still drawing blood. “What chance is there I will be a match?” I finally asked, my gut a churning, knotted mess. “Don’t sugar-coat it. I need to know.”
The slight slump in Parker’s shoulders answered my question before he spoke. “Unfortunately, the percentage of parents being a match is low, even with all the advancements made in medical science recently. Thirty percent at best. There are options available. And I could throw fancy terms at you like haploidentical donor, but until we test you to determine if you are remotely suitable, I think bombarding you with that kind of information will only stress you out more. For the immediate present, we test your suitability and wait and see. And hope.”
Hope. That word again. I don’t think I’ve ever hated a word before, nor hung so much importance on what it defined.
“And if I am? How is the transplant . . . how does my bone marrow get into Tanner?”
“Let’s see if you’re a match before we go into detail.”
I wanted to tell him I was going to be a match. I wanted to tell him to get whatever room was needed for the transplant ready. I wanted to believe that. But as optimistic as I am, I’m also a realist. And false hope is as dangerous to a person’s mind, to their psyche, as hope.
“Done.”
At Carla’s soft voice, I turned to face her. Withdrawing the needle from my inner elbow, she pressed a cotton wad against the tiny puncture in my arm and then smiled up at me. I didn’t fail to notice how sympathetic that smile was. “Lollipop time?”
I gave her a shaky laugh.
“Brendon?”
Heart racing, I turned back to Parker. He was frowning. I didn’t like that. No one wants to see the doctor in charge of curing their child frowning. “Yeah?”
“There’s something you need to understand. I wish I could sugar-coat it, but it’s better I don’t.”
“What’s that?”
“The numbers for long-term survival for patients with this type of leukemia are not fantastic. Unfortunately, approximately thirty percent of patients experience relapse. In someone Tanner’s age . . . that percentage is higher.”
I stared at him. A lump filled my throat. My pulse pounded in my ears. “But not a hundred percent, right? The percentage for relapse isn’t a hundred percent.”
“No. It isn’t a hundred percent,” he answered.
“Then Tanner will be in the percentage that kicks cancer’s arse.”
Nine
Being Vulnerable Sucked
Parker walked me back to Tanner’s room, but didn’t come in.
“I’ve got some other patients to see,” he explained, as he took my hand in another one of those firm, confident shakes. “When we get the results back, we’ll be in contact. Is Amanda’s cell the best number to get you on?”
I pondered the question. Its simplicity stirred in me a complicated, ambivalent response.
“No,” I finally answered. “It won’t be.”
His eyes narrowed, and then he slipped his hand into the back pocket of his pants and took out his wallet. “When you get your American cell number working,” he said, flipping it open to withdraw a business card, “give me a call.” He handed the card to me.
I couldn’t help but chuckle. Grinning up at me was a caricature portrait of Parker in his doctor’s clothes holding an iconic Star Wars light saber. Beside that were the words Dr. Parker Waters, MD, FAAP. Pediatric Hematologist and Oncologist. The force is strong in this one.
“You get the special card for family and friends,” he said. “The professional one I have is reserved for boring people.”
Lifting my gaze from the image, I held out my hand for another shake. The double-shake. Holy crap, I was doing the double-shake. “Thank you, doc,” I said, meaning it with every fiber of my being. “I don’t know . . .”
He cupped my upper arm with his free hand and fixed me with an unwavering stare. “I can see where Tanner gets his fighting spirit from, Brendon.”
I smiled.
“And his looks,” Parker’s face split into a wide grin, and it was like he was suddenly infused with light and all the joy in the world. “How am I meant to woo the nurses with you two around?”
I laughed. Damn, the guy was good. If there is a higher power, a greater force directing the paths of our lives, He/She/It had done their job to perfection with Parker Waters. I watched him wander down the corridor before he stopped at the next open door, turned to face the room beyond the threshold and threw up his hands. “No no no, Charlotte,” he cried, comical horror in his voice, “those are my high heels and wig!”
He stepped into the room amid a faint cloud of girlish laughter, and was gone from my sight.
It wasn’t until I walked back into Tanner’s room, that I realized how calm he’d helped me stay over the last half hour. However, at the sight of Tanner sound asleep in his bed – now more like a cot with its high side railings – with the oxygen tube in his nose and an IV now connected to the PICC in his arm, all the rawness of his condition slammed into me again.
From the seat beside the bed, Amanda raised her head and gave me a small smile. “Hey, Bren. Was that fun? Did the nurse give you a lollipop?”
I crossed the room to Tanner and loosely gripped the top of the rail. The metal was cool beneath my palms. Almost icy. “He doesn’t have anything in there with him,” I commented, watching him sleep.
The emptiness of the sleeping space, no pillows, no toys, not even Optimus, jarred me. He looked alone. There’s a widely accepted opinion that all children look peaceful while asleep, and yet I couldn’t help but notice Tanner looked sick. His skin was paler, and there were now dark smudges under his eyes. His thumb was back in his mouth, his lips a tight seal around it. The tape fixing the oxygen tube to his cheek seemed to stretch the flesh around it, and I found myself wanted to ease its grip on his young skin.
“The only thing he wants to take to bed is Optimus,” Amanda answered. “I let him fall asleep with it and then take it out. So he doesn’t roll onto it and hurt himself.”
“He needs a soft toy.” The kookaburra I’d bought for Chase at Sydney International entered my mind, laughing in its maniacal way. I let out a low chuckle, imagining how Parker Waters would react to that sound.
“Soft toys collect dust mites,” said Amanda, “even in a hospital. They could cause him breathing problems.”
My gut turned at the statement. It was wrong for a little kid not to have something to cuddle while asleep, especially a sick one. Wrong. Unfair. So fucking . . .