Читать книгу Hannah’s Gift: Lessons from a Life Fully Lived - Maria Housden - Страница 16

WILL WAS CURLED UP ON MY LAP, OUR ARMCHAIR touching the side of Hannah’s bed. His blond crew cut tickled the bottom of my chin. His body had been long and solid from the day he was born, but it was his soft green eyes that most people noticed first and remembered.

Hannah was watching us from the bed, propped against a pile of pillows. A plastic line ran from her arm to an IV pole. She had spread her pink blanket over her legs and was wearing a rhinestone crown and her pink-flowered “robe j’s.”

I cleared my throat. The weight of the moment crushed against my chest.

“Hannah, the doctors have figured out why you are feeling so sick. There is a lump in your tummy called a tumor. A tumor happens sometimes when a few of the cells in a person’s body grow the wrong way and don’t do what they’re supposed to do. The doctors are going to take it out, and then give you medicines to try to make sure the bad cells don’t come back.”

“Is it going to hurt?” Hannah asked, her brow wrinkled and her lips pursed into a worried pout. I paused. In the past, I had often coped with difficult situations by glossing over them, trying to find something good in them, praying that if I could avoid the truth long enough, it would go away. This time, though, I wanted Will and Hannah to be able to trust me. I couldn’t start lying to them now.

“Yes, Hannah, it probably will hurt, but the doctors and nurses are going to do everything they can to make it hurt as little as possible. They have special medicines that will make you sleep while they take the lump out, and other medicines that will help your body rest while it gets better.”

“I don’t want to sleep. I’m not tired!!” Hannah protested.

“You don’t have to sleep now,” Will said gently, “only when they take the lump out. Right, Mom?” he asked, turning to me.

I smiled and nodded.

“Oh. That’s okay.” Hannah sighed, sounding relieved.

“Mom.” Will was still looking at me, his eyes filling with tears. “Is a tumor the same thing as cancer?”

“We don’t know yet, Will,” I said, starting to cry. “The doctors can’t be sure until they take it out and look at the cells under a microscope.”

Hannah was watching us silently.

“If it’s bad news you’ll tell us, right, Mom?” Will asked.

Hannah sat straight up and looked into my eyes without blinking. I took a breath. I couldn’t help wishing that Claude had been able to be here with me, but he had told me he didn’t trust himself to know what to say. I appreciated his honesty, and I also knew that if ever there was a time when the two of us had to respect our differences, this was it. We were like two people in a one-man life raft in the middle of a dark ocean.

Will and Hannah were still waiting for my answer.

“Yes, Will,” I said. “Even if it’s bad news, I’ll tell you the truth.”

Hannah smiled and leaned back into her pillows.

“Thanks, Mom,” Will said, flinging his arms around my neck.

“Mommy, I love you,” Hannah said.

“I love you both,” was all I could say.