Page 15 of Tear Me Apart

Isn’t that why we’re stuck in here in the first place? Because we’re overly dramatic? Except for you. I mean, you had cause.

I’m supposed to be sans roommate for a while. We’ll see how long that lasts.

What are you doing out there in the big wide world? Is the sky bluer when you’re free? Does the sun shine brighter? God knows they’ve pumped you full of every imaginable drug, so maybe you’re just asleep. Which I’m going to do. Maybe I’ll dream of my mom again. That was cool. Write me!

Love and stitches,

V

Mindy is confused. Who is Liesel? And who is the writer of this strange letter, this anonymous “V”? 1993? That was way before Mindy was born. She does the math—her mom is forty-one now, she would have been sixteen in 1993.

Just a year younger than Mindy is now.

Her mom calls, “Mindy, hon? Where are you?” which sends her heart into frantic mode. She scrabbles the letter back into the drawer, plops some underwear on top of it, and makes a break for it. She gets to the laundry room just as her mom appears in the doorway.

“What are you doing?”

“Forgot a towel,” Mindy says nonchalantly, grabbing one off the top of the fluffy pile.

Her mother’s face stretches into a grin. “You should have called me, silly, I would have brought you one. Want some company while you stretch? Maybe I can spot you if you need help.”

Mindy stifles a groan. “Sure, Mom. That’d be nice.”

Love and stitches.What in the world does that mean?

6

VAIL HEALTH HOSPITAL

They arrive at the hospital at 7:00 a.m., complete with a blanket, headphones, fuzzy slippers, and a soft pillow, and Mindy hasn’t said much. She is being stoic, but Lauren can tell she’s not feeling well. What will she be like after weeks of this? Will she continue to be sick?

Lauren feels so useless, so incapable of doing anything to help. She can feed, clean, and love her daughter, but she can’t kill the thing growing inside of her. It’s making her bitchy; she knows she’s riding the edge. Old urges sweep through her, and she fights them down like dogs growling at a fence.Never again.

Soon enough, they are settled. The bag of evil medicine is attached to the pole, a tube snaking into Mindy’s arm. Lauren straightens the sheet and thin blanket, pats Mindy’s forehead with a cool cloth.

Jasper spends the first hour with them, then has to go back to work. Thankfully, Lauren’s art means she can stay and no one will be upset or mad. For the past few weeks she’s canceled all her appointments and showings. She hasn’t painted. She hasn’t contacted her clients. She’s refused visitors. She has been there nonstop for Mindy. It’s what a mother does. The idea of deserting her daughter even for a moment is too much to bear. As if death will slip in and take Mindy from her the moment Lauren turns her cheek.

Irrational, yes, but she can’t help herself. Every drumbeat of her heart screamslive, live, live. She’s lost weight, along with Mindy. They’ve grown matching black circles under their eyes. But they are fighting. Together, they are fighting.

Mindy shifts, and lets out a tiny gasp. She looks at Lauren with pain in her eyes, apologetic. Lauren has to force herself not to run into the hall, screaming for painkillers. They weaned Mindy off the morphine quickly, but the chemo causes her pain too, just like the surgery. Every eight hours, she is allowed one Lortab. Just one. Just in case they need to ramp things up again. It takes most of the edge off, but sometimes, she has breakthrough pain, and they have to gut it out.

Pain makes Mindy looks like a five-year-old child instead of an accomplished young woman. The effect is startling. As if the chemo is leaching years from her baby.

“Oh, sweetie. Do you want your headphones? Or shall I tell you a story, take your mind off things?”

“Yeah. A story would be okay.”

“Once there was a young girl who lived in a forest.”

Mindy rolls her eyes dramatically. “Mom. Seriously? Fairy tales?”

Lauren adjusts herself on the thin mattress. “Fairy tales are good for the soul.”

“Can we just watchThe Sound of Musicagain?”

Still in love with the movie, as she has been since she saw it the first time when she was six. It is the one childish thing about this girl, her obsession with Julie Andrews spinning in circles high atop a mountain, singing about hills.

“You need a healthy dose of fantasy right now.”