St. Clair (Gives Light Series) (21 page)

"I looked at your scans," Dr. Demain said to me.

"And your biopsy. First of all, I'm terribly sorry

this happened to you."

But nothing had happened to me. I didn't feel any

different than I usually did.

"The cordectomy is a very simple procedure.

There's no need to make an incision. I'll use a

laryngoscope, like the kind your pediatrician used

to examine you. There will be no pain except for

some soreness after the surgery. A speech

therapist will need to teach you how to swallow

again. Your throat will be structured a little

differently when your vocal cords are gone."

I thought about Rafael, against my will.

"After the surgery," Dr. Demain said, "you'll have

about a month's worth of radiotherapy." She

clenched her teeth in a peculiar smile. I didn't

know what to make of it. "To kill the metastasis."

"And then he'll be healthy," Dad urged. "Right?"

"I won't lie," Dr. Demain said. "Given that this

cancer is metastatic, there is a possibility it will

come back after treatment. If it doesn't come back

within five years, I'd consider him safe."

I had the faint notion, erroneous though it was, that

they were talking about someone else, not me.

This just didn't sound like anything that could

happen to me.

"If it comes back?"

"More radiation, maybe chemotherapy."

And then I thought the dumbest thought in the

history of thoughts. I thought: I don't want to lose

my hair. Rafael likes it this way.

Dr. Demain made an appointment for the surgery,

and then she drained her teacup and left. A week

from now. She was going to cut out my vocal

cords in a week from now. I guess speedy service

is a perk when you live on a small reservation.

Granny let out a sigh. I thought it sounded

disappointed.

"It's cold in here," she said. "One of you, light the

hearth."

I took the flint from the tinderbox and knelt in front

of the fireplace. I stared at the freshly cut timber.

I felt cold, too. Cold on the inside. Cancer. It

didn't sound real. It wasn't real. It couldn't be.

All of a sudden I thought about Balto. I smiled

wryly. Balto used to love climbing into the

fireplace.

I struck the flint, swallowing a sigh of my own.

Flames came to life on top of the firewood, the

flickering glow burning my eyes.

The atmosphere in the house remained unsettlingly

gloomy, even when Racine came over with the

kids and Granny told them the story about the Gray

Bear and the first snowfall. Racine offered me a

box of Christmas cookies and I smiled, but felt

guilty that I couldn't eat them.

I went to bed early that night--about eight o'clock,

which isn't like me. I wasn't tired. On the

contrary, I was wide awake. I sat on the edge of

my bed, chilly winter wind streaming through the

open window, and drummed my fingers against my

knees. I gazed around my bedroom and

reacquainted myself with the familiar details.

Photographs on the closet door, my friends'

likeness staring back at me. Two oil lamps, one

by the door and one on the bedside table. A

dreamcatcher and a creepy cat-shaped clock. An

obnoxious yellow poster proudly declaring,

"California or Bust."

I touched the charcoal sketch sitting on my bedside

table. I traced the lines of my mother's face. I

hadn't seen her in twelve years. Oddly, all I

wanted was to see her now. She knew what it was

like to die. Maybe she could help me through it.

You're not dying, I told myself. Stop being a

moron.

"Did I seriously draw that?"

It didn't entirely surprise me when Rafael climbed

through the window.

Rafael dropped down onto the bed. He shook out

his hair, his braids hitting me in the face. His gray

jacket was zipped up to his collarbone. His

glasses were askew.

I smiled at him. I think my face was just

programmed to smile whenever he was around.

He reached for the charcoal drawing and examined

it.

"I can do better than that," he said. "I'll draw you a

new one."

I took the drawing back definitively. I didn't want

a new one. I wanted this one.

"You sure?"

I nodded, replacing it on the table.

"Okay," Rafael said dubiously. "Oh, I got a new

tattoo."

He turned his head and lifted his lank hair. On his

neck was the word "Family" in black, the skin

around the letters already starting to flake.

I touched his neck, but winced. Getting your throat

cut hurts like hell; I can't imagine that stabbing it a

thousand times with an ink needle is any better.

Worse still, I knew from experience that Rafael's

tattoos were all self-administered.

"Nah," Rafael said, lowering his hair. "Doesn't

really hurt."

I showed him my suspicious face. I guessed he'd

forgotten that I knew otherwise. He had given me

a tattoo a couple of years ago, an atlas moth on my

upper arm.

"I don't know what you're talking about. You just

have a low threshold for pain."

Rafael's complexion never allowed him to blush,

but I could tell when he was embarrassed anyway.

He looked embarrassed now. I wondered what he

was thinking about, but didn't press the matter.

"Uh," Rafael said. "Anyway, Mary's stupid

girlfriend is coming to the reserve next month. I

guess winter break looks different when you're in

college. The Navajo have their own college, it's

crazy. They're not as rich as the Pequot tribe,

though. Mary thinks she's so hilarious, she's sitting

there swearing up and down there's a gay gene in

the family, telling Rosa to watch out for her kid--

Rosa's way too timid, I told Mary to shut up--"

I listened to him talk, because he was like a

flooded reservoir, overflowing with thoughts and

in need of a place to put them all. I was always

happy to be that place.

"Oh, you wanna know something? Rosa makes this

really good elk steak--sorry, I forgot you don't eat

meat, forget I said anything--"

So Kaya was visiting the reserve. I ought to mail

her a Christmas card, I thought.

"Are you okay?"

I smiled quizzically at Rafael.

Rafael had been in a talkative mood seconds ago.

Now he looked guarded. Actually, he looked

tense, his jaw taut, an emotion I couldn't identify

wavering in his stormy blue eyes.

"You keep touching your neck," he said. "More

than usual."

I thought: No I don't. But then I realized my

fingers were resting on my throat even while I

denied it.

I felt the rigid scars beneath my fingertips and

quickly dropped my hand.

Rafael fell silent. Like most Shoshone, he didn't

fare well at addressing tension. I wondered

whether I should go get him some oatmeal candy

from the kitchen downstairs, but Dad and Granny

were still awake. I didn't want one of them to

corner me. I didn't want to talk about--it.

Not that they were likely to talk about it. I mean,

Dad waited twelve years to tell me we weren't

related, and the only reason he relented was

because I'd stumbled across the truth myself.

Rafael put his arm around me.

I can't explain why, but I shivered. Maybe it was

the night air blowing through the window. Maybe

it was the inexorable truth that Rafael always knew

what I was feeling, whether I wanted him to know

or not. He knew something was wrong. He

couldn't possibly know what it was; but he knew it

was wrong.

I laid my head on his shoulder--hesitant, at first,

because I'd never done such a thing before. I liked

it when he laid his head on my lap, when he buried

his face against the crook of my neck, but I'd never

tried to do the same to him. It was more

comforting to give comfort than to receive it. I

didn't want to be the weak one. When you're

weak, people take advantage of you. Six-year-

olds are weak.

Rafael's fingers sifted into my hair. He teased his

fingers through my curls, winding them around his

knuckles. He grazed my scalp with his fingernails.

If I had to be weak, at least he was the only one to

see it.

If you're big on Christmas, then you definitely want

to attend the Nettlebush solstice party.

Every year we get together and throw a big feast

for the winter solstice, a festival in which every

game and every confectionary you could possibly

imagine suddenly become a reality. The children

put on a play about the Black Bear and the Gray

Bear, an age-old story that relates the Gray Bear's

trip to eternity through the freezing white snow of

the north. At the very end of the celebration the

men and the women perform the warm dance, a

giant, joyful circle dance the Shoshone invented

thousands of years ago in order to send blessings

to the wild animals who might not otherwise

survive the cold nights. When the Quakers and the

Mormons forced the Shoshone to recognize

Christianity, the annual solstice celebrations got

conflated with Christmas; so Reverend Silver

Wolf always reads Bible passages about

Bethlehem and King Herod and the Massacre of

the Innocents. But other than that morbid little

tangent, it's the most amazing time of year to be a

Shoshone.

So you can understand how miffed I was when

Robert told me I was probably going to miss it.

"Oh,
don't
give me that sulky face," he warned.

The cuff around my arm tightened. Robert was

checking my blood pressure. "You need to stay in

the hospital for the duration of your treatment.

Radiotherapy's going to compromise your immune

system, and your immune system's pretty crappy to

begin with." He eyed me suddenly. "Have you

been sleeping lately?"

I hadn't. I do this weird thing when I'm stressed

out: I turn into an insomniac. I don't know how

common that is, but for me, it's really annoying.

"Pish," Robert said. "Oh, well. Hold still, honey,

I've got to take your blood."

I hated needles, but it couldn't be helped. Robert

readied a syringe and slid it into the juncture of my

elbow, cackling while affecting a fake Hungarian

accent, Bela Lugosi style. I think it was meant to

make me relax. I watched the bulbous plastic cap

fill up with blood. You know, people always say

that blood is blue when it's deoxygenated, but that

blood sure looked red to me. Or maybe the

blood's already oxygenated when it's in your

veins. But then why do the veins under your skin

look blue? Does anybody actually know?

"Calm down, Cubby," Dad said. "It's alright."

Dad and Granny were in that room with me, each

sitting in a bulky brown visitor's chair. I felt bad

that they were here in this stuffy hospital room

with me and not out getting ready for the holidays.

To her credit, though, Granny had brought a stack

of magazines and a ball of yarn.

I smiled at Dad, my eyebrows raised. Of course it

was alright.

"Okay," Robert said. "Stress test time."

Robert attached a bunch of electrodes to my

pulses--about ten in total--and watched the monitor

next to the bed. Predictably, I failed the stress

test. Robert gave me a sedative.

It was after the ECG that a whole team of

physicians came streaming into the hospital room

and introduced themselves to us one at a time.

Shaking all those hands was kind of dizzying.

There were surgeons and surgical nurses, an

anesthesiologist, a blah-blah-blah, a this-and-that--

no Dr. Demain, though. Maybe she was already in

the OR.

Even Dr. Stout came by for a visit, patting me on

the shoulder. "You're fine, Skylar," she kept

saying. I knew she was trying to reassure me--and

it was really nice of her--but if anything, it was

making me anxious.

Most of the surgical team eventually filtered out of