The Courage Tree - Diane Chamberlain [133]
“And there will be other kids here then, right?” Lucas asked the nurse…as if he didn’t know.
“That’s right. There will be six other children here tomorrow. So you’ll all be able to talk and laugh together, and we can play some cartoons on that screen over there.”
The camera followed Sophie’s gaze to the large screen TV in the corner of the room, but the sight of it did nothing to alter her suspicious expression.
“Why don’t you pick out the chair you’d like to sit in tomorrow?” Gina suggested. “We’ll reserve it for you, then, and it can be your chair when you come every time.”
“How many times?” Sophie asked.
“Every Monday and Thursday,” Janine said. “Twice a week.”
“I don’t want to come here that much,” Sophie said. She was still holding Janine’s hand, clinging to her. “Please, Mom,” she begged.
“Sophie.” Lucas sat down on one of the recliners so that he was at her height. “They have something here called Herbalina,” he said, “and your mom and the doctor who works here think that it can help you feel much, much better. You wouldn’t need to have your dialysis nearly as much. You could probably go to school again, right?” Lucas looked at the nurse for confirmation, and Joe thought about how ludicrous that was. But Lucas was doing a good job of playing ignorant for the sake of the ruse.
“Yes, he’s right, Sophie,” Gina said. “We think Herbalina’s going to change your life. Now, which chair would you like?”
Sophie looked from chair to chair, then pointed to the one next to where Lucas was sitting.
“Hop on up,” Gina said, and Sophie reluctantly let go of Janine’s hand to climb into the huge chair. She looked so fragile, so heartbreakingly small and vulnerable in that big chair, that Joe had to pause the tape for a minute to bring his emotions under control.
“Now you will be able to either sit up like that or recline a bit, whichever makes you most comfortable,” Gina said, once Joe started the tape again. “Then I’ll put a little needle into the vein in your arm and—”
“No!” Sophie hugged her arm against her body.
“You’ve had needles like that before, honey,” Janine said. “You know they’re not that bad.”
“No,” Sophie repeated. “No more needles.”
“Herbalina is a liquid,” Gina said. “It looks like water. It comes in a plastic bag. In order to get it from the bag into your body, we need to put it through a tube and get it into your vein with a needle. It will only hurt for the tiniest of seconds.”
“Mommy…” Sophie reached for Janine, the helpless look on her face tearing at Joe’s heart. He felt for Janine, as well, knowing how much it hurt her to put Sophie through yet another form of torture. It must have been especially hard with Herbalina, when she was facing such an unknown treatment and outcome—plus the wrath of her parents and ex-husband.
“Sophie,” Lucas said, “I have something for you.”
Sophie turned to him. There was unabashed trust in her eyes, and Joe knew that Janine was not the only Donohue female to have fallen in love with the gardener.
Lucas reached into the grocery bag he was carrying and pulled out some sort of plant. He rested it on Sophie’s lap, and Joe leaned closer to the TV to try to get a better look at the green-and-peach-colored blossom. It looked like the seed pod from a tulip poplar, but he couldn’t be sure.
“What is it?” Sophie asked.
“This is a flower from the courage tree,” Lucas said, with some reverence in his voice. “It’s very special and very magical.”
“What kind of magic?”
“Well, if you put a flower from the courage tree beneath your pillow when you go to sleep at night, you wake up feeling brave in the morning.”
Joe waited for Sophie to scoff at Lucas’s claim. She was too smart for that, he thought. A born skeptic. She’d questioned the existence of Santa Claus at the age of four, and never bought into the tooth fairy.
But Sophie stroked the peach-and-green seed pod with her fingertips. “Does it really work?” she asked.
“It always works for me,” Lucas said. “Works like a charm,