No Time to Cry Read Free Page A

which was teeming with morning traffic. In the distance she saw school buses pulling in and was glad she hadn’t had to ride one that morning. “Thanks for the lift,” she said when he’d found his assigned parking slot and turned off the engine.
    “Maybe we can do it again.” He walked with her toward the entrance, and she couldn’t help noticing that some of the girls were giving them curious looks.
    “That would be fun.” Because he was on the football team, and because he was so good looking, everybody would soon know who Jake Macka was, Dawn thought to herself. But this one morning, he was walking with her. In some ways, she felt like a thirteen-year-old again—like she had before she’d gotten cancer, when nothing was more important than being seen with one special person by all your friends.
    “If you can hang around until I wrap up football practice, I’ll take you home.”
    The urge to shout “yes!” was on her tongue when she remembered that her mother was picking her up for a clinic appointment that afternoon. “I . . . um . . . can’t today. I have someplace I have to go.”
    “Okay,” he said.
    She felt very disappointed. Once again, her stupid cancer had interfered with her life. If only she could be free of it forever. “It was really good to see you,” she said, stopping beside her locker.
    “You, too. I’d better go,” he said. “I’ve got a bear for a geometry teacher. Rumor has it he gives detentions for tardies.”
    “Sounds mean.”
    He grinned, gave her a nod, and started off down the hall. She watched him disappear into the crowd and felt a bittersweet longing. Seeing Jake had stirred memories from a time when things were simple and life was uncomplicated. She sighed, wondering if life could ever be that way for her again.

    * * * * *

    “All finished?” Katie asked when Dawn walked up to her at the nurse’s desk on the fourth floor.
    “The blood-letting is over,” Dawn replied, holding out her arm to show off the Snoopy Band-Aid in the crook of her elbow. “Since I was a big girl and didn’t cry, the lab tech gave me a special reward.”
    She and Katie laughed together. “I guess you get used to it after you’ve been through it as much as you have,” Katie said.
    Dawn shook her head. “Over the past three years, I’ll bet they’ve withdrawn a small ocean of blood from me. Believe me, I never get used to it!”
    Katie flashed her a look of sympathy. “Well, when the report comes back and you’re given a clean bill of health, you’ll be glad.”
    “Until the next time. And speaking of that, I’ll have to have a bone marrow aspiration next time.” She made a face. “I hate when they stick needles into my bones. It hurts.”
    “But it’s necessary,” Katie said.
    “I still hate it.” Dawn said with a shrug. “So what do you want to show me?”
    “It’s upstairs.”
    “Not on the oncology floor, I hope,” Dawn said. “You know how I feel about going back up there, Katie.” She hated going to the cancer floor where she’d spent so much time in isolation when she’d almost died.
    “It isn’t.” Katie took Dawn’s hand.
    They rode up to the tenth floor and stepped off the elevator. Dawn could see that it was a floor full of offices. Because it was after five, most of the workers had gone home. A few doctors were still inside their cubicles, doing paperwork or talking on the phone. A janitor was emptying wastebaskets. “Have they given you your own office?” Dawn asked, intrigued.
    Katie laughed. “No—I’m still only a nurse. Here we are,” she said, turning a corner to face a long wall. On it, a tree was painted. The trunk was thick and sturdy looking, and its branches sprawled down the wall as if it were actually growing there. Each branch held plump, green leaves. Every leaf bore a person’s name.
    “What is it?” Dawn asked.
    “It’s the Tree of Life,” Katie explained. “It’s dedicated to cancer survivors. Like you, Dawn