Disclaimer: Chapters 1-3.
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Chapter Ten
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"Pardon?" the woman said into the phone.
"This is Contessa Calloway...my mother is Sara Monroe." Tess said nervously into the phone. She stared out over the water of the lake as she waited for a response.
"Contessa? Little Contessa? Oh, hello, darling." Debbie said. Tess could tell that this woman was rich; her voice sounded prim and proper.
"Um...yeah..." Tess stuttered. She was nervous as hell.
"How old are you now, darling? Eleven, twelve?"
"I'm eighteen." Tess snapped. She figured that the woman could at least remember her age.
"Ah, really? Well, how is your mother?" Tess glared, even though she knew that Debbie couldn't see her. Her voice had no concern, no emotion in it whatsoever.
"She's dead, but if you hadn't been such a self-righteous bitch you would've known that!" Tess's voice was getting louder and louder with each word she spoke.
"That's just too bad." Debbie said. Her voice was now dripping with false sympathy. "And don't use that language with me, young lady. I am your grandmother."
"The hell you are! You been nothing to me for eighteen years! Absolutely nothing! You threw my mother out for not giving me up to you! You are scum!" Tess yelled into the phone before flipping it closed. She had no desire to talk to that bitch anymore. She sighed a frustrated sigh and ran a hand through her light brown hair, before climbing out of her tire swing. She slid her house shoes back onto her feet and hurried back into the house. She threw her phone down onto the kitchen table and retreated to her room, closing the door quietly. She moved to her bed in an angry huff, plopping down and wrapping her red comforter around her. She heard her dad stirring in the next room, but didn't make a move to go greet him downstairs in the kitchen, where she knew he would retreat to.
'I am so damn stupid sometimes!' Tess thought to herself. She had no idea why she had the impulse to call her grandparents...curiosity, she guessed. She lay in her bed for the better part of an hour before falling into an uneasy sleep.
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Debbie sighed and hung up her phone. She looked over at her husband, who was reading the paper.
"Who was that, dear?" Robert asked his wife in his gruff voice. Debbie looked at him, her thin, penciled on eyebrows raising slightly.
"It was Contessa, darling." she said, her voice barely above a whisper. "Our granddaughter. The first time we've heard from her in years!" Debbie raised a trembling hand to her dark red lips. Robert grunted and returned to reading the paper.
"Well, dear, why's she calling? She have a drug problem? Knocked up early, like her mama?" He asked from behind the paper. Debbie shook her head.
"I don't know why she was calling. She hung up on me." Debbie's voice was barely above a whisper now.
"Then why worry about it? It's obvious the girl wants nothing to do with us."
"I suppose you're right, darling. I believe I will try to contact her again sometime soon, though. We may actually get her...and we've wanted her for so long." Debbie muttered, shaking her head.
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Tess woke up with a pounding headache a few hours later. She opened her eyes, but everything was blurry. She felt horrible. Her entire body felt weak. She brought a hand up to her forehead, and it was very hot.
"Daddy!" she called out in the loudest voice she could muster, hoping her father would hear her. Soon enough, she heard her door opening.
"What's wrong, baby girl?" Mark asked, walking over to his daughter's bed. She looked pitiful. Her skin was pale, and her hair and pillow were drenched in sweat.
"I don't feel good, Daddy." Tess squeaked. She was feeling worse and worse by the minute. Mark reached a hand over and felt of her forehead.
"Tess, baby, you're burning up." Mark's voice was full of concern as he brushed his daughter's damp hair off of her forehead. She moaned pitifully, curling up into a little ball. Her light green eyes had a distant look in them.
"What's wrong with me?" Tess asked, her voice extremely soft.
"I don't know, baby, but we need to get you to the hospital." he replied, scooping Tess up into his arms. She hung in his arms limply, her head resting on his collar bone. He moved swiftly out of her room, down the stairs, and out of the house. He opened the back door to his Explorer and gently put Tess in, letting her lay down and take up the entire back seat. He then got into the front and sped off towards the hospital. They arrived about fifteen minutes later. Mark picked Tess back up and hurridly carried her inside.
"Someone, help her and help her now." Mark growled, approaching the front desk. The receptionist looked up at him, and, noticing his size and the look on his face, immediately rousing a doctor. Tess was limp in Mark's arms, and he could feel her skin burning through her thin pajama top. She whimpered and turned her head so that it was buried in his chest.
"That will be her doctor, right there." the receptionist said, pointing to the man that had just walked up behind them.
"Hello, I'm Dr. Williams." the man said. "What seems to be the problem?"
"I don't know. I was downstairs and I heard her call out for me, so I came up, and she was lying in bed, covered in sweat. She's burning up." Mark said. Tess could hear the anxiety in his voice.
"Follow me." Dr. Williams said. Tess closed her eyes as they moved down the hallway. She hated hospitals. Absolutely hated them. The smell, the suffering, the death. It all scared her. They entered a room and the doctor instructed Mark to lay her down on the bed.
"Tess, tell me how you feel." Dr. Williams said, coming over to her. He took her wrist in his hand, measuring her pulse.
"Like shit." Tess said bitterly. "I feel like I'm on fire. My vision is blurry. I'm queasy."
"We need to run some tests. I'm going to have a nurse come in and give you a shot, it should help bring down your fever. " Dr. Williams said before leaving the room. Mark pulled a seat next to the bed.
"Baby girl, how are you feeling?" Mark asked. He looked at her, concern filling his eyes. She blinked her light green eyes open and looked up at him.
"Not good at all." she said in a soft voice. She was beginning to get scared. Her entire body felt weak, and she was burning up. She felt sick to her stomach. The door to her room opened and a nurse walked in, a syringe in her hand.
"Roll over, dear. I need to administer this through your hip." she said in a high-pitched voice. Tess struggled, but finally got onto her side. The nurse pulled back the thin sheets that were covering her body, only to see that she was still in her pajamas. She clicked her tongue and pulled off her pajama bottoms and tank top, leaving her laying there in just her bra and panties. She began to shiver even though she was hot, and reached to pull the sheets back over her body.
"Wait until I give you your shot." the nurse said, pulling the covers back down. Tess glared at her.
"Then hurry it up." Tess snapped. The nurse rolled her eyes and clicked her tongue again, before sticking the needle in Tess's hip. Tess flinched but bit her lip, opting not to say anything else. After that, the nurse pulled her covers back up.
"The doctor will bring you a gown when he comes back in." she said, before leaving the room. Mark reached over and took one of Tess's small hands in his large ones. She sighed nervously, but still didn't say anything. Mark didn't say anything either, just sat there, trying to silently comfort her. Dr. Williams returned to the room a few minutes later.
"Feeling any better, Tess?" he asked, looking over her chart.
"I don't feel as hot." Tess replied. He nodded and wrote something on the chart.
"Good, the shot is doing it's job." Dr. Williams said in his strong voice. Tess nodded and looked to her father, who was now sitting with his elbows propped on his knees, face in hands, looking down.
"Mr. Calloway, we need to run some tests on your daughter." Dr. Williams said, repeating what he had already told them earlier. Mark nodded.
"What do you think is wrong with her?" Mark asked, looking up at the doctor.
"We're not sure, yet. Tess, have you been feeling sick recently?" Dr. Williams turned his gaze towards Tess.
"Well...about a week or two before I went on the road with my dad, I was kind of sick. Nothing big, though." Tess replied. "I had just been a little queasy and lightheaded, and I was sleeping a lot." the doctor nodded.
"Mr. Calloway," he started, looking back towards Mark. "Is there a history of cancer in your family?"
Tess froze when she heard the word 'cancer'. Cancer? She could have cancer? The very thing that had taken her mother from her mere months before? She squeezed her eyes shut, not wanting to look at anyone. Tears burned behind her eyelids.
"Um...on her...on her mother's side, yes." Mark answered in a quiet voice. "Tess's mom passed away from cancer just a few months ago, and her grandmother had it for years, but she's been in remission since Tess was born."
"Did both of the women have the same type of cancer?" Dr. Williams asked, not looking up. He was marking more things in Tess's chart.
"Yes." Mark replied.
"What type of cancer did they have?" his eyes finally glanced back up, meeting Mark's.
"Leukemia." Mark's heart was beginning to fill with fear.
"We need to test her for that. The good news, though, is that if she does have leukemia, that we've caught it early. We can beat this." Tess couldn't hold it any longer, and a choked sob came from her throat. Mark immediately stood up and moved to her bed. He sat on the edge of it, lifting up her small body and hugging her to him. She buried her face in his chest and cried, not being able to stop. Mark soothingliy rubbed her back, tugging her closer to him. He kissed the top of her head and just let her cry.
"Daddy, I can't die!" she wailed.
"Tess, don't talk like that." Mark said, hugging her even closer to him. He continued to rub her back. "You're not going anywhere, baby girl. You're going to be fine." he told her strongly. I've already lost one of my girls, no way in hell am I losing the other."
Tess sniffed and her tears stopped flowing, but she remained close to her father.
"Here," Dr. Williams said, handing Tess a hospital gown. "Put this on, then we'll take you to have some tests run. All we're going to have to do is draw some blood." Tess nodded and slipped the gown over her head. She reached behind her back to tie the strings, but stopped when she felt Mark's hands push hers back in front of her. He tied them for her, then helped her up. He wrapped a strong arm around her slim waist and they followed the doctor out of the room, down the hallway, and into another, smaller room.
"Have a seat," another nurse, who was already in the room, said to Tess. Tess nodded and walked over to the metal chair they had set up, and sat down. The nurse tied a strip of cloth around Tess's arm, right above the crook of her elbow. She then gave her a soft ball to squeeze, and inserted a needle into her vein. Tess sucked in a shallow breath and closed her eyes, squeezing the ball as blood was drawn from her arm. She sat like this until the nurse told her she was done and removed the needle from her arm. Tess bit her bottom lip as the nurse bandaged her arm. She then stood up and walked over to her father, who immediately wrapped his arms around her comfortingly. They returned to the room she was previously in. Dr. Williams came in about fifteen minutes later.
"Tess, we should have your results back tomorrow morning. I'd like to keep you here overnight, just to be safe." he told them. Tess nodded. "Mark, you're welcome to stay too, if you want to have an uncomfortable night of sleep."
"Of course I'm staying." Mark said.
"Alright. Try to get sleep, Tess." Dr. Williams said, before leaving the room.
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Author's Note: Uh oh! What's wrong with Tess? Is it cancer, or is it something else? I'll have chapter eleven out as soon as I can. :)
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Chapter Ten
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"Pardon?" the woman said into the phone.
"This is Contessa Calloway...my mother is Sara Monroe." Tess said nervously into the phone. She stared out over the water of the lake as she waited for a response.
"Contessa? Little Contessa? Oh, hello, darling." Debbie said. Tess could tell that this woman was rich; her voice sounded prim and proper.
"Um...yeah..." Tess stuttered. She was nervous as hell.
"How old are you now, darling? Eleven, twelve?"
"I'm eighteen." Tess snapped. She figured that the woman could at least remember her age.
"Ah, really? Well, how is your mother?" Tess glared, even though she knew that Debbie couldn't see her. Her voice had no concern, no emotion in it whatsoever.
"She's dead, but if you hadn't been such a self-righteous bitch you would've known that!" Tess's voice was getting louder and louder with each word she spoke.
"That's just too bad." Debbie said. Her voice was now dripping with false sympathy. "And don't use that language with me, young lady. I am your grandmother."
"The hell you are! You been nothing to me for eighteen years! Absolutely nothing! You threw my mother out for not giving me up to you! You are scum!" Tess yelled into the phone before flipping it closed. She had no desire to talk to that bitch anymore. She sighed a frustrated sigh and ran a hand through her light brown hair, before climbing out of her tire swing. She slid her house shoes back onto her feet and hurried back into the house. She threw her phone down onto the kitchen table and retreated to her room, closing the door quietly. She moved to her bed in an angry huff, plopping down and wrapping her red comforter around her. She heard her dad stirring in the next room, but didn't make a move to go greet him downstairs in the kitchen, where she knew he would retreat to.
'I am so damn stupid sometimes!' Tess thought to herself. She had no idea why she had the impulse to call her grandparents...curiosity, she guessed. She lay in her bed for the better part of an hour before falling into an uneasy sleep.
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Debbie sighed and hung up her phone. She looked over at her husband, who was reading the paper.
"Who was that, dear?" Robert asked his wife in his gruff voice. Debbie looked at him, her thin, penciled on eyebrows raising slightly.
"It was Contessa, darling." she said, her voice barely above a whisper. "Our granddaughter. The first time we've heard from her in years!" Debbie raised a trembling hand to her dark red lips. Robert grunted and returned to reading the paper.
"Well, dear, why's she calling? She have a drug problem? Knocked up early, like her mama?" He asked from behind the paper. Debbie shook her head.
"I don't know why she was calling. She hung up on me." Debbie's voice was barely above a whisper now.
"Then why worry about it? It's obvious the girl wants nothing to do with us."
"I suppose you're right, darling. I believe I will try to contact her again sometime soon, though. We may actually get her...and we've wanted her for so long." Debbie muttered, shaking her head.
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Tess woke up with a pounding headache a few hours later. She opened her eyes, but everything was blurry. She felt horrible. Her entire body felt weak. She brought a hand up to her forehead, and it was very hot.
"Daddy!" she called out in the loudest voice she could muster, hoping her father would hear her. Soon enough, she heard her door opening.
"What's wrong, baby girl?" Mark asked, walking over to his daughter's bed. She looked pitiful. Her skin was pale, and her hair and pillow were drenched in sweat.
"I don't feel good, Daddy." Tess squeaked. She was feeling worse and worse by the minute. Mark reached a hand over and felt of her forehead.
"Tess, baby, you're burning up." Mark's voice was full of concern as he brushed his daughter's damp hair off of her forehead. She moaned pitifully, curling up into a little ball. Her light green eyes had a distant look in them.
"What's wrong with me?" Tess asked, her voice extremely soft.
"I don't know, baby, but we need to get you to the hospital." he replied, scooping Tess up into his arms. She hung in his arms limply, her head resting on his collar bone. He moved swiftly out of her room, down the stairs, and out of the house. He opened the back door to his Explorer and gently put Tess in, letting her lay down and take up the entire back seat. He then got into the front and sped off towards the hospital. They arrived about fifteen minutes later. Mark picked Tess back up and hurridly carried her inside.
"Someone, help her and help her now." Mark growled, approaching the front desk. The receptionist looked up at him, and, noticing his size and the look on his face, immediately rousing a doctor. Tess was limp in Mark's arms, and he could feel her skin burning through her thin pajama top. She whimpered and turned her head so that it was buried in his chest.
"That will be her doctor, right there." the receptionist said, pointing to the man that had just walked up behind them.
"Hello, I'm Dr. Williams." the man said. "What seems to be the problem?"
"I don't know. I was downstairs and I heard her call out for me, so I came up, and she was lying in bed, covered in sweat. She's burning up." Mark said. Tess could hear the anxiety in his voice.
"Follow me." Dr. Williams said. Tess closed her eyes as they moved down the hallway. She hated hospitals. Absolutely hated them. The smell, the suffering, the death. It all scared her. They entered a room and the doctor instructed Mark to lay her down on the bed.
"Tess, tell me how you feel." Dr. Williams said, coming over to her. He took her wrist in his hand, measuring her pulse.
"Like shit." Tess said bitterly. "I feel like I'm on fire. My vision is blurry. I'm queasy."
"We need to run some tests. I'm going to have a nurse come in and give you a shot, it should help bring down your fever. " Dr. Williams said before leaving the room. Mark pulled a seat next to the bed.
"Baby girl, how are you feeling?" Mark asked. He looked at her, concern filling his eyes. She blinked her light green eyes open and looked up at him.
"Not good at all." she said in a soft voice. She was beginning to get scared. Her entire body felt weak, and she was burning up. She felt sick to her stomach. The door to her room opened and a nurse walked in, a syringe in her hand.
"Roll over, dear. I need to administer this through your hip." she said in a high-pitched voice. Tess struggled, but finally got onto her side. The nurse pulled back the thin sheets that were covering her body, only to see that she was still in her pajamas. She clicked her tongue and pulled off her pajama bottoms and tank top, leaving her laying there in just her bra and panties. She began to shiver even though she was hot, and reached to pull the sheets back over her body.
"Wait until I give you your shot." the nurse said, pulling the covers back down. Tess glared at her.
"Then hurry it up." Tess snapped. The nurse rolled her eyes and clicked her tongue again, before sticking the needle in Tess's hip. Tess flinched but bit her lip, opting not to say anything else. After that, the nurse pulled her covers back up.
"The doctor will bring you a gown when he comes back in." she said, before leaving the room. Mark reached over and took one of Tess's small hands in his large ones. She sighed nervously, but still didn't say anything. Mark didn't say anything either, just sat there, trying to silently comfort her. Dr. Williams returned to the room a few minutes later.
"Feeling any better, Tess?" he asked, looking over her chart.
"I don't feel as hot." Tess replied. He nodded and wrote something on the chart.
"Good, the shot is doing it's job." Dr. Williams said in his strong voice. Tess nodded and looked to her father, who was now sitting with his elbows propped on his knees, face in hands, looking down.
"Mr. Calloway, we need to run some tests on your daughter." Dr. Williams said, repeating what he had already told them earlier. Mark nodded.
"What do you think is wrong with her?" Mark asked, looking up at the doctor.
"We're not sure, yet. Tess, have you been feeling sick recently?" Dr. Williams turned his gaze towards Tess.
"Well...about a week or two before I went on the road with my dad, I was kind of sick. Nothing big, though." Tess replied. "I had just been a little queasy and lightheaded, and I was sleeping a lot." the doctor nodded.
"Mr. Calloway," he started, looking back towards Mark. "Is there a history of cancer in your family?"
Tess froze when she heard the word 'cancer'. Cancer? She could have cancer? The very thing that had taken her mother from her mere months before? She squeezed her eyes shut, not wanting to look at anyone. Tears burned behind her eyelids.
"Um...on her...on her mother's side, yes." Mark answered in a quiet voice. "Tess's mom passed away from cancer just a few months ago, and her grandmother had it for years, but she's been in remission since Tess was born."
"Did both of the women have the same type of cancer?" Dr. Williams asked, not looking up. He was marking more things in Tess's chart.
"Yes." Mark replied.
"What type of cancer did they have?" his eyes finally glanced back up, meeting Mark's.
"Leukemia." Mark's heart was beginning to fill with fear.
"We need to test her for that. The good news, though, is that if she does have leukemia, that we've caught it early. We can beat this." Tess couldn't hold it any longer, and a choked sob came from her throat. Mark immediately stood up and moved to her bed. He sat on the edge of it, lifting up her small body and hugging her to him. She buried her face in his chest and cried, not being able to stop. Mark soothingliy rubbed her back, tugging her closer to him. He kissed the top of her head and just let her cry.
"Daddy, I can't die!" she wailed.
"Tess, don't talk like that." Mark said, hugging her even closer to him. He continued to rub her back. "You're not going anywhere, baby girl. You're going to be fine." he told her strongly. I've already lost one of my girls, no way in hell am I losing the other."
Tess sniffed and her tears stopped flowing, but she remained close to her father.
"Here," Dr. Williams said, handing Tess a hospital gown. "Put this on, then we'll take you to have some tests run. All we're going to have to do is draw some blood." Tess nodded and slipped the gown over her head. She reached behind her back to tie the strings, but stopped when she felt Mark's hands push hers back in front of her. He tied them for her, then helped her up. He wrapped a strong arm around her slim waist and they followed the doctor out of the room, down the hallway, and into another, smaller room.
"Have a seat," another nurse, who was already in the room, said to Tess. Tess nodded and walked over to the metal chair they had set up, and sat down. The nurse tied a strip of cloth around Tess's arm, right above the crook of her elbow. She then gave her a soft ball to squeeze, and inserted a needle into her vein. Tess sucked in a shallow breath and closed her eyes, squeezing the ball as blood was drawn from her arm. She sat like this until the nurse told her she was done and removed the needle from her arm. Tess bit her bottom lip as the nurse bandaged her arm. She then stood up and walked over to her father, who immediately wrapped his arms around her comfortingly. They returned to the room she was previously in. Dr. Williams came in about fifteen minutes later.
"Tess, we should have your results back tomorrow morning. I'd like to keep you here overnight, just to be safe." he told them. Tess nodded. "Mark, you're welcome to stay too, if you want to have an uncomfortable night of sleep."
"Of course I'm staying." Mark said.
"Alright. Try to get sleep, Tess." Dr. Williams said, before leaving the room.
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Author's Note: Uh oh! What's wrong with Tess? Is it cancer, or is it something else? I'll have chapter eleven out as soon as I can. :)