Dear Hazel,
I have received word via the Genies that you will be visiting us with Augustus Waters and your mother beginning on 4th of May. Only a week away! Peter and I are delighted and cannot wait to make your acquaintance. Your hotel, the Filosoof, is just one street away from Peter’s home. Perhaps we should give you one day for the jet lag, yes? So if convenient, we will meet you at Peter’s home on the morning of 5th May at perhaps ten o’clock for a cup of coffee and for him to answer questions you have about his book. And then perhaps afterward we can tour a museum or the Anne Frank House?
With all best wishes,
Lidewij Vliegenthart
Executive Assistant to Mr. Peter Van Houten, author of An Imperial Affliction
•••
“Mom,” I said. She didn’t answer. “MOM!” I shouted. Nothing. Again, louder, “MOM!”
She ran in wearing a threadbare pink towel under her armpits, dripping, vaguely panicked. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing. Sorry, I didn’t know you were in the shower,” I said.
“Bath,” she said. “I was just…” She closed her eyes. “Just trying to take a bath for five seconds. Sorry. What’s going on?”
“Can you call the Genies and tell them the trip is off? I just got an email from Peter Van Houten’s assistant. She thinks we’re coming.”
She pursed her lips and squinted past me.
“What?” I asked.
“I’m not supposed to tell you until your father gets home.”
“What?” I asked again.
“Trip’s on,” she said finally. “Dr. Maria called us last night and made a convincing case that you need to live your—”
“MOM, I LOVE YOU SO MUCH!” I shouted, and she came to the bed and let me hug her.
I texted Augustus because I knew he was in school:
Still free May three? :-)
He texted back immediately.
Everything’s coming up Waters.
•••
If I could just stay alive for a week, I’d know the unwritten secrets of Anna’s mom and the Dutch Tulip Guy. I looked down my blouse at my chest.
“Keep your shit together,” I whispered to my lungs.
CHAPTER NINE
The day before we left for Amsterdam, I went back to Support Group for the first time since meeting Augustus. The cast had rotated a bit down there in the Literal Heart of Jesus. I arrived early, enough time for perennially strong appendiceal cancer survivor Lida to bring me up-to-date on everyone as I ate a grocery-store chocolate chip cookie while leaning against the dessert table.
Twelve-year-old leukemic Michael had passed away. He’d fought hard, Lida told me, as if there were another way to fight. Everyone else was still around. Ken was NEC after radiation. Lucas had relapsed, and she said it with a sad smile and a little shrug, the way you might say an alcoholic had relapsed.
A cute, chubby girl walked over to the table and said hi to Lida, then introduced herself to me as Susan. I didn’t know what was wrong with her, but she had a scar extending from the side of her nose down her lip and across her cheek. She had put makeup over the scar, which only served to emphasize it. I was feeling a little out of breath from all the standing, so I said, “I’m gonna go sit,” and then the elevator opened, revealing Isaac and his mom. He wore sunglasses and clung to his mom’s arm with one hand, a cane in the other.
“Support Group Hazel not Monica,” I said when he got close enough, and he smiled and said, “Hey, Hazel. How’s it going?”
“Good. I’ve gotten really hot since you went blind.”
“I bet,” he said. His mom led him to a chair, kissed the top of his head, and shuffled back toward the elevator. He felt around beneath him and then sat. I sat down in the chair next to him. “So how’s it going?”
“Okay. Glad to be home, I guess. Gus told me you were in the ICU?”
“Yeah,” I said.
“Sucks,” he said.
“I’m a lot better now,” I said. “I’m going to Amsterdam tomorrow with Gus.”
“I know. I’m pretty well up-to-date on your life, because Gus never. Talks. About. Anything. Else.”
I smiled. Patrick cleared his throat and said, “If we could all take a seat?” He caught my eye. “Hazel!” he said. “I’m so glad to see you!”
Everyone sat and Patrick began his retelling of his ball-lessness, and I fell into the routine of Support Group: communicating through sighs with Isaac, feeling sorry for everyone in the room and also everyone outside of it, zoning out of the conversation to focus on my breathlessness and the aching. The world went on, as it does, without my full participation, and I only woke up from the reverie when someone said my name.