Prologue
Cancer Girl
In the oncology ward of a hospital just outside Chicago, a fifteen-year-old girl sits propped up against a nest of pillows. She has an oxygen cannula in her nose. An IV drips beside her, the machine chug-chugging steadily, dripping poison into her veins. Sweat dots her bald scalp. She has freckles on her wan, sunken cheeks, and on her forearms, and everywhere. Her eyes are green—they sparkle bright with eagerness, with glee, with adoration. She has a cell phone held landscape in both hands, palm cupped around the ends to amplify the sound. She’s watching a livestream of the Swan Song concert; they’re her second favorite band, second only to One Direction. On her screen, she watches with awe as a young fan is called up on stage to meet his musical heroes; instead of freezing in embarrassment, he shocks everyone, and himself, by singing Swan Song’s viral number one hit, flawlessly, acapella. They give him a guitar, and he starts playing, accompanying himself. Swan Song themselves join in, and the whole world watches as a star is born, there on the stage.
All around her, the children’s oncology ward buzzes with the quiet intensity of suffering and healing and death, nurses coming and going, IVs working, kids laughing and crying, parents holding it together by the skin of their teeth.
The girl is oblivious. She’s watching a beautiful boy sing a beautiful song, and there are stars in her eyes.
“He’s gorgeous, Mom!” She breathes. She turns the phone toward her mother, sitting nearby. “Look! His name is Westley, like from The Princess Bride.”
Her mother, eyes swimming with barely contained emotion, just nods. “He is cute, isn’t he?”
“Cute? He’s the most beautiful person I’ve ever seen. And are you listening to him sing? He has the voice of a literal angel.”
“I thought Harry Styles was the most beautiful person you’ve ever seen, with the voice of a literal angel?” Her mother is teasing, keeping her voice light. “You said that about him just yesterday, if I’m not mistaken.”
“Harry who?” She laughs. “I’ll always have a special place in my heart for my man Harry, but…Westley is it, Mom. He’s everything. He’s going to be famous, I know it.”
“He is talented, I agree. And it does take a certain amount of…presence, I suppose, to perform like that without any warning, in front of fifty thousand people.”
“I have to check out his YouTube.” The phone rotates upright, and her thumbs fly. “Here it is.”
Back landscape, and the young man in question fills the screen, just him with an electric guitar, in a bedroom, bi-fold white closet doors behind him, popcorn ceiling above, a floor lamp with a bare bulb just on-screen to his left. He doesn’t say anything, just starts playing. He does a cover of “Clocks.” It’s utterly beautiful, his voice somehow making the song sound haunting. He has a slight rasp to his voice, which gives it texture, roughens the perfection and thus makes it even more mesmerizing.
The next video is in the same place—same guitar, same room, different hoodie. His eyes are deep, dark brown, molten and hypnotizing. She can’t take her eyes off him. This time, he covers “House of the Rising Sun.” He has dozens of covers as well as several original songs, and each one shows a different part of his range, and depth of talent. As she does a deep dive into Westley Britton’s YouTube channel, she notices she’s not the only one. The number of followers on his page goes, in a matter of hours, from under a thousand to over two hundred thousand.
By the time the girl is back on YouTube the next morning, he has over a million followers.
Within a week, he appears on Good Morning America, followed by appearances on the top names in late-night talk shows.
At the end of a month, he’s recorded his first single with a major label and it’s on every radio in America.
The girl watches every interview, records every performance, cuts out every article.
It’s something to look forward to, after all. Something other than chemo, that is.
Sunset, Somewhere in Venice
Jolene
It’s not a good day.
The pain is intense, all-consuming. Everywhere. It makes thinking hard. Makes even being awake an exercise in agony endurance.
My palliative care plan largely consists of painkillers, and nausea dampeners, and a pile of other things to mitigate the effects of the painkillers and the nausea medications. It’s kind of odd, the whole process. Take one med to help with the pain, but that causes nausea. Take something for the nausea, and I get constipated. Take something for the constipation, and I deal with staying hydrated.
Sometimes, it’s easier to simply endure the pain.
Today is not that day.
Today, I’m doubling down on the pain meds. Don’t tell Mom, though. She still seems to think there’s a chance I’m getting out of this alive. God bless her heart.
I’m curled up in my nest of blankets on my bed, watching My Fair Lady. I’m old school when it comes to movies; I love the classics.
Th’rAIYn in spAIYn falls mAIYNly on the plAIYn.
I mouth the familiar lines, hear the accent in my head.
Next up is Breakfast at Tiffany’s. I know, I know, Mickey Rooney’s character is all sorts of problematic and awful. But I love Audrey’s aura of aloof coolness. She just seems to float above everything. Until she can’t float above it anymore.
I want to float above this.
A knock on my door has me pausing My Fair Lady. “Yeah.” It comes out as a miserable grunt more than an intelligible word.
Mom peeks her head in. “Grandma is here to see you.”
If it was anyone else—literally, anyone—I would say I’m not up for a visitor. But I’m always up for a visit from Grandma. She’s my favorite person on the planet.
Well…favorite person I actually know, like in real life.
A moment later, Grandma breezes in. She’s past eighty, but she’s as active and spry as someone twenty years younger. Shoot, she could walk circles around me on my best day. She’s short and thin, wearing her silver hair in a short, side-swept bob. Purple-framed glasses, and a pair of well-fitted jeans and a nice yellow sleeveless top. Mom could take fashion lessons, honestly.
She kicks off her sandals and sits on the bed next to me, rubs my hip with a gentle touch. “Hi, honey-bunny. Not a good day, huh?”
“Mmm-mmm.” It’s all I can manage.
She murmurs a sympathetic sound. “Take heart, my love. God has a plan even for this.”
She’s a Christian. The type that says she’ll pray for you, but instead of leaving it at that, she takes your hands in hers that very moment and prays. It can be awkward, at times, because she literally does not care where we are, who’s around, or anything.
It’s endearing.
Mostly.
But days like today, it’s hard to believe in a God who could do this to me. Who could sit up in heaven and watch me suffer, and think it’s doing anyone any good.
I can’t answer. Not even a grunt or a groan.
She hunts under the blanket and takes my hand. Her hands are cool, dry, clasping mine tightly. “Father God, I ask that you help my sweet, beautiful granddaughter as she deals with the pain of her illness. If it is within your will, Lord, I ask that you would take the cancer from her. I ask for healing, complete and miraculous and immediate, in the name of your son, Jesus. Amen.”