Neverland by Shari Arnold

Author:Shari Arnold [Arnold, Shari]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2015-04-06T22:00:00+00:00

PART TWO

They flew away to the Neverland, where the lost children are.

-— J.M. Barrie

Peter and Wendy

CHAPTER NINETEEN

One week later

“Are you ready for this?” my mother asks. She’s sitting across from me while we wait for Dr. Lerner. He should be here any minute.

“I’m ready,” I say, giving her a smile that is meant to show her how ready I am. I’m so nervous though I doubt I pull it off.

She opens her mouth to speak and I know what she wants to say, how I can still change my mind, how it’s not too late, or perhaps, let’s just walk away now, but she doesn’t say any of that. Not this time. She’s asked enough these last few weeks to know what the answer would be.

I’m doing this.

I’ve endured countless tests and exams and I’ve made too many promises to back out now. Today is the day I’m giving Jilly some of my bone marrow and after today she will be on her way to good health and birthday number seven and I will be slightly uncomfortable for a couple of weeks — at least that’s what they tell me. And it will be worth it.

Jilly will get better.

It’s cold in this room. I can’t stop shivering. I pull the blue and white striped hospital gown around me. Not only is it thin, it barely covers my body. It’s doing nothing to keep me warm.

“You know,” my mother says from her metal folding chair across the room, “I waited until Jenna was three before I gave her peanut butter.”

And just like always, the sound of my sister’s name on her lips gets my attention.

“The doctor said two was fine but because of her allergy to strawberries I wanted to be safe.” She smiles but I don’t smile back. I’m too stiff and cold to smile. “I never let you eat grapes or hot dogs. Either of you. I figured I would wait until you were older.”

She slides her hands down the sides of her wrinkle-free black pants, and I recognize this nervous habit because it’s mine. It’s the thing I do when I don’t know how else to fix something. I grip my fingers together, refusing to let them mirror my mother’s anxiety and watch as her hands find their way back into her lap. She is nervous, just like me. I know it. I can feel it. But you’d never know to look at her. Her hair is perfect, Her clothes are pressed. She’s even wearing jewelry. Who thinks to wear jewelry to the hospital? Or to paint their nails to match their outfit? Apparently my mother does.

“Jenna never did try a hot dog,” she continues. “Not once.”

“Well she didn’t miss much,” I say, even though it’s not true. I’m quite partial to turkey dogs with a thin strip of mustard on top. But my mother doesn’t need to know this.

“I used to wash her hands every time we came home from the store. I used to carry around those bottles of anti-bacterial lotion.

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