Mourning Song Read Online Free

pleasure over a mound of boxes that held no surprises?

F
ive

    “M OM, YOU KNOW it’s so hard on Cassie that all her friends will graduate together without her. They’ll spend the summer getting ready for college. If only she’d gotten to go on the senior trip before this happened to her.”
    The two of them sat in the kitchen. Cassie’s empty chair was beside the one that had been Dani’s father’s.
    “That’s true,” her mom said with a weary sigh. “I know how much Cassie’s always talked about going to the beach and Disney World. I’m really sorry now that I just didn’t borrow the money one of those summers when you two were growingup. But at the time, I thought there’d always be next year.”
    “Maybe we could do something special together now,” Dani suggested.
    “What do you mean?”
    “Like a vacation. I mean, what if money weren’t a problem?” Ever since Cassie had shown her the check from the One Last Wish Foundation, she’d thought of little else. Cassie had gotten enough money to do something really special, almost anything she wanted to do. Since their father’s death, Dani’s mother had worked. Vacations had always been a luxury. Most summers, they stayed put and saved the money, or drove out to Iowa to visit their grandparents, who were now too old and ill to travel. Dani had never really minded, but Cassie had an adventurer’s streak and always longed to travel.
    Mom shook her head. “Money’s not an issue at this point. I’d mortgage the house before I’d let money stop me from doing something for Cassie.”
    Dani hadn’t expected this response. “So, if money’s not a problem, why don’t we go do something?”
    Her mother put down her fork and sighed. “Dani, we can’t all just pack up and take off.”
    “Why not?”
    “Cassie’s sick.” Her mother was looking at Danias if she thought her younger daughter had suddenly forgotten that all-important point. “We can’t all pile in the car and go away. Cassie needs her treatments.”
    “But the treatments aren’t helping.”
    “Maybe they will.”
    “Cassie really hates them, you know.”
    “Her medical treatments aren’t up to her. I’m doing what I think is best for her.”
    “Even Dr. Phillips doesn’t think the treatments are helping. If you gave Cassie a choice, if you told her the truth, she’d say ‘forget them’ and come home.”
    “This isn’t up for a vote, Dani. Don’t you know how it tears me up to see her in that hospital, so sick from the drugs they’re giving her? Some of those chemo drugs are pure poison, but in order to kill off the tumor, they have to be potent. I have to follow through with this. I have to feel that we’re doing everything possible. I can’t simply bring her home to curl up on her bed, take pain medication, and die.”
    “Well, I think Cassie would prefer to come home. She would want to make the best of whatever time she had left. And she wouldn’t want to die in the hospital.”
    “She
can
come home,” Mom insisted. “We’re close enough to the hospital that we can get her there quickly when necessary. Besides, the hospitalhas all the proper equipment to sustain her if she goes into cardiac arrest, or if she stops breathing.”
    This thought had never crossed Dani’s mind, but she found it horrifying. She’d read stories and seen TV coverage about people being hooked up to machines in order to live when there was no hope of their ever recovering. “What if that’s not what Cassie wants?”
    “Of course it’s what she wants.”
    “But how can you know for sure if you won’t ask her?”
    “We must give her every opportunity to continue living.”
    “It doesn’t seem like much of a way to live. I wouldn’t want to live that way.” Dani jutted her chin. “And Cassie doesn’t either.”
    “Well, I guarantee you, Dani, if it was you, I would take the same measures and make the same choices.”
    Her mother stood abruptly. She knocked the table as she