A/N: I'm back! No, my other stories aren't abandoned, for those of you who care. They'll be back soonish, I hope. For now, this is my latest inspiration. The grammar errors are on purpose, just so you know.
Disclaimer: Not mine. I cry about that…
She was born on a sunny, warm April afternoon. Your daughter; 7 pounds, 8 ounces of perfection. She had dark hair and your blue, blue eyes. When your wife handed her to you, you checked her toes, fingers, organs before determining that she was perfect and handing her back to your wife. Your wife.
Now, that's a tale. Who would ever expect you to get married? Especially to her. She was nearly 20 years younger than you, she was once your employee, and now she's your wife and the mother of your perfect daughter.
Lindsay. You named her after your wife's favorite cousin. A cousin who died in Iraq. Lindsay Cameron House. You chose the middle name.
When you brought them home, your wife went to sleep while you brought Lindsay to her nursery. You sat with her in the growing dark, on a rocking chair, holding her little body while you promised her the world. While you promised her that you'd be better than your father. You promised her piano lessons, dance lessons. You promised to change the world if you had to. You made a promise to try to give up the Vicodin…at least a bit. Maybe not entirely, but some.
When you looked down, you saw her looking up at you, with all the trust in the world, and for a moment, you felt unnerving fear. She smiled, and the doctor in you told you that she couldn't smile, not yet. But the father in you smiled back, and when she yawned, you laid her gently in her crib.
You went to sleep that night and dreamed of your daughter. You dreamed of a perfect little girl, with curly brown hair and blue, blue eyes. You saw her in a tutu, sitting at your piano. You saw her going to school, going to prom, graduating. You saw a beautiful, grown-up Lindsay in a wedding dress. You did not wake up with tears in your eyes, no matter what your wife said.
Lindsay grew fast. Before long, she was walking, her chubby hand on the sofa for support. You smiled at her, and she reached up for you. You picked her up and set her on your good leg and tickled her, delighting in her giggles.
When she was two, she went potty on the toilet, and your wife screamed in delight. She was amazing, your wife told you. Two years old and already semi-potty trained. You smiled at Lindsay and told her what a big girl she was.
When Allison was bathing her one night, while you sat on the toilet, you noticed something was wrong. She had a few bruises on her shins. You brushed it off. She was only 2 ½. Over the next few days, you began noticing that the bruises were forming everywhere. When you spotted a petechia, you knew something was wrong. You brought her to Wilson the next day.
It took one look for you to know that it was serious, one look for you to call your wife. One blood test, one bone marrow aspiration to find out that your daughter had AML.
Acute Myeloid Leukemia.
Your perfect daughter had cancer. Your perfect daughter was dying.
That night, after Lindsay was asleep, after deciding that she would begin induction chemotherapy in a week, Allison let it out. She curled herself on the bed in a ball, sobbing against her knees. You wanted to reach out to her, comfort her, but your hand was gripping your cane so tightly that your knuckles were white, and if you had opened your mouth, sobs would have torn loose.
Later, when Allison was calm and you were both feigning sleep, she whispered out what both of you were thinking.
'what if she dies?' your heart fell as you tried to picture your life without your daughter. You couldn't.
'i can't…' you began, before your voice broke. Allison started crying again, softly at first, and then those terrible, gut-wrenching sobs. Wordlessly, you opened your arms and she crawled into them, and if she felt your tears, she didn't say anything.
