Mollie + Chester

Chapter Nine

On my first Christmas with cancer, we were all invited over to Aunt Linley's house where she cooked a huge roast dinner and got the whole family to come over and eat and sing. By that time I was out of hospital but still hooked up to a bunch of wires and cancer fighting thingies and I slept heaps during the day, waking up coughing at night but Mum still insisted on packing everything into the car and driving the hour journey anyway.
It took us two hours to actually get to my Auntie's house because we had to stop at every toilet along the way, thanks to cancer, and by the time we got there, the house was full. Every single person stared at me when I walked in, but tried to do that: no, I'm not staring at the weird kid thing. All my cousins looked like they were trying not to ask questions or make any comments, probably having been worded up by their parents beforehand.
"Okay, dinner time!" Aunt Linley yelled from the kitchen and everyone stampeded into the dining room, probably because they had had to wait for us to get there. I had to sit at the adult table because there was not enough space for all my cancer fighting thingies at the tiny table so I sat wedged between Mum and Dad, pushing roast potatoes around on my plate until it was taken away. The other kids, including a fourteen year old Seth laughed, launched peas at each other, pulled their Christmas bon bons and played with the tiny toys, reading the bad jokes out loud at the tiny table in the corner of the room.
Finally, full stomached, the adults decided to move to the lounge and that it was time to give out presents. Most of them handed me colouring books and pyjamas with looks that said their presents were now unworthy and all the kids sat on the floor, playing with their new toys and I fell asleep on the couch, wheezing and coughing every few minutes.
The next Christmas, Mum said we couldn't go visit the family because she had a meeting with the Big Nose Society Ladies. She had given up thinking we could act normal.
And we would never be her perfect family again.

The wind rushed against the window and the leaves tapped against the glass as if trying to break through. The clouds gathered together in the sky, hiding all the pale blue. Mollie was curdled up in a little ball on her bed, fat tears falling on her pillow. She had run inside from the car as soon as it had pulled up and went straight for her room, ignoring Chester on the way in and slamming her door shut. Both Seth and Mrs Mocomile had tried to coming in and talk to her but she had just rolled over and faced the wall until they went away.
Chester assumed from the bright pink Band-Aid that sat in the crook of her elbow and the fact that she smelled like disinfectant that she had just come from the hospital. He jumped up on the bed, rubbing his nose against her wet cheek. She jumped out of bed and started pacing around the room.
"It's not fair!" She said throwing her pillow against the wall. The picture frames wobbled and downstairs Mrs Mocomile probably flinched at the sound. Mollie stood there, breathing in and out, tears still running down her cheeks. She grabbed a handful of textas off her desk and started throwing them too. Chester, heard Seth's car pull out of the drive way.
"It's not fair!" Mollie said again as she hurled another texta at the wall. "Why me? Only 10 per cent of kids aren't in remission after five years with my type of cancer, 10 per cent! Why am I one of the unlucky ones?" She wiped and angry tear away and threw her pen holder across the room. It bounced off the wall, leaving a little black mark in the purple paint. The texta lids had come off and rolled across the floorboards so she picked them up and hit the wall again. Chester put his ears down and meowed.
"I haven't done anything that bad, neither has Mum or Dad or Seth, so why is it our family that has to be imperfect?! Murderers get less punishment than this and they kill people! It's not fair!"
She crumpled to the floor, giving up and leaned against her desk, knocking it with her head. A bunch of her pictures fell off the top shelf and fluttered down to the floor like autumn leaves. She caught glimpses of her as a baby and Seth with no teeth and pictures of her and Toby in the city, at the farm, at the park, at her house, with the duck Pip.
Chester carefully came over and nudged one of the photos closer to the crying girl. She picked it up and sighed.
It was the picture her Mum had taken of her and Toby but just as she pressed the button, Mrs Mocomile had dropped the camera, instead capturing a blurry photo of Toby's right hand.
The one with his crossed fingers.
"Are you trying to tell me something?" She asked Chester. The little cat didn't move, but Mollie noticed his paws were crossed one over the other.
"Mol," Seth said from the other side of the door. Mollie didn't say anything, she just stayed on the ground but Seth came in anyway, pushing the door slowly open.
He grinned and held up a packet of water balloons.
Once they had filled up the balloons, slipping them all in a clothes basket Mollie had fetched from the laundry, they went outside, their hair blowing in the strong winds.~Chester waited inside, watching from behind the closed glass door.
Seth took a filled water balloon from the basket and hurled it at the brick wall of the house. It exploded and the water sprayed all over the grass.
The corners of Mollie's mouth turned up the tiniest bit. She grabbed her own balloon, a pink one, and threw it herself, trying so hard that she almost fell over.
All of her anger came back as she hit the wall, watching each balloon explode, spraying water over the path and grass. Droplets of water landed on Mollie's skin as they bounced back off the wall, and she began to laugh.
"What is it?" Mollie's mother had stepped through the sliding glass door, over Chester and come outside, just as Mollie threw another balloon. The coloured ball hit the wall and sprayed her mother in the face, mixing with the tears that permanently stayed on her face.
Mollie and Seth stopped, watching their mother but she just simply walked over to them and picked up a balloon.
"Do you mind if I have a throw?" Seth gestured towards the wall but Mrs Mocomile had other ideas. She threw the balloon at Seth's feet, making it explode all over him.
Now, Mollie couldn't stop laughing, her giggles filling the air and spreading to everyone else. Mollie threw her own balloon at the grass right between Seth and her mother and when it exploded, she ran off, hiding behind the old shed at the back of their garden.
She held the other balloon carefully in ever hands and waited for someone to sneak up next to the shed. She heard her brother's footsteps and waited until he was close, launching herself around the wall and hitting him with the balloon on his leg. He chased after her as she ran off again, dodging throws from her Mum and scooping up more balloons for the basket as she passed.
"Ahhh!" Seth screamed and Chester saw droplets of water fell onto Mrs Mocomile and her son. Mollie was laughing, but dry, over near the house so it couldn't have been rain. He tentatively pushed the door open and stepped outside so he could see better.
Mr Mocomile had the hose and was aiming it at everyone as they tried to fight back with sad old water balloons. He zipped around the corner of the shed and blasted Mollie with water, soaking her to. They held up their hands in surrender and the water stopped, the family dripping wet.
"Alright, missy," Mollie's mother said ushering her inside. "Shower time."
Mollie nodded and made her way upstairs as the others sat at the kitchen bench, dripping water all over the tiles. Mrs Mocomile poured milk into four glasses and added generous amounts of chocolate, slipping them in the microwave to warm.
"I call dips on the shower next," Seth said trying to wrap his arms around himself to keep warm. Outside, the clouds had started their own water fight, and the wind had picked up. Chester huddled under the kitchen table, hiding from the outside rain and the inside droplets forming puddles on the tiles from the family's dripping clothes.
"Hot chocolate!" Mollie cried. She ran as fast as she could down the stairs, now dressed in warm pink pyjamas and fluffy slippers. Her hair was wet and stuck to her cheeks and she jumped up onto the empty bench stool, spinning around and around until Seth put his hand on the chair and stopped her. The microwave beeped and Mrs Mocomile took the mugs out and handed them to each person in the room.
"Can we have ice-cream too?" Mollie asked, putting on her best begging face. Her mother sighed and pulled out the ice-cream tub, dropping a small scoop into the cup.
"Ow!" Seth said and Mollie laughed at him as he held open his mouth, airing his burnt tongue. "Okay, since I'm just going to get laughed at, I'm leaving." He went off upstairs and Chester could hear the water running softly from the shower. He glanced at Mollie who was blowing on her hot chocolate to cool it off before running up the stairs into Seth's room.
The boy's bed was unmade and was perfect to little Chester to curl up in to sleep. Seth came in his room after his shower and laughed at the cat, his hair wet.
"You aren't even mine," he said nudging the cat over and sliding under the covers next to him. He grabbed a pen from the side table and a little book that was hidden under his pillow. Chester watched the boy uncap the pen and begin writing on a new page.
It hurts. And then, when it hurts I feel bad because I know I don't feel the pain she feels. But honestly, it's like a knife to my chest every time she cries, every time she gets angry, every time she can't do something all kids do.
The hardest part, apart from knowing today could be my last day with her, is hiding the tears and my own anger. I see Mum cry, she has an endless path of tears running down her cheeks, and in see Dad ignore her because it's too hard knowing the pain that will come when she dies, but I want her to see that she can still live her life.
I know if the roles were reversed I would hate to see people cry for me, hate to see them just waiting until I die, so I try to treat her like I did before she fell off the bike.
Sometimes, it's easy. I just forget about her short hair and bony frame, because under all that, she is still Mollie. But sometimes, I can't do it. Reality is falling hard now with the coughing fits and her body not coping and it's hard to see her as just Mollie anymore.
Today, all I felt like doing was crying, I felt like giving up and letting myself drown in sorrow, and Mum says I am the strong one.
The fact is: the strong one is Mollie. She puts on that smile and laughs at my bad jokes though I know she wants to give up. I see it in her eyes though, she knows she can't give up. If she gave up, we would all give up. She keeps strong for us.
And I wish there was anything I could do to repay her.