Always and Forever by Lurlene McDaniel

I’m this many years old.” She displayed ten fingers, then five and one.
    Rachael studied them carefully. “Wow. You’re old.”
    Melissa laughed. “You’re right.”
    “I have leukemia,” Rachael announced, dropping to her knees and opening her coloring book on the table next to Melissa’s chair. “What have you got?”
    Perhaps it was the child’s unabashed honesty, her uncomprehending acknowledgment of their unlikely sisterhood, that brought a lump to Melissa’s throat. “I have leukemia, too.”
    “I was in mission but now I’m not anymore.”
    A shudder ran up Melissa’s spine. “You mean ‘remission,’ don’t you?”
    “Yup. I don’t like it here, but Mommy says I have to stay for a while.” Rachael flipped open the crayon box and dumped a rainbow of colored sticks across the table. The warm sunlight softened them, and the room became scented with the familiar smell of crayon wax.
    “I don’t like it here either, Rachael.” Despite the sun, Melissa felt chilled. A
relapse
, she thought. Rachael had survived chemo, lived outside the hospital, then relapsed. Her leukemia had returned.
    “I have a baby sister. Do you?”
    “I have an older brother,” Melissa said.
    “Older?” Rachael glanced up from her coloring, her expression registering disbelief. “Are you friends?”
    “Yes. Best friends.”
    “I don’t like my sister very much. She cries a lot and keeps my mommy busy.”
    “You’ll like her someday.”
    “Maybe.” Rachael continued coloring and said, “The medicine they gave me makes me throw up.”
    Her sudden change of topics momentarily confused Melissa. “The medicine makes me throw up, too,” she said.
    “They stick needles in my back. Do they do that to you, too?”
    “Yes.”
    “I used to think if they stuck me with needles everything inside would leak out. But that was when I was only three and I was still a baby.”
    Melissa bit her lower lip hard. She reached out and touched the soft, shining curls on Rachael’s head. “Your hair’s very pretty.”
    “It all fell out once. But now it’s back.” She beamed a broad smile. “Are you a mommy?”
    The question struck Melissa like a splash of ice-cold water. Confused by a rush of emotions, she fumbled with her history book. The bright, sun-washed room was suddenly making her dizzy. “I have to go back to my room now, Rachael.”
    “Are you sick? Are you gonna throw up? I brought my dish just in case. Want to use it?” She held up the receptacle Melissa knew so well.
    “No, thanks … It’s just that I—I’m cold.”
    The child nodded. “Oh, I get cold at night. Sometimes when my mommy can’t stay with me, I make the nurse bring me two blankets. She holds my hand till I go to sleep.”
    As Melissa slowly moved out the door she heard Rachael say, “Come visit me tomorrow, Melissa. Can we be friends?”
    Safely back in her room, Melissa crawled between the sheets, her teeth chattering. She felt an overwhelming urge to cry but couldn’t.
What’s wrong with me? Why am I feeling this way?
She turned on her side and shivered. She squeezed her eyes shut, but she kept seeing Rachael’s face.
    When she opened her eyes, the first thing she spied on the bedside table was the journal. Shereached for it, opening to the first cream-colored, fresh-smelling blank page. She sat up and rummaged in the metal drawer until she found a black felt-tip pen, and began writing in her most graceful penmanship.
    I met a little girl today named Rachael. She’s four and she has cancer, too. She thought I was very old, being sixteen, and I thought she was very sweet and too young for these things they’re putting us through at the hospital. She asked me if I was a mommy. Of course, I’m not. But I can’t help wondering if I ever will be. Who will want to make love to me now that I’m sick? What would it be like to have a baby grow inside of me? Will I ever know?
    Melissa reread the entry, underscored the last sentence, then