Harper & Lee Plus Three

Memphis

I took a deep breath and opened the door with a big smile, ready to do another retake of the past three shots.

    "Hey, welcome to my crib!" I said, chuckling.

    "Yes! That was perfect!" Jamie said.

    I took a sigh of relief. Finally. I couldn't stand doing retakes. Jamie and the rest of our half-crew followed me into my Target House apartment. I took them to the first room, which was my small kitchen.

    "So this is my tiny kitchen. I've honestly never had a kitchen this clean in my life, probably because I'm not really here that much," I said. "But it's legit crazy that I can see my countertops because I never see them when I'm at home. It's what happens when you have nine kids."

    I walked them into the living room.

    "And this is my living room. I honestly didn't know this place was gonna come with a TV, so that was pretty nice. I spend a lot of my time just chilling out here at night after visiting hours are over." 

    "Let's see the bedrooms," Jamie said.

    I brought them to the first bedroom, which was for kids.

    "So this is the room that Zozo will stay in during her rest weeks. She gets her new treatment two weeks on, two weeks off. So during her rest weeks she'll be here with me. They have a ton of activities here for the kids to do so I'm sure she won't be bored," I said.

    I walked the crew down the hall and to the master bedroom.

    "And this is my room. As you can see I still haven't totally unpacked my suitcase and put all my clothes into the drawer," I said, getting a few giggles from Jamie and the crew. "And...yeah. I guess that's about it."

    "Let's have a seat in the living room and we can do a little interview," Jamie said.

    "Cool. Sounds good. I have about an hour before I can go pick Zozo up," I said.

    "Oh that's right! It's their birthday today," she said.

    "Yeah, I know. She's so sad that she can't be with Lukas and Ella. I feel terrible. Lee is gonna throw Ella and Lukas this amazing Star Wars party and poor Zozo can't even be there for it."

    "Aww. The poor thing," Jamie said.

    "I'm not good at cooking but I was gonna try and make her a cake. I have all the ingredients in the fridge. They have a shuttle that goes to the grocery store twice a week so we can cook in our apartments if we want to," I said.

    I sat and did the rest of my interview, then went and picked up Zozo from the hospital building. She was a hopping, skipping bundle of joy. She was still completely bald and now her face was swelling. I didn't know how she could be so happy.

"Ready to go have lunch, Zozo?" I asked as we walked past the water fountains that looked like elephants.

"Yeah!" she said.

We went through the front doors and down to the dining hall as the crew followed. But something was off. The doors were shut. I checked my phone. We weren't too late for lunch. Maybe they were cleaning it up or something?

"I'm sorry Zozo. I don't think we can go in. I'll have to make you a sandwich upstairs," I said.

"No!" she whined.

"How about you just double check?" Jamie asked.

"Sure," I said.

The doors, which I thought were locked, opened right away. As soon as we walked in, the lights turned on and a huge crowd shouted, "Surprise!" I gasped. My whole family was here. I saw Lee and both his parents, John, Sophia, my brothers and sisters, along with every one of my kids. I ran into Lee's arms while Zozo crashed into Ella and Lukas.  

    "Lee, how did you—"

    "Thank MTV. They flew us all here on our own jet," he said.

    I only hugged him tighter. When I let go, I saw Zozo and the rest of the kids chasing a life size R2D2 that was beeping and going around the room. Other residents of the Target House, many of which were bald kids like my daughter, ran around with inflatable lightsabers and glow bracelets. Across the way, a big projector screen had the phrase: "Happy Birthday Noella, Zophia, and Lukas! -From All Your Friends at Target House."

I turned around to look at Jamie and said, "Wait, this wasn't you guys?"

"No. We just supplied the plane and the cameras. Saint Jude and the volunteers here did all of the party planning."

I noticed Alyssa, one of the volunteers I usually saw, walking past me in a costume. After seeing her, I noticed a lot of other volunteers dressed up in elaborate outfits for all the kids as well.

"I absolutely cannot believe they did all this for us," I said. I turned to Lee. "And I can't believe you're here! I missed you so much!"

"I missed you too, babe," he said, giving me a kiss on the lips. "And guess what? We're staying here all the way until New Year's! They hooked us up with a two floor penthouse suite so we can all have Christmas together too! We got all the presents loaded up into suitcases and put them on the plane with us."

"Lee, are you serious? This is amazing!" I said.

"I can't believe it either. Good thing you convinced me to go with the show. We definitely wouldn't be where we are right now if you didn't."

"I know. I was thinking the same thing," I said.

"So, should we dance?" Lee asked.

"What are we waiting for? Let's party!" I said, picking up two babies from the new sextuplet stroller Lee had.

I danced with Robin and Raven on my hips. They were both holding their heads up on their own now, wearing frilly pink dresses. They smiled and laughed as I bounced them and spun to the music.

The DJ had a ton of games for the kids to play while the parents took some time to eat and relax. I held each one of my babies. I couldn't believe how empty my arms felt without them.

We finished off the night with a big Baby Yoda cake for all the kids and some presents from the staff, which we were going to open in our apartment later. All in all, it was the perfect day.

***

Have you ever visited a Saint Jude facility? What was it like?