You Are My Sunshine

Chapter 6

That night, Fallon delayed going to bed for as long as possible, working on her homework at the kitchen table until long after Angela had tucked Gabby into bed. There was no way she was going to lie awake for hours listening to that little chatterbox after the day she'd had so far. She finished about half a week's worth of assignments, including a grueling half-hour session re-taking that stupid Algebra quiz. If she managed to get a good grade on the re-do then hopefully her average would go up enough so that her teacher wouldn't call her mother and her mother wouldn't sign her up for tutoring. By the time Fallon finally closed her books and got up to go shower, she felt physically steamrolled.

When at long last she tiptoed into her room, it was nearly eleven o'clock. She glanced over at the blow-up mattress by her desk. It was made up with white sheets that glowed faintly in the dark room. Gabby was lying snuggled up under a pink quilt with giant yellow flowers on it. One of her arms was wrapped around a giant stuffed panda bear and her hair was fanned out on the pillow beside her. She was fast asleep.

Fallon breathed a sigh of relief. Quietly she took her pen and crossed out that day on her calendar. There was just enough moonlight for her to see enough to do it. Then she made her way across the room to her bed and collapsed into it gratefully. She was too tired to even think about her day and almost instantly felt herself slipping off into a deep sleep.

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She dreamed she was at school.

"Hey, Fallon!" That was Liv, calling her from halfway across the locker room. She wasn't afraid to make herself heard in large, crowded spaces.

Fallon hid her head in her locker and didn't look up when she felt Liv coming up beside her.
"Hey," she said.

Liv stood awkwardly. "Are you okay?" she asked. "I mean, how's your dad- if it's alright to ask about it."

Fallon took a shaky breath. She was angry and scared and really, really didn't want to talk about it, but this was Liv.

"The test results came back," she said finally, "We went to the hospital yesterday. They, um..." she blinked hard. "It's... cancer."

"Oh," said Liv in a small voice, "because of his lungs-"

"Yeah, he quit smoking when he found out how big the risk was, but it wasn't enough." Fallon looked up at her friend, her face filled with anguish. "Liv, so many people die-" her voice broke. She covered her face and devoted all her energy to keep from bursting into tears there in the locker room.

Liv put her arm around Fallon's shoulders and gave her a sideways hug. "Don't think like that. Lots of people recover from cancer. "

"If they catch it early!" cried Fallon, "He's been coughing for weeks! Who knows how big the cancer is by now?"

A couple kids glanced curiously in their direction.

"Hey, it's gonna be okay. He's in God's hands, right?" said Liv softly.

"That's what Dad said." Fallon's voice was taut and bitter. "Right before the test results came back."

Liv gave Fallon another hug. "It's still true-"

Fallon jerked away. "No, it's not!" she hissed. "Everyone says it's okay, God's taking care of him. So why does my dad have cancer? Don't tell me it's ok. You don't even know what this is like."