“Because he can reach her.”
Tears filled her eyes.
“I sit beside Linnea and beg her to eat. She turns away. I bring her favorite blanket, and she says she is tired. I tell her she is beautiful, and she asks me to stop lying.”
Eileen covered her mouth before continuing.
“Then Tobin walks in with candy and some ridiculous movie, and she smiles. She eats. Sometimes she even laughs.”
“That isn’t his fault.”
“I know.”
Her voice collapsed.
“But I’m her mother. I’m supposed to know how to help her. Instead, I stand there watching a seventeen-year-old boy give her something I can’t.”
I reached for her arm.
“You have been keeping her alive through every terrible day.”
“It doesn’t feel like enough.”
She wiped her cheeks.
“And when I saw what Tobin had done today, I told myself he was making a performance out of her illness. I told myself he wanted attention. But that wasn’t true.”
Laughter suddenly came from down the corridor.
It was not the weak, polite laugh Linnea used when adults tried to cheer her up.
It was loud, breathless, real laughter.
It came from her room.
Eileen turned toward the sound.
“That is why I called you,” she said. “I couldn’t say it on the phone.”
We stopped outside Room 418.
The door was open.
I stepped inside and froze.
Tobin sat beside Linnea’s bed, his bare head shining under the hospital lights. Linnea wore a soft blue scarf, and tears ran down her face as she laughed.
Around them stood eleven boys from Tobin’s soccer team.
Every one of them had shaved his head.
Their coach stood near the window, rubbing a patch he had missed above one ear. Tobin’s math teacher was there too, holding his cap and smiling with a newly bare scalp.
Even Mr. Bellamy, the quiet school janitor, stood near the door with no hair and a shy grin.
For several seconds, I could not speak.
“What is all this?” I finally asked.
Tobin looked at me.
“Linnea said she didn’t want to return to school because everyone would stare at her.”
One of his teammates lifted a hand.
“So Tobin asked whether we would do this with him.”
Linnea laughed again and wiped her face.
“I told him he was crazy,” she said. “Then all of them started walking through the door.”
Eileen began crying beside me.
Tobin stood when he noticed her.
“I’m sorry if this was too much,” he said. “I asked Linnea before they came in. She said it was okay.”
Linnea reached for her mother.
“Mom, come here.”
Eileen moved to the bed and took her hand.
“I thought you’d be upset,” Linnea said.
“I was,” Eileen admitted.
