My mom always says, “Everything always happens for a reason”. That’s an easier thing to say than it is to believe… I scrambled to find the home telephone through the Doritos and homework pages laid atop every inch of table. The loud sound awoke me from my deep concentration on my French essay assignment due the next day. I jolted my arm to grasp the phone that had been tossed under my papers. The bright light that I had pressed Doritos cheese all over had displayed a clear vibrant font, “Mom”.
I picked up the phone in confusion. “Mom?”I asked questioned. “Yeah, its mom, “she had replied. “Listen carefully; I’m at the doctor with Calista. Her leg has been giving her soaring pains, and the doctors are telling me that we have to rush to the hospital.”I stood there with the phone pressed onto my ear still, blank as a poker player’s face. Deep breath had gone through the phone to my mom.”But, but,” I stuttered, “Where’s Dad?” I asked as worried as possible. “He’s meeting me at the hospital as soon as he can. Now I have to go Margaux, don’t be too much worried than I am, we still don’t know what the problem is.” My Mom calls me Margie when she happy, Margaux Nichole Cane when she’s angry, but Margaux when she’s too worried to say anything else.
Beams of headlights flicker through the inches separating branches to my drive way. A ray of high beams hits my front windows giving a glare into the black television screen. Mom’s finally home.
My father had carried Calista up to her room, sound asleep as she was the entire car ride. My mother had brought home Chinese food knowing there was no way she could cook dinner (without burning it) with this on her mind. The dinner was quiet with all chairs filled except for one on my kitchen table, the one were Calista always sits.
That night I heard slow paints of breath as if someone was trying to hold in a cry. It was Calista. She was in suffering pain, crying eyes out. With every tear came a new heavenly paint of breath. The throbbing pains traveled all around her foot, making it puffy and swollen as when you get a black eye from a baseball, making most of her foot a horrible purple. But all I knew before my mother had called was that I had to skip soccer practice and that Calista had been rushed to the doctor. It was difficult for me picturing how terrified she was since then.
Finally my Mom said calmly at the dinner table, “they’re supposed to call any minute with the test results because they know how urgent this is for us.” I nervously and fast said, “Do they have any idea what it is?” My Mom took in a large breath, “possibly Cancer.” The dinner talking had ended.
About 11:00pm that night, the phone rang. The caller I.D. displayed on every corner, of every television in our home, Yale Children’s Hospital. I witnessed my mom pick it up, slowly and worrying. Ping! I knew she had clicked the talk button. “Yes? Hello.” I listen to a squeaking voice on the other end but no chance of hearing the conversation. She gently clicks the “off” button. “What’s wrong?’ I asked calmly but soothing. “She doesn’t have Cancer, but she has Lyme’s disease.”
(Lyme disease is a bacterial illness caused by a bacterium called a "spirochete." Lyme disease is spread by ticks when they bite the skin. Lyme disease can cause abnormalities in the skin, joints, heart and nervous system.)
The following day my mom went back to the doctors the next day with Calista while I was at school. When I arrived home without my mom there, the phone rang. “Yale Children’s Hospital.”
I quickly tried to decide whether to pick it up or let the voicemail get it. “Hello. This is Sabrina calling from Yale children’s Hospital. We’ve just gotten the results from the tests on Calista. We unexpectedly found a cyst that appears to be located on her right 5th interior rib. We’re going to immediately need to see her. Thank you.”
My whole world was moving thousands of miles per hour; all I wanted it to do was stop, so I could take a breath in. I quickly grabbed the phone dialed my mother’s telephone number. “Mom?!” I asked nervously. “Yes dear?” “It’s Calista, Yale called again. Hurry home to hear the message.” “Sounds good, see you home.” I hung up the phone. Again, the beams flickered through the woods again, only slower. The front door busted open with a rush of cold sweet firewood dry air. She approached the voicemail box. I sat in the kitchen waiting for her reaction, scared. “I’ve got to tell your father first thing he gets home.” That was the end of the conversation until dad got home. After he had found out my mom went to the hospital again, they ran tests again, and we waited for the call, again.
When the phone had finally rang with the same Yale Children’s Hospital displayed, I knew this call could determine Calista’s future. When my mom had finished up talking with the doctor on the phone she approached my siblings and I in the living room. “Calista has a minor cyst on her rib, but they said just that they’ll keep an eye on it just to make sure it’s not a problem.” “So what your saying is, Calista’s fine and just has to take medication for the Lyme’s disease?”I asked quickly trying to squeeze it in, in one breath of air. “Yes, perfectly healthy other than that. Everything must happen for a reason.”
I think of that terrible night when my sister was in the hospital. How terrifying it must have been, I hear my mom phrase the exact words, in the same tone used on that day, everything happens for a reason. That night I wanted the entire world to stop as time rushed past me.