Nothing Left to Burn by Jay Varner

Author:Jay Varner
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Algonquin Books
Published: 2009-12-31T16:00:00+00:00

A week later, I woke to a rainstorm pattering the roof. I walked into the living room, ready to watch Saturday morning cartoons, but saw that my mother sat on the couch, tall and stiff. She looked worried. Nena sat on my father’s La-Z-Boy and asked me to sit on her lap. My grandmother’s green Jeep sat in our driveway and the world outside looked gray and foggy. For a while, nobody spoke.

Finally, Nena said, “Jay, we have to talk to you about something.”

My mother cleared her throat. “The doctors had to put a needle into your father’s hip and take out some of the marrow inside of his bone,” my mother said. She stopped and held a hand over her mouth, as if ready to cry.

Nena squeezed her arm around me. Just a few minutes earlier, all I had wanted to do was watch television. I couldn’t understand what was happening or why they seemed so upset.

My mother looked at me, her eyes hard and scared. “Your father has cancer, and he’s very sick. He has multiple myeloma. It’s in his bones.”

Cancer. The word seemed to seep through my skin, numbing my body. It must be a mistake, I thought. Someone like my father could never get cancer.

“Are they sure?” I asked.

“They’re sure,” Nena said.

“How could he get cancer?”

“We just don’t know how people get cancer,” she said.

My dad had just moved us into this new house, his new house. He was barely thirty-two years old. People that young didn’t get cancer. I had heard stories about great-grandparents, aunts and uncles, and people in McVeytown who had cancer. All of them had died.

“But he’s going to be okay,” I said. I squeezed Nena’s hand. “Right?”

Nena nodded and pursed her lips. “We have to put faith in God that he will be. And his doctors. He has very good doctors.”

My mother explained that my dad would be in the hospital for the next week receiving chemotherapy that would kill the cancer. The chemo would make his hair fall out, she said, and it would also make him sicker than he had been before.

“But then how does he get better?” I asked.

My mother patted her fingertips together. “He has to be strong. He has to fight. He might have to get chemotherapy for a year.”

“But you have to be strong too,” Nena said. “Your father will need you to be strong.”

I turned to Nena. Tears welled in her eyes. Cancer. The word still pounded through my chest. But it was like my father said: “Don’t worry, baby.”

“I’ll be strong,” I said. I turned to my mother. “Can I watch cartoons now?”

I turned on the television and my mother and Nena cried.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.