Page 15
“He slapped an employee’s face. So I took his cheek a layer at a time.”
A wave of nausea splashes inside me. “Oh.”
His admissions should terrify me. He’s tortured people. Probably killed people. But I sit there doing the math my body already did in that hotel room, that this man is many terrible things and that particular thing I feared is nowhere in him.
The knot I’ve carried between my shoulders since meeting Uncle Nick loosens by one turn. “Okay.”
“Good.” He opens a drawer and sets a binder in front of me, thick, tabbed, the spine cracked from handling. “Then you’ll want this.”
The binder is marked with Sarah’s name in purple. There’s a bad drawing of a bird in the margins. She drew the label for her own medical file, which means she’s aware of her situation.
Too often, the parents I work with try to hide things from their sick child. Not Lupo.
“Acute lymphoblastic leukemia,” he says, and his voice changes on the words, drops its silk, and for the first time since I met him I’m listening to a scared father. “Diagnosed at two. Induction, consolidation, every protocol, every count. She’s in maintenance now. Methotrexate Thursdays. She took today’s dose at seven forty, with orange juice, and she’ll sleep hard until noon, possibly later since we’ll be in the air, and she always sleeps a lot during a flight.”
“The change in oxygen affects chemo kids harder, so that tracks.”
He pushes the binder an inch closer. “Her last labs are in the front pocket. I’d like to know what you think of the neutrophils. Her team said they’re fine. I want to hear what you think.”
I look at the cracked spine, and the tabs organized by year, and the man who made them. Still furious with him. Also, apparently, still thinking about last night, which makes me furious at myself. A two-front war, and I’ll be fighting it in a foreign country.
I take the binder. “She’s in range. A little low, but not concerning yet, unless this is a long-term pattern.”
He takes a deep breath, and if I’m not mistaken, he’s relieved. “It’s not a pattern. Just a one-time read.”
“She’s strong, Lupo. She’s been well-treated, which means she’s had a good team.”
“She has.”
“So why do you need me? Why not recruit one of them?”
He exhales and glances away. “Sarah is strong. Has too much of her grandmother in her. The one we’re going to visit. They’re two peas in a pod. And my mother is… opinionated. So, when Sarah’s treatments became overwhelming, she was feistier than the medical team liked.”
I find myself nodding and smiling. “Been on the receiving end of that kind of thing myself. But kids are people—they aren’t compliant automatons who go along with everything you need to do. They have opinions, and that’s okay. You just have to learn how to negotiate with them.”
“Her team got tired of negotiating. They didn’t fire us exactly, but it was clear that they hoped we’d find another team. This was a month ago, and since then, I’ve been looking for you.”
“Me?”
“An expert in this phase of treatment. We’re so close to remission—I cannot have a break in the quality of care for her. Not now.” The desperation in his voice tugs at my heart. “I need the best. So yes, I was looking for you.”
Flattering, but I have to keep the lines clear. “I understand completely, Lupo. You won’t have a break in care for her. Provided you actually meet my demands.”
“Consider it done.” He checks the time and stands. “Ready to go?”
“No. But I’m doing it anyway.”
We collect Sarah on the way out. Lupo lifts her off the bed, still sleeping, and it’s the gentlest thing I’ve watched him do. One hand cradling her skull, her cheek finding his shoulder on instinct, the stuffed wren tucked against her chest by two of his fingers.
It doesn’t make up for what he’s done. It’s important all the same.
The plane on his estate’s private runway is obscene, cream leather and walnut, and a small bed in the main cabin where he lays her down and buckles a strap she’ll never feel. I take the seat by the window with a binder in my lap and my life somewhere behind me on the tarmac.
6
LUPO
Cruising altitude finishes what the morning dose began. Sarah naps on the cabin bed, with Pip the wren nestled under her chin and a half-eaten Snickers in its wrapper clenched in her hand. She saves the remaining half for descent. Coming down causes her ears more pain than ascending, and my daughter thinks ahead.
