She couldn’t even type straight. But we hadn’t figured on her working much anyway. Just a few years till we could save up some money for a down payment on a house and then we’d try for a baby. Well, a few years turned into almost fifteen before Sallie got pregnant. We’d just about given up trying at that point.” George stopped speaking and stared into space.
“You must have been thrilled when Angelina was born,” Dani said, prompting him to continue.
“It was nothing short of a miracle—that’s what we thought. I broke down and sobbed when I saw her the first time. I held that precious little girl in my arms and just wouldn’t let go. I tell you, I’d never seen anything so beautiful.” George stared at the table. Dani could see his hands, still handcuffed behind his back, squeezed tightly together. “It wasn’t a miracle, we learned soon enough. Miracles are supposed to last, aren’t they?”
Dani shrugged.
“Sallie, she’d been waitressing before the baby came. When we brought Angelina home, she up and quit that job, swore she’d never take another while she had our baby to care for.”
Sallie had told Dani she’d worked after Angelina was born. Something had changed her mind. “Why did Sallie go back to work?”
“We had bills that needed to be paid. Doctor bills. Hospital bills. See, our precious Angelina got sick. Unless you have a sick child, you can’t know how it feels. To watch your baby all weak and crying and you helpless to stop it.”
Although life with Jonah had made Dani all too aware of that feeling of despair, she didn’t want to interrupt George. Melanie took notes so nothing would distract Dani as she listened to him.
George looked up at Dani and she saw his eyes burn with a searing intensity. “Before it happened, before she got sick, we were never so happy. Every day I’d come home from work and Sallie would say to me, ‘Look what Angelina did today,’ and I’d see my baby roll herself over, and later sit up all by herself, and Sallie would have a great big grin on her face. When Angelina took her first step and didn’t fall down, well, it’s as if she’d walked on the moon or something, it seemed so incredible.”
“And then she got sick?”
George nodded. “The doctor said she had to have chemotherapy. I knew how bad that was. My uncle, he had cancer in his lungs, from smoking too many cigarettes, I suppose. He got awfully sick from the chemotherapy and then he up and died anyway. But Angelina’s doctor, he was hopeful.”
“George, let’s step back. Why did Angelina need chemotherapy?”
“She got leukemia.”
Dani glanced at Melanie and saw she’d stopped taking notes. She suspected George’s revelation had shaken Melanie as much as her. “I’m sorry, George. I’m truly sorry.” Dani waited a moment. “When was she diagnosed with it?”
“Just after her second birthday. We had a little party for her, just us celebrating, but we had balloons all over the house and a big chocolate cake that Sallie baked. Couldn’t have been more than a week later Sallie called me at work. And she’s crying on the phone that Angelina is sick, she has a fever, a really high fever, like one hundred and four degrees. Now, our little girl, she’d been sick a lot, always getting colds and sniffles, but we didn’t have health insurance. I’m just a mechanic, you know. So every time the baby got sick, we’d treat her at home, and she’d always get better. But she never had a fever that high before, and it scared Sallie, so we took her to the emergency room. The doctor, he said Angelina had an ear infection and he gave Sallie medicine for the baby. But she didn’t get better when she should have.”
“Do you remember the doctor’s name?”
George remained quiet for a moment. “I can’t seem to bring it to mind. Everything else is so clear from that time, everything he said and all. I can picture what he looked like, but his name—it’s just gone.”
“Did you bring Angelina back to the doctor?”
“Yes, ma’am. About four or five days later I took a few hours off from work and we took Angelina back to that same doctor, and now he looked her all over, you know, more careful, and he saw these red spots on her skin. And he asked us a bunch a questions. ‘Does she get tired easy? How’s her appetite? Do