Melissa Kantor - Maybe One Day

As if she’d read my mind, my mother crossed to where I was standing. Her hand shook, and she had trouble slipping her feet into the shoes. By the time she was done, I’d grabbed her bag and gone to the front hall. Without saying another word, we headed out the door.

My mother’s a talker. It’s like the monologue most of us have running in our head at any given time is, in my mom’s case, dialogue . S hould I have the chicken salad sandwich … oh, it’s kind of crowded in here … I better not forget to write this down … it’s really taking a long time for the light to change … I think I should buy this T-shirt in blue and black . The whole drive into Manhattan she talked and she talked and she talked.

“You know, honey, I went to school with a girl who had leukemia, and she was fine . And that was years ago. They’ve got treatments now that are much, much better than the ones they had then.”

“Mmmm-hmmm.” What was leukemia? I didn’t even know exactly. I knew it was terrible. I knew people could die from it. But what was it? Olivia said they’d found something in her blood … I picked at a split nail on my thumb, biting and pulling at it.

“And University Hospital is the best. Just the best . If any one of us got sick, I’d want us there. And do you remember my friend Beth? Her brother-in-law is the head of … cardiology there, I think. Or it could be dermatology. Anyway, he’s a big, big deal. Maybe I’ll ask Beth to call him. It’s always good to know a doctor who’s on the staff when you’re a patient.”

“There’s nothing wrong with Livvie’s heart, Mom. Or her skin.” The nail split low, and I peeled it off, glad to focus on the pain.

“Well, it’s always good to know a doctor,” she repeated. We were driving up West End Avenue. The Fischer Center and NYBC were just north of us; my mom and Olivia and I must have done this drive a thousand times. Ten thousand times. Our being in the car together driving to Manhattan after school would have been perfectly normal if Olivia had been sitting with us and my mom hadn’t put her blinker on for another five blocks.

“Now …” She leaned forward and peered out the windshield, then braked for a yellow light. I wanted to scream at how slowly she was going. The back of the hospital loomed to our left. “I think the main entrance is right around the corner, so I’m going to … No. Wait. I can’t turn here.” She clicked off her blinker, even though there was no one behind us. “Maybe I’ll just look for a spot.” She leaned forward again and squinted. “Does that sign say ‘no parking any time’?”

The light was still red. My finger where I’d peeled off the nail throbbed. Something inside me felt tight, as if I were a balloon that had been blown up too big. I reached for the door handle. “I’m going to meet you inside.”

“Just give me a second to park.”

I opened the door. The cool breeze made me realize how stuffy it had been in the car. Why had we driven all the way with the windows closed?

“Zoe, wait!” The light south of us must have changed. Cars came up behind ours and started honking. My mom’s voice was shrill. “Zoe, the light’s changing.”

Actually, it had already changed, but I was out of the car. I slammed the door shut, ran three long steps, and, without even meaning to, did a grand jeté onto the curb as if I’d turned back the clock and Livvie and I were still ballerinas together.

My mom had been right—the main entrance to the hospital was just around the corner. I felt guilty for abandoning her and waited a minute, thinking maybe she’d be right behind me. But she wasn’t, and I couldn’t take standing there. I pushed through the revolving glass door and crossed the lobby, my sandals silent on the white marble floor. There was a sign next to an enormous desk directing visitors to show their ID. I’d left my wallet in the house not thinking I’d need it, but luckily the security guard didn’t ask me for anything except Olivia’s name. He looked her up in a computer and waved me to a bank of elevators off to the right. On the black-and-white visitor’s sticker he’d written ROOM 1238 in blue Sharpie.

When the elevator doors opened on the twelfth floor, I found myself looking at a dark gray sign that read PEDIATRIC ONCOLOGY.

Oncology. The word was like a punch. Oncology. Leukemia was cancer.

Olivia had cancer.

As I stepped out of the elevator, a little boy, maybe three or four, walked toward me down the hallway. He had no hair, and he was holding a stuffed animal, chatting with a woman who looked like she was probably his grandmother. The woman asked him a question and he said, “Of course!” and she laughed.

He has cancer. That little boy has cancer.

They walked by. Had Olivia seen the boy? I wanted Olivia not to have seen him. I had some idea it would be upsetting to her to have seen a little boy with cancer. But of course Livvie had cancer, so maybe seeing a kid with cancer wouldn’t upset her. How can kids get cancer? That is so completely screwed up. I could feel myself getting mad, not at God—who I don’t believe in—but at people who believe in God. Because what kind of a fucked-up God would make a world where kids can get cancer? I headed down the hall in the opposite direction from the boy, but the numbers were going down, not up. The mad feeling was feeding on the tight feeling, and I was actually having trouble catching my breath. I turned around. The boy and his grandmother were gone. I half walked, half ran along the hall back the way I’d come, until I got to room 1238. Next to the room number, a piece of paper had the handwritten words Olivia Greco .

I pushed on the door. It was big and heavy-looking, and I shoved it hard, expecting a lot of resistance, but it shot open. “Sorry,” I said by way of greeting, as everyone in the room jumped at the sound of the door slamming open.

The room was small, maybe half the size of Olivia’s room at home. Livvie, wearing a blue hospital gown and a pair of blue sock-like booties, was sitting on the bed with her mom. Her dad was sitting in a pinkish pleather chair next to the bed, and Jake was sitting on the radiator under the window. There was a gorgeous view of the Hudson River, which looked in the afternoon sun as if someone had painted the surface of the water a vivid, almost neon, orange.

Guess what, kids! The bad news is: You have cancer. But hey, check out these views!

Olivia was pale, like maybe she still had a fever. But except for that and the IV disappearing into the sleeve of her hospital gown, she looked exactly the way she’d looked when I’d left her Sunday morning after our sleepover.

“Hi,” I said.

“Hi,” she said.

I felt relieved to be seeing her but also strangely shy. I wasn’t sure if it was okay to go over and sit with her. Not that there was enough room on the bed for me, Olivia, and her mom. And not like I could ask her mom to get off. Unsure of what to do, I just hovered near the door.

“Hi, Zoe,” said Mrs. Greco, giving me a sad smile. “You were so good to come right over.”

Olivia’s mom was always dressed beautifully. She didn’t work, but she did a lot of volunteer stuff—raising money for a wildlife sanctuary near us, serving on the school board. I could picture her getting dressed this morning. She’d chosen a white blouse and pale yellow suit. She’d slipped a string of pearls around her neck and snapped the clasp. Before her committee meeting or her charity lunch, she’d be taking Olivia to the doctor. Brushing her bobbed blond hair, she’d expected to hear her daughter had strep throat or maybe a virus. Nothing out of the ordinary. As she’d slid her feet into her beige suede pumps, could she possibly have imagined that before the day was over, she’d be wearing them while sitting on her daughter’s hospital bed?