Chapter 34: Chapter 34
Aly lay on her bed reading “To all the boys I’ve ever loved by Jenny Hann”. She seemed so engrossed in the book as she read on;
“JOSH IS MARGOT’S BOYFRIEND, BUT I guess you could say my whole family is a little in love with him. It’s hard to say who most of all. Before he was Margot’s boyfriend, he was just Josh. He was always there. I say always, but I guess that’s not true. He moved next door five years ago but it feels like always.
My dad loves Josh because he’s a boy and my dad is surrounded by girls. I mean it: all day long he is surrounded by females. My dad is an ob-gyn, and he also happens to be the father of three daughters, so it’s like girls, girls, girls all day. He also likes Josh because Josh likes comics and he’ll go fishing with him. My dad tried to take us fishing once, and I cried when my shoes got mud on them, and Margot cried when her book got wet, and Kitty cried because Kitty was still practically a baby.
Kitty loves Josh because he’ll play cards with her and not get bored. Or at least pretend to not get bored. They make deals with each other—if I win this next hand, you have to make me a toasted crunchy-peanut-butter-sandwich, no crusts. That’s Kitty. Inevitably there won’t be crunchy peanut butter and Josh will say too bad, pick something else. But then Kitty will wear him down and he’ll run out and buy some, because that’s Josh.
If I had to say why Margot loves him, I think maybe I would say it’s because we all do.
We are in the living room, Kitty is pasting pictures of dogs to a giant piece of cardboard. There’s paper and scraps all around her. Humming to herself, she says, “When Daddy asks me what I want for Christmas, I am just going to say, ‘Pick any one of these breeds and we’ll be good.’ ”
Margot and Josh are on the couch; I’m lying on the floor, watching TV. Josh popped a big bowl of popcorn, and I devote myself to it, handfuls and handfuls of it.
A commercial comes on for perfume: a girl is running around the streets of Paris in an orchid-colored halter dress that is thin as tissue paper. What I wouldn’t give to be that girl in that tissue-paper dress running around Paris in springtime! I sit up so suddenly I choke on a kernel of popcorn. Between coughs I say, “Margot, let’s meet in Paris for my spring break!” I’m already picturing myself twirling with a pistachio macaron in one hand and a raspberry one in the other.
Margot’s eyes light up. “Do you think Daddy will let you?”
“Sure, it’s culture. He’ll have to let me.” But it’s true that I’ve never flown by myself before. And also I’ve never even left the country before. Would Margot meet me at the airport, or would I have to find my own way to the hostel?
Josh must see the sudden worry on my face because he says, “Don’t worry. Your dad will definitely let you go if I’m with you.”
I brighten. “Yeah! We can stay at hostels and just eat pastries and cheese for all our meals.”
“We can go to Jim Morrison’s grave!” Josh throws in.
“We can go to a parfumerie and get our personal scents done!” I cheer, and Josh snorts.
“Um, I’m pretty sure ‘getting our scents done’ at a parfumerie would cost the same as a week’s stay at the hostel,” he says. He nudges Margot. “Your sister suffers from delusions of grandeur.”
“She is the fanciest of the three of us,” Margot agrees.
“What about me?” Kitty whimpers.
“You?” I scoff. “You’re the least fancy Song girl. I have to beg you to wash your feet at night, much less take a shower.”
Kitty’s face gets pinched and red. “I wasn’t talking about that, you dodo bird. I was talking about Paris.”
Airily, I wave her off. “You’re too little to stay at a hostel.”
She crawls over to Margot and climbs in her lap, even though she’s nine and nine is too big to sit in people’s laps. “Margot, you’ll let me go, won’t you?”
“Maybe it could be a family vacation,” Margot says, kissing her cheek. “You and Lara Jean and Daddy could all come.”
I frown. That’s not at all the Paris trip I was imagining. Over Kitty’s head Josh mouths to me, We’ll talk later, and I give him a discreet thumbs-up.
It’s later that night; Josh is long gone. Kitty and our dad are asleep. We are in the kitchen. Margot is at the table on her computer; I am sitting next to her, rolling cookie dough into balls and dropping them in cinnamon and sugar. Snickerdoodles to get back in Kitty’s good graces. Earlier, when I went in to say good night, Kitty rolled over and wouldn’t speak to me because she’s still convinced I’m going to try to cut her out of the Paris trip. My plan is to put the snickerdoodles on a plate right next to her pillow so she wakes up to the smell of fresh-baked cookies.
Margot’s being extra quiet, and then, out of nowhere, she looks up from her computer and says, “I broke up with Josh tonight. After dinner.”
My cookie-dough ball falls out of my fingers and into the sugar bowl.
“I mean, it was time,” she says. Her eyes aren’t red-rimmed; she hasn’t been crying, I don’t think. Her voice is calm and even. Anyone looking at her would think she was fine.
Because Margot is always fine, even when she’s not.
“I don’t see why you had to break up,” I say. “Just ’cause you’re going to college doesn’t mean you have to break up.”
“Lara Jean, I’m going to Scotland, not UVA. Saint Andrews is nearly four thousand miles away.” She pushes up her glasses. “What would be the point?”
I can’t even believe she would say that. “The point is, it’s Josh. Josh who loves you more than any boy has ever loved a girl!”
Margot rolls her eyes at this. She thinks I’m being dramatic, but I’m not. It’s true— that’s how much Josh loves Margot. He would never so much as look at another girl.
Suddenly she says, “Do you know what Mommy told me once?”
“What?” For a moment I forget all about Josh. Because no matter what I am doing in life, if Margot and I are in the middle of an argument, if I am about to get hit by a car, I will always stop and listen to a story about Mommy. Any detail, any remembrance that Margot has, I want to have it too. I’m better off than Kitty, though. Kitty doesn’t have one memory of Mommy that we haven’t given her. We’ve told her so many stories so many times that they’re hers now. “Remember that time . . . ,” she’ll say. And then she’ll tell the story like she was there and not just a little baby.
“She told me to try not to go to college with a boyfriend. She said she didn’t want me to be the girl crying on the phone with her boyfriend and saying no to things instead of yes.”
Scotland is Margot’s yes, I guess. Absently, I scoop up a mound of cookie dough and pop it in my mouth.
“You shouldn’t eat raw cookie dough,” Margot says.
Aly slammed the book shut after bookmarking the 1st chapter. She had heard her mom cry for help from their room.
What was going on? She asked herself rushing to her parents room.
“Mom, is everything alright?” She panicked seeing her dad on the floor.
“Call the ambulance Aly, and please hurry.” Courtney sobbed holding her husband.
In a few minutes later, the ambulance arrived and took Jayden on a stretcher.
Aly knew she had to stay back and watch her younger siblings as her mom went along with her unconscious dad.
She took her siblings to her room and turned her laptop on for them to watch cartoons. She tried to continue with her book but her mind drifted far away, wondering what was happening to her father.
“But Jay never had cancer, what was happening? How come he suddenly began growing cancer cells?” Narcia asked Anya who was Jay's personal doctor.
“He did have cancer cells, they were in hiding and it’s now that they’ve made themselves visible and they are eating him up fast.” She told.
Jayden had been sick for a couple of weeks now and it was two weeks ago that they found out he had Liver and intrahepatic bile duct cancer. It begins elsewhere and then spreads to the liver. A closely related cancer is intrahepatic bile duct cancer, which occurs in the duct that carries bile from the liver to the small intestine.
“Even though he’s on drugs, we pray he makes it through to remission.” Anya advised.
“What’s remission?” Courtney asked.
“Remission means that the signs and symptoms of your cancer are reduced. Remission can be partial or complete. In a complete remission, all signs and symptoms of cancer have disappeared.” Narcia explained.
“In his case do you think he can make it through?” Courtney's voice broke.
“I'm not sure about it, because his kind of cancer is deadly, let us keep on praying, maybe a miracle may happen.” Anya assured.
Narcia sat in her chair quiet. Jay was everything she had all these years. He had been there for her when she was facing a hard time. It broke her to see her once vibrant brother laying on a hospital bed battling for his life.
How cruel can life be? She pondered to herself.
Courtney walked into her husband’s room and sat beside him. He was connected to different tubes at the same time as he slept. She took his hands in hers sobbing silently to herself.
He had been her rock and shield. Been there for her when everything seemed wrong and now he was battling for his life.
A few years down the lane, Jayden Daniels had been laid to rest by his family and friends. He fought a good fight trying to battle cancer, but eventually he gave up.
“Forever in our hearts.” Aly sobbed as she dropped flowers unto his grave as they lowered him into the ground. Courtney stood watching the funeral processions. She felt numb. No feelings whatsoever.
Narcia stood by her sister in law, feeling the same way she felt. She didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. She was now an orphan, even though she had married her family had been wiped off. She was the only true Daniel apart from Courtney and her kids. She never envisioned a day where Jay would be no more. A day where he won’t be there to wipe her tears or bring her hot cocoa to help with her nightmares.
“Love is patient, caring. Love is Kind. Love is felt most when
It's genuine.
For Love Is Patient
And Love Is Kind
Love Is Not Jealous
Love Is Easily Provoked
Love Is Not Proud
It’s Not Unbecoming,
Love Does Not Boast
And Love Does Not Seek His Own” The priest announced as he was finally lowered into the ground.
“Until we meet again” Green murmured to himself.
Xavier, Myra, Britt, Chloe , Claudia and Zhavia we’re happily married and had started with their own family. Dora was locked up in jail and given a life imprisonment sentence. Britt reconciled with her biological mom before Fidel proposed marriage.
Love is a mystery on it’s own, just as the title says, That thing Called Love.