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Golden's Rule. C. E. Edmonson
Читать онлайн.Название Golden's Rule
Год выпуска 0
isbn 9781456625283
Автор произведения C. E. Edmonson
Жанр Учебная литература
Издательство Ingram
Dr. Rosenberg sat down. “I don’t want to sugarcoat what I’m about to tell you, because it’s serious.” He turned up the X-ray to reveal what was obviously a brain—my brain—and pointed to a white patch on the left side. “This disorder might be some sort of inflammation, or even multiple sclerosis.” Then he paused briefly. “But the most likely cause is a brain tumor. An MRI will tell us for sure.”
He went on for several minutes, but I didn’t hear a word. There was a voice inside my head, screaming so loud I couldn’t hear anything else. The voice’s vocabulary consisted of two words: brain and tumor. And that’s all I heard as we made our way out of the hospital and drove home.
Brain tumor, brain tumor, brain tumor. Can you hear me now? Can you hear me now? Brainnnnnn Tuuuuuumorrrrrrrrrrrrr.
I felt like I was floating, like my mind had left my body and was off alone somewhere, trying to escape and return back to the reality that made sense to me: the girls’ locker room before yesterday’s game. Even history class, which I was missing right now. Anywhere but here, now, in this car, next to my mother, who was trying so hard not to cry.
I couldn’t cry, either, because crying would mean that, at least emotionally, I had accepted this situation. Which I hadn’t. At all. It was grotesque. Wrong. What the doctor said was a mistake. The MRI would clear it all up. It had to.
As soon as we entered the house, Mom was on the phone. Two phones, actually—the house phone and her cell phone. She was doing what she does best: taking command. I didn’t blame her. Controlling the situation was the only defense she had. Abigail Moore-Bergamo would find the best doctors, and the best hospitals, and the earliest appointment for her daughter.
And me? The daughter part? I still couldn’t get my mind around what was happening. Didn’t Dr. Rosenberg say it might not be a tumor? Didn’t he say something about an inflammation? Okay, so I didn’t have the faintest idea what an inflammation was. But why get technical? It had to be better than a brain tumor—and it was the only hope I had.
I left Mom to her phoning, went to my room, and turned on my computer. For the next hour, I played a game of pretend. I pretended that nothing had changed and my history paper on Prohibition still needed to be written. When in doubt, Google. That’s the way we all did it. Google and Wikipedia and a trip to the library for a few titles we could stick in the bibliography. I briefly thought about searching “brain tumor” and “inflammation” and even “multiple sclerosis,” but I didn’t. Like I said, why jinx myself? Besides, the Internet was good, but it wouldn’t give me all the answers.
I printed out what I found as I went along, until my printer tray was full. Then I read through the articles until I found an angle I could work. I mean, we’re talking about a middle school essay. Nobody expected scholarship. But I definitely wanted an A and figured I could get it with an organization called the Women’s Christian Temperance Union, an organization devoted to outlawing alcohol. My history teacher, Ms. Marrano, was big on women’s issues.
By the time I finished up, I thought I was feeling better. I thought I was strong enough to e-mail the Mag-7s. I thought I was ready to type the words brain and tumor as a remote possibility. And maybe I was, because I managed to hit the right keys and click the SEND button. In fact, I didn’t realize that I was crying until I shut down the computer and the screen went dark, and I saw the tears streaming down my face.
Then I blubbered like a baby, and I kept on blubbering. Brain tumor? Brain tumor? No, that wasn’t right. I was only fourteen—my life was just starting out. I was the Montclair Flash. Now you see me, now you don’t. The fastest girl in the school. An athlete. Strong. Healthy. Unstoppable. Was it possible that my body would turn against me like that?
My mother came into the room before I broke down altogether. Maybe she was using some of that mom radar. Or maybe I was emitting some kind of kid-in-distress signal: beep, beep, beep. But when she took me in her arms, I didn’t try to pretend that I was too old to be held. No way. I was scared out of my mind, and the safest place I could think of was right where I was then.
She cradled me, rocking slightly back and forth, stroking my hair and all the while whispering, “Ssshhh, it’s okay. I won’t let anything happen to you.” She kept repeating that until I finally believed it.
Eventually, I calmed down enough to go into the bathroom and wash my face. After I shut off the water and toweled dry, I stared at my reflection in the mirror for just a moment. Mostly, I think I’m a cute kid. My skin is the color of coffee ice cream and, at least on this particularly day, relatively zit-free. My eyes are light brown and large enough to draw compliments from my relatives; my mouth is full and my chin firm. But I wasn’t looking at my features. I was running my fingers through my hair, searching for a lump, as if brain tumors grew on the outside of the skull. “Honey, you all right?” my mother called from the other room. “Yeah, fine.”
I took a last look—still no lump. But the face in the mirror seemed strange somehow, far away, foreign. It didn’t feel like me anymore. I stared back at her for a few seconds, then turned out the light and headed back to my bedroom.
Mom was sitting on the edge of my bed, holding what looked like a book in her lap. It was about the size of my algebra book, covered in brown leather, and about an inch thick.
“What’s that?”
“It’s a memoir, honey, written by your great-great-great-grandmother. Her name was Golden Lea Jackson and she was born sometime during the 1830s. She called her memoir Recollections. It’s about her time growing up as a slave in Kentucky, and it’s been passed down to the women in the family for more than a hundred years. I’ve been saving it for when you’re older.”
The first thing I thought was, And you’re giving it to me now because I might not get older? But Mom was having enough trouble dealing with the situation, so I kept that particular thought to myself.
“Golden who?” I said. “My great-great-great what?”
“Your great-great-great-grandmother.” My mother patted the bed alongside her, and I sat down. “The book was written in Golden Lea’s own hand and the ink was starting to fade, so we had the pages bound into this book with archival page sleeves to preserve them. You’ll have to be careful while you’re reading, because the paper is very brittle.”
“Why don’t you just make a photocopy of it? Or scan a digital copy?”
“We have made copies, honey, of course. But reading the words in Golden Lea’s own hand is a way of reaching back to touch the past. At least, it was for me.” Mom stopped long enough to put her arm around my shoulders. “I know you’re looking ahead, baby, into the future. That’s natural at your age. But sometimes the past can help us deal with the present. Your great-great-great-grandmother was a woman with true spirit, a fighter to her bones.”
I started to shake my head. I didn’t want to be tied to a black past any more than I wanted to be tied to a white past. But I couldn’t say that, just like I couldn’t talk about a future without me in it.
“All right, Mom,” I finally said. “I’ll give it a try. But I just hope it’s not too depressing. I mean, I’m not trying to be a wise guy, but slavery doesn’t sound all that uplifting.”
Mom smiled and hugged me, then stood up to go. “I’m still trying to reach your father. I left word at his hotel, but I’m going to try calling him again.”
I waited until she left the room, then opened the book. My first thought was that I was in for a tough time. The handwriting inside was very neat, but also very small, and the black ink was pretty faded and many of the letters ran together. Plus, there were no lines on the pages and the words slanted up to the right. I told myself, You so totally don’t need this right now.
But I was wrong. I did need