Chapter 1
Cass
Icouldn’t stop clinging to my little sister Reggie’s hand.
I managed to move away from that hospital bed and its beeping machines for long enough for the doctors and nurses to do their thing, but I stayed close by while they did it, ready to pounce as soon as they were done and resume clutching Reggie’s limp, clammy hand.
I was hanging on to that kid like a screw-on clamp, afraid even to run to the bathroom to pee.
I’d drastically reduced my fluid intake to make it less of an issue.
There was a solution for everything, right?
Right. Like I could tether Reggie to this earthly plane through sheer force of will.
One would think I would have learned how pointless that was two years ago, when Mom died, but I could be selectively stupid AF when I wanted to be.
I’d certainly failed at keeping Mom tethered.
She’d drifted away while my back was turned.
I wasn’t turning my back on Reggie for one second. She was my pal, my companion, my accomplice, in spite of me being sixteen years older than her ten years. It was Reggie and me against the world. Reggie was the whole point to all this nonsense.
Without her, I was nowhere. Nothing. I flinched from the thought of the echoing emptiness that would be my world if she were to slip out of my grasp.
Reggie croaked, and I leaned to put my ear to her lips. “What’s that, baby?”
“Mommy,” she whispered. “Here.”
“No, honey-babe. It’s Cass.”
She tried to speak and started to cough. I grabbed some tissues, held them up to her mouth. “Spit out the gunk so you don’t have to swallow it,” I urged. “I know your throat is sore.”
Reggie turned her head and weakly spat out a clump of bloody mucous. This was a new and freshly horrible symptom of Varen’s Disease. Mom had died of Varen’s, but it had carried her away before she got around to this particular symptom.
Shrimpy little Reggie didn’t look it, but she’d always been tougher than Mom.
I threw away the tissue, wiped her mouth, and reached for the water, positioning the straw for her. Reggie drank and smiled her thanks, crooking her fingers for me to bend close again. I did so. “What is it, sweetie?”
“I know it’s you, not Mommy,” she whispered. “I was just saying, Mommy was here before. I saw her.”
I jolted up, electrified, and looked around as if I might catch sight of her myself. Unlikely, since she was two years dead. No, no, no, Mom. Don’t come for Reggie. Not yet. Go back to where you came from, alone and unaccompanied. Please.
“Um… what did she want?” I asked carefully.
“To see us,” Reggie said, is if it were obvious.
“Who? Me, too?”
Reggie gave me a ‘duh’ look, and rolled her eyes.
“Is she here now?” I asked.
Reggie scanned the room and shook her head.
I was desperately relieved. Of course, as far as ghosts went, I was sure that Mom’s would be a benevolent one, but I wanted to have a sharp conversation with Ghost Mom about her timing.
Namely, that she was here way, way too soon.
She could come back for Reggie in, say, ninety-odd years. Not before. Off you go, Mom. Scoot.
But it seemed disrespectful to be such a bitch to someone who had gone to the trouble of visiting from the other side of the veil, so I forced a smile. “That’s wild, sweetie,” I said. “I wish I could see her, too. Tell her hi for me, if she comes back.”
Reggie’s giggle turned into another coughing fit. We did the whole tissue-spitting-water routine again, and she smiled at me. “Don’t worry,” she whispered.
“About what, babe?”
“You think she came to take me with her, right?”
I stared at her, bug-eyed. “Uhhhh…”
“I told her I couldn’t go yet,” Reggie confided.
“Oh,” I said slowly. “So… she wanted to take you away with her?”
“She said I could go if I wanted to,” Reggie said. “I told her, not yet.” She sucked in a hiccupping breath. “I have to look after you. Keep you out of trouble.”
Oh, thank God. My eyes stung and watered. “And she was okay with that?”
“She just kissed me on the forehead,” Reggie said. “And then she was gone.” Her lower lip trembled. “I wish she could have stayed. I miss her so much.”
“Oh, baby. Me, too.” I fished out the tissues in time for another coughing fit.
When the spasms eased down, Reggie lay there trembling, breathing as shallowly as she could, to not provoke another one.
She reached out a finger, and stroked my wrist, where I had tattooed her name onto myself.
It was a fine-line tattoo, in an old-timey, graceful cursive script, and it reached halfway up my inner arm. Regina.
“Not fair,” she whispered.
“What?” I asked.
“That I can’t tattoo ‘Cassandra’ on my arm, too. Just because I’m only ten.”
I laughed soggily. “In a few years you can get your own tattoo, if you still want to. In the meantime, I’m glad you mentioned it, because I have a surprise for you. Things got so crazy when you got sick, I forgot all about them, but check this out.”
I dug into my big purse and pulled out an envelope.
In it were a handful of long strips of stiff paper, about the size of standard bookmarks.
I had asked the artist who did my own tattoo to design a corresponding one for Reggie and print them up as temporary tattoos.
“I have ten of them,” I told her. “When one wears off, you can just stick on another. Every time you look at it, you’ll remember how much I love you. ”
Reggie’s eyes shone. She held out her arm eagerly, and I peeled off the film and pressed the sticky side to her inner arm. I dampened a handful of tissues from her water bottle and smoothed them over her pale arm until the sodden paper clung to her skin.
Then I peeled it off, leaving the delicate tracing of the stenciled ‘Cassandra’ on her arm. Just like my own tattoo. The same type of lettering. A sister set, but the lettering reached much further up Reggie’s skinny little arm. Almost to her elbow.
“This should tide you over until you’re old enough to get real ink,” I said. “When you finish them up, I’ll have more made for you.”
I gathered up all the soggy tissues, the wet paper strip, the plastic film, and by the time I had tossed it all into the waste basket, Reggie was sound asleep. That brief interchange had exhausted her.
“Excuse me, Ms. Clarke?”
I turned to see two of Reggie’s team of doctors in the room. The tall dark one, Dr. Lukas, and a shorter, chubbier guy with curly brown hair, Dr. Cirillo. “Yes?”
“We need to talk to you about your sister’s case,” Dr. Lukas said. “Can you come with us for a moment?”
That sounded ominous, but it wasn’t the kind of request a person could refuse. I followed them down the hospital corridors until they led me into to a room that had a pale lavender and gray color scheme, muted décor, blandly soothing art, soft chairs.
That, too, struck me as ominous. This was a room designed to soothe frightened, grieving people. I was a lamb being led to the slaughter, and this was going to hurt.
“Is Reggie going to be okay?” I demanded. “Is that what this is about? Do you have any more info for me?”
“Well,” Dr. Lukas said reluctantly. “We don’t, really.
The truth is, there isn’t much more we can do for Regina, other than keep her comfortable.
There are no treatment options for an acute case of Varen’s Disease like your sister’s.
All we can do is manage her symptoms, as best we can.
And… I am really sorry to tell you this, but we estimate, based on how quickly things are deteriorating, that she has one to two weeks. At most.”
“You mean until she…” I choked on the unsayable words. “No. That’s not possible.” I struggled to string words together. “She’s only ten! She was fine just a few weeks ago! Aren’t there any clinical trials, experimental treatments?”
Lukas exchanged mournful glances with Cirillo. They shook their heads.
“Varen’s is extremely rare,” Cirillo offered, his voice apologetic. “It occurs in one in two million—”
“I know the stats. My mother died of Varen’s two years ago. I’m an old pro.”
“Ah. I see. Well, there may be a genetic component to Varen’s Disease, but there hasn’t been enough research done on it yet to gather any meaningful statistics.
I’m sorry to give you such bad news, Ms. Clarke.
But hospice is available to help you deal with the end-of-life choices you need to make for her.
I promise, we’ll make your sister as comfortable as possible, and there are support groups for—”
“She’s only ten! She can’t be dying! It’s just not possible!”
Cirillo and Lukas droned on, their voices soft with professional sympathy, but I couldn’t make out their words over the crackling roar of panic in my head.
My sweet, affectionate, goofy little Reggie, who loved Star Wars and science and peanut-butter and jam sandwiches.
Reggie, who had been my whole world since Mom checked out.
I got up and ran out. I couldn’t understand what they said anyhow. My heart banged against my ribs, and my stomach lurched. I was furiously angry, as if someone had struck a spiteful blow at my baby sister, and I wanted to hit back. And hit hard.
But my anger had nowhere to go, except at myself. Varen’s was random, rare. Possibly genetic. It had clobbered me when it took Mom. It was back to finish the job.
I sprinted for the bathroom. Thank God it was unoccupied, because I just barely made it to the toilet as it was, to toss the espresso I had chosen at the bar this morning, based on its high caffeine-to-liquid ratio.
It tasted awful coming up, but at least there was no food along with it.
There hadn’t been for a while. Having Reggie gasping for air in a hospital bed was a real appetite-killer.