Page 35 of Look on the Bright Side

Lark didn’t tell her family—even Addie—about Justin Dean walking her to the nurse. It was a secret glow in her chest, but she went over the memory of his hand on her arm, the way he held the door for her just like Daddy held the door for Mommy, the pat on her shoulder, the assurance that she would feel better. She had believed him.

When she went to school two days later, there was a card in her locker. Flowers and a smiling sun drawn in crayon. She unfolded the paper and read the card. I hope you fell beter. Ervyone feels sick somtimes. From Justin.

When she lifted her head, he was looking at her, and she smiled. He smiled back, and there was that glow in her chest again. She hoped that if he got sick or hurt, she could walk him to the nurse and be just as nice to him as he’d been to her.

Justin had no siblings, which Lark found fascinating and exotic. She asked her mother if he could come play at their house, and he did. He was nice to Addie even though she was bossy. He played peekaboo with Robbie and made him smile, asked Winnie what her favorite color was and blushed when Harlow told him he had nice manners. Over Christmas break, his mother called her mother and asked if Lark would like to see the latest Pixar movie with them. Lark had never seen a movie without Addie and her parents present, and it was strange and thrilling to sit in the dark, sharing popcorn with someone not related to her.

In first grade, they weren’t in the same class, but they talked at recess and lunch, Addie allowing him to sit at her table (at the end, but next to Lark). In second grade, they both had Ms.Murray, who had long red hair and was the nicest and funnest teacher in school. Addie and Jordyn were in Mrs.Harrington’s class, so when it was time to pick a partner, she and Justin always picked each other.

In third grade, when the school had a talent show and she played Bach’s Prelude in C Major, Justin wrote her a note saying he couldn’t believe how good she was and that he bet she’d be famous someday.

In fourth grade, when Addison started sitting with Kaylee Doane on the school bus, Justin saved a place for her, and they’d talk quietly, shoulders bumping, sometimes sharing a snack. In fifth grade, they were buddies on the field trip to the New England Aquarium in Boston. As they stood in front of the coral reef tank in its mysterious blue glow, their eyes met for a long moment, and something passed between them, a kind of shared wonder, not just at the teeming life inside the tank, but at the feelings between them.

In sixth grade, Justin stopped coming to school.

One cold February day, he was absent. And the day after that, and the day after that, and then Monday and Tuesday and Wednesday. Every day that week when Lark got on the bus, his spot was empty. She sat on the aisle, as if he was there. If his family had taken a vacation, he would have told her, because they talked about everything. Mr.Dean’s car was gone from their driveway, and Lark felt a hollow ache. Something was wrong. She knew it. No one in their class seemed to know where he was.

On the seventh day of Justin’s absence, she asked Mr.Michalski, the science teacher, if he knew why Justin was out. His eyes were kind…and sad. “I’m afraid I can’t tell you that, Lark,” he said. “But maybe one of your parents can call Mr.or Mrs.Dean.”

She told Harlow she’d be getting off the school bus at the gallery and would walk home later. Harlow said okay—she knew Lark was worried, and also that she was responsible enough to walk home alone. She was twelve, after all. The second Lark ran into Long Pond Arts, she said, “Mommy, you have to call Mrs.Dean. Something’s wrong.”

Mom did call. “Hello, Heather!” she said in her chipper phone voice. “It’s Elsbeth Smith. How are you?” There was a pause. A long pause. Then Mom’s face changed, the smile sliding off like ice cream melting in the sun. She looked at Lark, then took the phone into the office and shut the door, leaving Lark alone with her mother’s paintings and the sharp smell of oil paint.

When she came out, Lark could see tears in her mother’s eyes. “I’m sorry to tell you this, honey, but Justin has leukemia. He’s at the hospital in Boston, and his parents are with him.”

Her insides clenched like a fist. Lark often curled up with one of her father’s medical books, since she liked science and thought she’d be a doctor someday, probably the kind that delivered babies so she could help her sisters when the day came. She knew what leukemia was. It was bad. “Will he be okay?” she whispered.

“Yes,” Mom said firmly. “It’s the kind with a really good cure rate. ALL, I think. And Dana-Farber is probably the best place in the entire world for someone with leukemia to be.” She smoothed Lark’s hair back, since her hair was slippery and always fell out of braids. “Maybe you could write to him. I bet that would cheer him up.”

Instead, Lark ran home, asked Winnie to get off the computer and googled ALL leukemia, 12 years old. Mom was right; it was the “good” leukemia to get, with a 90 percent survival rate. Justin had had a nosebleed in January. At the class holiday party, he’d fallen asleep at his desk, and she’d gently shaken his shoulder to wake him up.

She wrote to him without even taking off her coat. A seven-page handwritten letter telling him how much she missed him; what was going on at school; how her little brother, Robbie, had stolen her favorite pen, so she’d gone out and bought him three of the same type, so he wouldn’t have to steal anymore. She told him how much she’d loved babysitting little Isolde from down the street, and even though she was only twelve, Mrs.Schultz had asked if she’d come again. How was Boston? Did he have a nice room? Was he bored? Could she visit? She’d bring him brownies, the kind they shared at lunch sometimes. Then she went outside to the sunny side of the house, where the snowdrops had just peeked up. She picked one, pressed it between the pages of a fat medical book, and slipped it into the envelope.

After he got that letter, he emailed her. He was okay, sometimes pretty sick, but okay. He missed school and being home. She rode her bike to his house and took a picture with Harlow’s phone, then to Marconi Beach, even though it was so windy, and took more pictures there. When she got home, Harlow showed her how to send the photos.

After that, they emailed every day. She continued to handwrite him letters so he’d get something when the volunteer came with the mail cart. They talked on the phone a couple of times a week, when he wasn’t too tired or sick. He told her about the bone marrow biopsy and how much it had hurt, the spinal tap, the vomiting from his chemo, and she tried to hide the shakiness in her voice so he wouldn’t know she was crying.

“I wish I could visit you,” she said, three weeks after she’d sent the first letter.

“Me too,” he said. “But I can’t see anyone right now, except my parents. The chemo basically erased my immune system.” He paused. “You could send me a picture, though. You know. Of yourself.”

Addie chose which outfits Lark should wear, braided her hair, told her to smile and took a dozen pictures of her. Lark sent two, as well as other small gifts—shells from the beach, a sprig of pitch pine for him to smell, a bag of sand. She read about chemotherapy, stem cells and side effects, and peppered her father with questions.

When Justin’s parents brought him home three months after he’d first left, she visited him with the promised brownies and cried with relief at the sight of him, and he’d reached out and held her hand. He was taller, and thinner, and bald, the lack of eyelashes and brows making him look like a baby bird.

“I missed you, Lark,” he said, and his smile was the same, so sweet, a little dimple just below the left corner. “Come visit again, okay?”

She did, every day, except for the week she’d had the sniffles and was afraid she’d give him something. For the rest of the school year and into the summer, she became a fixture at the Deans’ house. Sometimes, Justin would be asleep, so she’d sit at the kitchen table, drinking tea with Mrs.Dean, or helping her make dinner. Her own parents were proud of her for being such a good friend and keeping up her grades.

The truth was, Lark loved it at the Deans’. The big, elegant house; the quiet; the ability to talk without interruption from her sisters or brother; the way Mrs.Dean asked her questions and looked at her as she answered, really listening.

It was different (Lark couldn’t bring herself to say better) from the happy chaos of her own home, where Robbie was always torturing Winnie, and Addie was practicing makeup and hair, and Harlow was always trying to organize them to do their chores or homework, and Mom and Dad were scattered and busy and always coming and going. That was home, but this…this was wonderful, too.

“I can’t tell you how much it meant to him, your letters, all the little gifts you sent,” Mrs.Dean said. “If he didn’t have a crush on you before, he sure does now.”

Lark felt her face grow pink. “He’s always been the nicest boy in school.”

“And you’re the nicest girl, Lark. You’re a jewel.”

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