Seventeen started out well. Vanessa excelled at school. She had an active social life. She had a job after school, at the public library, three nights a week. She was talking about college. She had a wide circle of friends and finally, a driver’s license, and everything about her life was lighter and brighter.

The family was closer than it’d ever been. They could all feel it. That said, they were all aware there was a familial sadness underlining everything in their lives. Everyone knew what it was, and no one spoke of it.

Ethan was struggling a bit in junior college; not really all that interested in being there. He talked about the military, and when he did, everyone in the family held their breath. Vanessa was positive with him when he brought it up to her, worried when he wasn’t around. He’d been sweet to her, had often visited her in the hospital, bought her magazines to read and told her jokes their parents wouldn’t approve of. When she was home, he was attentive, sitting or lying next to her bed, hearing her out on whatever she wanted to talk about. Watching TV, sitting next to her on the couch, he’d touch her all the time. He held her hand. Tapped her on the shoulders and on the arms and rubbed her head. He’d rub her head wearing the enormous fake smile he wore to hold back his tears, and he tapped on her door in the evenings to say good night and tapped on her door in the mornings to say good morning. He took her to the movies, drove her around on errands, kowtowed to her. He teased her too, and she liked that.

Taylor Hoffman was in his sophomore year at Southern Illinois University–Carbondale. He’d call home to talk to her. He wrote her letters, actual letters, handwritten, stamped, and delivered by the U.S. Post Office. He wanted her to see his handwriting. He wanted her to see him sign his letters Love, Taylor. He wrote her a letter that, after reading, she reread twice, then folded it carefully back into its envelope and put it in a memory box she’d had since she was a little girl. It was a love letter from an older brother to a younger sister.

Taylor was a grown man. That’s what she thought after reading the letter, and then she thought Ethan was a grown man too. Everybody was growing up.

A month or two after turning seventeen, one evening, late and alone in her room, she laid awake and reviewed – reassessed – the previous three years. She could recall how she physically felt on the bad days. She inspected those days, almost experienced those feelings again. She remembered what she looked like, what her family looked like and how they acted when they saw her in the hospital, and how they treated her when she was home. She was retelling her story to herself, trying not to recast it. She was reexamining herself and her family, and her cancer. She’d had cancer, and as many hours as she’d spent with the cancer, as many visits she’d had with doctors, and as many treatments she’d survived, it was still present. Cancer left a footprint. Cancer cast a shadow. Backwards.

She went way further back, thinking back to when she was eight, nine, ten years old. It wasn’t much of a stretch to remember those times. Same family, brothers (and herself) a lot smaller, round in the face, cheerier, and at times, just as somber. All of them gangly and spontaneous and forever pulling away, chomping at the bit to grow up. Her parents, relaxed yet vigilant. Eagle-eyed. Not always close but always nearby. Those were wonderful years and wonderful memories. At seventeen, they had yet to take on the magic sheen memories like that take on in old age.

Seventeen. Vanessa had to tell herself to be grateful. Healthy once more, living at home, she was completely aware of what she’d been through. She knew others that had been through the same. She’d met them in the hospital and in doctors’ offices in the waiting rooms. She knew their names and knew their stories and knew some of their families. That was weird.

In her room, reviewing and remembering and thinking and seeing, she could grow sad and then immediately she’d be terribly thankful. She wanted to hold her life as if it were a thing, and she wanted it to hold her. She felt longing and belonging at the same time, and at times, this is funny, she would shake it off, as if she were in a stupor. She’d shake it off and wonder about herself. Am I some little girl or what? She would pull herself up straight and picture herself as older, a survivor, and wasn’t it time that she get on with her life? Yes, it was time she do that.

Then she nosedived.

How could that be? That’s what she thought. Doctors said something close to that. Her mother went back to the stoic expression she’d worn for years. Her father went blank, listened to anything and everything and anybody and everybody, and Vanessa watched him weigh every word and was sure he was carefully guarding his expression.

At seventeen, the resurgence of the disease came on very hard and very fast. She’d been feeling like she’d turned the corner, and that was a wonderful feeling. She nosedived and discovered she had indeed turned a corner but wound up in her past. That’s what it was like. She’d run to that corner, excited and hopeful, made the turn, and discovered she was alone again, in a crummy neighborhood that was too familiar.

How could that be?

She went back into the hospital, a week went by, and one day she looked at her father seated beside her, her mother standing at the foot of her bed, and she received a message. Maybe half-message, maybe half-recommendation. Maybe more of a notification. Maybe half-notification and half-realization. It felt like a benign revelation, which it was not.

It occurred to her she would never be leaving the hospital. Why she was thinking this, she wasn’t sure, but the back-and-forth life she was back into again was discouraging. It wasn’t like this was the disease’s first assault. There’d been talk, she’d been involved, about a hospital bed back in her home, waiting for her, and that discussion was too weighty. It hurt and it went on and on and when she looked at her mother, when she said “Mom … my room is going to be turned into a hospital?” her mother said “honey” and her mother’s face collapsed, and she wished she’d never said it. Vanessa closed her eyes and was angry inside, angry because she lacked the energy to feel most anything else. She didn’t want to take part in any more conversations. She wanted to look at her parents and her doctors and say “you decide.” She’d do whatever they decided. It would be easy. She hated making decisions. She hated all the remembering she’d done, and it depressed her that there would be more things to remember, and she just didn’t want to remember anymore. This remembering, this self-awareness. She hated it. Who would torture a seventeen-year old girl with self-awareness? And of course, the hating, the disappointment and the fatigue, she wouldn’t, she couldn’t mention such things to her mother and father. They didn’t deserve it.

That perfect recall … she knew she’d stepped outside herself on day one, right at the diagnosis. Had it been a conscious move? A move she decided on? She didn’t think so. She hadn’t directed it, hadn’t planned it, had barely noticed it for how long? Months, maybe? But it happened, and she was aware of it, and over time it was her normal. Some choice for normal.

Sometimes she felt tears right behind her eyes, and she wasn’t sure if they were tears of anger or fear or grief. Sometimes, when her parents were with her, when her brothers parked themselves next to her, at home or in the hospital, she wanted them to go away. She’d never said it, was afraid to say it, and never really wondered why she felt that way. Did she have to wonder about everything? There was so much going on, all the feeling and thinking and wondering, the being patient and being impatient; she was a voyeur watching herself. She was battered by all kinds of news, not impressed with any of it – good or bad – and was thankful for those moments when she could draw a breath and go thoughtless.

Then sometimes, when she was alone, in a hospital bed listening to the hum of electronics going on in every single room, she wanted someone with her. They didn’t need to talk, but she wanted them there when she opened her eyes, and she wanted them there when she closed her eyes, and she wanted to know they’d be there while she slept.

Finally, most of all – this is something she’d discussed with a boy she’d met in the hospital – he died of his cancer – most of all she wanted an adult, a parent or doctor or nurse – she wanted someone to say one of two things:

“Vanessa, you’re cured. We’ve fixed it.”

Or

“Vanessa, we’re sorry.”

She didn’t want to be brave anymore, or act brave. She didn’t want anyone to apologize or to say there were … maybe … possibly … new treatments, new drugs, new anything. She didn’t want to hear any of that anymore. All the talking …

About the Author:

Victor Kreuiter’s stories have appeared in EQMM, Halfway Down The Stairs, Bewildering Stories, Tough, Frontier Tales, Del Sol SFF Review, Literally Stories, and other online and print publications.