Recovery / / h.s

Chapter Thirty-Seven.

Lily's POV-

I could remember being eight with bright eyes and long hair, my views on the world were way too optimistic then and I really didn't know any different.

It was one of the rare days my mother was actually up to getting out of bed. She sat on the sofa (we actually used the furniture back then) and I sat on the ground between her feet as she brushed through my hair, humming the song she had made up the first night she brought me home from the hospital and couldn't get me to go to sleep. I hadn't heard her hum in so long that i didn't dare hum along with her. Her hum was beautiful and I missed it so much.

I remember the exact part in Wizard of Oz when I had turned around, looked at her innocently, and asked, "Momma, how come you lay in bed all the time?"

She sat the brush on the end table and pursed her lips together. "Because, baby," she said, her country accent just as thick as I remembered it. She didn't talk on the days she stayed in bed, just stared at the wall. "I'm very sick."

"Then take some medicine and get better," I had said as if it were the simplest thing in the world, oblivious to exactly how sick she was. No eight-year-old could even begin to understand how someone could be so sad that they couldn't even find the strength to get out of bed in the morning. "I just really miss you, momma."

She pulled me into her lap and kissed my head repeatedly. I was almost positive she was crying. "I'm trying to get better, sweet girl, but it's not that easy."

I thought that maybe she had done something to deserve being sick, like maybe her illness was some sadistic form of karma. My eight-year-old brain believed that you only got that sick if you did something absolutely terrible.

I don't know why or even how that memory popped into my head the moment Doctor Ross told me the news. All I knew is that I was crying, but I was numb. I was aware of my surroundings, but the only thing I could feel was my heart, heavy in my chest.

All I could hear was background noise. I was pretty sure Doctor Ross was telling me all about... The "L" word- how it happened and what kind I had- but all I could hear was fuzz.

"Lillian? Are you okay? Do you need a moment?" Doctor Ross was shaking me. I wanted to yell at her to stop because it hurt, but my brain wasn't connecting with my mouth.

"Why me?" I finally choked out. My senses were coming back and the room was no longer one big blur. "What did I do to deserve this?"

I was looking at Doctor Ross, but I saw something swiftly make its way towards me from the corner of my eye. Harry gently held onto my shoulders because that's about all the comforting he could do while I sat on a hospital bed. Good god, Was he crying? Was I still crying?

"No," Doctor Ross shook her head violently, making all of her dark curls shake around wildly. "We're not sure why this happens, but you didn't do anything wrong."

"Am I going to die?" The words weighed down on me and my stomach flipped. Harry's grip on my shoulders tightened and I could hear his breath hitch. This wasn't happening. This was just a dream. A nightmare.

"We're going to try chemotherapy," she sighed. How could someone deliver such evil news and be so calm about it?

"Try chemotherapy?" I was starting to get angry now. "As in it may not work?"

"It's different for everyone," she spoke quietly, clutching the folder to her chest. "We're going to do as much as we can until you're healthy again." She smiled and I was very uncomfortable. How could she smile at a time like this?

She handed me a pamphlet titled "Living And Coping with: Leukemia" and gave me a number to a support group I had no interest in joining.

"It helps," she smiled as she closed the door behind her.

I was able to hold myself together until we made it to the car. Harry held me while I cried, he leaned against the car with his arms wrapped securely around me and my arms wrapped around his waist under his unzipped trench coat. He tried to muffle it, but his chest moved up and down rapidly with every sob that managed to escape his lips. Hearing him cry made me sob even harder.

"Harry what am I going to do," my words were muffled by his t-shirt.

He pulled me away from him, his hands tightly held both of my arms. "I don't know."

I didn't think it was possible, but I cried even harder.