Read Online The Still of Night by Kristen Heitzmann - Free Book Online Page B

transplants, taking her own marrow, treating it to kill the cancer and putting it back in, didn’t work well for leukemia. No, they’d have to wipe her marrow out and hope Jill’s worked.
    She felt like a geek knowing all that medical stuff, more than Mom or Dad guessed that she grasped. But as she’d told Amy, leukemia was her reality, her life. It would maybe be her death. She’d gone three years in remission and dared to feel cured, even though five was the magic number. When the markers showed a recurrence, she almost didn’t believe it. But then, she’d been feeling punky again—and ignoring it as though it would go away. She knew better. Leukemia didn’t go away, no matter how much you wanted it to.
    It was a battle between good and evil. Though the drugs made her sick and ugly, she pictured them as bright angels with fierce faces and long swords hacking down the demon cells that tried to kill her. She’d gotten the idea from the psychotherapist who counseled kids on the ward. Dr. Blair called it imaging and suggested they picture what was going on in their bodies in a positive way.
    What was going on in her body seemed no less than the war in the heavens. So angels it was. In between fevers and nausea, the angels didn’t look quite so fierce. Sometimes they raised their swords to her and smiled. Then she felt seriously certain they would win.
    But when her mind wandered with spiking fevers and her body swelled and her hair fell out, it was hard not to see the slimy black horde beating back her army. It only helped to know that whatever happened inside her, ultimately she had the victory.
    A lingering scent of scorched macaroni and cheese clung to the main room as Morgan showed Todd his assignment on the game card: act out the cameo for his team to guess. And the word was nun . This ought to be good.
    Morgan had purchased the game Cranium at Starbucks to liven up the evenings and dispel the interpersonal stiffness infused into the ranch by Todd’s family. Stan was uptight and insecure, the mother, Melanie, an exercise in frustration, and the daughter, Sarah, a teacher’s pet sort of girl, whom Todd had pegged pretty accurately. Todd fit with them like a scorpion in a bunny cage.
    But it was just the sort of challenge Morgan thrived on in the corporate world, bringing people with disparate strengths and expectations into a common vision and equipping them to move forward. This was simply a small-case scenario. So far he’d explained the rules and they were having a practice round in each category before playing guys against girls for blood.
    “No way,” Todd said, looking from the card to him.
    “Come on. You know what it is.”
    Todd shoved the card at him. “I’m not gonna be that.”
    Morgan pulled him close and whispered, “You want to wax those girls or don’t you?”
    “I can’t act like a—”
    Morgan pressed a hand to his mouth, turned so both their faces were away from the group. “Now what do nuns do?”
    Todd shrugged. “Nothing fun.”
    Morgan grinned, responding too easily to Todd’s recalcitrance. “So make your face sour. Now what?”
    “Pray,” Todd whispered.
    “That’s right. Put your hands together.”
    “This is stupid.”
    Morgan pressed Todd’s hands into a flattened peak. “Now get on your knees and if they don’t get it, show them you’re wearing a veil.”
    “I’m what?”
    Morgan pushed him out to the center of the circle. Todd dropped grumpily to his knees, then closed his eyes and looked heavenward with a better imitation than Morgan had expected.
    “He’s praying,” twelve-year-old Sarah guessed.
    “It’s a person,” Morgan reminded her.
    Todd stroked the sides of his head to his shoulders, then prayed again.
    “A nun!” Melanie called out, and Todd pushed up from his knees and sagged into his chair. But there was a prideful flicker behind his glare.
    “Good job, Todd. Last category is ‘creative cat.’” Morgan took the tub of clay from the