Kate finished the chapter and looked at Jess’s drooping eyelids. ‘Time for you to sleep now,’ she said, kissing her cheek.
‘I don’t want to, Mum. I want to enjoy every second of being home. It’s so good to be back. The last few weeks have felt like a year.’
‘I know, pet, and you’ve been so brave and wonderful.’
‘I don’t want to go back for more,’ Jess said, and Kate felt her shaking. ‘I hate the chemo.’
‘Jess, I know you do, and it’s just horrible, but it’s going to kill the cancer so in a way it’s a good thing, even though I know it’s rotten for you. I hate seeing you so unwell, pet.’
‘I’m sorry, Mum,’ Jess whispered.
‘For what?’
‘For being sick. I know it’s terrible for you and I promise to try my best to get better quickly.’
Kate couldn’t even pretend not to cry. She hugged Jess to her and sobbed. ‘None of this is your fault. It’s just awful luck, but we’re all going to help you get better. Don’t ever apologize again. You’re the best thing that ever happened to me, the light of my life. I’m so sorry this has happened to you, but I will do everything in my power to help you.’
Jess nodded into Kate’s shoulder. Kate gently laid her back on the pillow and kissed her sweet face. ‘Love you, Jess.’
‘Love you, Mum.’
‘Sleep now, pet. It’ll help.’
Jess turned her head, pulled Whiskey close and shut her eyes. Within minutes she was sound asleep.
The first round of chemo had made her very ill. She could barely hold down any food and was weak and exhausted. Kate hated seeing her like that. To feel so helpless was torture. All she could do was tilt the bowl for Jess to vomit into and hold her when she cried. They knew she’d be allowed home after the first round, and that had been some tiny consolation, but chemo took so much out of Jess, and Kate admired her daughter’s stamina in getting through each day.
Kate kept asking questions, but although the haematologists and nurses were kind and caring, they wouldn’t give false hope. They kept saying they had to wait and see if the chemo was working. It was all about waiting … waiting for test results, waiting for treatment to work, waiting for information. Kate hated the waiting.
She went over to her laptop and started Googling. After an hour her eyes were throbbing and her heart was pounding from information overload. The internet was a blessing and a curse. She’d always thought ‘information is power’, but it wasn’t. Sometimes you were better off not knowing what was coming down the line. Sometimes ignorance was bliss. And yet she found herself Googling every single symptom and test result Jess had received, and it often led to frightening outcomes and stories.
She glanced at Jess, who was still asleep. She looked so peaceful when she slept. The worried frown she’d developed between her eyebrows was smooth and her frightened eyes were closed.
It was wonderful to have her home for two weeks before she had more chemo. Jess was so tired that she slept most of the time, but Kate could see that being at home was cheering her up. She had put Jess into her double bed with her so she could keep an eye on her. She also liked to hold her at night, imagining that if she put her arms around her she could hug away the cancer. She could protect her daughter with her magical mother’s love. If only …
A mother’s job was to make her child better, but Kate couldn’t fix this. Neither could Nick. He was so angry. Every time he’d come to the hospital, he’d shouted at some member of staff, and usually ended up accusing them of not doing enough. He looked wretched, almost as bad as Kate. She knew he was suffering too, but he really wasn’t helping with his aggressive attitude and she’d come to dread his visits.
Kate chewed her lip and tried to think of the best way to word what she had to ask Luke to do. The doctors were quite clear that it would help enormously, which meant it had to be done, but she knew she would be asking a huge amount of him. She hated to do it, wished more than anything she could do it herself, but she wasn’t a match. Instead, it might fall on Luke’s young shoulders. It was just unbearable.
Kate felt a panic attack coming on. She was getting them regularly now. Maggie had suggested a mindfulness course, and she was thinking about doing one. She needed to stop the terror that came over her at night and crippled her, dark thoughts consuming her.
She kissed Jess’s cheek and inhaled her lovely Jess smell. Then she went to get a cup of herbal tea. She tried to control her breathing to keep the panic at bay. As she reached the kitchen she saw the light was on. She could hear voices: her dad’s and Luke’s. She stopped and listened.
‘This is crazy,’ George said. ‘No one can eat this much food.’
‘The coach said I’m not getting enough protein. I should be eating four to five full meals a day. The problem is, I don’t feel hungry. Since Jess’s diagnosis, I’ve lost my appetite.’
‘Does your coach know about Jess?’
‘Yeah, and he cut me a bit of slack at training, but I can’t fall behind or I’ll get dropped.’
‘How about I make you breakfast in the mornings? It says porridge, eggs, nuts and/or smoothies loaded up with protein powder. We can do something different each morning.’
‘Thanks, Granddad.’
‘Sure I’m happy to help, Luke. You need your rugby. I’d say it’s a good switch-off for you.’
‘It’s the one and only place where I don’t think about Jess. I don’t want to get dropped. I need it, Granddad. I feel good when I’m playing.’
‘I understand, son, and I’ll help you. We’ll feed you up but you might need to exaggerate a bit on your diet sheet for the coach. As I said, no one could eat this much.’
Kate pushed open the kitchen door.
‘Is she asleep?’ George asked, as she came into the room.
Kate nodded. ‘Peacefully.’
‘Ah, good. Poor little thing is wiped out.’
Kate sat down at the table. ‘So, how are things here? Are you managing in the café, Dad?’
George patted her hand. ‘Absolutely. Nathalie’s doing more hours for me and continuing to charm and frighten away customers in equal measure. She told Brenda Kent last week that she was an ugly-handsome woman. Apparently this is a compliment in France, but Brenda didn’t see it that way.’
Kate and Luke laughed.
‘She’s kind of mad, but Jess loves her,’ Luke said. ‘She always cheers her up.’
‘For that I love her too.’ Kate smiled.
There was silence. Then Kate took a deep breath. No point in waiting: he was here now and she might as well bring it up. ‘Luke, there’s something I need to ask you.’
He looked at her warily. ‘What?’
‘Jess may need a bone-marrow transplant and I need you to get tested, to see if you’re a match. Your dad and I have been tested already and unfortunately we aren’t.’
‘Sure. What is it? What does it mean?’
‘Well, you’ll have a blood test and they’ll use it for tissue typing to evaluate how close a match you are with Jess. Siblings tend to be the best matches.’
‘If I’m a match, what happens then?’ Luke asked, spinning his cup around on the table, avoiding Kate’s eyes.
Kate hated having to ask him to do this, mainly because the bone-marrow aspiration was supposed to be painful. But at the same time, another part of her was praying he would be a match. ‘Well, I have the information here.’ She handed Luke a leaflet.
He took it from her and read aloud, ‘“You begin by having a peripheral blood stem cell (PBSC) collection. For five days before PBSC collection, a donor receives injections of a white blood cell growth hormone called G-CSF (Neupogen). These injections last five minutes. On the fifth day, a needle is placed in each of the donor’s arms. The person’s blood is circulated through a machine that collects the stem cells. Then the rest of the blood is returned to the donor. This collection takes about three hours and may be repeated on a second donation day. There is very little blood loss. Side-effects may include headaches, bone soreness, and the discomfort of needles in the arms during the process.”’ Luke stopped reading and dropped the leaflet onto the table.
‘It’s a lot to take in and you might not be a match, but I think it makes it out to be worse than it is.’ Kate tried to hide the desperation in her voice. ‘The boy in the room next to Jess had his sister do it and she said it was okay.’
Luke gripped the table. ‘If I’m a match I’ll do it, of course I will, but will it interfere with rugby, Mum? I can’t get dropped.’
Kate nodded. ‘We’ll work around it, I promise.’
‘Please, God, you will be a match. It’d be the best thing you could ever do,’ George said, patting Luke’s arm. ‘With your healthy bone marrow, Jess would definitely get better. No doubt about it.’
Luke’s shoulders relaxed a little and he gave his granddad a small smile. Kate exhaled. Her dad was right. Luke’s brilliant bone marrow would heal Jess and get rid of the goddamn leukaemia.