Untouchable - Chapter 30
Monday
I ran through the hallway, racing toward the principal’s office. Part of me expected to find my uncle being carted away on a stretcher toward the ambulance. Or unconscious on the floor. Cold. Not breathing. Just like my mom.
But the hallways were empty. All the students and faculty members were in class. I picked up my pace. They’re just calling me in to talk about detention again. Maybe Isabella tried to blame something awful on me. Maybe James planted drugs in my locker for revenge. Maybe. Maybe. Maybe.
But the clock in my head just kept ticking down. And I knew it in my gut. All those maybes weren’t real. Something had happened to my uncle. Please don’t let me lose him too. I yanked open the door to the front office.
The school receptionist looked up. Her mascara was smeared, like she’d hastily wiped away tears after calling me to the office.
“Am I in trouble?” I asked. Please let me be in trouble. Let me be expelled. Anything but this.
She shook her head. “There’s been an incident with your uncle.”
For a second we both just stared at each other. Wishing this wasn’t happening. An incident could mean anything. Maybe he was getting fired. But she wouldn’t be hiding tears if that was the case. She wouldn’t be barely holding on.
No. No, no, no. “Where is he?” My voice cracked.
“I need to see him. Is he here? Is he here?” I could feel myself growing more hysterical by the second, but she just stared at me.
With pity. With all the pity in the world.
Stop looking at me like that. Stop. I grabbed the corner of her desk, preventing my knees from buckling as the tears ran down my cheeks.
“Dear.” The school receptionist put her hand on her chest. “The ambulance just left. His number was the only emergency contact in your file, so we called a car to come pick you up to take you the hospital with him. It’ll be here any minute. Why don’t you sit down and wait.”
I couldn’t move. “What happened?”
“He started coughing up blood.” She shook her head. “I don’t know. He couldn’t breathe.”
“But he’s okay, right? He’s going to be okay? The ambulance got here in time?”
She wiped beneath her eyes, smudging more of her mascara. “Mercy Hospital has the best doctors in the city.”
That wasn’t an answer. My body wanted so badly to crumble to the floor. But I couldn’t sit and wait like she’d asked. There wasn’t enough time. There was never enough time. And I wasn’t ready to run out of it.
Mercy Hospital was only a few blocks away. So I started running. Hoping I wasn’t too late. But I was never the one with hope. That had been my mom.
***
I was somehow still standing after running to the hospital and bypassing the slow nurse in the emergency room who didn’t realize that I was in an emergency. But whatever energy I had left dissipated as soon as I walked into my uncle’s hospital room.
Some kind of mask was over his face and tubes were attached to his arms. His breathing sounded labored despite the equipment. He looked so pale. I swallowed hard.
“Uncle Jim?” I said softly. “I’m here.”
The only response I got was a labored breath.
His eyes were closed. The nurse said he was resting.
But I wasn’t sure why doctors weren’t swarming around trying to figure out what was going on.
The school receptionist said he couldn’t breathe.
That he’d coughed up blood. I saw a trickle, dried and black, on the corner of his mouth.
I pulled a chair closer to his bed and sat down. “Uncle Jim?” I slipped my hand into his and tried not to cringe at how cold his skin was. “Wake up, okay? I need you.”
As the minutes ticked by, I felt calmer.
I was used to sitting in hospital rooms waiting.
And waiting didn’t necessarily mean bad.
Waiting for a clean bill of health for my mom.
Waiting for the results of the experimental treatment.
Always waiting. If something was seriously wrong, there would be no waiting. He’d be in surgery. Or something.
Besides, my uncle was healthier than ever. He’d lost weight since I’d moved in with him. He was eating more vegetables than sweets. The only thing that had seemed off was his cough. And even that had gotten better. It was just a cold. He wasn’t supposed to be lying here. Not for a cold.
“Wake up,” I whispered. “Please wake up.” I squeezed his hand.
“Are you Jim’s niece?”
I turned around. There was a doctor standing there, staring at me. I hadn’t heard him come in over all the beeping of the machines.
“Yes.” I dropped my uncle’s hand and stood up. “Is he okay? Why isn’t he waking up?”
He looked down at his clipboard. “We gave him something to help him rest.”
I breathed a sigh of relief. “So he’ll wake up soon?”
“In a few hours. We’ve given him some morphine for the pain.”
“When can I take him home?”
“Home?” He shook his head. “I’m afraid that’s not possible.”
“But it’s just a cold. He needs rest. And hot soup.” I laughed, but it sounded forced.
“It’s not a cold.” The doctor put the clipboard under his arm. “I just got off the phone with his oncologist. He fought it for years, but he stopped his treatment months ago. It wasn’t working anymore.”
“Fought what?” I didn’t know what an oncologist was.
But it sounded fancy and I’d learned that any fancy medical name usually meant something horrible.
“He just has a bad cough. I tried to get him to see a doctor, but he insisted it was nothing. So…it’s nothing.
It’s nothing, right?” I didn’t even believe my own words.
“He has stage IV lung cancer. I’m so sorry. I figured you knew.”
I felt like I couldn’t breathe. “So get him back on his treatment.”
“That’s not how it works. It’s too late.”
“It’s not too late. He’s here right now. Give him the treatment.”
The doctor shook his head. “Like I said, he’s resting. I’ve given him morphine for the pain. It’s the best we can do. I’d recommend that you start making arrangements.”
“Arrangements for what?” My brain couldn’t process his words. I refused to. This doctor was clearly a lunatic that had escaped from the crazy part of the hospital. Was there an asylum at Mercy? I couldn’t remember.
“Funeral arrangements,” the doctor said perfectly calmly, like his words weren’t killing me.
I shook my head.
“Is there someone else we can call?” he asked. “Your parents? Or other relatives?”
I shook my head again and turned back to my uncle. And I heard his labored breathing. I saw the blood in the corner of his mouth. I thought about all the weight he’d lost. He wasn’t healthy. He was sick. He was dying. “How long does he have?”
“A few days at the most. More likely a few hours. I’m really sorry.”
I didn’t hear the doctor leave. I couldn’t hear anything over my uncle’s labored breaths and my own sobs.