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?
“Hey,” said Jake. He came over and gave me a hug.
“Hi,” I said. He was wearing his football uniform, and he looked pale, paler even than Olivia. His pallor inspired an insane fantasy—that Jake was the one who was sick. Without even meaning to, I conjured up the phone call from Olivia that could have been. I have terrible news. My brother has leukemia. I pictured coming to the hospital to see Jake or one of the twins, and as I did, I felt my heart leap with joy. Then I felt awful. I was wishing sickness on a healthy person. But no, it wasn’t like that. This was a trade. A sick person for another sick person. A different sick person. An eye for an eye.
An eye for an eye? Was that even what that saying meant?
And since when did I quote the Bible?
Livvie patted a spot on the bed, but before I could move toward it, her mom stood up, clearly preparing to block my approach. “Zoe, can you clean your hands very carefully?” She nodded at the Purell dispenser on the wall.
I quickly crossed to it and doused my hands, rubbing the Purell in even when it stung my finger where I’d ripped off part of the nail. Then I went over and sat next to Livvie, who shifted to make room for me. I put my arm around her, letting my shoes hang off the edge of the bed, and she laid her head on my shoulder. I wanted to say something. Anything. But everything I thought of saying sounded completely stupid and awful. Of all the bizarre things that had happened today, my being tongue-tied around Olivia might have been the strangest.
“Well, this completely sucks,” she said finally, and then we laughed. The laughter felt a little bit hollow and a little bit forced. Still, it felt good to be sitting next to Olivia and laughing. It felt normal. Olivia looked normal. She sounded normal. Everything about this moment was totally normal.
Except that it wasn’t.
“You are going to be fine,” said Livvie’s mom, patting Olivia’s hand.
“My mom keeps saying that,” Olivia whispered, loud enough for her mother to hear.
Her mother smiled and kept patting. “Because it’s true,” she said.
“Okay,” said Livvie. There was a little frustration in her voice but none of the venom that had been in mine when I was screaming at my mother earlier. Even with cancer, Olivia was a nicer person than I was.
“How are you feeling?” I asked. “Are you feeling okay?”
“I feel …” She considered the question carefully, then turned her head to face me. “I feel like I’m having an out-of-body experience. Like none of this can really be happening.” Her voice shook a little bit on the word happening.
I squeezed her shoulders, worrying after I did it that I’d somehow mess up her IV.
The door opened less dramatically than it had when I’d entered. I expected it to be my mom, or maybe one of Olivia’s grandparents, but instead Calvin Taylor walked in. He was also in his football uniform. His hair was messy and there was a long scrape on his forearm. In his hands was a cardboard tray with four cups of Starbucks coffee.
“Piping hot,” he said to the room. Then he went over to Olivia’s dad and handed him one of the cups. Without getting off his phone, Mr. Greco nodded his thanks.