Ginger was on the couch watching morning cartoons with Jenny when Kris came in with Zac. She ran over and hugged her sister, then hugged Jenny who was just as excited to see her as Kris was to see Jenny. "Oh, Jenny baby, you're so big! I don't like being away from you for so long!" Kris picked up her niece and twirled her around. "I cannot believe how big you are."
"You just saw her three months ago," Ginger said. "She hasn't grown that much."
"Yes she has!" Kris said.
"She's had an exciting couple of days," Ginger explained, sitting up. "Her grandparents and Auntie Zo� came over last night."
"Really?" Kris asked. "Why were they here?"
"They came to see Zac for his birthday," Ginger said, looking over at Zac who was in the doorway. "With Taylor."
"Taylor?" Kris asked. "What the hell was he doing here?"
"Well it seems the only reason they were in town is because Taylor bought a house somewhere in the city," Zac explained. Kris turned to him, Jenny still in her arms. "They brought him along thinking if me and him saw each other we'd start talking again, but it just made things worse." Kris nodded.
"I'll have to see him," she said, more to herself than anyone else in the room.
"I'm not taking you," Zac said. "I don't even know where he lives."
"Don't worry," Kris said. "You won't have to take me and I won't have him meet me here. We'll meet in neutral territory." Zac nodded. "I'm not stupid, Zac. Not like you." He gave her a look.
"I'm already sick of you," he said. She returned his look and they both shared a laugh. "I'll show you your room. You're going to have to clean it, unfortunately I didn't have any time to do it." Kris set Jenny down who went back to running around and followed Zac up the stairs.
"Mommy?" Jenny asked.
"Yes, my precious child?" Ginger said, her dull voice conflicted with her words. Jenny ran over to her.
"Will you read this to me?" she asked, holding out a book. Ginger smiled.
"All right, baby." Ginger scooted over, giving Jenny some space to climb up on the couch with her and opened the book. Ginger began to read her the book, despite the fact that her vision was blurry and she was having trouble concentrating. Jenny didn't seem to notice. Ginger got halfway through the story before Kris came back, and blinked a couple of times. Even the simple sentences of Jenny's favorite book, something Ginger had read a thousand times, weren't coming out right. Kris noticed right away.
"Jenny, why I don't finish that for you?" Jenny looked up at her mother and Ginger nodded.
"Let Auntie Kris do it, Jenny. Mommy needs to rest." Jenny held the page and ran over to Kris, who began reading it adamantly on the other side of the room. Ginger laid down. Reading fifteen pages and a bit more than fifteen sentences was too much for her. She grew upset. She couldn't even read a story to her daughter.
Zac came back in the room. He knelt down in front of Ginger who was obviously struggling to stay awake. "Ginger, babe, I have to go back to work," he said.
"Okay," she whispered, her voice barely audible.
"I'll be home later. I love you." She responded with what he guessed was an "I love you" back, but he couldn't make out her words. He kissed her forehead, and then got up. He kissed his daughter goodbye, and just for fun kissed Kris goodbye, and then he left. Before he was out the door Ginger had fallen asleep.
She woke up an hour later and threw up. It was the first time she'd done so since her cancer came back. Kris took care of her and Jenny was across the room, watching. When Ginger laid back and had settled down, Kris walked over to Jenny. "Do you want to go upstairs and play with your blocks?" Ginger, although weak and still tired, smiled. Kris always suggested blocks.
"Is Mommy all right?"
"Jenny," Kris said, kneeling down to she could look in the little girl's eyes, "Mommy's sick. She's really sick. She's not going to be able to play with you all the time, or read to you, or tuck you into bed every night. There are going to be days when she can, but most of the time she won't be able to. It's not your fault, she's just got a sickness and the medicine she's taking is making her really tired all the time. She still loves you and she's still going to try to play with you as much as she can, but she won't always be able to. That's why I'm here. I'm going to do the things she can't do. Do you understand?" Jenny nodded. "Look at me." Jenny looked directly at Kris. "Do you understand?" She nodded. "Okay. Let's go upstairs."
Ginger felt incredibly low. She'd never in her life questioned her disease in a moral way, asking why it was her and not somebody else, but now she really began to. Her daughter meant so much to her and she couldn't even play with her. She wiped at her eyes, not wanting to cry in a room by herself over something she had no control over, but when Jenny came running back in the room about twenty minutes later with a drawing for her mother, she did.
"I made this for you, Mommy," she said. Ginger's eyes filled with tears as she took it from her daughter. It was two stick figures with red hair and violet eyes, one a lot taller than the other, holding hands. "That's us, and that's our house." Jenny pointed to her drawing of the house. The thing that pushed Ginger over the edge was the hand-written "I love you" at the top that Kris obviously helped her write.
"This is so beautiful, Jenny," Ginger said, sniffing. "Thank you so much." Jenny gave her mother a smile.
"Can I lie down with you?" she asked. Ginger nodded and scooted back on the couch. Jenny climbed onto the couch and lay down next to her mother.
"Let's put on your cartoons," Ginger said. She took the clicker from the table in front of her and turned on the television. Kris appeared at the doorway.
"I love you, Mommy," Jenny said, still facing the TV. A tear escaped Ginger's eyes and she hastily wiped it away.
"I love you too, Jenny."
Ginger looked up at Kris, who was watching, her eyes glistening with tears just like Ginger's had been. Ginger stroked Jenny's hair, which seemed like it was cut off of her own hair and pasted onto Jenny's head, and smiled. Jenny always seemed to know what to do.
On Christmas Day two months later Ginger received some disturbing news. Her radiation treatments had done little to nothing on her tumor and the doctor had insisted on immediate surgery, otherwise the tumor would just grow and they never wanted to go to that point. Ginger wasn't happy at all. She'd had surgery before and it wasn't fun, and apparently this tumor was much larger than that one had been because this time around, the radiation did nothing to stop its growth. Ginger was to have surgery in two days.
Christmas was exciting for Jenny. The last one she didn't really remember but she didn't have that many gifts and Ginger didn't have the money to get a lot of decorations. Now that they could afford decorations, on her good days Ginger and Jenny ran around the house putting up various decorations. When Ginger was having a bad day, Kris ran around with Jenny and put up decorations. Jenny was the most excited about the Christmas tree. It was huge and beautiful, and it took nearly all day for Zac to put it up. Apparently Zac was allergic to real trees so they had an artificial one (which would explain why Jenny broke out in a large rash the previous Christmas).
Jenny had a lot of presents and Ginger didn't approve. "You're spoiling her, Zac," Ginger said.
"Oh, you're just jealous she has more presents than you," Zac said, waving it off.
"That's because I didn't ask for anything," Ginger said, giving him a look. Now that Jenny had finished opening her gifts, Kris was collecting all of the excess wrapping paper in a trash bag. Even though Ginger hadn't asked for anything, she ended up with quite a few presents. The biggest thing she got was a bracelet she'd been eyeing in a catalog that she found in one of the Sunday newspapers. She wasn't even sure how Zac knew; she must have told Kris who in turn told Zac about it.
"Mommy, Mommy look!" Jenny said, running over to her mother and showing her one of her presents. It was the doll she'd just been dying to have since the Christmas season started.
"I know, I saw," Ginger said. "You've been wanting that doll, haven't you? I told you Santa knows exactly what you want." Jenny nodded and ran off to play with her new doll. Ginger had always had a problem with Santa Claus. She didn't want to even mention Santa to her daughter but Kris had already gotten Jenny on it before Ginger could tell her not to. Santa was only some stupid tradition that ended up ruining one day of her child's life. It was inevitable that one day Jenny would find out there's no Santa Claus and cry her little eyes out, and Ginger didn't want her to go through that.
"How are you doing, Ging?" Zac asked, seeing Ginger yawn across the room.
"I'm fine," Ginger said. "Just a little tired." Zac was just as unhappy with the doctor's decision to do surgery as Ginger was. Brain surgery was always incredibly risky, and this was the second time Ginger would be going under the knife. Neither of them liked surgery at all, in any form, and a dangerous operation such as this was definitely no exception. But this time, the doctor said that in a week's time, if all goes well, Ginger could be in remission. Ginger's doctor in Tampa had never said that she could be in remission after surgery.
"Well I have somewhere to be," Kris said after cleaning up the mess in the living room. "I'll see you guys later." Ginger, who was now sitting in the recliner with Zac, eyed her sister.
"Where are you going?" Ginger asked carefully.
"I�have to meet someone." Ginger exchanged glances with Zac.
"Who?"
"Just someone."
"You don't know anybody here," Ginger said. "You don't leave the house if I'm not with you and I haven't seen you meet anybody�"
"I'm going to see Taylor, all right?" Kris snapped.
"Are you�seeing him?" Zac asked.
"Yes, Zac, when I meet him, I do see him. He is really there."
"You know what I mean," Zac said. "Are you dating him again?" She sighed.
"I'm going to be late," she said, and headed towards the door.
"Kris! Answer my question!" Zac yelled after her. "I won't mind."
"Fine, Zac," she said. "We're dating. Can I go now?" Zac didn't say anything and she left anyway. Zac sighed and leaned his head against Ginger's. She kissed him.
"It's all right, sweetie. You knew it was going to happen again," she told him. "Just don't think about it."
"I can't," he said. "I'm worried about her. I don't want him to be all Taylor on her and hurt her again. She means a lot to me." A smile crossed Ginger's face and Zac saw it. "Yes, she does mean something to me. She's my sister now."
"That's right," Ginger said. "She is! Wait a minute, does that mean Taylor is my brother now?"
"I don't even consider Taylor my brother." Ginger sighed and before she could comment Jenny came running in the room, holding her doll, and jumped up on the recliner with her parents. "Hey darlin', do you like your new doll?" Zac asked.
"Yup." Jenny, lying halfway on either parent, was completely content just sitting there. She turned to her mother. "Mommy, are you sick today?" she asked.
"No, honey, I feel just fine today," Ginger explained. "But Mommy has to go and get some treatment in the hospital in a couple of days. I'm going to be away for a couple of days and I won't be able to play with you for a while." Jenny nodded.
"Can you play with me now?"
"Sure, baby." Jenny jumped off the recliner and Ginger climbed off with Zac, and they went off to play with Jenny.