It was a beautiful fall afternoon as my daughter's high school soccer team held a 5-2 lead over her school's arch-rival, Frost, late in the second half. Karrie, the youngest of my three children, had scored a pair of goals and looked like she might get a hat trick as she dribbled downfield with just one defender and the goalie to beat. Her mother and I were starting to scream encouragement at a high volume as she bore down on the Frost goal.
Karrie's long blonde ponytail bobbed as she ran, then she gave a head feint to the right and quickly cut back slightly to her left, crossing the ball to her left foot as she did so. It looked like all the money her mother and I had spent on soccer camps was about to pay off again when the Frost defender, having been beaten badly, took a desperation slide at my daughter, knocking her roughly off her feet. She spun in mid-air, then bounced on the ground once, twice, before rolling to a stop. The referee immediately signaled a penalty, which brought both coaches to their feet.
I was already on my feet in the bleachers, watching as Karrie grabbed her right leg and screamed out in pain. When the ref stopped play, I was on the field, rushing to my little girl, who continued to scream in pain. I hugged her to me as the team trainer reached her and ran her hand down my little girl's leg. When Karrie shrieked, the trainer ripped her cell phone out of her pocket and called for an ambulance. I rocked her while she cried. My wife, Traci, joined the small group on the field.
Not quite five minutes later, the ambulance drove onto the field, right up to the small group of adults surrounding the child. Karrie was loaded into the vehicle, and I followed her inside, telling my wife to meet us at the hospital.
They took Karrie right into X-ray when they got her to the hospital. Her right fibula was broken. Orthopedic surgeons were going to have perform surgery to align the bones -- they called it an open reduction. Karrie cried, realizing her season was over. I tried my best to soothe her, but she wasn't having any of that.
While they were waiting for an orthopedic guy to arrive, a nurse was looking at the collection of bruises Karrie had accumulated on her legs so far this season. It's not an uncommon occurrence for soccer players to have bruises, especially on their legs. Soccer as a sport is a lot rougher than most people realize. Then that same nurse started looking at the many bruises Karrie also had on her arms. She asked Karrie several questions about the bruises, then walked over to another nurse and whispered something to her. As I was still trying to soothe a very upset 12-year-old, I didn't pay a whole lot of attention to the whispering at the time.
A minute later, one of the two whispering nurses came over to me and quietly asked me if I had noticed if Karrie had lost any weight. Actually, I had noticed that she was down a little, but I assumed that was because of all the running soccer players do in games and practices. She nodded and went back to the other nurse, whispering some more.
Just then the orthopedic doctor arrived, looked at the X-rays and started issuing orders. They took Karrie to an operating room as Traci and I went to a waiting room.
Karrie was still groggy when Traci and I were allowed into recovery to be with her. We sat with her for another two hours, then left to go home for the night. The doctor had said the operation went well, and we could take our daughter home in a couple of days.
I went to work at my accounting job the next day while Traci stayed home and went straight to the hospital to stay with Karrie. About an hour into my workday, Traci called me and said the doctor wanted to talk to both of us. I was perplexed. I thought the ortho doc said the surgery was a success. Maybe he wanted to talk to us about rehab.
I kissed both Traci and Karrie when I got to my daughter's room, and a minute later, a Dr. Ben Rauh walked in. I was confused because her ortho was a doctor named James Rincon. He asked Traci and I to go with him into a small conference room.
"What's going on, Doc?" I asked first thing.
He put his eyes down and took a deep breath before raising his eyes and facing us. I knew then that this wasn't going to be good.
"We need to run some tests because we're afraid Karrie may have leukemia," he said quietly.
Traci immediately started to cry while I suddenly felt like I couldn't breathe. This was probably the worst news I had gotten since my parents told me my maternal grandfather died when I was 12.
Dr. Rauh, Traci and I went into Karrie's room together to tell her that the doctors needed to run some additional tests. We didn't give Karrie a specific reason, hoping against hope that we wouldn't ever have to tell her the truth.
We didn't tell either of Karrie's older siblings about what the doctor suspected, although we did tell both that she was undergoing some additional testing. Her older brother, Arnie, 19, was a sophomore at Michigan State, so we told him about the leg break and the additional testing by phone. He asked if he should take a few days and come home, but we were optimistic and told him that wasn't necessary. It was different with Karrie's older sister, Ellie, 17, a high school junior. She could see the worry in our faces and wasn't buying the optimistic front we were putting on.
As the baby in the family, Karrie -- Karen, officially -- was probably the most coddled child, but even her siblings coddled her. Ellie often let her tag along with her and her friends when they did stuff, and Arnie was not only her official protector, but he spent hours teaching her how to play sports "like a guy." Karrie never threw a ball or even ran "like a girl," and when it came to basketball, football or street hockey, she was a rough as any boy. Arnie was incredibly proud of his baby sister.
Two days later, the bad news was confirmed. Traci, Ellie and I held the most important family meeting we ever had in the living room before deciding that we needed to tell Karrie the truth as soon as possible. We called Arnie and got his thoughts, as well, and he agreed with our decision. I hadn't heard Arnie cry like that since he was 10 and took a baseball to the mid-back that left a raised welt. He took a few seconds, then apologized to me, for both crying and not being there to help tell his sister.
I felt like part of a firing squad as the three of us and the doctor marched into Karrie's room the next morning. Dr. Rauh had volunteered to do the dirty deed, but the family discussed it and decided one of us should give her the bad news. It fell to me to do the most difficult thing I've ever done in my life. Traci and Ellie sat there in tears, and I think Dr. Rauh was pretty choked up, too, but Karrie took the news like a champ, occasionally asking a question which Dr. Rauh quietly answered.
"That's it, then. I got this, Dad!"
Oh, to have the enthusiasm and chutzpah of a 14-year-old.
Nine months later, things were not looking much better for Karrie. For the first time, Dr. Rauh mentioned bone marrow transplant. We had been reading up on the subject, and were well aware that siblings had a one in four chance of being a tissue match. Arnie and Ellie got tested immediately, but neither was a match. That meant we had to hope on the small chance that there would be a match on the national bone marrow registry, unless...
I had secretly been keeping track of Rick Gardino for the past 14-plus years, since the day I kicked the shit out of him in the back parking lot of First National Financial. I left him lying on the ground near his car and walked out of his life, supposedly never to see him again. I fully intended to make that thought come true, except now I -- actually Karrie -- needed him, or at least his progeny.
Gardino now lived and worked two towns over from us, about an hour to our west. I knew he wouldn't be pleased to see me. I wasn't exactly pleased to be going to see him.
*****
"I don't even know where to start, Tommy," Traci practically whispered one Saturday night after the kids had gone to bed. We were sitting in the family room, me sipping on a shot of rye and she drinking a glass of merlot. She had said she wanted to talk. I didn't have a clue where this was going.
"I'm pregnant, Tommy. There's no other way to say it. I blew it. I really fucked up, Tommy."
I sat in stunned silence. STUNNED SILENCE. After we had Ellie five years previously, Traci asked me to get a vasectomy, and I complied. Obviously, this wasn't my child Traci now carried.
When my brain started to work again, I felt the bile starting to rise in my throat. I made it to the bathroom before that night's dinner made a guest appearance.
I cleaned myself up and went back to the family room, where Traci still sat, looking very uncomfortable. I sat back down and glared at her. She took that as my hint to continue.
"I'm two months along," she whispered. "You know I don't believe in abortion. I know you don't believe in abortion. What are we going to do?"
"We? Who's we, white girl? Which we are we talking about? We as in you and me, or we as in you and your lover?"
Traci looked stricken. I was pretty sure she wasn't acting.
