Flying Too Close to the Sun

Pippa

Raina slept in our bed, and Lin was out on the couch. I'd never made him sleep on the couch before, but he'd earned it. According to him, I was telling the girls too much about Raina's illness. He didn't seem to understand how serious this was, or how scared I was. I knew he was worried too, but I didn't understand how he just stood back and wasn't going full force. He was a life-long New Yorker and would do anything to stay.

Felix had wandered out and was laying on Lin as they watched cartoons. We were expecting a phone call today from the doctors at New York Presbyterian. In my gut, I felt like our current doctors weren't doing enough. I guess you could call it a motherly instinct. Lin disagreed.

"Have you checked on Raina?" I asked my husband.

"Yep," he said. "Still sleeping."

I got the coffee going and I heard Lin groan as he peeled himself off the couch with Felix. They looked pretty adorable together, with their matching bed head. Felix really was a mini version of Lin. He talked quietly to Felix as he went to the pantry to find some cereal. Felix picked out Rice Krispies and he began to fix him a bowl. After he'd set our son up, he wandered down the hall to get the older girls going.

It was true that I'd had a chat with Molly and Cam the other day about Raina. We hadn't told them much, and they had caught on. They didn't like being kept in the dark, and I'm not sure why Lin was upset with me about telling them the plans. Maybe I should've waited for him to be there, but he'd been out all day. I did what I thought was appropriate.

When the coffee was ready, I poured him a mug and set it on the counter. He thanked me, but there was no affection between us. No good morning kiss, hug, or a touch with his fingers.

Soon, the kids were off to school. Raina cried a while later and I got her going while Lin made his phone calls. After breakfast, we sat down at the kitchen table together and I did some school work with her.

"Which picture shows 3 + 2?" I asked her, looking at a math worksheet. She studied them carefully, counting with her finger, and chose the correct one. "Good job."

She beamed as she circled the answer and went to the next one. We managed to get through two math sheets and she read a small book. I'd helped Felix with his homework recently and I could tell Raina was falling behind a little bit. Still, I wasn't terribly concerned. Raina was a smart cookie and she'd catch up just fine.

A couple hours later, the call we'd been waiting for came through. We put it on speaker phone as we both stood around the kitchen island. Basically, the doctors agreed with the Mount Sanai doctors. I felt a punch in my gut. My motherly instinct had never been wrong. What was it that they weren't getting?

Lin didn't gloat; it was our daughter's health after all. After we'd hung up, he fixed some more coffee and gave me some space for a few minutes, wisely. I processed the news, busying my hands with dishes and cleaning up. As I washed dishes, Lin leaned against the counter next to me.

"So, do you think we should move her to New York Presbyterian?" he asked me cautiously. We both knew the real question was to do with St. Jude's.

"I don't see the point," I said softly, scrubbing a little more harshly than needed at a coffee mug. "They thought the same thing."

Lin nodded and waited to see if I had anything else to say. He was wisely treading lightly.

"So, it seems like a good plan to let this treatment ride out and see where Raina stands afterwards. Would you agree?" he asked.

I sighed and shifted my weight around a little bit. "I still think St. Jude's would be best," I told him honestly. It was a feeling in my gut.

Lin let out an exhausted sigh, rubbing his hand over his face. "Pip, I don't know what else to do to convince you that the care she's getting here is top of the line. I mean, we just got a second opinion and they said the exact same thing. Do we need to get a third opinion?"