Total pages in book: 90
Estimated words: 84802 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 424(@200wpm)___ 339(@250wpm)___ 283(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 84802 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 424(@200wpm)___ 339(@250wpm)___ 283(@300wpm)
The crowd cheers as Max, Zack, and Matthew are the first ones in the chairs. Their hair being shaved off makes Jack laugh when Zack gets out of the chair, and he rubs his head. I walk out to them and snap a picture of them together. “You look like twins,” I tell them and then Michael gets his done and so does Cooper. The three of them hold their sons, and I take a picture.
Olivier takes the same picture and puts it on Twitter. “Stingers unite,” he says, and I just shake my head. “Family pictures,” he says, turning around, waiting for Karrie and Allison to go with them. “You too,” Olivier says to me, and I walk to my boys.
Steve and Olivier are the next to sit in the chairs while they hold hands, and you see their matching wedding bands. Those two up and eloped without saying a word to anyone. I smile to myself when Olivier closes his eyes the minute the razor comes close to him.
I am brought to tears when Brock comes out with his whole team following him, and they each take turns sitting down in the chairs. What started as a little thing became a whole dream come true for these boys. They were given tickets to the game tomorrow with free accommodations for them and their family. Olivier never does anything small, and I can’t say I’m surprised by this. But I’m sure that he couldn’t have done it without Doug’s blessing. It’s a big deal to fly in seventy people for a fundraising event.
A man walks by with a little step stool and puts it up against Brock’s chair. “Evie!” Brock yells for her. “Come and shave my head,” he says, and she walks to him, getting on the stool and holding the razor with the barber as she shaves Brock’s head. Her laughter drowning out everything.
I stand next to them and look up at Zack, his eyes smiling with pride, with happiness, with love, and then to Jack whose eyes are identical to his father. He cornered me in my brother’s living room, and what was supposed to be a scripted case became something so unscripted.
Epilogue
Zack
Two months later
“You need to relax,” I tell Denise as she sits down in the chair in Steve’s office, her leg bouncing up and down.
“I don’t understand,” she starts. “He got the results this morning, and he wouldn’t even show me.” Today is the day we get the results back from his last treatment. I’m a nervous wreck, but it makes me feel better to calm her down.
I put my hand on hers. “Breathe,” I tell her, and she leans forward and runs her hand in my growing hair. Hair that now matches Jack as his is growing back. The knock comes, and I look at the door, and it opens and Steve walks in with Jack who comes over and sits on my lap. “Did you have a good visit?” I ask him about the visit he wanted to do with the nurses, showing off his new hair. Even though we are always here volunteering or picking up Denise. It’s different for him, so I watch Steve go around the desk and sit.
“Thank you for coming in,” he says, looking down, and I hear Denise groan. He looks down and laughs a bit.
“Spit it out.” She gets up now. “Or I swear …”
“I got the results back from the blood we drew last week, and,” he says, looking down and then up again, “I’m happy to say that from this his T-cells counts are normal. Jack, you, my friend, are in remission.”
“Oh my god,” Denise says from beside me, sobbing out, holding her chest as she cries. Grabbing Jack from me, she buries her face in his neck. I lean over, taking both of them in my arms as we cry around Jack.
This, right here, the support she’s given us, the love she gives me and my son every single day.
“I have to call Janet,” Denise says, and I just nod at her. Evie got her results yesterday, and like Jack, she is going to be okay.
“I don’t know how to thank you,” I tell Steve, kissing Jack’s head now that Denise gets up and goes to call Janet. “You saved him.”
He shakes his head. “I wish I could take the credit, but I can’t,” he says, smiling and getting up. “Jack, now that you’re going to be better, what are you going to do?”
“We are going to Disneyland,” he says to Steve, and he throws his head back and laughs.
“As soon as the season is over, we are going to go to Disneyland,” I tell Steve. “It’s a family trip.”
“Michael is coming too and maybe Evie,” Jack says, and I get up and walk out of the room. I spot Denise at the nurses’ desk as she cries in Mallory’s arms.