Mourning Song Read online

  “How about playing racquetball with me? I’ll spot you two points.”

  At the town house complex where Austin lived, there was a recreation area. He and Dani often played. His suggestion sounded good. She wanted to smash something. “You’re on, wise guy. And forget the points. I can take you without the charily.”

  “My rackets are in the trunk. After I stomp you, you can come over, and I’ll make you one of my famous OJ specials.”

  When they arrived at the outdoor racquetball courts, the afternoon sun and concrete walls were making angular shadows across the courts. Dani swung the racket and bounced on the balls of her feet to warm up. She served, propelling the ball in a power shot.

  “Okay, hot shot, no more Mr. Nice Guy,” Austin called. He followed up his taunt with a wicked shot that whizzed past her racket like a bullet. With determination, Dani buckled down to win the game.

  They played for forty minutes. Dani was soaked with perspiration, and her hands felt numb from holding the racket. Her breath came hard, and her muscles ached, but she felt exhilarated and almost free of the terrible feeling that had been weighing her down emotionally for two days.

  “I give up!” Austin finally yelled. “You’re killing me, girl.” He collapsed on the court, where he lay panting, spread-eagle.

  Dani scooped up the ball and sat down on the hard concrete. Her legs felt rubbery, and her heart was pounding, but she gave him a satisfied smirk. “Wimp!” she gibed.

  “I didn’t think I was taking on the bionic woman,” Austin gasped. He sat up and flashed her a sweaty grin. “So, do you feel better now?”

  She stood up, not wanting to give him any satisfaction. “You promised me an OJ special. Pay up.”

  “I never go back on a promise.” They went over to his family’s town house, and he unlocked the door and led her inside. “Mom and Dad must still be up at the church,” he said, stooping to scratch the head of the terrier that greeted them enthusiastically.

  Dani followed Austin down the hall, dodging the frolicking dog. “I can’t stay long. Right after dinner, Mom and I are going over to visit Cassie.” The mention of her sister brought back the heaviness instantly. She’d been so focused on the game that for a little while, she’d forgotten.

  In the kitchen, Austin started pulling out the blender and the ingredients for his concoction. Dani sat at the table and watched. The room felt overly warm. She stared up at an African mask that glared down ominously from the soffit. She looked around at the objects the Coles had obviously picked up on their travels all over the world.

  Minutes later, the blender stopped whirling, and Austin served her a frothy mixture. She sipped it, still staring at the mask. Austin followed her line of vision. “That mask was a gift from a tribal medicine man in Africa. It’s supposed to ward off evil spirits.”

  “Maybe I should borrow it for my sister.”

  “She’s got to be in better hands than that.”

  “I don’t think so. I’ll bet that old witch doctor knows more than Cassie’s doctors right now.”

  “You want to tell me about it?”

  Haltingly, at first, she poured out her feelings of helplessness and frustration. She didn’t want to cry like a baby, not even in front of Austin, but the burden of knowing her sister was going to die felt too big to handle.

  “I’m really sorry, Dani,” Austin said gently as he wiped her tears. “Is there anything I can do?”

  She shook her head. “According to Dr. Phillips, there’s nothing anyone can do. He’s obviously doing all he can—it turns out he’s an old friend of my mother’s.”

  “Your mother doesn’t think Cassie should know the truth?”

  “Right, but I disagree with her. I think Cassie has a right to know.”

  He leaned back in his chair, his blue eyes serious and thoughtful. “Maybe not. Sometimes a positive mental attitude is a big boost.”

  “I would want to know. Wouldn’t you?”

  He shrugged. “Sometimes hope is all a person has. Why take it away?”

  “But won’t it hurt more if she does learn the truth? Won’t she feel that we betrayed her?”

  “Is that what you’re afraid of? That she’ll hate you because you tried to protect her from the truth?”

  She was afraid Cassie would hate her and Mom. She couldn’t bare living the rest of her life thinking Cassie had died hating her. “Yes.” Dani hung her head miserably and stared down at her empty hands. “I don’t want her to die. It’s not fair.”

  “You can’t stop it from happening.”

  His honest statement only made her angry and depressed. What kind of a universe was it if a wonderful girl had to die at seventeen? “So, what should I do while I wait for it to happen?”

  “Let her know you love her, I guess. Be there for her if she needs anything. I’ll do anything I can to help you.”

  “Will you? I feel as if I should do something more, but I don’t know what.”

  “If you think of something, I’ll help you. I promise.”

  She raised her glass and clinked it against his. “It’s a deal.”

  Four

  THAT EVENING, WHEN Dani and her mom went to visit Cassie, they found her vomiting. She was running a low-grade fever, as well. “A side effect of her treatments,” Dr. Phillips told them as they waited outside in the hall for the nurses to change Cassie’s bed linen.

  Dani’s mom wrung her hands. “I can’t stand having her so sick.”

  “I know,” Dr. Phillips said kindly.

  “But if it won’t really help her, why are you making her go through this?” Dani blurted out.

  “There’s always the outside chance that her tumor will respond. We have to try,” her mother answered before the doctor.

  Dani felt angry with her mother. Why was her mom insisting Cassie go through such useless torture? She heard Dr. Phillips’s voice. “Listen, Catherine,” he was saying. “The next few weeks aren’t going to be easy on any of you, but I’m throwing everything in our medical arsenal at this growth. Who knows? Maybe we’ll get lucky.”

  As the nurses left the room, Dr. Phillips told Dani and her mom they could go in. Dani watched him give her mother’s hand a squeeze. “If you need me, please call anytime—day or night.”

  “Thank you, Nathan. You’ve been a real friend.”

  He cleared his throat and stepped aside. Dani followed her mother into Cassie’s room.

  Cassie lay on the clean white sheets, her face looking pinched and wan. Her eyelids fluttered open. “Hi, Mama.”

  Mrs. Vanoy leaned down and kissed her. “Hi, baby.”

  Dani hugged her sister and felt the thinness of her body through her nightgown.

  “Sorry you had to wait to see me.” Cassie closed her eyes, and Dani saw a tear trickle from one comer. “Oh, Mom, I’m so sick. I can’t keep anything down. They told me it’s the radiation and the chemo. I hate it. I want to go home and go back to school,” she said.

  “You will,” her mom assured her, although Dani knew it was an empty promise. “Maybe I should spend the night.”

  “Mom, I’m not a baby,” Cassie objected. “I’ll be all right.”

  Watching Cassie’s face allowed Dani to see that her protest was halfhearted. Cassie might not want her mother sacked out in a cot next to her bed, but she obviously didn’t want to be alone, either. “Let me stay,” Dani begged. “I’d like to stay with Cassie.”

  Her mother studied Dani. “What about school tomorrow?”

  “It’s Memorial Day, remember? No school.”

  “I wouldn’t mind if Dani stayed,” Cassie said slowly. “That would be all right. No sense in your losing a night’s sleep, Mom.”

  Their mother gave them a tired smile. “I can take a hint. You two don’t want Mom hanging around. I think Dani’s staying over for the night is a good compromise. Dani can call me if you need me.”

  Mrs. Vanoy arranged with the nurses for Dani to stay. A cot was brought in. She bought snack food an
d magazines at the hospital gift shop. “The nights get really long,” she told Dani. “You can read in case you can’t sleep.”

  Dani wasn’t really crazy about staying all night in the hospital, but Cassie had perked up considerably since they’d put the plan into action. When everything was set, Mrs. Vanoy hugged them both. “I’ll be back first thing in the morning.”

  When their mother was gone, Dani wondered exactly what to do to pass the time. “Maybe there’s a good oldie-goldie movie on the late show,” she said to Cassie.

  Before Dani could flip on the TV, Cassie whispered to her, “I’ve got a secret. A really big, incredible secret. I was going to tell Mom … it’s so incredible, I don’t know what to make of it. I’m not able to find the words to tell you. Here, read it for yourself.”

  Cassie handed Dani an envelope. “What is it?”

  “Open it. Read it.”

  Dani pulled out a sheet of what was obviously expensive-looking paper. At the top of the sheet she noticed the embossed letters: OLW. She eagerly read:

  Dear Cassie,

  You don’t know me, but I know about you, and because I do, I want to give you a special gift. Accompanying this letter is a certified check—my gift to you, with no strings attached, to spend on anything you want. No one knows about this gift except you, and you are free to tell anyone you want.

  Who I am isn’t really important. What matters is that you and I have much in common. Through no fault of our own, we have endured pain and isolation and have spent many days in a hospital feeling lonely and scared. I hoped for a miracle, but most of all, I hoped for someone to truly understand what I was going through.

  I can’t make you live longer, I can’t stop you from hurting. But I can give you one wish, as someone did for me. My wish helped me find purpose, faith, and courage.

  Friendship reaches beyond time, and the true miracle is in giving, not receiving. Use my gift to fulfill your wish.

  Your forever friend,

  JWC

  Attached to the letter was a check made out to Cassie Vanoy for one hundred thousand dollars and signed by a Richard Holloway, Esq. It was labeled “One Last Wish Foundation.”

  Dani read the amount and whistled low. “What is this? A joke, or what?”

  “I don’t know,” Cassie whispered. “But I think it’s for real.”

  “It looks real to me. What are you going to do with it? You haven’t told anyone else?”

  “You’re the only one who knows about it.”

  “But it’s so weird! Do we know anyone with the initials JWC?”

  “Not that I can think of. But whoever JWC is, I believe he or she understands. That’s what makes it so awesome.” Cassie’s eyes glowed as she spoke. “It’s so much money! It’s like winning the lottery.”

  Dani felt a twinge of jealousy toward the faceless girl who could identify so completely with Cassie and offer such an extravagant gift. Dani was the one who should be doing something special for her sister. “What are you going to do with it?” she asked.

  “I don’t know yet. I should give it to Mom to pay all my medical bills, but I want to think about it.” Cassie reached for the papers with trembling fingers. “You won’t tell anyone, will you?”

  Another secret Dani felt obligated to keep. “Not if you don’t want me to.”

  “I have to think about this really carefully,” Cassie said. “I want to do something very special with it. Right now, I’m not sure what.”

  Dani chewed on her lower lip, thinking of all the things the money could buy. And couldn’t buy. It couldn’t buy Cassie’s health. It couldn’t buy her one moment more. The value of the gift began to pale. She stared down at the envelope, feeling like a child who’d peeked inside a closet and seen all her Christmas presents before they’d been wrapped—she would still open them when the time came, but how could she feel genuine pleasure over a mound of boxes that held no surprises?

  Five

  “MOM, YOU KNOW it’s so hard on Cassie that all her friends will graduate together without her. They’ll spend the summer getting ready for college. If only she’d gotten to go on the senior trip before this happened to her.”

  The two of them sat in the kitchen. Cassie’s empty chair was beside the one that had been Dani’s father’s.

  “That’s true,” her mom said with a weary sigh. “I know how much Cassie’s always talked about going to the beach and Disney World. I’m really sorry now that I just didn’t borrow the money one of those summers when you two were growing up. But at the time, I thought there’d always be next year.”

  “Maybe we could do something special together now,” Dani suggested.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Like a vacation. I mean, what if money weren’t a problem?” Ever since Cassie had shown her the check from the One Last Wish Foundation, she’d thought of little else. Cassie had gotten enough money to do something really special, almost anything she wanted to do. Since their father’s death, Dani’s mother had worked. Vacations had always been a luxury. Most summers, they stayed put and saved the money, or drove out to Iowa to visit their grandparents, who were now too old and ill to travel. Dani had never really minded, but Cassie had an adventurer’s streak and always longed to travel.

  Mom shook her head. “Money’s not an issue at this point. I’d mortgage the house before I’d let money stop me from doing something for Cassie.”

  Dani hadn’t expected this response. “So, if money’s not a problem, why don’t we go do something?”

  Her mother put down her fork and sighed. “Dani, we can’t all just pack up and take off.”

  “Why not?”

  “Cassie’s sick.” Her mother was looking at Dani as if she thought her younger daughter had suddenly forgotten that all-important point. “We can’t all pile in the car and go away. Cassie needs her treatments.”

  “But the treatments aren’t helping.”

  “Maybe they will.”

  “Cassie really hates them, you know.”

  “Her medical treatments aren’t up to her. I’m doing what I think is best for her.”

  “Even Dr. Phillips doesn’t think the treatments are helping. If you gave Cassie a choice, if you told her the truth, she’d say ‘forget them’ and come home.”

  “This isn’t up for a vote, Dani. Don’t you know how it tears me up to see her in that hospital, so sick from the drugs they’re giving her? Some of those chemo drugs are pure poison, but in order to kill off the tumor, they have to be potent. I have to follow through with this. I have to feel that we’re doing everything possible. I can’t simply bring her home to curl up on her bed, take pain medication, and die.”

  “Well, I think Cassie would prefer to come home. She would want to make the best of whatever time she had left. And she wouldn’t want to die in the hospital.”

  “She can come home,” Mom insisted. “We’re close enough to the hospital that we can get her there quickly when necessary. Besides, the hospital has all the proper equipment to sustain her if she goes into cardiac arrest, or if she stops breathing.”

  This thought had never crossed Dani’s mind, but she found it horrifying. She’d read stories and seen TV coverage about people being hooked up to machines in order to live when there was no hope of their ever recovering. “What if that’s not what Cassie wants?”

  “Of course it’s what she wants.”

  “But how can you know for sure if you won’t ask her?”

  “We must give her every opportunity to continue living.”

  “It doesn’t seem like much of a way to live. I wouldn’t want to live that way.” Dani jutted her chin. “And Cassie doesn’t either.”

  “Well, I guarantee you, Dani, if it was you, I would take the same measures and make the same choices.”

  Her mother stood abruptly. She knocked the table as she did and made the dishes and flatware rattle. The sound jarred Dani’s nerves. She watched as her mother began to pace across the kitchen floor.
/>   “Do you think this is easy for me?” her mother asked. She didn’t wait for a reply. “Cassie’s my child. I love her. I want to keep her with me for as long as possible. Keeping her in the hospital gives us some measure of control. Even if she has to go on life support, at least she’ll be alive.”

  Didn’t the quality of Cassie’s life count for anything? Dani wondered. It wasn’t as if she was ever going to get well. All medical science could do for her now was prolong a life of suffering and pain.

  Her mother continued to pace and talk. “I don’t make these decisions lightly, Dani. The day your father died started off like any ordinary day. I got you two girls off to school, packed his lunch, and kissed him good-bye at the back door.” She turned and stared at the door, now shut and chained against the night. “I still remember the smell of his aftershave and how the light caught on his badge. He said, ‘See you at dinner, ’ and drove away.

  “I never saw him alive again—never saw him again ever. The car crashed and burned, and all I was allowed to see of Matt was his coffin.”

  Dani listened, sitting so still and rigid that her back began to ache. She had known that her dad had died chasing a robbery suspect, but her mother had never discussed it with her before. And she had so few memories of him that sometimes he didn’t even seem real to her. In her mind’s eye, he was always the smiling man in the photograph that Mom kept on her dresser and in the special album that highlighted his police career.

  Her mother snapped herself out of her reverie. “Anyway, I had no control over what happened to your father. Just as I have no control over what’s going to happen to Cassie. But what I can control, I will. And keeping her on treatments, in the hospital, under close supervision, is what I plan to do.”

  “But going away for only a few days—”

  Mom shook her head fiercely. “Not even for one day. I can’t take the chance—she might take a downward turn.”

  “I still think you should ask her,” Dani insisted.

  Mom came over and tentatively reached out and touched Dani’s hair. “You’re so much like your dad. Once you get hold of an idea, you don’t let go. He was stubborn, opinionated, bull-headed—and absolutely the most wonderful man in the world. You’re wonderful too.”