AS THE EARLY morning sun slanted in the windows, Martha stretched lazily out across Mike’s side of the bed, watching her husband perform his daily routine of showering, shaving and dressing. Martha told him of her plans to visit Cass Armstrong again.
‘Have you actually gone mad!’ he remonstrated with her, almost nicking himself with the razor blade. ‘Getting involved with such a seriously ill child is plain crazy.’
‘But I promised her, and I want to keep my promise.’
‘You’re getting yourself deeply involved with a child and her parents, and God knows what they’ll expect of you.’
‘If you just saw her, Mike, you’d understand. She’s sick and scared and her mother’s just stressed out with it all. Maybe I can really do something to help her,’ she said softly, not wanting the kids to hear them yelling at each other so early in the morning.
‘Jesus, Martha! I worry about you! You are actually beginning to believe the things they’re writing and saying about you.’
Martha stared at him in disbelief, realizing that he had absolutely no faith in her abilities.
‘That’s not fair!’
‘Of course it’s fair!’ he argued. ‘You’re my wife and the mother of my children, not some bloody religious do-gooder saint. You have our kids to look after, isn’t that enough for you without wanting to become some kind of Mother Teresa ministering to the sick?’
‘Don’t you believe that I can heal?’
He turned away from her, pretending to put on his shoes and search for his jacket.
‘Mike!’ she demanded.
‘Listen, Mar, I don’t know. Call me a doubting Thomas, whatever, like that guy in the Bible. For me the jury is still out. I’m a simple guy and I ain’t sure of what’s going on. Why God would choose my wife over some holy nun or something beats me! I don’t understand it and I’m not going to bullshit and lie to you about it.’
Martha drew in a deep breath. If there was one thing sure and certain about Mike McGill it was his honesty. It was a part of his attraction and she supposed one of his most valued traits, though at times like this it hurt like hell to be on the receiving end. ‘Thanks a bunch for your support,’ she replied, raising herself up on the pillows. ‘I don’t understand anything you do in CPI, and yet it’s never been a problem for me. I listen to you talk on and on about work and the office and systems and chips and protocols, and support you as much as I can. Yet when I ask you for a little bit of support it’s just not there.’
He hesitated for a second.
‘I’m not getting into an argument with you, Martha, I’m already running late and this is not the time or the place. I’ve given you my opinion,’ he added as he walked out the door. Martha almost howled with frustration as she jumped into the shower, relieved that she had not told him about her meeting with Gina.
Evie seemed equally cautious about the idea of the visit. For once Martha’s best friend was somewhat in agreement with her husband.
‘Maybe you might be getting yourself in too deep. I know your intentions are good, but that little girl has been sick most of her life. You might get too emotionally involved,’ Evie told her.
Martha gave it some consideration but in the end ignored both of them. Deciding to follow her own instincts, she drove up Longwood Avenue towards Boston’s landmark Children’s Hospital later that day.
Visiting Cass Armstrong again, she was almost relieved that her mother Beth wasn’t there. The child was dozing, eyes closed, when Martha peeped in the door of her hospital room. Perhaps she was interfering and getting far more involved than she should, but one look at the ten-year-old’s unnatural pallor and the gurgle of the oxygen mask hooked up beside her bed was more than enough for Martha to sense the child’s distinct need for help. Cass’s eyes fluttered and flicked open, aware of the arrival of a visitor.
‘I can go if you’re too tired, Cass. I was just popping in to say hi.’
Cass shook her head, tossing the mask from side to side and gesturing for her to pull up a chair and sit down close by the bed. Martha did.
‘How you doing?’ she asked.
Cass shrugged her shoulders.
‘You are obviously not feeling any better.’
The young girl shook her head. Martha could tell she was forcing herself not to cry. She had that same expression on her face that Alice often got when she was trying to be brave about something and not let Patrick and Mary Rose know how upset she really was. Without thinking, Martha took hold of her hand and squeezed it. The two of them were silent.
Still and quiet, Martha could sense the sheer misery and hopelessness that the young girl felt. The loneliness of the hospital room and the sheer immensity of her illness were stifling her.
Cass lifted up the mask a second. ‘I had to go on this two nights back. Dr Hopkins says I need it until they get me a heart,’ she told Martha.
‘You must be anxious waiting like this,’ suggested Martha gently.
Cass nodded, her deep brown eyes serious.
‘I hate it! I don’t want some other kid to die just so that I can have their heart. Honest I don’t!’ she protested. ‘I don’t want their stupid heart. Even if I have the operation, it mightn’t work. I might reject it. All kinds of things could happen.’
‘Cass, someone else’s dying has absolutely nothing to do with you, get that straight! You needing the transplant isn’t going to make something bad happen to someone else. Believe me.’
‘That’s what Mom and Dr Hopkins say,’ she admitted.
Wordlessly Martha slipped the mask back over the girl’s face. ‘I’ll just sit with you awhile, Cass, if that’s all right.’
They sat quietly, Martha watching the light rhythm of Cass’s breath and heartbeat, sensing how truly fragile the girl really was and how much strength was needed for her to be fit for surgery. Anything she could do to help she would do gladly. She couldn’t imagine how distraught she would be if one of her own children had suffered this fate. Cass was watching her too, equally curious.
‘My mom says that you can heal people, that you got a gift of healing and making people better. Is that really true?’ Her voice was filled with doubt and disbelief, which Martha had no intention of destroying with some inane promise.
‘Some people say so. But to tell the truth, Cass, I just don’t know. I’d like to help people if I can, but that doesn’t always mean I can make them better.’
‘Do you think that I’m going to get better?’
‘I’m sure Dr Hopkins and all the doctors and nurses here are doing their best to help, Cass. It’s probably just a matter of waiting and . . .’
‘I’ve been waiting it seems most of my life,’ whispered Cass. ‘I’m fed up of waiting and being in hospital.’
‘I know it can’t be much fun stuck here instead of back home with your friends and family.’
‘My dad doesn’t like hospitals. He says they make him feel sick. One time he fainted when he came to visit me after one of my operations. He tried to pretend he slipped on the floor but I knew that he’d fainted. Mom doesn’t mind, she says she’s used to them, like me.’
Martha tried to disguise her dismay at what the Armstrong family must have endured over a number of years; she doubted herself and Mike would have been so strong. Cass wriggled around in the bed. She looked uncomfortable and out of place in the pristine starkness of the hospital room. Despite the attempts to disguise it with balloons and posters and get-well cards, she was still a small scared little girl in a place she did not want to be.
‘Would you like me to read to you?’
‘Yep.’
A pile of glossy pre-teen magazines lay strewn on the bottom of the bed, covered with pictures of the latest film and pop idols. Concerts, films, discos! Martha wondered if Cass would ever enjoy the things that teenage girls cherished.
Under the pile, Martha discovered a copy of Frank L. Baum’s Wizard of Oz. She remembered reading and re-reading it for Patrick and Mary Rose and Alice. Her own children had been entranced by the story of Dorothy and her quest to find the Great Wizard. Removing the bookmark, she took up where Cass had obviously left off and the child’s eyes relaxed as she listened to the familiar words. Right up close together, Martha kept reading as Cass leaned towards her. Laying her hands along the child’s shoulder and arms Martha was shocked by the overwhelmingly intense emotions Cass was feeling. She could feel the immediate weakness and irregularity of her heart but could also feel the child’s bewilderment and sadness. Cass needed to cut loose from all that and have some kind of a normal kid’s life, even if it wasn’t going to be for ever.
‘What would you truly like, Cass, if I could click my heels and give you a wish?’
‘I’d like a new heart so I could go back home, to Mom and Dad and Billy and Jay and my dog Samson,’ she murmured softly, turning over on her side, her face pressed against the pillow.
Martha, not trusting herself to speak, just kept on reading.
Beth Armstrong had phoned her at home later that night, breathless and excited.
‘Martha, thank you so much for coming by the hospital to visit Cass today. I’m sure it helped. I’m just sure it did.’
Martha bit her lip.
‘I went out to get some fresh air and pick up some things for Cass in the store so I’m really sorry that we missed each other, but I do appreciate you seeing her.’
‘I’d promised.’
‘Anyways I know I shouldn’t say it but Dr Hopkins is very hopeful of getting an organ soon. Cass is top of the list. Top of the list, that’s what they keep saying.’
Martha could hear the fear and hope in Beth’s voice, the expectation that her only daughter would be returned to normal life again.
‘That’s great, Beth. Really great!’
‘Why, Martha, she could be having her operation any day now, tomorrow even. That soon, imagine!’
Beth was doing her best to appear upbeat and positive and ignore the risks of such an operation, and Martha hadn’t the heart to worry her.
Getting off the phone about five minutes later Martha said a silent prayer for the child and her mother.