Remembering herself and knowing she needed to keep anything negative out of the way of her work, Mel plastered a smile on her face and began stuffing the now unnecessary sock and splint into her oversized purse.
“Of course, it is. And how are you today, Baby?”
“I’m good. Super!” she said brightly. “What are we doing today?”
“The park again?”
Baby’s lips slid up in a sideways smile that almost looked like she was up to something. “Perhaps not that park. Is there another park?”
“Well, the park is huge and we’ve only been to one part of it. There’s a planetarium, trails, other open areas, all sorts of things.”
Grabbing Mel’s hand, Baby said, “Oh yes, that sounds divine. Let’s go to another area of the park.”
“Done!”
They chatted during the drive about nothing much of importance, stopped to buy the makings of another picnic, then hustled their bags and a rather musty blanket from Mel’s trunk. They hurried toward a glade surrounded by trees thick enough that the sounds of the city faded to a background hum.
As Baby plopped down on her back to look at the cloud dotted sky, she threw out her arms and said, “This is heaven!”
“Well, it’s not quite heaven, but it’s as close as we can get in this city.”
Baby frowned a little at her tone and sat back up, tucking in her legs to sit cross-legged in front of Mel. “Something has changed. What’s wrong?”
How much should Mel share with the girl? That was always the question, but today it was more urgent than before. Mel knew time wasn’t on their side, but Baby was doing so well. This girl who could skip through a park was a much happier girl than the silent one at the hospital. She was beginning the process of recovery and Mel couldn’t— wouldn’t —destroy that.
“It’s nothing for you to worry about, Baby. Nothing at all. There’s just a lot to do.”
Looking out at the trees surrounding them, Baby sighed. “You need to get to the end of the story, don’t you?”
Mel hated to see the smile leave Baby’s face. She hated to see the sadness lurking there.
“I do.”
Her big grey eyes returned to Mel’s face and Baby asked, “How much time do you have?”
“All day, Baby. I have all day.”
She nodded, then looked down at her hands. “Good. Let me tell you about the end of Raymond and the beginning of the magic.”
Pancreatic Cancer Sucks the Big One
“It was one of those nights, cool and crisp, but not quite cold. You only get them like that in the northeast. It’s not the same anywhere else. We had a fire going and the hotel waiter had just cleared away the last of our dinner dishes. I was reading a book. Raymond was sitting in the matching chair and looking at the fire. It was a nice night.”
Baby paused and smiled at Mel as if she could sense the question in Mel’s mind. “Yes, we did have nice nights.”
Mel nodded for the girl to continue.
“Anyway, Raymond and I had a sort of understanding between us. He was getting older and my work—if you can call it that—was minimal. Men had begun to pay enormous sums for time with me, and there weren’t many of them. Most of them never touched me like that anymore. They just stared at me, sort of dazed, and I would hold their hands. I saw some of them once a year, others a few times a year. It was awful when they did touch me of course, but a person can get used to almost anything given time.
“But I knew something was coming. I felt it. Raymond had begun to have difficulty at meals. Pains when he ate, you see. Right about here.”
Baby pointed to her upper right chest and made a little circle there, as if to encompass the entire area.
Mel ran through the list of ailments she was familiar with and said, “Like heartburn? Reflux?”
Baby shook her head. “No, like pancreatic cancer.”
“Oh,” Mel said, thinking it served Raymond right, even if he was imaginary.
“He didn’t know that, of course. Neither did I. Medicine then wasn’t like it is now. No internet to scare ourselves with back then. But deep down, he knew something was very wrong. In his own way, I think he was worried about what would happen to me.”
Mel’s stony expression and silence prodded the girl on.
“Anyway, I was reading and he was staring at the fire and suddenly, he says, ‘I wish I had your magic. It would be worth it.’ It was just like that. Simple and direct. He meant it too. The important part was that he’d said it out loud. He never mentioned the magic and got angry when I asked about it. This was the first time he brought it up.”
Mel was silent for a moment, thinking about the words. Worth it? What an odd thought. And Mel wondered how this little tale fit in with the reality Baby was still shielding herself from.
“So you took the opportunity to ask about the magic?” Mel suggested.
“I did,” Baby said with a smile. “And even better, he told me the truth.”
“And that was?”
“That my magic was a kind of cure. I suppose I might have figured that out at some point myself, but I didn’t. I should have. He told me that the men who came to me stopped wanting what they wanted after seeing me. Not forever, but for a time. For some it lasted a few months, for others a year or more. It always came back, but for a while, they had peace. Raymond told me that they would pay anything for a little peace.”
Mel had to work to keep her mouth from falling open. This part of the story might be the most twisted part of all. Someone had fed this story to Baby at some point, and by convincing her that what happened to her was some kind
