583495793235

BEGINNINGS AND ENDS
FOUR DAYS PASS. I eat. I do homework. I don’t read. My mom walks around in a fugue
state. I don’t think she understands what’s happened. She seems to realize that she has
something to atone for, but she’s not sure exactly what it is. Sometimes she tries to talk to
me, but I ignore her. I barely even look at her.
The morning after I realized the truth, Carla took samples of my blood to the SCID
specialist, Dr. Chase. We’re in his office now, waiting to be called. And even though I
know what he’ll say, I’m dreading the actual medical confirmation.
Who will I be if I’m not sick?
A nurse calls my name and I ask Carla to stay in the waiting room. For whatever reason,
I want to hear this news alone.
Dr. Chase stands when I walk in. He looks just like the photos of him on the Web—
older white man with graying hair and bright black eyes.
He looks at me with a mixture of sympathy and curiosity.
He gestures for me to sit, and waits until I do to sit himself.
“Your case,” he begins, and then stops.
He’s nervous.
“It’s OK,” I say. “I already know.”
He opens a file on his desk, shakes his head like he’s still puzzled at the results. “I’ve
gone over these results time and again. I had my colleagues check to be absolutely
certain. You’re not sick, Ms. Whittier.”
He stops and waits for me to react.
I shake my head at him. “I already know,” I say again.
“Carla—Nurse Flores—filled me in on your background.” He studiously flips through a
few more pages, trying to avoid saying what he says next. “As a doctor, your mother
would’ve known this. Granted, SCID is a very rare disease and it comes in many forms,
but you have none, absolutely none, of the telltale signs of the disease. If she did any
research, any tests at all, she would’ve known that.”
The room falls away and I’m in a featureless white landscape dotted with open doors
that lead nowhere.
He’s looking at me expectantly when I finally come back to my body. “I’m sorry, did you
say something?” I ask.
“Yes. You must have some questions for me.”
“Why did I get sick in Hawaii?”
“People get sick, Madeline. Normal, healthy people get sick all the time.”