Chapter 9 - Out of the Shadow
The winter months passed, and spring arrived in Boston with a brilliant display of cherry blossoms. For me, spring brought the ultimate milestone.
I stood in the examination room at the research wing, my heart hammering against my ribs as Dr. Lawson reviewed my latest PET scan results on his computer monitor. Chloe was sitting next to me, her fingers locked tightly with mine.
Dr. Lawson turned around, a massive, brilliant smile breaking across his face. He took off his glasses and looked at me with tears in his eyes.
"Emily," he said softly. "The scans are completely clear. There is no metabolic activity. The immunotherapy has successfully eradicated every single trace of the remaining microscopic cells. You are officially in complete remission."
Chloe let out a loud shriek of joy, throwing her arms around me, sobbing happily into my neck. I sat there for a moment, stunned, the words echoing in my mind. Complete remission. Six months ago, I was supposed to be left to die in a check-in area. Now, I had a full, beautiful lifetime stretching out before me.
"Thank you, Dr. Lawson," I choked out through my tears. "Thank you for not giving up on me."
"You did the hard work, Emily," he said, patting my shoulder. "You chose to fight. Now, go live your life."
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The restitution funds from the liquidation of my mother's assets had cleared into my trust account a week prior. The first thing I did was write a fifty-thousand-dollar check back to the Vance Foundation, paying back the grant that had saved my life. The remaining thirty-two thousand dollars was used to establish a new, permanent fund at Mercy General called The Emily Carter Patient Shield Group—a charity dedicated to providing legal and financial advocacy for cancer patients whose families or insurance providers attempted to abandon them during treatment.
I was finally out of the shadow of my family's cruelty. I was free.
