Mom whispers to Dad, “Do we have enough in the bank for me to take Daniel to Mexico?”
Dad’s voice is as sad as I’ve ever heard it. “I give up. I can’t fight you and the county both.”
The stark river edge from Apocalypse Now blurs in front of me as I envision Mom and me on donkeys crossing the scraggy hillsides under that bloodred sun they write about in every book on Mexico. We pass reams of bright orange butterflies and those wide-petal yellow cactus flowers you see in all the movie scenes of deserts. The horizon shimmers in the distance, a turquoise and purple line crimped against the sand hills. See what I mean about my life getting exciting?
The only thing about going to Mexico is I’ll be sorry to abandon Meredith to Leonard’s spit and polish. But if the Mexican cure works and I come back a sophisticated world traveler, a starched-shirt senator’s son won’t have a chance. If being the operative word.
CHAPTER TEN
Riding in a cop car is not as thrilling as everyone makes it out to be. They only deliver me to Doctor Morley’s office on Route 360 in Mechanicsville. My parents are supposed to meet me there, where the medical people will hand off the official prescription for the chemotherapy and the directions to the treatment center at Medical College of Virginia in Richmond, all per the court order. That’s where they’ll shoot me up with the drugs, according to the sheriff, though those aren’t his words. He’s mostly silent on the ride down, except for asking three times if I’m hungry. So I know he meant what he said to Dad. He does feel bad about the whole thing.
With Sheriff Jessup in his waiting room, Doctor Morley is a whole lot more nervous than on my earlier visits. Makes me wonder if he’s second-guessing his own professional opinion.
“Hard to be in the spotlight, eh?” He stares at his hands, maybe trying to ignore the uniform at attention by the open door. But when he looks up, it’s not at the sheriff but right at me. Up until this point Doctor Morley’s been one of the few medical people who talk to me instead of about me to my parents. Since I’m the patient, I appreciate it, even though Mom probably would prefer that some of what he says he’d save for just them. With the legal issues turning my condition into some kind of big-deal public controversy, I’m hoping for a few minutes alone with the doc. My questions will only upset Mom.
“Can I talk to Doctor Morley in his office?” I ask.
Sheriff Jessup nods. “Just so you’re not planning to escape by throwing yourself out the window.”
“I won’t let him near the window,” Doctor Morley says before he motions for me to go into the examining room.
Meredith’s lecture about my right to ask questions is inspiring this burst of pushiness. And it makes me realize how the court order punishing my parents makes that right almost worthless. But Holden would have asked. So I plow ahead.
“How does this chemo thing work?”
“You lie down and they set you up for the IV. After the prick for the intubation, it’s painless. They’ll give you an antinausea medicine first, and probably Benadryl because the antinausea drug makes you twitchy.” He’s watching my face as if I might burst into tears. “Takes a while for the medicine to empty. The nurses check on you every few minutes. They have to watch your tolerance, particularly this first time.”
“‘This first time’? There’s going to be more than one session?”
“Three is the way we plan to start with you.”
“‘We’?”
“With a complicated disease like AML, doctors from each part of the treatment consult. And they have to gauge your reaction without going too far. The medicine is expensive and a kind of trial run saves time and expense in the long run.”
It’s been four months since they found the tumors in my neck, throat, lungs, whatever. Four months since they said I had a year left. In the long run takes on a whole new meaning. Doctor Morley doesn’t wait, so he must think my pause means I’m ready to hear more.
“The tricky part is redefining the treatment once we know how your body reacts. Everyone’s different. Given that your stomach has been giving you fits already, I’d say you should plan on not traveling for a good couple of hours after your sessions. And we may have to set you up for an overnight if it gets too hard to take. Or depending on your white blood count.”
“I’ll lose my hair and puke?”
“The hair, yes, that happens in about ninety-nine percent of the cases. Most people tolerate the drugs pretty well, though, so maybe not the puking.”
Laughing at the serious doctor using a nontechnical term, I push. “Anything else? I’m better if I can prepare. My, ah, imagination is not easy to control sometimes.” Shrugging to let him know I can handle this, I still feel uneasy. It’s too little information for this complicated a medical procedure. He’s not telling me the whole truth.
Doctor Morley doesn’t wait for the next question. He seems to be following a memorized checklist. “Some people get migraines. Ever had one?”
“No.”
“Mostly they make you feel nauseated, more of the same. But they can cause fainting, blackouts.”
“There’s a difference?”
“The level of consciousness. Memory loss. Fainting is a short incident with relatively little impact on your general health. Blackouts are more serious.”
“There’s no way to prevent them?”
“The nurses will let you know that kind of thing. If you do black out, we’ll keep you overnight for observation. If your counts are skewed, we’ll keep you overnight anyway.”
“Are you the doctor who testified against my parents in the court hearings?”
His face floods with recognition that this is where I was headed all along and he moves back behind his desk as if to protect himself. Or perhaps to add substance to his position, the way a judge wears a robe so the criminal will accept the authority of the court at sentencing. Protective coloration. Sixth-grade science.
“I was subpoenaed, Daniel. I had no choice about testifying. It’s simply a matter of how best to save your life. That’s what the court wants. That’s what everyone wants.”
“But no guarantee, right?”
“No, no guarantee. Still, there’s no reason to believe with an active, otherwise healthy teenager that the standard regimen won’t work for you. Chemotherapy is effective in the short run for a majority of cases. And if it doesn’t work, we have other treatments we can try. Saving your life, that’s the goal.”
“If you can.”
“Well, of course, if we can. We’re not miracle workers.”
Mom comes in without knocking. “He’s a minor, Doctor Morley. You have no right to speak to him outside of our presence. Court order or not.”
“He asked.”
She looks stunned, and suddenly very fragile and not at all the opinionated, confident person I know.
“It’s okay, Mom, I only wanted to understand how it works. What to expect.”
She starts to take my face in her hands, but pulls back at the last minute as if she’s remembered I’m not a little boy. Instead she mouths an apology. But she refuses to shake Doctor Morley’s outstretched hand. After she moves to the window, her side turned to us, he sees the session is over. He motions to the door.
In the meantime Dad’s taken care of the paperwork with the nurse. She’s printed directions to the hospital, a confirmation of the appointment time, a copy of the fact sheet about the chemotherapy drugs with the warnings in bold capital letters, a prescription for more anti-nausea medicine to take at home afterward. Dad shows them to me while Mom’s in the bathroom.