Hart to Heart

Part 7

"It was so nice of you two to have all of us over tonight," my mom said as she finished up the grilled salmon we had just finished eating. When Addison first brought up the idea of having salmon for our "party," I thought there was no way it would fill me up. But after the day we'd had, I had virtually no appetite anyway. At least salmon went down without much chewing required.

"Where are Deuce and Vanessa tonight?" Mom added.

"They offered to babysit Jax so we could have an adults-only get-together," Addison said as she began clearing plates off the table.

"What about Adam?" Samantha quickly added. From what he'd told me, Adam had made it clear to Samantha that there was never going to be anything between them when they got back from the wedding. She wasn't taking it hard or anything. But she was still flirty whenever he was around. That was Samantha, never giving up hope on love, or some shit like that.

"He had a ton of work to do tonight," I said as I began piling dirty dishes on top of each other for easier transport.

"So it's just the family tonight?" my mom asked. "Those two men definitely keep things from getting too serious. I feel like we're having a family meeting or something."

I locked eyes with Addison as she came back into the room. She had obviously heard what my mom had said. I took a deep breath and steeled myself for the upcoming conversation.

"We kind of are, Ma."

All eyes turned to me as Addison stopped with the dishes and sat down.

"What's going on, Jason?" Mick asked.

"You okay?" I asked Addison quietly before addressing everyone else. She just nodded. I smiled at her before turning back to the faces of our family. "The doctors figured out why Jaxon keeps having fevers and tummy aches."

No one said a word, but you could see the concern on their faces. So I continued.

"His white blood cell count is extremely high, so he was referred to a hematologist/oncologist who did some extra blood work and a bone marrow biopsy on him last week. We got the results today."

I paused one more time, giving everyone time to digest everything I was saying.

I finally spit out the words I could never take back. "Jaxon has leukemia."

"What?"

"Ohmygod."

"Cancer? Are they sure?"

Everyone started mumbling at once.

"They're sure," I added. "It's called Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia, or ALL. It's the most common form of childhood cancer and has a really high cure rate. But yeah. He has cancer."

The room went silent for a few seconds before my mother finally spoke up. "So what's going to happen now?" Her husband Rick reached his arm around her and started rubbing her back, her voice starting to sound a bit hysterical. "Do they have a plan yet?"

"You should have seen it, Ma. They have a whole team of people specifically for Jaxon," I said, smiling over at Addison, who looked as pleased with our medical team as I was. "He's being admitted for treatment day after tomorrow. And he'll be there for a while."

"What does 'a while' mean?" Mick asked.

"Four to six weeks."

Mick groaned and set his elbows on the table, face in his hands.

"We've had a few days to get prepared for this news, so it's not as shocking to us as it is to you all," Addison said. "And as hard as it was to hear the diagnosis and treatment plan today, we seem to have a really, really good team on our side."