The Time Capsule (6 page)

TEN

Sawyer shoved the car into gear and took off. Alexis sat tight-lipped, fear ripping through her like waves slamming the shore. She could not quash the sense of foreboding. Something was wrong with her brother. In her driveway, she jumped from the car before it had rolled to a complete stop and ran for the back door.

“Wait up!” Sawyer shouted.

She tried the door, but it was locked. She fumbled in her purse for the key.

Sawyer caught up with her. “I don’t think anyone’s here. The garage is empty.”

Where were her parents? Where was Adam? She jammed the key into the lock, opened the door and rushed inside. The kitchen was empty, all the counters clear and clean, like a galley in a spotless ship.

“Alexis . . . slow down,” Sawyer was saying.

She saw a note posted on the refrigerator. In bold black writing, her mother had scrawled:
Ally—Come to Kendall Hospital ER
. Alexis jerked the paper off the fridge and handed it to Sawyer.

His eyes widened as he read it. He said, “Come on. I’ll drive you.”

The small emergency room of their community hospital was not crowded. The first person Alexis recognized was Kelly, sitting in a chair, clutching a jacket, her face red from crying. Alexis rushed over. “What happened?”

“Oh, Alexis . . . it was so terrible.” Kelly’s eyes were swollen slits, her baby-fine blond hair a tangled mess. “H-he collapsed. Just collapsed right in front of me.”

Alexis knees went weak and she sank into a chair. Sawyer crouched in front of Kelly.

“Tell me exactly what happened,” Alexis said.

“W-we were at my house. I kept asking him if he felt okay because he wasn’t looking too good to me. He kept saying he was fine, but then suddenly he grabbed hold of the arm of the sofa and just fell down. I started screaming. My dad came running and we couldn’t wake Adam up. He just lay there. Daddy called the paramedics.”

Alexis felt sick to her stomach. “And my mom—?”

“Daddy called her as soon as the paramedics came. She was at home, which was lucky because Adam says she’s hardly ever at home anymore. But she came straight to the hospital.”

“Where is she now?”

Kelly gestured toward the doors that led to the triage area of the ER.

“Has our dad been called?”

Kelly shrugged and cried fresh tears. “Th-the paramedics asked me if Adam was high—you know, on drugs. I told them I didn’t think so. That we’d just eaten ice cream . . .” She looked at Alexis. “He doesn’t do drugs, does he?”

“Never.” It disgusted Alexis that Kelly had even asked. She saw an admittance clerk and hurried over to the desk. “Excuse me, my brother was brought in—”

The woman interrupted her. “I haven’t heard anything yet. Go sit down. I’m sure someone will talk to you soon.”

“But I want to go be with him.”

“I’m sorry, that’s impossible.”

Alexis felt like diving across the desk and grabbing the woman by the throat.

Sawyer appeared by her side, took her elbow. “Maybe you should try and call your dad’s cell phone.”

Of course
. She tore through her purse until she found her cell, but her fingers were shaking so badly that she couldn’t press the numbers on the tiny keypad.

“Here, let me.” Sawyer took the phone. She gave him the number; he entered it and handed the phone back to her.

An automated voice told her that the cell user she was trying to reach wasn’t available and that she should call back later. She started to heave the phone across the room, but Sawyer slid it from her hand. “Where is he?” she said fiercely under her breath. She needed her daddy and he wasn’t there.

The doors of the triage area opened and her mother emerged. Alexis ran to her. “Thank God you’re here,” her mother said. Her face was a mask of anguish.

“Adam—” Alexis choked out.

Her mother stood stiffly and looked brittle, as if she’d break if she were even touched. “The ambulance is taking him to Jackson.” She named the enormous state-of-the-art hospital in the heart of Miami. The hospital where Adam had spent so many months struggling to recover from chemo and other cancer treatments. “He’s relapsed,” Eleanor said in a hoarse whisper. “He’s in serious trouble.”

When Adam had been eleven, Alexis hadn’t been allowed on the floor where he was roomed. When he’d been thirteen, she’d only been allowed to visit him in the common areas where other patients met with their families. But now she was seventeen, and she swore that no one would keep her off the oncology floor. She’d ridden to Jackson Memorial with her mother, following the ambulance, driving in a nonemergency transport mode. Sawyer was behind them in his car.

“How is he?” Alexis asked during the interminable ride.

“Very sick.”

“What are they going to do for him?”

“His cancer specialist, Dr. Bernstein, will meet us at Jackson. He’ll decide what to do.”

In the flash of streetlights, Alexis could see that her mother was gripping the steering wheel so tightly that her knuckles looked stark white. “We were at the mall eating ice cream. He seemed fine,” Alexis protested.

“He wasn’t fine. And this didn’t happen overnight. When they took off his shirt and pants in the ER, there were bruises all over him.”

Alexis caught her breath. “How—?”

“You’re probably too young to remember, but that was his first symptom when he was eleven . . . bruising for no reason.”

She didn’t remember, but then no one had gone out of their way to tell her either. She only remembered him getting sick and sleeping a lot.

“Back then, they thought it was a bad case of the flu, or mono, but more tests revealed that it was a whole lot worse.”

“I—I thought he was better. That he was in remission and that the worst was over.”

“No. It isn’t.” Her mother’s voice cracked.

Alexis fought the urge to gag. They rode in silence with no noise but the car’s heater humming on low. After a while, she said, “I tried to call Dad, but I couldn’t reach him.”

“He’s at his office. They turn the switchboard off at night, and he didn’t see fit to keep his cell phone on.” Her voice had an edge to it.

“He should know.”

Eleanor took a deep breath, her gaze fixed fully on the road. “He’ll come home eventually. Did you leave the note?”

“I—I don’t remember.”

By then they were pulling into the ambulance bay. Her mother parked, and they followed the stretcher into the ER. Alexis couldn’t take her eyes off her brother. He was covered with a blanket, except for one arm, which was connected to a portable IV line clamped to the stretcher. A series of ugly bruises stained his bare skin. His eyes were closed, but she saw dark circles beneath them, and his face looked downright gaunt. Why hadn’t she seen this until now? They lived in the same house. She should have noticed these things.

Adam was transferred to a gurney and rolled onto an elevator. Alexis, her mother and an orderly stood silent during the trip to the oncology floor. There a nurse met them and took them to the intensive care unit. “Just until we stabilize him,” the nurse explained. “Dr. Bernstein will be here shortly.”

The ICU was laid out like a wheel, with the nurses’ station and monitoring units at the hub and glass-fronted rooms radiating out like spokes. Alexis saw patients in some of the other rooms.

Alexis grew aware of a ruckus at the outside door of the ICU and recognized Sawyer’s voice. She made it to the door in time to see a nurse barring his way. “You can’t go in there,” the nurse was saying. “Only immediate family.”

Alexis quickly stepped into the hall. “It’s all right. He’s with me.”

“Well, explain the rules to him,” the nurse instructed. “Or I’ll have to call security.”

She disappeared inside the unit, and Alexis went into Sawyer’s arms. He said, “I told her we were brothers.”

“And she didn’t believe you?”

Sawyer shrugged. “She was making me mad.” He held Alexis tightly. “How’s Adam?”

“Pretty sick. We’re waiting for his doctor.”

“Do they know what’s wrong?”

“What’s always been wrong—cancer.” The word tasted bitter in her mouth.

“But I thought—”

“So did I.”

Like Tessa, Sawyer knew about Adam’s illness, mostly because of his close relationship with Alexis. “I’m really sorry,” he said.

She stepped away. “What happened to Kelly?”

“Her dad took her home. She was a basket case.”

“So am I. I’m just better at keeping a lid on it, I guess.”

“There’s a waiting room down the hall, and some sign that says ICU patients can only be visited for ten minutes every thirty minutes. Maybe we should go set up camp in there.”

She looked over her shoulder at the closed door. “I should go back.”

“Your mother’s there. Come sit down before you keel over.”

She went with him, but only to appease him. She wanted to be in the room with Adam. The lounge was small and dimly lit by lamps. The overhead lights were off, and curtains were drawn across windows. She and Sawyer were alone in the place. “What time is it?”

“I don’t have my watch.”

Alexis sank into a sofa. The afternoon and the celebratory trip to the ice cream parlor seemed as if they had happened a hundred years before. “You can go home, Sawyer. I know it’s late.”

“I called home. My parents understand. I don’t want to leave you.”

She lay against his shoulder. It felt good to have him near to lean on, to be with. Someone just for her. She said, “Adam has bruises all over him. I can’t understand why I didn’t see them.”

“He kept pretty covered up. Think about Disney World and the long pants. In the room, he wore jeans to bed. Wade and I thought it was odd, but . . .” He let the sentence trail off.

Alexis went hot and cold all over as realization dawned on her. She thought back to the way Adam had quickly covered up when he got out of the pool. And to the fact that he had been wearing long-sleeved shirts to school. “He was hiding the bruises,” she said. “Because he knew.”

“What did he know?” Eleanor had come into the waiting room and had walked over to the sofa without Alexis even seeing her.

Startled, Alexis looked up into her mother’s stricken face. “He knew he was sick again,” she said. “But he didn’t want us to know.”

Her mother steadied herself on the wall. “How could he do that? Why?”

“I guess we’ll have to ask him, won’t we?” Alexis’s throat felt raw and scratchy from holding everything inside.

A man appeared in the doorway. “Eleanor? Ally? Where’s Adam?”

Alexis saw her father. She jumped up from the couch, crossed the room in a few steps and flung herself into his arms. “Daddy!”

His arms tightened around her, and she dissolved into a river of white-hot tears.

ELEVEN

Alexis’s father held her while her mother filled him in on what had happened. “And where’s the doctor?” Blake asked when she paused.

“He’s evaluating Adam now.”

“We couldn’t reach you, Daddy,” Alexis said, her tears spent.

“I’m sorry.”

Receiving no other explanation left her feeling cold and hollow.

“I’m going to see Adam and talk to that doctor,” her father declared.

“We’ll both go,” Eleanor said.

“Me too,” Alexis said.

“They won’t let us all in at once, Alexis,” Eleanor said. “Please wait here.”

Not wanting to cause a scene, Alexis backed off. Sawyer led her to a vinyl-covered couch, where he’d made a bed for her with a pillow and a blanket. “I found the stuff in that chest over there. I guess the hospital leaves it there for families.”

“I can’t sleep,” she said.

“Then rest until your parents come back. You look ready to explode.”

“I won’t let them shut me out this time,” she said fiercely.

She leaned back, mostly to placate Sawyer, but he was right—she felt like a simmering volcano.

It seemed to take an eternity, but finally her parents returned. She met them in the middle of the room. “What’s happening?”

Her father said, “Adam’s sleeping. He’s getting whole blood because his white count is off the charts. Bernstein will do a full workup tomorrow. He told us to go home.”

“I’m not leaving,” Alexis said. “What about you and Mom?”

“We’re both staying,” her mom answered.

“We should try and get some sleep,” her father said. “They’ll come get us if there’s any change.”

He settled into a lounger chair, and her mother went to a couch on the other side of the room. Alexis returned to her couch and to Sawyer, who had thrown some cushions on the floor beside it. He covered her and lay down on the cushions, then reached up, took her hand and held it until she fell asleep.

Alexis slept fitfully. At one point, Sawyer got up and went down the hall. When he returned, he whispered, “I’m going home to clean up. I’ll go to school and tell people what’s going on. Kelly’s version will probably sound like a disaster movie.”

“Tell Tessa to call my cell phone. And tell people they shouldn’t come down here, because no one can see him except us. I’ll go home sometime today to shower and change, but I want to talk to Adam first. I want to know exactly how this happened. And I mean
exactly
.”

Alexis ate breakfast in the hospital cafeteria with her parents. No one felt like talking. Her mother nibbled on a muffin. Her dad moved scrambled eggs around on his plate with the back of his fork. He looked disheveled, with a stubble of beard on his face, his shirt and slacks rumpled. “After we talk to the doctor, I’ll go home and shower,” he said. “I’ll go in to the office long enough to dole out my most urgent projects.”

Eleanor stared into space as if she hadn’t heard him, an expression of such sadness on her face that Alexis could hardly stand it.

Blake said, “You come with me, Ally. Do you know where Adam left your car?”

“It’s probably at Kelly’s.”

“We’ll pick it up on the way home. After we talk to the doctor, the three of us are going to sit down and talk and figure out a game plan.”

“My game plan is to stay with our son,” Eleanor said, her voice flat, resigned.

“Not this time,” Blake said.

She stared at him in disbelief.

“We’ll do this as a family,” he said without apology. “No martyrs this time.”

Alexis saw her mother’s face go blotchy, and for an instant she thought her mother might throw something at him. Her lips compressed into a firm line, and she pushed back her chair and left the cafeteria. Her father raked his hand through his hair. Alexis was left to wonder why he had said such a thing.

He stood, scooped up his tray of uneaten food and dumped it in a nearby trash container. “Come on, honey. Let’s see if your brother’s awake.”

Upstairs, Adam was awake, the head of his bed raised, two IV lines attached to his arm. One bag held clear liquid; another, blood. A breakfast tray that had been set on his bedside table looked untouched. He gave Alexis the once-over when she came into the room. “You look rough,” he said.

“You’re no vision,” she answered testily, but he opened his arms and she went to him. She buried her face in his neck. Pulling back, she felt moisture filling her eyes.

“Now, don’t start leaking on me.” He held on to her hand. “How’s Kelly?”

“Freaked out. Sawyer will check on her today.”

“Tell her I’m sorry.”

“Why didn’t you say something to us?” Their mother came to one side of his bed, their father to the other.

“Don’t gang up on me,” Adam said.

“Surely you realized you weren’t well,” Eleanor said. “Why not tell us?”

“I didn’t want it to be happening all over again. So I pretended it wasn’t.” Adam’s tone was matter-of-fact.

“Dr. Bernstein told us you missed your lab work in August.” This from Blake.

“True,” Adam said.

Alexis couldn’t believe what he was saying. After his last remission, Adam had gone for lab work every six months. His last scheduled visit had been right before the time capsule ceremony at their old elementary school. As a seventeen-year-old outpatient, Adam had taken responsibility for his checkup appointments for two years, and until now, Alexis had thought he’d never missed one.

“You told us everything was good with those tests. Why did you lie to us?”

He shrugged. “I was sick and tired of the testing and then of the waiting for bad news— Were my numbers holding? Were they skewing? The pressure of always wondering sucked. So I skipped the last go-round. Bad timing. By October, I knew something was wrong, and I was pretty sure I was relapsing. I didn’t want to come back here until I had to.” He held his father’s gaze without flinching.

Eleanor looked furious. “Dr. Bernstein told us his office called and left three messages on our home machine, plus he wrote a follow-up letter explaining how important it was for you to keep regular lab appointments. We never got any of his messages, or his letter.”

Adam closed his eyes, clenched his jaw. “That’s because I erased the messages. And I made sure I got to the mail first every day to intercept any letters.”

“How could you? And how dare you lie to us!”

He shrugged. “I’m sorry about lying, but I wanted to go to school and have a normal life. I was tired of being micromanaged. You seemed to be relieved whenever I told you I felt fine and my checkups were good. You were busy with your job and that campaign. Dad was busy with his clients. None of us wanted to go backward, so I told you what we all wanted to hear.”

Alexis’s heart went out to him. She understood his logic. He had wanted to be a typical healthy teenager, even if only for a few more months. What hurt and shocked her was that he’d hid it from her so well that she’d never picked up on any of it, not even with her twin radar. She’d never suspected a thing. When he was moody, she’d chalked it up to school, Kelly, anything except a relapse.

“You almost
died,
” Eleanor said, her voice shaking with emotion. “Until you got transfusions, you were all but comatose.”

“Mom, I’ve been dying for years. A few more months of medical freedom was worth it to me.”

Alexis’s stomach knotted. Had he really said the word
dying
?

“Now, hold on,” Blake interjected. “We’re going to meet with Bernstein and the oncology staff and see what they can do to help. It’s been several years since you’ve undergone treatments. New things have come along. New drugs and protocols. You’re still going to fight.”

“I never said I was quitting. I just said I wanted to be and act normal for a while. I still want that. I want to play baseball in the spring. I want to graduate in June. I’ll do whatever my doctors say.” He looked to his sister. “Ally will kill me if I don’t graduate with her, won’t you?”

“With my bare hands,” she said softly, ignoring the smile he offered her.

“Then go back to school and tell my friends I’ll see them soon. And—and tell Kelly that— well, that I love her.”

“I’ll pass it on,” Alexis said, all the while wondering if the girl could handle a love as brave and determined as Adam’s.

When Alexis arrived home after picking up the car, Tessa was waiting for her on the doorstep. “I cut out after third period,” Tessa explained. “I was going crazy trying to sit still. I couldn’t concentrate.” She bit her bottom lip, as if to control her emotions. “I—I want to see him.”

Alexis was sympathetic. “No one can see him except the family until he’s out of ICU.”

“When will that be?”

“Not sure.” Alexis beckoned from the now-open front door. “Come upstairs with me while I clean up and change.”

“You going back to the hospital?”

“You bet.”

Tessa followed Alexis up to her room, and Alexis told her all she knew.

“I can’t believe he hid this from you. That means the whole time we were running around Disney World—”

“Yes,” Alexis said, grabbing clean clothes from her closet. “He’s been lying about his health for months.”

“Will it . . . I mean, is it going to make a difference? I mean, with the way cancer grows and spreads and all.”

“I don’t know.” Alexis headed toward the bathroom. “But I’m sure going to find out.”

Alexis didn’t have a chance to be alone with Adam until that evening. Their parents were taking a much-needed break when she went into the ICU and found Adam propped up in bed, staring at the ceiling. “How’s it going?” she asked.

“I’ve been poked and jabbed like a piece of meat all day. I don’t like it any better this time than I did before.”

“You look better.” He wasn’t as pale, and the bruising had lightened.

“Whole blood makes the difference. Now we know why vampires go after it.”

“I’m really sorry, Adam.”

“Me too.” He turned his face away from her, and his sadness felt like a weight on her heart.

“Why did you keep it a secret?”

“I told you why. I wanted to be normal.”

“Yes, but—”

“I got to have a few more months of living on the outside. It was worth it to me. And before you ask, it didn’t make much of a difference in the cancer. I got sicker than if I’d checked in during September, but in the long run, I’m out of remission. End of story.”

“Do you know what the doctors are going to do yet?”

“New chemo. Experimental stuff. I’ll have to live here while they do it, because they’ll have to keep close tabs on my blood work. The only halfway positive news is that I’ll go into a private room tomorrow. I really hate the ICU.”

“Well, maybe friends can come visit then.” She tried to sound hopeful.

“Sure, but I have to wear a mask around visitors during the days I’m taking the drugs so they don’t pass around any pesky little germs. Hey, it’ll be like Halloween.”

“I’ll bring your schoolwork,” she said.

He grimaced. “The hospital’s already told me I can do homework on computers in the common room down the hall. And there’s an internal channel from the school system for class lectures too. Whoopee. Big deal.”

“It
is
a big deal if you want to graduate in June.”

“How about you, Ally? Promise me you’ll keep up your debate schedule. Keep collecting those trophies.”

“I haven’t thought about debate.” At the moment she felt overwhelmed, and preparing for the next tournament in January was the last thing on her mind.

“I’m in the hospital, Ally, not you.”

A nurse signaled that her time was up. Alexis kissed Adam’s forehead. “I’ll be back tomorrow.”

Deep in thought, Alexis went to the ICU waiting area, which now held several people. As she walked in the door, a teary-eyed Kelly hurried up to her. “How is he? They won’t let me see him.”

“You’ll be able to see him once he goes into a private room. Probably tomorrow.”

Wade materialized beside Kelly, saying, “Hey,” and giving a little wave.

“Wade drove me,” Kelly said. “I only have my learner’s permit.”

“It’ll make Adam feel better knowing you came,” Alexis said, trying to be charitable. She really wasn’t in the mood to comfort Kelly.

“What’s wrong with him?”

Baffled, Alexis said, “It’s leukemia.”

“That’s what Sawyer told me, but how did Adam get it?”

“He’s had it for years, but he’s been in remission until now.” Kelly offered a blank stare, and slowly revelation dawned on Alexis. “Didn’t you know?”

Kelly shook her head, and her big blue eyes filled with tears. “No,” she said. “He never said a word.”