Paper Rings (A Calvin Murtaugh Story)

Chapter 1: Mornings at the Bakers

We Bakers moved from Midland to Evanston when I was going to go into my senior year of high school. Charlie would be a junior, Lorraine a sophomore, and ultimately it felt as if our lives were over. I had never made friends easy, but my best friend was in Midland, and I needed her. She'd been with me through cancer. She'd been with me when my first boyfriend had dumped me because of the scars from the surgery that had saved my life.

I learned that in retrospect, having to call Bekah on the phone and message her in a chatroom was nothing compared to the absolute madness that this move would put our family through. The move really did change all of our lives and not entirely for the best, at least not at first. 

Still, it was an upheaval that our family was unprepared for. It didn't help, of course, that it was announced on a day that we were just beginning to look forward to a great Summer. One of the last days of my junior year of high school, three weeks until I was set to go away to Volleyball camp. The day after my Coach and that year's Captain had just announced that I was that year's Captain going into camp.

The day started out typically enough, but then again, mornings in the Baker household were never quiet. Wake up calls almost always included one of my younger siblings banging on the door with a plastic bat or tennis racket, or some other device. Of course, I got up with the sun and with my dad, stealing away the limited quiet living in a house with eleven of your siblings allowed. Every morning, my dad would take a run around Midland, both to stay in shape and to clear his head of the chaos of the house. Once I got into Volleyball after the doctor cleared me for sports, I joined him on the runs, hoping to build up my strength and stamina.

I rolled out of bed seconds before my alarm went off, hitting the clock before Lorraine, my younger sister, would complain about missing out on her beauty sleep. As quietly as I could, I slipped on my athletic tank top and well-worn sneakers. I pulled my long, sandy-blonde hair into a bun and then I went out the door to my room, closing it softly behind me, just to encounter my father in the hallway.

We exchanged rueful smiles as we crept down the stairs. My father was, without hesitation, one of my favorite people in the world. I was one of his favorites too, but I wasn't allowed to tell my younger sister Sarah that. If she thought dad had any favorite other than her, she'd destroy my clothes.

Dad made for an unremarkable figure, tall (I was a full foot shorter than he was) and with short white hair, but to me he was everything happy and good, if a little too competitive sometimes. His face was covered with laugh lines, and he wore his heart and love for his family on his sleeve. Of course, he had his flaws. He always had to be right, a trait I had inherited, and he didn't always know how to listen when we kids wanted to do something outside of his dreams for us. Of course, he always came around, no matter what.

Before I got sick, I always would have said that I was closer to my mom. I still am close to my mom, but in those thirteen months, my dad and I got closer. My mom stayed with me during the long stretches that she could, but with Kyle and Nigel still being babies, she couldn't stay as much as she wanted too. But Dad, well every day he'd go to work, he'd come home to have dinner with the family, then he'd drag a group of them to see me at the hospital. Then, he'd take them home, and he'd force my mom to sleep, and he'd stay the nights with me at the hospital. Then, he'd go home to help mom with breakfast and start the day over again.

Every single night, he'd fall asleep holding my hand and every night he'd say, "You'll pull through, Champ. You will beat this."

And I had, but it hadn't been easy. I'd lost almost all of my hair, which had caused me, my mom, and my sisters Nora and Lorraine, to cry our eyes out. The treatments and medicine left me with a constantly bad taste in my mouth, as well as with mouth sores, so food lost its appeal quickly. I'd lost a lot of weight and muscle. The fact that I was undergoing puberty at the same time only made it that much worse.