One Last Christmas
TITLE/PROMPT - One Last Christmas | Christmas | TABLE 1
AUTHOR - lucida
WORD COUNT - ~3500
RATING - T to be safe because of language.
UNIVERSE - Post-Canon
SUMMARY - Holiday fic set halfway through Danielle's sophomore year of high school. Takes place on December 23 or so.
WARNINGS - (Major spoilers. Highlight to read.) ->Angst. Implied character death.<-
AUTHOR'S NOTE - So I am in the process of writing and/or brainstorming fics for some of you for
fandom_stocking, but this year miss_slipslop and I both realized we should have signed up for Yuletide about two weeks after sign-ups were over. Fail. So then we decided to exchange prompts and write "Yuletide esque" stories for each other in lieu of that. One of her prompts was "high school Danielle Roberts fic," so this is for her. ♥
P.S.: We developed cousins for Danielle after being amused when we found a Camille Roberts from CT in Big Time Rush. So I guess you could technically consider this a crossover, but you really don't need any knowledge from that show whatsoever.
“It says if you let the pancake batter sit out for twenty minutes, it makes fluffier pancakes,” Greg reads aloud from a thick cookbook, perched up on the counter. “Maybe we should-“
Danielle is stirring the batter with a wooden spoon, making sure there aren’t any clumps of baking mix left.
“No way!” she exclaims, reaching around with her free hand and slamming the cookbook shut. “I’m hungry now. Besides, these pancakes are going to be delicious! Stir this for me, okay Camille?”
Leaving the bowl with her younger cousin, she crosses the kitchen and yanks open the pantry door. There’s two bottles of ketchup, enough canned corn to feed all of SHS, a box of popcorn, and-bingo! She bends down to retrieve a small jar from the bottom shelf, waving it above her head victoriously.
“Marshmallow fluff!” she proclaims, grinning. She gives Greg a smug look. “This will make the pancakes fluffy! None of that waiting twenty minutes nonsense.”
Drew had been sitting at the kitchen table, reading a comic book, but he looks up and rolls his eyes at Danielle’s comment.
“Marshmallow fluff? Sure it has ‘fluff’ in the title, but it’s all sticky. It’ll probably just make them stiff. Danielle, maybe you should just-“
“And cocoa powder!” she shouts in glee. “I bet cocoa powder would be great in pancakes. And peanut butter.” She grabs another item. “Chocolate and peanut butter are amazing together. Don’t you think so, Camille?”
Drew mutters something about how he’s not responsible if they burn down the house, again, which really isn’t fair because last time it had absolutely nothing to do with Danielle’s (lack of) cooking skills. It’s not her fault if her thirteen-year-old brother is incapable of taking anything out of the oven. He’d caught an oven mitt on fire and then lamely stated, “Uh, Danielle, it’s on fire…” while holding the mitt at arm’s distance with a panicked look in his eyes, clearly at a loss as to what he should do. Danielle was too busy doubling over with laughter to help so Drew had gotten the honor. It’s turned into a favorite family story.
“I agree with Danielle,” Camille is saying. She sticks a finger in the batter, tastes it, and makes a face. “It definitely needs something, and chocolate and peanut butter are amazing.”
She puts the bowl on the counter and skips over to Danielle.
“We have chocolate chips too!” Camille offers, reaching into the pantry and pulling them out. “And butterscotch chips. Which do you want?”
“How about both?” Danielle grins down at her. “These are going to be the best pancakes ever.”
“… if it doesn’t result in half the house being burnt down,” Drew flips a page in his book.
“Oh shut up, Drew,” Camille says good-naturedly as she follows Danielle back over to the counter. “Our pancakes are totally better than your stupid Spiderman comics.”
“Hey,” Drew protests. “Spiderman is-“
“Boring? Overrated?” Camille fires off with a saucy grin at her older brother. “Lame? All you care about?”
“Far less interesting than my pancakes?” Danielle joins in.
She rips open the chocolate chips and pours in about a fourth of the bag, then does the same thing with the butterscotch chips. Then she adds a couple spoonfuls of cocoa powder, peanut butter, and marshmallow fluff.
“Do you have food coloring?” she asks Camille, stirring her latest concoction. “We could make them red. Or maybe green? You know, festive holiday cheer and whatever.”
“Like green eggs and ham!” Camille laughs. Then her expression changes to a more serious one and she starts reciting. “Do you like green eggs and ham? I do not like them, Sam-I-am. I do not like green eggs and ham-“
“Would you like them here or there?” Danielle contributes, adding a couple drops of green food coloring to her mixture.
“I would not like them here or there,” Camille shakes her head at Danielle. She stomps her foot. “I would not like them anywhere! I do not like green eggs and ham. I do not like them, Sam-I-am.”
“Would you like them in a house? Would you like them with a mouse?”
“I do not like them in a house!” Camille exclaims, scowling, playing up even this minor role. “I do not like them with a mouse. I do not like them here or there. I do not like them anywhere. I do not like green eggs and ham. I do not like them, Sam-I-am!”
“Would you eat them in a box? Would you eat them with a fox?”
Finally, Drew can’t take it anymore.
“Will you guys shut up?!” he snaps, closing his book, just as Camille is getting so into the role that it looks like she’s contemplating murder. “I’m trying to read. It’s not even nine o’clock yet-“
“Exactly,” Danielle grins, turning around to blow a kiss to Drew. “You shouldn’t be reading this early!”
“Drew’s always reading this early,” Brendan points out, scrolling into the kitchen. He’s wearing red plaid pajamas bottoms and looks like he’s still half asleep. Camille and Danielle had woken him up reciting Dr. Seuss for god knows what reason. “What are you guys doing, anyway? Whatever it is, I’m pretty sure the neighbors can hear you.”
“The Thomas-Brewers?” Drew snorts, referring to the family that lives across the street. He’s a little relieved his older brother has finally come downstairs. “Karen lives there. I doubt they can hear anything over her big mouth.”
“I don’t know,” Greg speaks up. He’s always been the quieter one of the group, content to sit back and observe for the most part. “Danielle’s pretty loud. Maybe louder than Karen.”
“Aww, thanks!” Danielle grins brightly, reaching up to ruffle her little brother’s hair. “It’s an honor just to be nominated.”
Then, turning to Brendan-
“I’m making green chocolate peanut butter butterscotch chocolate chip marshmallow fluff pancakes,” she manages to say it all in one long string, without really having to pause to thank about it, which she thinks is very impressive. She should win some type of award.
Brendan, however, stares at her like she’s just told him that she wants a pet peacock for Christmas. Which wouldn’t be a bad idea, really. In addition to companionship, a pet peacock would be a great decorative item for her bedroom. Plus she’s never heard of anyone else having a pet peacock. (Not even Amanda Delaney, and Amanda Delaney has everything.) She and Greg used to go to a park where peacocks roamed around freely, though, and he was terrified of them-so a peacock is probably out. Sad.
“… Green chocolate?” Brendan blinks, sitting down at the table next to Greg. He head desks. “Ugh. I need coffee.”
“I don’t know what scares me most,” Drew groans. “The fact that Danielle just said ‘chocolate’ twice or-everything, really.”
“Shut up, guys,” Danielle says lazily, dropping a spoonful of pancake batter on the griddle. “My green pancakes are going to be fabulous. Almost as fabulous as me, even, which-as you know-is pretty fuckin’ fabulous.”
She swipes some batter off the side of the bowl and sticks it in her mouth.
“Does that have raw egg in it?” Brendan frowns, overseeing it. “You know you could get salmonella.”
God, sometimes it’s annoying how overprotective Brendan is. He’s a year older than Danielle, after all.
She rolls her eyes and turns around to face him. By this point, she’s somehow managed to get pancake batter on her nose.
“Salmonella is the least of my worries.” She tells her cousin levelly.
She’d meant for it to come out as a joke, but when she says it out-loud her voice cracks and her stomach drops and for several long seconds she just stands there frozen, feeling awkward for hinting at what her family has been trying so desperately to avoid since she’d been released from Stoneybrook General for the holidays. Danielle is nothing if not stubborn, though, so she isn’t going to apologize.
“Danielle, are you okay-?” Brendan is standing up now, too concerned to look upset, as if he thinks his cousin is about to fall over and he’s preparing to catch her.
She swallows-her throat is dry and she’s shaking, and-no. This isn’t going to happen here.
Forcing herself to put on her best carefree smile, she takes a deep breath and finishes her thought. She feels guilty about it before the words even leave her mouth, wishes she could just take back ever opening this can of worms in the first place, but now it’s like word vomit and she has to say the rest.
“It would be funny, wouldn’t it?” she asks, her voice hollow. She chuckles at her own joke. “If after all these years of treatment for leukemia, I died of salmonella. Don’t you think so?”
Greg is suddenly very interested in the kitchen tiles. Drew is staring at the tabletop, at the microwave, anywhere but at Danielle. Camille’s face has gone pale, missing the huge grin she’d been wearing while reciting Dr. Seuss, and she actually looks like she might start bursting into tears.
Brendan, though-Brendan is what really sets Camille off. He doesn’t look concerned anymore, or sad, or half-asleep. He looks pissed.
Danielle knows her older cousin well enough to know that he won’t go off in the kitchen-not about this, anyway-in front of her brother and his younger siblings. Maybe it’s why she’s brave enough-stupid enough-to meet him dead in the eyes and raise an eyebrow in challenge, daring him to disagree.
She feels horrible-especially because she’s upset Camille-but humor is her go-to way of dealing with life, her number one defense mechanism, and even though she knows she’s gone too far she can’t bring herself to apologize for it.
“Finish the pancakes for me?” she asks Camille softly, turning away from Brendan to place the spatula into her youngest cousin’s hand. Not waiting for an answer, she swiftly leaves the room, breaking into sobs and breathing so hard it hurts the further away she gets from her family.
The door to Danielle’s guest room slams and locks.
The spatula falls to the ground with a clatter.
******
Danielle had begged her parents not to tell anyone until after Christmas.
She didn’t want to make everything about her. Sometimes she feels guilty for having leukemia. Greg is a good brother. He stays with her at the hospital for hours, plays Monopoly or makes up elaborate stories for all of the nurses and orderlies with her.
After chemo treatments, when she feels so awful that even rolling over is too much effort, he sits next to her bed and tells her funny stories about what his friends said during lunch. When she’s out of the hospital, he basically gives up his social life and spends his time with her, playing Donkey Kong on Nintendo or marathoning old episode of Cassandra Clue she’d had Charlotte record on VHS and still hasn’t gotten around to watching, or cooking her dinner when her parents have to work and she doesn’t feel well.
She doesn’t feel like Greg’s older sister. Older sisters are supposed to take care of their younger siblings; and he’s the one taking care of her. He tells her he doesn’t mind; and maybe he doesn’t, sometimes. Other times he’s snappy and moody, but still too loyal to just leave her and go off to his friends, and she can see in his eyes how much he resents her.
*****
Greg comes to check on her ten minutes later, knocks timidly on her door like he’s afraid she’ll make it disappear with heat ray vision and chuck something at his head.
“Go away!” she calls, voice still thick and muffled as she yells into her pillow, lying stomach-down on her bed.
Greg isn’t the type to keep pestering when he’s not wanted. His footsteps fade as he goes down the hall and walks down the steps.
*****
The thing is, Danielle likes to claim she isn’t scared of dying. She is, however, scared of leaving her family behind.
Her parents have been ripping each other’s throats out for years and she can’t help but think that if it wasn’t for this mess, they would have gotten divorced years ago. Greg has always been there for her, but he’s never really gotten along with their parents, seems to have more bad moments than good moments when they’re around. Her cousins are pretty much her siblings too.
She feels lucky. There was a time when her biggest goal in life was to live long enough to graduate elementary school. She’s sixteen now, halfway through her sophomore year of high school. Her nine-year-old self had never even dreamed that she’d live long enough to graduate middle school, have her first kiss, go to Homecoming, and even get a driver’s permit. Somehow she’s managed all of these, though, and she feels incredibly blessed, like she can conquer the world.
At the same time, though-the constant chemotherapy, radiology, and surgery is exhausting. Her body is slowly giving up on her. It’s horrible to admit, even to herself, but a part of her had been relieved a couple weeks ago when the doctors had told her parents that she’s no longer responding to the chemo. That there’s nothing else they can do.
“There’s a clinical trial going on at Mayo,” the doctor had said. “I can try to get her into that, but with the level of progression…”
Danielle had stopped paying attention after that, sinking into her pillows and closing her eyes. Sometimes the thought of all of this being over-in any form-is a welcome one.
Then she thinks of her family and she feels sick, panics.
*****
About thirty minutes after Drew leaves, Danielle calls Becca. One of the nice things about having an aunt and uncle who are loaded is that they actually have phones in every room. It’s a nice change from Danielle’s house, where the only phone is in the kitchen and it’s attached to a fucking cord.
Becca is the only person aside from Danielle’s parents who knows what’s going on. Danielle hadn’t meant to tell her, really-she didn’t want pity from her friends-but Becca has this way of sort of drawing out all your secrets.
“I’m scared,” Danielle admits into the receiver, her voice barely above a whisper.
Becca doesn’t tell Danielle that everything will be okay, or pressure her into talking about it, or ramble on about her family or dog to try to distract her like Danielle’s other friends do sometimes. This is what Danielle loves about Becca. People underestimate her because she’s so quiet, but Danielle thinks Becca might be the smartest person she’s ever met.
There are a few moments of silence, then-
“I know,” Becca says, just as softly, her voice laced with understanding.
It says we can talk about it if you want but I’m not going to ask you and I love you and I’m here.
Danielle doesn’t say anything and neither does Becca. They sit there in silence for several minutes, occasionally interrupted by Aunt Cecilia yelling at Squirt to stop running in the house, until Danielle starts to feel a little more like herself.
“I should go downstairs,” she sighs, standing up and checking her reflection in the mirror. Her eyes are still a little puffy, but maybe not too obvious. “Thanks. For… you know.”
*****
When Danielle goes downstairs, the pancakes she’d had in the griddle are burnt and the bowl of batter remains untouched. Camille, Greg, and Drew are nowhere in sight; but of course Brendan is waiting for her at the kitchen table, drinking a glass of orange juice and biting at his lower lip.
“I’m sorry,” Danielle says, sitting across from him at the table. “I didn’t mean to-go off like that. It’s so stupid, isn’t it? You brought up salmonella, probably just joking around, and I freaked out like some moron and snapped at you and then ran off upstairs.”
Brendan looks like he wants to say something, but Danielle quickly continues before he can get a word in.
“It’s even worse than that one time when I was seven and you were eight and you said it was your turn to play the Nintendo-it was your turn, by the way-so I threw Luke’s toy dinosaur at your head. I’ve reached an epic level of moronic. It’s just that it reminded me of something else and then I sort of-panicked? I still shouldn’t have been a jerk to you, even though you’re totally a jerk sometimes, but I just-“
“Danielle!” By this point, Brendan is actually laughing. He waves a hand in the air to stop her ramblings. “It’s okay. I get it. You’re allowed to get scared sometimes. I was pissed at first-stuff like that is hard to hear-but we can talk about things, you know? We don’t have to, but…”
“Now look who’s rambling,” Danielle interjects, giving a forced laugh.
She doesn’t remember the last time things between her and Brendan were awkward. Normally carrying on a conversation with him is the easiest thing in the world. He’s like an older brother, after all. He drives her to her doctor’s appointments in Stamford, and tells her when she’s being reckless and impulsive. They can talk for hours about how Danielle thinks there should be a Secret Society of Powdered Wig People or how awesome the Red Sox are or how they’re pretty sure Drew was actually created in a test tube or something because he’s way too smart for a high school freshman. They can laugh about Camille’s latest idea for breaking into Hollywood-a couple months ago, she went to the grocery with her mom, dressed as a princess with a tiara and elbow-high white gloves and everything-or call each other on their bullshit or argue about whether Jeff Schafer is awesome or over the top. (“Awesomely over the top?” Danielle suggests with a wicked grin.)
But now Brendan is giving Danielle the perfect opportunity to come clean about everything, and she doesn’t know if she wants to. If she tells him she’s stopped responding to chemotherapy, he’ll just worry about it for the rest of Christmas break. If she doesn’t-
“So how about those pancakes, then?” Brendan asks, in the same tone some people would use to say how about those Mets? Maybe he gets the hint that Danielle doesn’t want to talk about it-whatever it is. “Double chocolate butterscotch, you say?”
Danielle is a bit taken off-guard by how quickly Brendan had dropped the subject, but he’s always known her well.
“… I don’t even know,” she admits, still distracted. She offers him a timid grin, though. “Sounds about right. Something else too. Marshmallow fluff? … What was I even thinking?”
She knows what she’d been thinking. She’s been going overboard trying to distract herself for the past couple weeks, acting even more insane than usual. Yesterday she’d spent the entire afternoon prank calling people in Japan and demanding Mexican food. Then she’d gone around the neighborhood asking people to donate to the Secret Society of Powdered Wig People.
“I don’t know,” Brendan smiles at her, clears away the burnt pancakes and drops some more batter onto the griddle. “But I’d say it’s been well over twenty minutes. Maybe you’ll get your fluffy pancakes after all.”
“… Or not,” Danielle raises an eyebrow, watching as the pancake batter sits on the griddle like play-dough.
“Or not,” Brendan agrees, snorting, with a nod. “New batch, then? One more pre-Christmas pancake rundown before my parents get home and kick us out of the kitchen?”
“Sure,” Danielle smiles back, the smile not quite reaching her eyes, this time pulling out the red food coloring and a bottle of nutmeg. “One last Christmas.”
AUTHOR - lucida
WORD COUNT - ~3500
RATING - T to be safe because of language.
UNIVERSE - Post-Canon
SUMMARY - Holiday fic set halfway through Danielle's sophomore year of high school. Takes place on December 23 or so.
WARNINGS - (Major spoilers. Highlight to read.) ->Angst. Implied character death.<-
AUTHOR'S NOTE - So I am in the process of writing and/or brainstorming fics for some of you for
fandom_stocking, but this year miss_slipslop and I both realized we should have signed up for Yuletide about two weeks after sign-ups were over. Fail. So then we decided to exchange prompts and write "Yuletide esque" stories for each other in lieu of that. One of her prompts was "high school Danielle Roberts fic," so this is for her. ♥
P.S.: We developed cousins for Danielle after being amused when we found a Camille Roberts from CT in Big Time Rush. So I guess you could technically consider this a crossover, but you really don't need any knowledge from that show whatsoever.
“It says if you let the pancake batter sit out for twenty minutes, it makes fluffier pancakes,” Greg reads aloud from a thick cookbook, perched up on the counter. “Maybe we should-“
Danielle is stirring the batter with a wooden spoon, making sure there aren’t any clumps of baking mix left.
“No way!” she exclaims, reaching around with her free hand and slamming the cookbook shut. “I’m hungry now. Besides, these pancakes are going to be delicious! Stir this for me, okay Camille?”
Leaving the bowl with her younger cousin, she crosses the kitchen and yanks open the pantry door. There’s two bottles of ketchup, enough canned corn to feed all of SHS, a box of popcorn, and-bingo! She bends down to retrieve a small jar from the bottom shelf, waving it above her head victoriously.
“Marshmallow fluff!” she proclaims, grinning. She gives Greg a smug look. “This will make the pancakes fluffy! None of that waiting twenty minutes nonsense.”
Drew had been sitting at the kitchen table, reading a comic book, but he looks up and rolls his eyes at Danielle’s comment.
“Marshmallow fluff? Sure it has ‘fluff’ in the title, but it’s all sticky. It’ll probably just make them stiff. Danielle, maybe you should just-“
“And cocoa powder!” she shouts in glee. “I bet cocoa powder would be great in pancakes. And peanut butter.” She grabs another item. “Chocolate and peanut butter are amazing together. Don’t you think so, Camille?”
Drew mutters something about how he’s not responsible if they burn down the house, again, which really isn’t fair because last time it had absolutely nothing to do with Danielle’s (lack of) cooking skills. It’s not her fault if her thirteen-year-old brother is incapable of taking anything out of the oven. He’d caught an oven mitt on fire and then lamely stated, “Uh, Danielle, it’s on fire…” while holding the mitt at arm’s distance with a panicked look in his eyes, clearly at a loss as to what he should do. Danielle was too busy doubling over with laughter to help so Drew had gotten the honor. It’s turned into a favorite family story.
“I agree with Danielle,” Camille is saying. She sticks a finger in the batter, tastes it, and makes a face. “It definitely needs something, and chocolate and peanut butter are amazing.”
She puts the bowl on the counter and skips over to Danielle.
“We have chocolate chips too!” Camille offers, reaching into the pantry and pulling them out. “And butterscotch chips. Which do you want?”
“How about both?” Danielle grins down at her. “These are going to be the best pancakes ever.”
“… if it doesn’t result in half the house being burnt down,” Drew flips a page in his book.
“Oh shut up, Drew,” Camille says good-naturedly as she follows Danielle back over to the counter. “Our pancakes are totally better than your stupid Spiderman comics.”
“Hey,” Drew protests. “Spiderman is-“
“Boring? Overrated?” Camille fires off with a saucy grin at her older brother. “Lame? All you care about?”
“Far less interesting than my pancakes?” Danielle joins in.
She rips open the chocolate chips and pours in about a fourth of the bag, then does the same thing with the butterscotch chips. Then she adds a couple spoonfuls of cocoa powder, peanut butter, and marshmallow fluff.
“Do you have food coloring?” she asks Camille, stirring her latest concoction. “We could make them red. Or maybe green? You know, festive holiday cheer and whatever.”
“Like green eggs and ham!” Camille laughs. Then her expression changes to a more serious one and she starts reciting. “Do you like green eggs and ham? I do not like them, Sam-I-am. I do not like green eggs and ham-“
“Would you like them here or there?” Danielle contributes, adding a couple drops of green food coloring to her mixture.
“I would not like them here or there,” Camille shakes her head at Danielle. She stomps her foot. “I would not like them anywhere! I do not like green eggs and ham. I do not like them, Sam-I-am.”
“Would you like them in a house? Would you like them with a mouse?”
“I do not like them in a house!” Camille exclaims, scowling, playing up even this minor role. “I do not like them with a mouse. I do not like them here or there. I do not like them anywhere. I do not like green eggs and ham. I do not like them, Sam-I-am!”
“Would you eat them in a box? Would you eat them with a fox?”
Finally, Drew can’t take it anymore.
“Will you guys shut up?!” he snaps, closing his book, just as Camille is getting so into the role that it looks like she’s contemplating murder. “I’m trying to read. It’s not even nine o’clock yet-“
“Exactly,” Danielle grins, turning around to blow a kiss to Drew. “You shouldn’t be reading this early!”
“Drew’s always reading this early,” Brendan points out, scrolling into the kitchen. He’s wearing red plaid pajamas bottoms and looks like he’s still half asleep. Camille and Danielle had woken him up reciting Dr. Seuss for god knows what reason. “What are you guys doing, anyway? Whatever it is, I’m pretty sure the neighbors can hear you.”
“The Thomas-Brewers?” Drew snorts, referring to the family that lives across the street. He’s a little relieved his older brother has finally come downstairs. “Karen lives there. I doubt they can hear anything over her big mouth.”
“I don’t know,” Greg speaks up. He’s always been the quieter one of the group, content to sit back and observe for the most part. “Danielle’s pretty loud. Maybe louder than Karen.”
“Aww, thanks!” Danielle grins brightly, reaching up to ruffle her little brother’s hair. “It’s an honor just to be nominated.”
Then, turning to Brendan-
“I’m making green chocolate peanut butter butterscotch chocolate chip marshmallow fluff pancakes,” she manages to say it all in one long string, without really having to pause to thank about it, which she thinks is very impressive. She should win some type of award.
Brendan, however, stares at her like she’s just told him that she wants a pet peacock for Christmas. Which wouldn’t be a bad idea, really. In addition to companionship, a pet peacock would be a great decorative item for her bedroom. Plus she’s never heard of anyone else having a pet peacock. (Not even Amanda Delaney, and Amanda Delaney has everything.) She and Greg used to go to a park where peacocks roamed around freely, though, and he was terrified of them-so a peacock is probably out. Sad.
“… Green chocolate?” Brendan blinks, sitting down at the table next to Greg. He head desks. “Ugh. I need coffee.”
“I don’t know what scares me most,” Drew groans. “The fact that Danielle just said ‘chocolate’ twice or-everything, really.”
“Shut up, guys,” Danielle says lazily, dropping a spoonful of pancake batter on the griddle. “My green pancakes are going to be fabulous. Almost as fabulous as me, even, which-as you know-is pretty fuckin’ fabulous.”
She swipes some batter off the side of the bowl and sticks it in her mouth.
“Does that have raw egg in it?” Brendan frowns, overseeing it. “You know you could get salmonella.”
God, sometimes it’s annoying how overprotective Brendan is. He’s a year older than Danielle, after all.
She rolls her eyes and turns around to face him. By this point, she’s somehow managed to get pancake batter on her nose.
“Salmonella is the least of my worries.” She tells her cousin levelly.
She’d meant for it to come out as a joke, but when she says it out-loud her voice cracks and her stomach drops and for several long seconds she just stands there frozen, feeling awkward for hinting at what her family has been trying so desperately to avoid since she’d been released from Stoneybrook General for the holidays. Danielle is nothing if not stubborn, though, so she isn’t going to apologize.
“Danielle, are you okay-?” Brendan is standing up now, too concerned to look upset, as if he thinks his cousin is about to fall over and he’s preparing to catch her.
She swallows-her throat is dry and she’s shaking, and-no. This isn’t going to happen here.
Forcing herself to put on her best carefree smile, she takes a deep breath and finishes her thought. She feels guilty about it before the words even leave her mouth, wishes she could just take back ever opening this can of worms in the first place, but now it’s like word vomit and she has to say the rest.
“It would be funny, wouldn’t it?” she asks, her voice hollow. She chuckles at her own joke. “If after all these years of treatment for leukemia, I died of salmonella. Don’t you think so?”
Greg is suddenly very interested in the kitchen tiles. Drew is staring at the tabletop, at the microwave, anywhere but at Danielle. Camille’s face has gone pale, missing the huge grin she’d been wearing while reciting Dr. Seuss, and she actually looks like she might start bursting into tears.
Brendan, though-Brendan is what really sets Camille off. He doesn’t look concerned anymore, or sad, or half-asleep. He looks pissed.
Danielle knows her older cousin well enough to know that he won’t go off in the kitchen-not about this, anyway-in front of her brother and his younger siblings. Maybe it’s why she’s brave enough-stupid enough-to meet him dead in the eyes and raise an eyebrow in challenge, daring him to disagree.
She feels horrible-especially because she’s upset Camille-but humor is her go-to way of dealing with life, her number one defense mechanism, and even though she knows she’s gone too far she can’t bring herself to apologize for it.
“Finish the pancakes for me?” she asks Camille softly, turning away from Brendan to place the spatula into her youngest cousin’s hand. Not waiting for an answer, she swiftly leaves the room, breaking into sobs and breathing so hard it hurts the further away she gets from her family.
The door to Danielle’s guest room slams and locks.
The spatula falls to the ground with a clatter.
******
Danielle had begged her parents not to tell anyone until after Christmas.
She didn’t want to make everything about her. Sometimes she feels guilty for having leukemia. Greg is a good brother. He stays with her at the hospital for hours, plays Monopoly or makes up elaborate stories for all of the nurses and orderlies with her.
After chemo treatments, when she feels so awful that even rolling over is too much effort, he sits next to her bed and tells her funny stories about what his friends said during lunch. When she’s out of the hospital, he basically gives up his social life and spends his time with her, playing Donkey Kong on Nintendo or marathoning old episode of Cassandra Clue she’d had Charlotte record on VHS and still hasn’t gotten around to watching, or cooking her dinner when her parents have to work and she doesn’t feel well.
She doesn’t feel like Greg’s older sister. Older sisters are supposed to take care of their younger siblings; and he’s the one taking care of her. He tells her he doesn’t mind; and maybe he doesn’t, sometimes. Other times he’s snappy and moody, but still too loyal to just leave her and go off to his friends, and she can see in his eyes how much he resents her.
*****
Greg comes to check on her ten minutes later, knocks timidly on her door like he’s afraid she’ll make it disappear with heat ray vision and chuck something at his head.
“Go away!” she calls, voice still thick and muffled as she yells into her pillow, lying stomach-down on her bed.
Greg isn’t the type to keep pestering when he’s not wanted. His footsteps fade as he goes down the hall and walks down the steps.
*****
The thing is, Danielle likes to claim she isn’t scared of dying. She is, however, scared of leaving her family behind.
Her parents have been ripping each other’s throats out for years and she can’t help but think that if it wasn’t for this mess, they would have gotten divorced years ago. Greg has always been there for her, but he’s never really gotten along with their parents, seems to have more bad moments than good moments when they’re around. Her cousins are pretty much her siblings too.
She feels lucky. There was a time when her biggest goal in life was to live long enough to graduate elementary school. She’s sixteen now, halfway through her sophomore year of high school. Her nine-year-old self had never even dreamed that she’d live long enough to graduate middle school, have her first kiss, go to Homecoming, and even get a driver’s permit. Somehow she’s managed all of these, though, and she feels incredibly blessed, like she can conquer the world.
At the same time, though-the constant chemotherapy, radiology, and surgery is exhausting. Her body is slowly giving up on her. It’s horrible to admit, even to herself, but a part of her had been relieved a couple weeks ago when the doctors had told her parents that she’s no longer responding to the chemo. That there’s nothing else they can do.
“There’s a clinical trial going on at Mayo,” the doctor had said. “I can try to get her into that, but with the level of progression…”
Danielle had stopped paying attention after that, sinking into her pillows and closing her eyes. Sometimes the thought of all of this being over-in any form-is a welcome one.
Then she thinks of her family and she feels sick, panics.
*****
About thirty minutes after Drew leaves, Danielle calls Becca. One of the nice things about having an aunt and uncle who are loaded is that they actually have phones in every room. It’s a nice change from Danielle’s house, where the only phone is in the kitchen and it’s attached to a fucking cord.
Becca is the only person aside from Danielle’s parents who knows what’s going on. Danielle hadn’t meant to tell her, really-she didn’t want pity from her friends-but Becca has this way of sort of drawing out all your secrets.
“I’m scared,” Danielle admits into the receiver, her voice barely above a whisper.
Becca doesn’t tell Danielle that everything will be okay, or pressure her into talking about it, or ramble on about her family or dog to try to distract her like Danielle’s other friends do sometimes. This is what Danielle loves about Becca. People underestimate her because she’s so quiet, but Danielle thinks Becca might be the smartest person she’s ever met.
There are a few moments of silence, then-
“I know,” Becca says, just as softly, her voice laced with understanding.
It says we can talk about it if you want but I’m not going to ask you and I love you and I’m here.
Danielle doesn’t say anything and neither does Becca. They sit there in silence for several minutes, occasionally interrupted by Aunt Cecilia yelling at Squirt to stop running in the house, until Danielle starts to feel a little more like herself.
“I should go downstairs,” she sighs, standing up and checking her reflection in the mirror. Her eyes are still a little puffy, but maybe not too obvious. “Thanks. For… you know.”
*****
When Danielle goes downstairs, the pancakes she’d had in the griddle are burnt and the bowl of batter remains untouched. Camille, Greg, and Drew are nowhere in sight; but of course Brendan is waiting for her at the kitchen table, drinking a glass of orange juice and biting at his lower lip.
“I’m sorry,” Danielle says, sitting across from him at the table. “I didn’t mean to-go off like that. It’s so stupid, isn’t it? You brought up salmonella, probably just joking around, and I freaked out like some moron and snapped at you and then ran off upstairs.”
Brendan looks like he wants to say something, but Danielle quickly continues before he can get a word in.
“It’s even worse than that one time when I was seven and you were eight and you said it was your turn to play the Nintendo-it was your turn, by the way-so I threw Luke’s toy dinosaur at your head. I’ve reached an epic level of moronic. It’s just that it reminded me of something else and then I sort of-panicked? I still shouldn’t have been a jerk to you, even though you’re totally a jerk sometimes, but I just-“
“Danielle!” By this point, Brendan is actually laughing. He waves a hand in the air to stop her ramblings. “It’s okay. I get it. You’re allowed to get scared sometimes. I was pissed at first-stuff like that is hard to hear-but we can talk about things, you know? We don’t have to, but…”
“Now look who’s rambling,” Danielle interjects, giving a forced laugh.
She doesn’t remember the last time things between her and Brendan were awkward. Normally carrying on a conversation with him is the easiest thing in the world. He’s like an older brother, after all. He drives her to her doctor’s appointments in Stamford, and tells her when she’s being reckless and impulsive. They can talk for hours about how Danielle thinks there should be a Secret Society of Powdered Wig People or how awesome the Red Sox are or how they’re pretty sure Drew was actually created in a test tube or something because he’s way too smart for a high school freshman. They can laugh about Camille’s latest idea for breaking into Hollywood-a couple months ago, she went to the grocery with her mom, dressed as a princess with a tiara and elbow-high white gloves and everything-or call each other on their bullshit or argue about whether Jeff Schafer is awesome or over the top. (“Awesomely over the top?” Danielle suggests with a wicked grin.)
But now Brendan is giving Danielle the perfect opportunity to come clean about everything, and she doesn’t know if she wants to. If she tells him she’s stopped responding to chemotherapy, he’ll just worry about it for the rest of Christmas break. If she doesn’t-
“So how about those pancakes, then?” Brendan asks, in the same tone some people would use to say how about those Mets? Maybe he gets the hint that Danielle doesn’t want to talk about it-whatever it is. “Double chocolate butterscotch, you say?”
Danielle is a bit taken off-guard by how quickly Brendan had dropped the subject, but he’s always known her well.
“… I don’t even know,” she admits, still distracted. She offers him a timid grin, though. “Sounds about right. Something else too. Marshmallow fluff? … What was I even thinking?”
She knows what she’d been thinking. She’s been going overboard trying to distract herself for the past couple weeks, acting even more insane than usual. Yesterday she’d spent the entire afternoon prank calling people in Japan and demanding Mexican food. Then she’d gone around the neighborhood asking people to donate to the Secret Society of Powdered Wig People.
“I don’t know,” Brendan smiles at her, clears away the burnt pancakes and drops some more batter onto the griddle. “But I’d say it’s been well over twenty minutes. Maybe you’ll get your fluffy pancakes after all.”
“… Or not,” Danielle raises an eyebrow, watching as the pancake batter sits on the griddle like play-dough.
“Or not,” Brendan agrees, snorting, with a nod. “New batch, then? One more pre-Christmas pancake rundown before my parents get home and kick us out of the kitchen?”
“Sure,” Danielle smiles back, the smile not quite reaching her eyes, this time pulling out the red food coloring and a bottle of nutmeg. “One last Christmas.”