“You’re going to make it to plenty of proms, baby. This is just a delay.”
She turned her face toward the wall.
I drove her back to the hospital.
***
The following evening, I was rinsing out Carol’s water cup at the little sink in her room when Nurse Jenny appeared in the doorway with a strange look on her face.
“Linda, honey,” she said. “Can you step into the hallway for a second? Just for a minute.”
I dried my hands and followed her out, assuming it was paperwork or worse.
I stepped through the door and froze.
“Can you step into the hallway for a second?”
The hallway was full of teenagers!
Boys in rented suits with crooked ties. Girls in long dresses with sneakers peeking out from underneath.
They were holding pizza boxes, foil pans, a stack of plastic cups, and Mylar balloons in soft pink and silver. One girl, Megan, clutched a pitcher of lemonade against her chest as if it were something holy.
A small Bluetooth speaker hung from Daryl’s wrist.
“Mrs. Linda,” Megan said, stepping forward. “We talked to Dr. Patel. She said it was okay. We wanted to bring prom to Carol.”
I covered my mouth. I couldn’t speak!
The hallway was full of teenagers!
“You did all this?” I finally managed.
“For weeks,” Daryl said quietly. “We’ve been planning it for weeks.”
I tried to thank them, but my voice cracked. Jenny squeezed my shoulder and motioned them toward Carol’s door.
“Go on, sweethearts. She has no idea.”
I followed them in.
When Carol looked up and saw her friends crowded into the doorway in their prom clothes, she let out a sound I’ll never forget! Half a sob, half a laugh, all disbelief!
“We’ve been planning it for weeks.”
“You guys,” my daughter whispered, bursting into tears.
Megan climbed onto the bed and helped Carol into the sparkly top she’d brought, sliding it right over her hospital gown.
Someone hit play on the speaker, and the room filled with the song my daughter had been singing in the car since February. I watched her laugh. Really laugh! Eyes closed, head tilted back, the way she used to laugh before any of this started.
She bit into a slice of pizza and made a face because the cheese was cold, and the kids howled.
They ate together, laughed, and for the first time in a long while, I saw how truly happy Carol was.
Someone hit play on the speaker.
I stepped back toward the hallway so I wouldn’t intrude.
I leaned against the wall outside Carol’s door, pressed both palms to my face, and let myself cry for the first time in days. Not from sadness, but from whatever the opposite of sadness is, when it still makes you weep.
Then I heard footsteps. I looked up.
Daryl had come out of the room. His tie was loose, his hands in his pockets, but he wasn’t smiling anymore. He looked older than 17.
“Mrs. Linda,” he said. “Can we talk?”
Then I heard footsteps.
I opened my arms to hug him.
“Daryl, I can’t even tell you what this means to us! You kids did something I’ll never forget!”
He stepped back, just half a step, but enough that my arms fell to my sides.
“Ma’am, you do know why we’re really here, right?” he asked, looking at me with a serious expression.
I blinked at him. The laughter from Carol’s room drifted into the hall, and I could hear her voice, lighter than it had been in months.
“Well… yes. To give Carol her prom.”
Daryl pulled a thick white envelope from inside his jacket. He held it out to me, and his hand shook a little.
“Ma’am, you do know why we’re really here, right?”
“No. I’m sorry, but I have to tell you the truth. Open this envelope. That’s the real reason we’re here,” my daughter’s closest friend replied.
I stared at the envelope as if it were something hot.
“Daryl, what is this?”
“Carol gave it to me last week. Told me to give it to you the night of the prom, before the last song. She said you’d need to know by then. Please, Mrs. Linda. Just open it.”
My fingers fumbled with the flap. Inside were folded pages, some with Carol’s looping handwriting and some printed.
“Daryl, what is this?”
I recognized the journal pages right away.
The first letter was addressed to Daryl, the second to Megan, and the third was addressed to me.
I read the one with my name on it first. My eyes moved across the page, and the hallway tilted under my feet.
“Dear Mom, my last scans from three weeks ago didn’t give the results I told you. While waiting outside the consultation room, I overheard Dr. Patel going over my films with another doctor. They said that the numbers weren’t moving the way we’d prayed they would.”
I felt dizzy, but kept reading.
The first letter was addressed to Daryl.
“I cornered Dr. Patel the following morning. She confirmed it, and I begged her to sit down with me that same week. I asked her for a little time first before telling you. I explained that I couldn’t bear to watch you break down in front of me.”
“She knew?” My voice came out cracked and small.
Daryl nodded, his eyes wet.
“She made us promise, Megan, me, all of us, not to say anything. She didn’t want you to spend whatever time was left crying, ma’am. Carol said you’d already given up too much for her.”
