thought that was it. That they had fixed you, that you were out of the woods and you would be able to recover now . . .” My dad stopped talking. He wrung his fingers together and his knuckles went red.
“I was very sick,” I suddenly heard myself say, as image after image after image of hospital rooms flashed through my mind.
My mom nodded. “A year after your accident, just when we thought all those hospitals were behind us, on a checkup, they found out you had leukemia.”
“I was very sick,” I said again. I looked at Noah. This was starting to make sense. The pieces were drawing themselves together and forming a picture in front of me. It was not a picture that I wanted to see. But it was a picture nonetheless, and I was looking at it.
“I spent years in and out of hospital.”
“You did.” My mom’s voice was even softer this time. “From the age of eight until around eighteen you were in and out of hospitals. First with the damage from the accident, then all the rehab you had to do for your back, and then with the leukemia. You went into remission for a while, but then it came back.”
“And we started treatment all over again,” I filled in the blanks and my mom nodded. “Birthdays, and Christmas and . . . I never went to school again. I did homeschooling. Even after the cancer was gone.” I was remembering more and more by the second now. The white, sterile loneliness that the four walls of the hospital provided me with. Day after day, year after year.
“I had a lot of complications from the treatment,” I said, almost whispering that to myself. “The hospital became my prison.” I looked up at Noah, and he gave me a sympathetic smile. The smile was warm and I wished I could reach out and grab it and put it in my pocket. Keep it close.
“But I was cured,” I said, finally looking at my parents.
“Yes. You were very lucky. We were very lucky.”
“I might not be able to have kids one day though,” I said thoughtfully.
“No,” my mother said sounding solemn. “The chemo, all the radiation . . . you might not be able to.” I heard her swallow from across the room. As if swallowing down a ball of pain that was too big for her throat. “But you are alive,” she whispered.
“A lot of my friends aren’t alive. Many of them died.” I had an image of getting close to people, only for them to die and leave me. Push or pull?
“Yes, they did. But you survived. You were lucky,” he reiterated.
I nodded, but I didn’t feel lucky. “You two were always so scared. When I was at home, you disinfected everything. I was never allowed to go outside and play with other children, because of that time I caught flu and landed up in the hospital with double pneumonia. The doctor said it was ‘touch and go.’ ” Touch and go. The words echoed in my head. I’d heard them a lot as a child. More times than a child should.
“Your immune system was so compromised,” my mom said.
“I used to . . .” I turned and looked at the window behind me. I got up, walked over to it, pulled the curtain aside and felt the tears flood my throat as I looked at the park. “I used to sit here and watch the other kids playing, but I couldn’t play with them. One germ, just one little germ could kill me.” I stared at the playground and could almost hear the excited screams and laughter as they went around and around on the merry-go-round, making themselves dizzy.
“We had to take such precautions.” My mom’s voice quivered now.
“You overcooked all the food. You were always so scared of me getting sick from it. From anything. You would make people who came to visit wear masks and wash their hands. We even moved to Durban because the air quality was better here than in Joburg. And sometimes, you and Dad weren’t allowed to hug me.”
My mom nodded and inhaled sharply. “Yes. Sometimes you had to be isolated in the hospital, to prevent infections. And when you were home, we did everything to keep you as safe as possible. We didn’t want to lose you.”
I turned away from the window, back to everyone in the room. All eyes were fixed on me. “I was so