"What do you mean she has brain cancer?" I felt like fainting that very second that he told us.
Did Melody hear?
"We found out she had it when we took her blood sample. It's been there for 4 months now," said the doctor.
"So the whole time... We were taking care of Melody, we didn't even notice?" I looked over to Ross.
He was about to say something, but then the doctor talked again. "I don't blame you. Melody's a very healthy person. I guess when she lived out on the streets by herself, she felt weak, and eventually, it became noticeable that she was sick."
I was speechless, just looking around the room.
"Can you please leave now?" Doc asked again.
All I did was nod. I was still shocked by the news.
"C'mon Laura..." Ross held me by the waist and lead me out of the room with Rydel.
"Mommy!" I hear Mel say. I turn around to see her against the glass, looking back at me.
"I'll be back Melody. Just stay there," I said quietly, but loud enough for her to hear me through the glass. And left the room.
I stopped and sat on the middle of one of the three hospital chairs stuck together in front of the office on the 6th floor. I buried my face into my hands; I needed time to think.
"Laura..." I felt Ross sit next to me, rubbing his hands up and down my back.
"How could I not notice?" I said.
"It wasn't your fault..." Rydel sat on my other side.
"But if we just took her to the hospital when Ross found her, maybe there would've been time."
"Time for what?"
"To save her. Melody ran away for a month. And we took care of her for a month. So two months passed, and we had Melody when she was on her 1st month of cancer. That was probably stage one; easy to cure. Now it's been with her for 4 months. She could be in stage 3 already..."
"Do you think Kristine knew she had cancer?" Ross asked.
I suddenly lifted my head up. "Kristine..."
Quickly, I got up and got to the elevator.
"Laura!" Del and Ross chased after me.
"I'm walking to the jail center. I need to talk to Kristine."
"Again... She's walking again..." I heard Ross say, which kinda made me laugh.
Less than a minute, the elevator doors opened and I was on the ground floor. Like I usually do, I ran to jail. Where Miranda and Kristine hopefully are.
"Hello again, Miss Marano," those two guards by the door said.
"Hi! Here's my ID, bye!" I threw them my ID and walked inside myself. "Miranda!" I screamed.
Thank goodness she was at her front desk where she normally is.
"Laura, hi! It's nice to see you woke up-" I cut her off.
I asked with a fast tone, "Where's Kristine?!"
"Um... I think she's in the cafeteria, why?"
Miranda doesn't know anything about Melody being found yet. Should I tell her?
"Did... A hospital call you, by any chance?" I asked.
"No, and why would they?" She laughed a bit.
Okay okay... I'll tell her.
"They found Melody."
"WHAT?!"
"They found Melody and she has a cancer, which is brain cancer and she has a big chance of dying and that's why I came over here, I needed to talk to Kristine about this if she knew about her having cancer cause it's been in her for 4 months, and she's going to die!" Wow... I said that really fast.
"Alright Laura, let's relax a bit. Did you come here running again?"
"Maybbbeee..."
"Here," she said, handing me a glass of water from the dispenser.
I literally drank all of it at once. "Thanks! Can I go see Kristine now?"
"Yeah, sure."
I bet if I did a little more running, I could win the Olympics.
The cafeteria is probably my favorite place in this jail center. They give a different kind of food to the prisoners than they do here. And here, it's actually really good.
I looked around to find Kristine sitting alone in a table, eating some spaghetti.
"Kristine?" I called out while walking towards her.
She looked at me. "Oh... Hi," she quietly said.
"I'm not Vanessa, you don't need to be afraid," I laughed, sitting on the bench across her.
"Yeah, I know."
There was a bit of silence for a while, till' I spoke up.
"Listen Kristine... We found Melody."
"You did?!" She stood up, ready to go get her daughter.
"Yeah, but hold on," I settled her back down. "Did you know that she has Brain Cancer?"
Kristine looked down, she couldn't even look me in the eye all of a sudden. "Yeah... We knew."
"What?! Kristine why didn't you do anything? You knew from the start since she got it, now it's been in her for a long time!"
"We would've done something, okay? We just... We didn't have the money to save her."
"...What do you mean?"
"My husband worked at a zoo, he didn't have the best job. I didn't know who my family was. And then I had this daughter. I barely even had the money to raise her. I didn't have a family to help me with the money, and my husband's salary keeps getting delayed by his boss. We couldn't save Melody, even though I really wanted to."
"So now what, we're just gonna let her die?"
"She's not gonna die, Laura-"
"Kristine, listen to me. More than 90% of cancer kids die. Do you want Melody to be in that 90% or in that 10%?"
"It's too late to save her."
"I can't believe you're just giving up on your daughter like this."
"I told you Laura, I don't have the money."
"Well I do." I grabbed my purse, and left.