Dana's Valley Part 10

"Because you're going through all of this just like me. You see how they've treated the rest of us. None of us matter anymore. Just Dana. They don't even bother with Corey."

"What do you want them to do? Should they send her away? Should they leave her at the hospital so they can get home and pay attention to you? You're almost seventeen! Do you really still need a baby-sitter?"

This time I'd struck a nerve, and I wished immediately that I could take it all back. The truth was I knew exactly what Brett meant-because I'd had all of those feelings too. The anger. The resentment. I fought it all the time. Why wasn't there more equity in the way we'd been treated? At the very least, I reasoned, we had two parents.162.Couldn't one of them have spent more time with the rest of us? Why did Dana get them both?

But why this? Why had Brett felt he could improve the situation by leaving the one place where people were willing to put him at the center and listen to anything he wanted to say? There were pastors and youth workers who would have crossed almost anything off their busy schedules just to listen to Brett or me express our feelings. We'd been told that any number of times-all we had to do was call. Day or night.

I watched him grip the steering wheel and realized that I hadn't even seen him for weeks. We had shared family meals together-such as they were-driven places in the same car, and pa.s.sed one another in the hall at school. But I hadn't truly seen Brett for a very long time.

It made me remember the morning he'd left the table after he'd been hurt because we hadn't invited him to the costume party. Dana had been the one who had made things right then. I had been completely inept about how to proceed.

"She's lots better. It might be over," I finally whispered.

"It'll never be over." His words resounded with defiance. "Dana will always need them. She'll always win."

We spent the remainder of the drive home in silence. In the days that followed, I wasn't surprised to see that Brett was spending less and less time at home. But it hurt me deeply that no one else seemed to notice. He hadn't found the courage to defy Mom and Dad on the church issue yet. But I had a feeling the crisis might be looming in the not-too-distant future.& & &.

DANA'S Valley * 163Just when I thought things might be returning to normal, Mom announced in May that Dana would undergo a second series of chemo. I couldn't believe it. They were going to put her through all that again. Perhaps we'd be able to take some pictures of her fourteenth birthday before the treatments, Mom went on, and I knew she was thinking that with the chemo, her fuzz of new hair growth would fall out again. Well-at least we wouldn't be shocked when she lost her hair this time. What little she had was short and not particularly noticeable.

Dana seemed to accept the hair loss with a shrug of her skinny shoulders. "Sondra said it's always the worst the first time," she noted simply. "Then you get sorta used to it." I nodded my reply, trying not to shudder. I wondered why a teenage girl should have to get used to such a thing, but I said nothing. I knew my comment wouldn't help anyone feel better about it.

But she was just as sick again. I was glad I didn't have to share our room. I couldn't stand to see her so ill. I had thought the treatments were to make one better-not worse. The whole thing seemed so backward to me.

Dana tried to explain it to me one day when I was rooting through my drawer, trying to find a clean pair of gym socks. Mom hadn't been able to keep up with the laundry, and my attempts at filling in were rather sporadic, what with school and all.

"Wear a pair of mine," Dana managed to utter loudly enough for me to hear.

"No, you might need-" In her condition, Dana would not be needing her gym socks.

She shook her head. Her red-checked hat went a bit askew. "No," she insisted, her voice so low I could hardly hear her. "Not for a long time yet." She carefully rolled164.onto her back, a grimace crossing her face.

"They might try a different kind of drug once my chemo is over this time-it's supposed to reduce the recovery time and the side effects. Dr. Harrigan says that someday maybe they'll be able to cure all cancers without making people so sick. I wish you could meet him, Erin. He's really nice. And you'd like Sondra too."

If she expected me to be excited about some obscure future hope, I wasn't. I wanted a cure right now. For Dana. A cure that wouldn't make her feel so terribly sick. A cure that would get our family back. And Dana back. I could hardly stand to look at her. She was so ... different.

I pushed my drawer shut rather noisily and pulled out Dana's sock drawer, helping myself to an old pair of her gym socks.

"So is this the last time you'll have to take all these drugs?" I asked her.

"I don't know." Her voice sounded very tired.

"Didn't they tell you?" I was impatient with those who were treating her. First they weren't sure exactly which disease she had, and now they weren't sure how to make it go away.

"No," said Dana quietly. "They don't know."

That made me angrier. They should know. What good were doctors who didn't know anything? I whirled around, trying to release a little of the pent-up emotions I was feeling, but she had closed her eyes and her face looked pinched and pained. I knew another bout of nausea was sweeping through her. I made a dash for the basin she used so frequently and yelled at the top of my lungs, "Mom! Come quick."DANA S Valley * 165I could hear Mom running, but before she could even get there, Dana was making use of the basin again. I slipped out the door, clutching the socks and feeling guilty and angry and sorry all at the same time.

CHAPTER TWELVE.

Dana's health did not pick up again as quickly after the second series of treatments, so Dad suggested hiring a part-time nurse to be with her in the mornings so Mom could get some sleep while we were at school.

Since summer vacation would arrive in two short weeks, Mom didn't fight the idea. I think this time she realized immediately that he was right. But even though Dad had good medical insurance through his company, we all knew it would be difficult to pay for such an expense, especially on top of the mounting medical costs.

The fact of the insurance was gratefully mentioned often during times of thanks in our family prayers. I wondered what people did who had none. It never occurred to me before to even think about such things, but it was only one in the unlimited number of ways that my life and thinking had been reworked by Dana's illness.

It had helped all of us to focus on the completion of this new round of treatments and the hope of seeing Dana improve again. But it was disappointing now to see it taking place so slowly. We were anxious to see the color168.come back to her cheeks and hear the bright laughter again.

The e-mail with our grandparents, the Tylers in Bolivia, became more frequent. They talked often about coming home again but did not know the best time to do so. Mom would express her desire for them to hop a plane and come right away; then, when Dana seemed to brighten just a bit, she'd wonder if she was being selfish and tell them they should stay and take care of the sick at the mission clinic. Up and down she went. Back and forth. I figured it must have been tough for Grandpa and Grandma.

We all knew they were badly needed in Bolivia. The other doctor in the clinic had returned to Canada with his own medical problem, a herniated disk. Grandma was now more than a nurse and served as Grandpa's a.s.sistant. The mission was scrambling to try to find another doctor but, so far, had gotten little response. Mom said it was really tough to get trained people for a place like the Bolivian mountains to work in a poorly equipped village clinic. Grandpa and Grandma's jobs were even more important than we had understood.

Slowly, ever so slowly, the medication seemed to be having its desired effect and Dana began to show improvement. The daily e-mail updates were more optimistic now. And the heaviness began to lift from the house until you could feel the difference in the air. I felt released somehow.

And then one morning Mom appeared in the door to the kitchen.

"Look who's here." Mom was holding Dana's elbow as they carefully made their way to the breakfast table. We laughed. The newest hat she sported had a series ofDANA S Valley * 169animals st.i.tched on it as if they were following each other around the rim. Monkeys and tigers, galloping horses and slithery snakes-a Noah's Ark on her head. I remembered the Ark represented safety. And there was the rainbow of promise. . . . Well, anyway, I liked the hat. The colors were bright and cheerful.

"Where'd you get that one?" Corey pulled Dana's chair out and got a close-up look at the animal parade. "I like it." He echoed my thoughts exactly.

Once Dana was settled at the table, she answered, "Grandpa and Grandma Tyler sent it. They sent something for each of you too."

Mom produced a bag.

"Oh boy, presents!" Corey had already bounced back into his seat and was eyeing the bag. "Is there one for 9 ^^.

"There is"-Mom smiled at Corey-"but why don't you be the one to hand out the gifts to the others first?"

"Okay," he agreed, a bit subdued. But he was soon thoroughly enjoying his job, reaching deep into the bag and pulling out the wrapped gifts one at a time. The responsibility required him to read out the name on each tag. "This one says Dave. That's you, Daddy." He delivered the lumpy package to Dad and studied the next tag for a moment. "And this one says A-an-ge-la, I think. Is that you, Mommy? Here you go." We all chuckled at his in-charge manner.

"We'll open them at the same time," Mom instructed, her eyes twinkling. Dana seemed to have an idea what the surprises were because her eyes were twinkling too.

"This one's for Brett. I guess we have to save it for later." He put the package on the counter. Brett was gone most school mornings before the rest of the family sat170.down for breakfast. And he wasn't home much of the time after school either. "And this one is for me." He plopped it onto his chair. "So the last one is yours, Erin." Mine was particularly c.u.mbersome.

"Okay, now we can open them."

Mom left hers in her lap and looked around the circle at each of us in turn. Paper shredded and exclamations rippled around the table. I had been given a hat. And when I looked up, I saw that we each had a hat. But what an odd a.s.sortment they were. Daddy had a bright orange hard hat. In big letters on the front it read, "Danger, Man at Work." He laughed and set it snuggly on his head. Dana giggled back at him.

Then Corey discovered a safari pith helmet with a little water bottle snapped onto one side and a plastic knife on the other. He grinned and held it out for Dana to see.

My hat was a wide-brimmed straw one, with a band of printed ribbon and a whole bouquet of silk flowers tumbling over the rim. There were even little plastic fruits mixed in for good measure. I set it on my head, but it teetered and slid off. We all laughed together.

Mom opened hers last. She must have forgotten it in her enjoyment of watching the rest of us. Inside the wrappings was a gold plastic tiara with colored plastic jewels glued to the front in all different colors. Her eyes teared up a little, but she placed it on her head and we all laughed again.

Corey had made a trip around the table to view each hat up close. "How did they do it, Mommy? How did Grandpa and Grandma Tyler send the presents?"

Mom directed her answer toward Dad, a sparkle in her voice. "They sent some money to some friends of theirs with instructions about what to look for, and thoseDANA'S Valley * 171friends went shopping. The hats were wrapped when they arrived, but Dana and I figured out pretty quickly what they were. There was a note attached that told us to wait until Dana's first breakfast with the family after this series of treatments. Wasn't that nice?"

Dana and Mom had apparently shared the antic.i.p.ation of this morning. It must have been good for them to have a surprise tucked away as they struggled together through the last of the chemo series. I thought it was awfully nice for Grandma and Grandpa Tyler to go to so much trouble.

I smiled at Mom. "It's almost like they paid us another * *. " visit.

"I know." Mom must have been thinking the same thing as she lightly fingered her golden crown. Even at my young age I could see that it carried a powerful message from her dad about joy and hope in the midst of this "trying of our faith."

Breakfast that morning was a rollicking affair. Periodically someone's hat would slip and almost land in the breakfast ca.s.serole that Mom had made the night before. I had a.s.sumed she was planning a good hot meal again and was more than willing to help out by popping it in the oven in the morning according to her instructions. She had given no indication that it would turn out to be party fare.

We laughed and made jokes until we realized with a jolt that we had already missed the bus. Dad said it wasn't a problem, that he would drive us to school on his way to work. He reached for the Bible and took time to read a short Scripture pa.s.sage and pray with us, especially thanking G.o.d for the welcome improvements in Dana.

She smiled over and over, her eyes sparkling with joy,172.though she looked as if she'd already spent most of her energy for the morning. It was so good to have her back again. And I wished with all my heart that I'd never have to see her suffer through a treatment again. I kissed her lightly on the cheek before dashing out the door.& & &.My English final exam was pa.s.sed to me, and I unfolded it to survey my grade. My heart sank when I saw my score. My schoolwork had suffered over the last semester. I had never done this poorly before. I stuffed it under the cover of my algebra text and tried not to think about it anymore. I had warned Daddy that I was antic.i.p.ating a pretty significant drop in my grades, but even I hadn't realized it would be as bad as this.

I wondered how Marcy had done on her finals, and the old ache of loneliness came over me again. I decided to call her the minute I got home.

I noticed Brett's car in the driveway-odd, because he was normally at work during this part of the day. Corey rushed into the kitchen in front of me, and we discovered Mom and Dad sitting at the table with Brett, a hot look of anger on his face.

The discussion stopped as we entered.

"Erin, please take Corey upstairs for a little while. Maybe you could read to him." Mom's voice was strained, and she sounded tired again.

We left, and their voices resumed when we reached the top of the stairs. It sounded like they were arguing. I hoped Brett hadn't told them he was quitting church. Or maybe he'd received a poor grade too. That might explainDANA'S VALLEY s* 173a lot, but it was odd that it would have brought Dad home early from work. We all knew he was struggling to catch up. He'd been gone a lot when Dana was going in for treatments.

Dana was in our room, typing at the computer Uncle Patrick had delivered for her. Now she had her own e-mail address and, apparently, a number of pen pals. She looked up at us as Corey and I entered.

"Hi. I thought you must have come in. It got quiet all of a sudden downstairs."

"What's going on?"

Dana looked back at the computer screen, then clicked the standby mode on the monitor. Apparently she felt it would take some time to explain. "Corey, why don't you put your school books on your desk? Then get your reader and bring it back, okay?"

"Okay."

I wanted to tell him not to hurry.

Dana turned her chair to face me. "Brett came home partway through the afternoon and surprised Mom-or maybe she surprised him. We hadn't heard him drive up, and it turned out he'd sneaked into the kitchen and was looking through the cupboards. Mom showed up just as he took some money and put it into his pocket. They argued a little, and then Mom called Daddy at work.

"When Daddy came home, they started arguing all over again. He wanted to know why Brett was home in the middle of the day. Brett said he didn't need school. I think he's been skipping some of the time. And Daddy wanted to know why he was stealing. Brett said he wasn't. That he was going to pay it back. It got pretty ugly for a while."

"What did you do?"

174.Dana shrugged and gave a heavy sigh. "I stayed up here. I know he doesn't like me. I know he thinks this is all my fault. So I just stayed out of the way."

It was awful to hear her say the words. "What makes you think that?"

A tear welled up and rolled down her cheek. "He said).

so.

All at once I was angry too. I wanted to march right downstairs and tell Brett what I thought of him. I wanted to yell at him and fight with him and make him pay for what he'd said to hurt Dana. I stood up, my jaw clenched.

"It's okay." Dana rose to face me. "He doesn't like me right now. And I don't really blame him. I've had so much of Mom and Daddy's attention for so long. He just wants to be noticed too."

"But not like this. He has no right-"

Dana didn't let me finish. "It's not about rights. It's about feelings." Her eyes were earnest and pleading. "And he has those feelings whether we want to let him or not. We won't be helping Brett if we get angry too. It'll just make everything worse. We've got to pray for him, Erin. And, too, we've got to love him. Otherwise we might lose him. And I don't want to lose my big brother."

If you only knew, I found myself thinking. Stories had been filtering back to me through school friends-reports of some things Brett might be involved in. I'd even heard talk about some of his friends using drugs and stuff. I couldn't say that to Dana. All I could do was stand and look at her.

I had been wrong when I'd thought earlier that the old Dana was back. Now I realized just how much she'd changed-not only the physical changes from her illness,DANA'S Valley * 175but the fact that she had matured far beyond the simple pa.s.sage of time. I needed to stop thinking of her as frail and weak, because I suddenly recognized the enormous amount of strength she'd gained-inner strength.

She had just had her fourteenth birthday in the midst of her last chemo, but in a way she seemed almost an adult. She used words I could not fully grasp and had a look in her eyes as if she were fourteen going on forty. She didn't fit the mold of what it was to be a teenager.

Corey came back into the bedroom and crawled up onto my bed, the one Mom had been using for so long. "Okay. Which one of you guys is going to read with me?" His anxious look begged for more than a story. The voices downstairs had not ceased.

"I will. Dana, go ahead and work on your letters." I curled up with Corey and began the torturously slow process of phonetic reading. Corey's tongue wrapped every direction around the sounds before stumbling upon the correct p.r.o.nunciation. Even so, I couldn't help but notice how much he'd improved. I forced myself to smile and encourage him. His effort to concentrate probably kept him from hearing the argument downstairs. But I could hear it-rising and falling for a long time. Mixed in were Corey's tortured attempts at reading and the sound of Dana clicking away at the computer. The combination was almost more than I could stand.& & &.

176.The next evening our youth pastor paid us a visit. There were no ca.s.seroles preceding it as had happened before his last call, and the mood was a little tense and secretive this time. Brett had agreed to the meeting, but he was slumped in a corner chair in defiance. Apparently he'd decided on his course of action and had determined that he would not be moved from it.

Their discussion began in the early evening and went rather late. Upstairs I tucked Corey into bed, singing to him for a while. He loved this little ritual. Then I went to Dana's room and threw myself down on her bed. She was back at her computer again. I flipped open my geography book, knowing that I wouldn't be able to study for my last final exam. But at least I wouldn't be alone.

The rest of us were told very little about the meeting with the pastor, and Brett still wasn't around much. I did manage to gather that his behavior could largely be traced to the new set of friends he'd found since he began skateboarding. In fact, Travis was the only past friend who seemed to be sticking with Brett. I think Brett might have dropped him too, had Travis been willing to let him. But Travis called at least once every week with some excuse to get together.

I also found out that Brett had lost his grocery-store job a month before, and he had been in some trouble at school. He tried to defend himself by saying he hadn't intended to let it all happen-that he had tried to get out of some of the marginal situations himself. But I could tell that Dad was very disappointed. I was also well aware that my parents had enough to deal with right now-with Dana's illness and all-without this kind of difficulty with Brett.

We were informed that counseling appointments hadDANA S VALLEY * 177.been set up for every Tuesday night. Brett would be going alone for a few weeks and then Mom and Dad would be joining him. I was afraid Dana would take the blame and feel it was her fault, but she seemed relieved. She figured things the way I did-that it was Brett's way of getting his share of the parenting. At any rate, he had them noticing him now.& & &.There were still frequent trips to the cancer treatment center for Dana and Mom. I was never invited to go with them. And to be honest, it would have been a struggle to make myself go-but I would have felt guilty if I had declined. To my relief, Dana seemed to have no interest in sharing her private world with the rest of us. I wondered what the reason might be. But mostly I was just glad to be excused. Besides, I was often needed to take care of Corey. Mom preferred that I supervise Corey since Grandma's soft heart made it difficult for her to enforce the rules.

I also a.s.sumed that Mom knew she couldn't drag us all along and still give full attention to Dana and to her doctors. So I usually asked for permission to spend my summer days with Marcy, and Corey came along. Brett chose to fend for himself at home-especially now that his use of the car had been severely restricted.

One day as Corey and I pa.s.sed a yard where a small boy played with a puppy, Corey got it into his head that he wanted a dog. When Dad got home, Corey explained that if he just had a puppy of his own, he could be so much happier because he'd have a friend. Dad was178.unconvinced and quickly brushed him off by saying it wasn't the right time to train a puppy-we all were much too busy for such a responsibility.

So Corey went to Mom. Mom's reaction was much softer and gentler-but it amounted to the same thing. It was just not the appropriate time to be taking on a puppy.

I'd never seen Corey throw a temper tantrum. I suppose in the past we had showered him with so much attention that he didn't feel such a display was necessary. And then, when Grandma had taken over much of his care, she had given him pretty much whatever he wanted. When summer arrived and I was watching him most of the time, I had fallen back on diversion tactics instead of saying no to him outright.

Now Corey was face-to-face with a denied request. One upon which he had set his heart. And, I a.s.sume as I look back on it, in a dreadful expression of all the stressed relationships that he'd recently seen displayed in our home, he pitched a fit. It was painful to see. Mom was shocked. Dad came immediately.

They managed to remove him to his own room and to get him quieted down. Then Dad explained to him that his behavior was absolutely unacceptable and that it was not to happen again. Corey was sniffling and hiccupping by then, though his heavy crying had subsided. He was put to bed, but I heard Mom and Dad both expressing how much they loved him as they turned off his light and closed his door.

Then I heard the two of them walking to their own room and the door closing softly. This was followed by the m.u.f.fled sounds of my mother crying quietly. I knew she was trying to hide it, but I couldn't help myself. I tiptoed up the hallway and rapped gently to see if theyDANA'S Valley * 179would answer. When Dad's voice did, I pushed the door open.

Mom was lying on their bed, and Dad was sitting next to her. I moved over to them sheepishly and gently touched her arm. "It's okay, Mom. It's going to be okay."

She gave a wobbly smile through her tears and whispered that she knew it would. That it was just so much to happen all at once. I agreed with her and added, "Don't worry about Corey. He'll be himself again tomorrow."

She nodded, and I left them alone. I was pretty sure she just needed a good cry. But I couldn't have stopped myself from going to her. I wanted one of her children to remind her that she was loved. And I believed with my whole heart that we each loved her deeply-even Brett.