My stomach twists tight at the thought of sharing secrets. My mouth dries out as I start to ponder the right words. Matt and I are all alone, with miles to go; I obviously like him and I think he likes me. I could do this. My heart begins to race as I seriously consider…
BUMP!
Like it was sent to stop me, the road suddenly mellows to smooth, fresh pavement, and with the noise gone I can hear my conscience. And what it’s saying is that exposing the program is not only wrong—it’s stupid, too. I barely know Matt: How can I trust him with something as monumental as this?
I’m embarrassed for even thinking about it.
To distract myself from going there again, I break the silence.
“Tell me what happened,” I say gently. “How did Audrey find out about her cancer?”
It’s a minute before Matt responds.
“Are you sure you want the details?” he asks.
“I’m sure.”
“Okay,” he says. I glance at him long enough to watch him thumb his hair out of his eyes and turn the music down to a whisper. Then he shares the story. “Two years ago we were on a weekend trip to Fremont Lakes with our parents. We ate these super-spicy tacos and Audrey got a stomachache. But then she threw up and could barely stand and Mom and Dad freaked out; they thought she might have extreme food poisoning or something.
“Dad rushed her to the hospital, and the doctor looked at her, and it turned out it had nothing to do with tacos. The doctor thought maybe she had a hole in her stomach or intestines or whatever. He wanted to operate immediately to fix it.”
I look at Matt and watch as he flexes his sharp jaw muscles. There are no tears in his dark eyes as he speaks, but there’s pain, pure and simple. I reach over and touch his hand to encourage him to go on. He does.
“When Audrey went into surgery, Mom and I went to the hospital to hang out with my dad, and then, when it was over, the doctor asked my parents to follow him to his office. I sat in the waiting room until they came out. When they did, my mom was crying and couldn’t stop. It was…” His voice catches; he takes a breath and finishes. “My dad told me that they found tumors in Audrey’s stomach and liver.”
“Oh my god,” I say, covering my mouth.
“I know,” he says. “It was insane.”
I’m quiet, so Matt continues.
“Then Audrey was in the hospital for five or six days. The first few she was on a ventilator. It was really weird because when she woke up, she couldn’t remember where she was or how she got there.”
“Sounds like me last night,” I joke, instantly regretting making light of the situation. Matt laughs weakly.
“Yeah,” he says. “Anyway, she kept falling back to sleep, and then she’d wake up confused again. We kept having to tell her the story over and over. Finally it stayed in her brain. The next time she woke up she remembered, and she just cried. It was horrible.”
“I can’t even imagine,” I say, and it feels flimsy.
“Eventually, she was well enough to get out of the hospital. We went home and she saw a bunch of different doctors, who gave her a bunch of different options.” Matt humphs.
“What?” I ask.
“Doctors,” he says flatly. “There’s no right answer. It’s all opinion. And some of their opinions suck.”
I think of the only doctor I know: Mason. He went to medical school, but did his residency in a very different way, as part of a covert team under the umbrella of the FDA. Shaking off thoughts of Mason, I ask about the only way I know to treat cancer: “Chemo?”
“No. I guess it doesn’t work on what she has,” Matt says. “Basically her treatment is giving her some experimental drug, waiting and watching. It’s bullshit.”
It reminds me of the program’s stance on Nora. It feels weak.
“Isn’t there more they can do?” I ask, instantly pissed at Audrey’s doctors. “Surgery or something?”
“I guess her liver has too many little tumors to take out,” Matt says quietly.
“What about a liver transplant?” I offer.
Matt looks at me with a sad smile. “They don’t give healthy livers to cancer patients, Daisy.” I feel childish for suggesting it, and I’m glad when Matt’s eyes turn back to the road.
“How long did they give her?” I ask.
“Three years,” Matt says. “It’s been two and a half. She was okay for a while, but now she keeps having pain. She keeps going back to the hospital.”
“Is that where she is now?” I whisper.
“Not anymore,” Matt says. “But that’s why she didn’t call you back or whatever. After the movie on Friday, she didn’t look so good, so my parents freaked out and took her to the ER. They ran some tests and then sent her home, like usual. But they gave her painkillers, and they knock her out. She’s been sleeping all weekend.”
I look back to the mile markers and watch them zoom past for a while. Somehow the landscape amplifies my feelings of sadness, anger, and helplessness. Again, I think of Revive; again, I’m reminded of its limitations.
When I was seven, Mason gave me a rabbit to make me feel better for falling out of a tree and breaking my arm. I named the rabbit Ginger and took good care of her. She lived in a very clean cage in my bedroom, and I let her out for hours every day to play indoors, and sometimes outside in our fenced backyard. I don’t speak rabbit, but I believe she was happy.
But then Ginger got cancer.
At first, it was a small lump. In the end, her feet barely touched the cage floor because the tumor eating her from the inside out was so huge. She wobbled around like a balloon animal with no legs, which would have been funny if it weren’t so sad. And then she died.
I pleaded with Mason to save her.
“Give her the medicine,” I cried, facedown into my bed so that I couldn’t see the dead rabbit in the cage near the door. Mason sat next to me, patting my back.
“Shh,” he said calmly. “I know you’re upset. I know you loved Ginger. But unfortunately, I can’t do it, Daisy.”
“Why?” I wailed.
“Because it won’t work on her,” he said softly.
“How do you know? Have you ever tried?” I cried. Mason smoothed my messy hair and sighed.
“Daisy, the rabbit had cancer. Do you know what that means?”
“Yes!”
“Well, we’re learning that there are certain limitations to Revive,” Mason said, like he was giving a report to his superiors, not comforting his pseudo daughter.
“What does limitations mean?” I asked, still facedown.
“It means that the medicine only works on certain types of bodies.”
“People bodies?” I asked.
“Yes, and rat bodies, too, but that’s not what I mean,” Mason said. “I mean that it only works on bodies that are healthy before they die. Bodies that die suddenly—not from a disease.”
“What’s a disease?” I asked, rolling over and looking up at Mason. My tears stopped when my inquisitive nature took over. Mason was quiet for a moment, probably trying to decide how to boil it down for a seven-year-old.
“A disease is a really bad sickness that—”
