Beyond Repair (27 page)

“So you don’t turn the heat up as high as it goes?” he asked.

“Not unless you like them burned with uncooked batter in the middle.” I shook my head and he laughed.

“I’ll set the table,” he said, moving to get plates out of the cabinet.

“Mom, those pancakes smell gross.”

I turned around and saw that Mia had woken up on her own today. “Morning! I promise they’re good. Why don’t you go sit down; they’re almost ready.”

Chris looked up from setting the table. “Hi, Mia. I like your outfit.”

She was wearing a Spiderman shirt and Princess Jasmine dress-up pants. “Thank you,” she replied. “Can you braid my hair?” She held out a hairbrush and a ponytail holder.

“Umm …” Chris started.

I jumped in. “I’ll braid your hair in a few minutes.”

She stuck her bottom lip out. “I want Chris to do it.”

“Chris doesn’t know how to braid hair, sweetie.”

“I can brush it,” he offered.

“He needs to practice. How else will he learn?” She had her hands on her hips as she regurgitated what I’d told her whenever she was trying to learn something.

I bit my lip to keep from laughing. “Mia.”

Chris stared at her head. “Maybe I can do a ponytail? And your mom can show me how to braid tonight.” He took the brush from her and smiled at me. “I need to learn how to do these kinds of things.”

“Okay,” she said, turning her back toward him. Chris started working the brush through her hair.

I put the last of the pancakes on a plate and shut the stove off. After pulling a chair in front of Mia, I sat down so I was eye level with her. “Let’s talk about what’s going on at the doctor’s today.”

She frowned at me but didn’t argue.

“You need to get blood work first. I do, too. We can sit next to each other.”

Mia gave me a tight-lipped smile and nodded. It didn’t really matter to her that I would be getting my blood drawn as well. I couldn’t say I blamed her.

“Then you’re going to go through a special tunnel that looks like a donut and a camera will take pictures of you.”

She instantly perked up. “I get to go in a donut tunnel? That might be fun.”

I realized that calling the tunnel a donut was a bad idea. She was now probably picturing a tunnel that was a giant donut with pink frosting and sprinkles. I was trying to describe what she needed to know for her CT scan. A metal tunnel she’d have to stay completely still in for God knows how long, all by herself. Not fun.

But Chris clarified for me, still trying to brush her hair toward the top of her head. “It’s just shaped like a donut. You have to stay really still, like a statue. So it will probably be boring. But it’s really important that the doctor takes those pictures.”

Mia sighed. “Okay. A real donut tunnel would be better.”

“It sure would.” He put his hands down. “Okay, you’re done.” He smiled at me. “How did I do?”

The messiest ponytail I had ever seen was sitting on top of Mia’s head. She probably could have done a better job herself, but I loved the effort he put into it.

“It’s perfect.”

She ran away, and I heard her voice from the bathroom. “Chris needs more practice.”

* * *

Mia walked with her head down into the lab after our names were called, gripping my hand. Chris followed us in and pulled his phone out of his pocket as we sat down. “Look at what I found for you.” He showed her an app where she could design princess dresses.

She took the phone. “Oooh, that’s pretty—OW!” She glared at the lab technician who had stuck the needle in her but happily played with Chris’s phone as her blood was drawn.

I looked down at my arm, watching the red flow down the clear tube and into the vial. The other technician in the room stuck a cotton ball over the needle and pulled it out. “You’re done.”

“Why do you only need to go for a short time?” Mia looked up from the game, watching as the technician applied a Band-Aid to my arm.

“Because they only need a little of mine.”

“Hmph,” she muttered, turning back toward the phone.

I smiled. This was more like my Mia—a little bit of an attitude and not scared or crying. She really was getting braver and tougher. This kid was going to roundhouse kick cancer in the face.

* * *

The CT scan took about twenty minutes. They were able to play the
Frozen
soundtrack for her while it was being done, which I was sure helped the time go by more quickly. We were done for the day earlier than we usually were and went to the lab to see our family.

I was worried there would be a big cry fest when everyone saw Mia, but I think the fact that she acted like her normal self and was in good spirits made everyone more at ease. There were some extra-long hugs for Mia and me, but aside from that, you’d never know that everyone was about to be tested to see if they were carriers of medullary thyroid cancer.

My parents had met Chris through Kyle before, but this was their first time seeing him since we’d started dating. I was grateful that they seemed comfortable with each other. Meeting the parents of someone you were dating was awkward enough, and combined with being tested for cancer, it could have been downright uncomfortable.

They genuinely seemed to like Chris. I knew it meant a lot to them that I was finally in a relationship after all these years. They’d always worried about me, and I think it put their mind at ease to see their daughter wasn’t lonely and that their granddaughter had a male role model.

Especially now. The fact that he was sticking so close to us when Mia wasn’t his child was not lost on them. I knew that their daughter becoming pregnant after a drunken one-night stand was not their proudest moment.

I just didn’t have the heart to tell them the truth.

It didn’t take long for everyone to get their blood work done, and we headed to Zoey’s. She told me that her kids didn’t understand how extreme Mia’s sickness was, and we decided it was best to keep it that way.

Mike and Justin plowed out of the house as soon as they saw us pull up, and Kyle watched from the door holding Beth. Mia jumped out of the car to meet them as soon as it stopped. “I got to listen to
Frozen
music in a big donut.”

“That’s cool. Mom got donuts at the store the other day, but we ate them all,” Mike replied in a sad tone.

Justin jumped up and down. “Now that Mia’s here, can we go swimming?”

“Sure,” Zoey replied.

Everyone except Dad changed to go in the pool. He always assumed grilling duties, which he loved. With the kids splashing and the smell of cheeseburgers cooking, I let myself pretend for a few minutes that it was a normal evening and tried to enjoy myself.

The shirtless view of Chris, dripping with water as he played with the kids, didn’t hurt either.

My mom swam over to me. “Chris is a nice boy. Hang onto him.”

I smiled as I watched him, Kyle, and all of the kids do cannonballs into the water at the same time. “Don’t worry, Mom. I plan on it.”

Despite the playful atmosphere, her voice grew serious. “If we don’t have the cancer, then it means Mia’s father has it.”

She was always great at pointing out the obvious. “Yes, I know.”

“Are you sure you don’t remember his name? That poor boy should know if he’s carrying it.”

I looked down, shaking my head. “Sorry, Mom. I … I don’t.”

She sighed. “It’s just so sad. All it takes is a simple surgery, and he may never know he needs it.”

If my family did not carry the cancer, then it was on me to contact Pierce’s side. I had avoided thinking about this ever since Mia’s diagnosis, but my mom’s words reminded me that I had a huge choice to make if my family was not the carrier.

Do I tell the guy who drugged and raped me, potentially saving his life?

Chapter Twenty-Five

U
NLIKE THE TESTS PERFORMED ON
Mia, the blood tests done on my family and me were going to take three weeks for the results. There was no reason to think about being a carrier when I had my daughter to worry about.

It took a total of eight days for tests to be run on Mia and for us to meet with doctors. I didn’t know whether to be sad or happy when she stopped complaining about the medical procedures and instead began to cooperate. It was heart wrenching when your child came to expect pain. However, being the negotiator that she was, Mia was promised two more new toys when we went to Disney World.

I would buy out the whole Disney Store for her if I could.

They finally cleared her for surgery after the eighth day of testing. The surgery was only expected to last an hour. Mia was going to have the five lymph nodes removed, as well as her entire thyroid taken out. Thyroid removal was not very common, but an experienced endocrine surgeon would be performing the surgery on her.

“Mia, come help me pack for our sleepover at the hospital tomorrow. Do you want to bring a stuffed animal or a doll to sleep with?”

“Yes. I need my purple teddy bear and my doll you got me for my birthday and the bed Chris made me and Rapunzel doll and my Jasmine doll and my Cinderella doll ….”

I was amazed she could say all of that without taking a breath. “We should only have to be there one night. Let’s just pick one …” Her lower lip sticking out made me reconsider. “Two.”

She tapped her foot and looked up as she thought. “Um …. My birthday doll. And Jasmine.”

“Great.” I put them in her Hello Kitty suitcase. “What do you want to wear when you come home?”

She started looking through the clothes in her closet as Chris came into the room and sat on her bed. “Are you sure you don’t want me to stay with you guys?”

I shook my head. “It’s just one night, and she’ll be sleeping most of the time. You could probably use a comfortable night’s sleep anyway; I saw your feet hanging off the end of the bed this morning.” Chris had a California King at his place, and my full-size bed was probably not the most comfortable thing for his six-foot-four frame.

He gave me a small smile. “Totally worth it.”

Mia held up a red t-shirt with Jesse from
Toy Story
on it in one hand and a bright pink skirt with white flowers all over it in her other hand. “I’ll wear this when I come home.”

“Beautiful.”

“I have something else you can wear when you come home.” Chris pulled a little jewelry box out of his pocket and held it out to her.

Mia’s jaw dropped to the floor and she crossed the room. “What is it?”

“Open it and see.”

She opened the lid on the box and pulled out a silver necklace with a star and a purple pendant hanging off it. “Oooh, so sparkly and pretty.”

“It’s for being really brave.”

“Thank you!” She looked at me. “Can I wear it?”

“Yes, but we have to take it off tomorrow. You can wear it again when we come home.” I took the box from her and pulled out the necklace. “Is this an amethyst? I didn’t know they were that sparkly.”

“Um, no. It’s a diamond. Well, a color treated diamond.”

I stared at him.

“Sorry, I should have asked you if it’s okay. It was a spur of the moment thing. I wanted her to have something to match her bracelet. It’s only a little diamond.” He watched me hook the clasp of the necklace on Mia.

“Yeah, my bracelet matches!” She skipped over to her jewelry box and started digging through it.

I laughed and sat down next to Chris on the bed. “Yes, your purple diamond matches your purple rhinestones perfectly.”

She slipped on the bracelet and grinned. “I’m going to look in the mirror!” She bolted out of the room.

I watched her leave and looked down when I felt something on my leg.

It was a jewelry box. A little one.

My heart stopped beating. I loved Chris, and I had no doubt that I wanted to be with him forever. But this wasn’t the right time—

“It’s not
that
. Don’t worry.” I let my breath out, and he started laughing. “Good thing it’s not. It would not be going well for me. You should see the look on your face.”

I laughed too, leaning into him. “I love you, it’s just not—”

“You don’t have to explain yourself.” He put his arm around me. “Do you really think I would just put the box on your leg?”

“I don’t know,” I replied honestly.

“Well, I wouldn’t.” His arm tightened around me. “Open it.”

I opened the lid and two sparkly, light blue stud earrings were inside. “These are beautiful. I love them.”

“Now you have something that matches your bracelet, too.”

I tilted my head up and kissed him, keeping my hand on the side of his face as I pulled away. “Thank you.”

He ran his thumb over my bottom lip. “You’re welcome.”

“You didn’t have to get me anything.”

“I wanted to.”

I looked at the earrings. “They’re my favorite blue, too; they’re the same color as your …” I stopped talking, not wanting the moment to get mushy.

He grinned. “As my what?”

“Never mind.”

He laughed. “Well, you hinted that blue was your favorite for that reason, so I may have picked the diamonds that were closest to … um, that shade.”

“These are diamonds, too?”

“Yeah, blue diamonds.”

“Holy crap. Like in
Titanic
?”

Chris rubbed the top of his head. “Huh?”

“The movie?”

Mia came running back into the room. “I love my pretty purple star necklace!” She hugged Chris and looked at my lap. “What are those?”

“Chris got me earrings. Aren’t they pretty?”

She tilted her head as she looked at them. “I don’t have my ears pierced so I like my star necklace better. And it’s purple. But those are nice for you, Mom.” She spun around the room and flopped onto a pile of stuffed animals. “Can I have ice cream?”

I wished she could. “No, sweetie. Sorry, you can’t eat anything for the rest of the night because of your surgery tomorrow. Remember?”

“Yeah,” she grumbled as she crossed her arms. “Maybe tomorrow night?”

“If you’re hungry and the doctor says okay, yes.”

“Okay!” She held up her stuffed giraffe. “Can I bring this, too?”

* * *

A couple of hours later, Mia was asleep. After calling my parents and Zoey to tell them what time the surgery was, I packed my own bag for staying at the hospital.