Marching On

“Are you sure you ready for this, old man?” Lavin asked her father when she came into the dining room of Amalienborg. She could feel the backpack bounce as she walked, the tennis racket handle sticking out the top.

Fredrick laughed. “You can’t beat me at my own game.” He picked up the small china cup that held his steaming morning tea. “I’m going to have to peel you off the court once we’re through.”

Lavin laughed as she dropped the backpack near the chair she now occupied. “We’ll see who’s doing the peeling when we’re finished.”

“Your grandfather has twenty dollars on your father winning,” Lucy said from behind the newspaper. “But,” she peered over it. “I have thirty on you.”

“Thanks, Grandma.” Lavin said.

She waited patiently for her father to be through with his tea by eating only a banana.

“You sure you don’t want to eat anything else. I don’t want to be able to win too easily.” More smack from Fredrick.

“Whatever,” Lavin said, pushing her chair back and replacing the bag on her back. “Lets do this.”

“Are you coming, Grandma?” she asked before they left for the tennis courts.

Lucy nodded. “In a bit, dear. I’m still waiting for your grandfather to make it down to breakfast.”

She and her father were making their way across the grounds, the weather unusually mild for February. And quickly their conversation turned to Harry.

“I’m glad things worked out between you and Harry. I always liked him.” Fred told her.

“Me too,” she said, blushing. Lavin always felt nervous discussing boyfriends with her father.

“You should invite him here for Valentine’s Day. I can have a room prepared for him,” he said. “We could even make it an occasion, a nice dinner and all.”

“I’ll ask him, he’d probably love that. He hasn’t visited in a while.”

There conversation carried them to the courts in no time, and it was when they were warming up that Lavin remembered Fred’s hacking cough and how she hadn’t heard it since Christmas.

“What did the doctor say about that cough?” she asked, sending the ball over the net.

Fredrick took a few steps to get the ball. “They said everything was fine. Just a bit of seasonal asthma flaring up. You know how dry winter can be.”

“I suppose so.” she said, and then they became consumed in their ground-strokes.

___

“15-40.” Lavin called the score before readying her serve. She was losing the first set 4-3 and she was down this game, but she refused to let her father beat her.

She bounced the ball twice and stared at the serving box, honing in on her target. As she tossed the ball she secretly thanked the sun for hiding behind the clouds as it made tracking the ball so much easier.

BAM. The ball soared over the net and bounced in the center of the box.

Fredrick returned it with a decent forehand down the line. A risky move after a serve but Lavin ran for it, lining up her racket for what she knew would be a perfect backhand crosscourt.

But her father was ready for it, sending it back over the net. The rally continued for another thirty balls. They seemed to be evenly matched, neither of them seemed to get a one up on the other.

Lavin’s eyes widened when she saw the mishit bounce off Fred’s racket. She ran in to be closer to the net and countered it with a stiff forehand volley.

“Oh, no you don’t!” Fred exclaimed, rushing to meet the ball before it collided with the ground. He made a nice pick up, the ball popped off the strings.

It was a back and forth volley marathon between the two, neither would relent. Then finally, Lavin hit a high lob over Fred’s head, sending him scurrying back to the baseline.

He returned it with lob of his own. Instead of retreating to the baseline she stood her ground, brought her racket behind her head and tracked the ball with her left hand.

WHACK.

Lavin’s overhead veered sharply to the left and bounced into the service box. Fredrick couldn’t reach it.

“Well done!” Lucy said, sitting on the bench behind the fence. Neither Lavin or Fred noticed her and Sebastian appear on the bench during the rally.

“Maybe I shouldn’t have bet against you, Lav,” Sebastian chortled.

Fredrick smiled. “That was a fantastic rally.”

Lavin beamed as she wiped the sweat from her forehead. “Lets see if we can do that again!”

“30-40.” Lavin announced again before serving. There back and forth seemed to continue forever. Lavin ran to meet Fred’s wicked backhand. With her left hand out tracking the ball she twisted her torso, ready to rip a forehand straight at her father.

Lavin watched her racket and the ball make contact, then the ball flying off the strings. The ball skidded across the net-cord and dumped onto her father’s side.

He made an attempt for the ball but couldn’t make it. Lavin noticed his legs looking shaky, particularly his right leg.

“Sorry about that,” Lavin said and then brought attention to her father’s legs.

He brushed it off. “Just a bit of a cramp, nothing to worry about.”

“Do you want to take a break?” Lavin asked.

“Once we finish this game, we will.”

So, Lavin served again with the score being even. During this rally it seemed to be her backhand against Fred’s forehand. They kept directing everything crosscourt, then Lavin hit one down the line cutting it close to the line.

Fred seemed to stumble as he tried to reach the ball. Then his leg froze up and he dropped to the ground, the racket forgotten as Fred tried to brace for the impact.

“Dad!” Lavin exclaimed, letting her own racket fall to the ground in a clatter of plastic and fiberglass. She rushed to the net, watching Fred begin to prop himself up.

“What happened?” Lucy called from the bench.

“I’m fine,” Fred mollified them.

Lavin gave him a once over. He looked fine but he seemed to be stalling about getting to his feet. “Get up, Dad.”

She watched as he bent his left leg. He looked as if he was about to push himself up but nothing happened.

“Freddy, get up!” Sebastian said.

Lavin ran around the net and extended a hand to her father.

“That won’t do any good,” Fred told her.

Her heart dropped. “Why not?”

“Because, I can’t feel my leg.”

“You can’t feel it? Like it’s gone numb?” Lavin asked, her voice becoming frantic.

“The entire thing has fallen asleep. I don’t think I can stand.” Fred said.

Lavin didn’t like how calm he sounded. It didn’t seem natural.

“I’m phoning Theodore to bring the car around. You’re going straight to the emergency room.” Lucy told them with the phone already pressed to her ear.

The last thing she remembered hearing was her father give a hearty snort, almost in amusement, as he said: “Didn’t think I’d be the one being, quite literally, peeled off the court.”

The next hours of Lavin’s life seemed to slip by in a blur of images. Theodore and another bodyguard, a young man whose name Lavin didn’t know or care to find out, had carried her father off the tennis court and into the large black SUV.

Lavin hopped in and remembered telling her grandparents to go back and tell her mother. She would go to the hospital with Fred.

It seemed to take forever to get to the there, the cars on the Copenhagen streets were moving incredibly slow. Then, they were pulling up to the emergency room doors. Theo and the other man, his name turned out to be Stefen placed Fred into a wheel chair.

The nurses quickly directed them passed the waiting room where Lavin heard loud whispers of “That’s the King” and “And Princess Lavinia too” and into a room where Dr. Roren met them not a minute later.

“What happened?” he asked as he took a seat in a swivel stool and opened Fred’s file to document everything.

Lavin just mumbled but it was Fred who recounted the story. “And then my right leg lost all feeling, and I fell to the ground.”

“And you still can’t feel it?”

“No,” he answered.

Dr. Roren removed Fred’s shoe and sock. He asked him to wiggle his toes, Fred couldn’t. “I’m gonna have them do a CAT scan on your leg to see what’s going on in there.”

“What do you think it could be, doc?” Fred asked.

Dr. Roren shrugged. “It could be a number of things. A pinched nerve or, you know, we’ll let the results tell us what it is rather than surmising.”

___

The sun was beginning to set and Lavin still did not know what was wrong with her father’s leg. All but Temperance, who was with Fred, were in a secluded waiting room away from prying eyes and sneaky camera phones.

“I didn’t think a CAT scan took this long,” Lavin mumbled to Alex, whose shoulder she rested her head on.

“They don’t,” Alex answered, “They don’t even take an hour. Something must really be wrong.”

Ben who sat across from them and had his elbows resting on his knees hushed them. “Nothing is wrong with him.”

Alex and Ben began arguing about how serious things could be but Lavin quieted them. “Really? You guys are fighting now?”

The doors leading to the rooms where patients were held swung on its hinges and they found Temperance standing before them.

“What’s going on back there?” Ben demanded.

Temperance took a seat beside Ben and took his hand between both of hers, resting it on her knee. “I will just be blunt about this.”

Lavin held her breathe. This was always her mother’s way of delivering bad news, quick like the bandaids she used to remove from them when they were younger.

“They found something in your father’s leg,” Temperance told them. “Dr. Roren says it looks like a tumor has wrapped itself around your dad’s hamstring.”

“Tumor?” Alex said. Lavin didn’t like how the word sounded, and she could hear her heart bouncing against the inside of her chest. Tumor could only mean one thing.

“Dad has cancer?” Ben asked, he sounded like a child again.

“No, we don’t know that yet.” Temperance shook her head. “They’re prepping him for surgery now. They’re going to remove it as best they can and then do a biopsy.”

Lavin stared at her mother, unable to blink as she watched Temperance rub Ben’s back and kiss him on the top of his head as she stood.

“Where…where are you going?” Alex asked, he too sounded stunned.

“Your father wants me in the operating room with him and I want you three to head home and try to get some food in you and then go to bed.”

Temperance looked at Lavin. The look that told her to stay strong, to become the leader of her two brothers. Lavin nodded her understanding.

“Theo is already waiting outside. I’ll call you in the morning.”

Lavin was the first one to stand, and then Alex but Ben stayed seated.

“Come on, Ben,” Lavin said, making to grab his arm.

He pulled away. “No, I’m going to stay here.”

“Ben, please go home with your brother and sister,” Temperance said. “Being here or being home won’t make a difference.”

“Mom’s right, Ben,” Alex said.

Lavin grabbed his arm again, Ben didn’t move away this time. “Yeah, I’ll even ask Koga to make us his famous hot chocolate.”

Ben didn’t acknowledge her comment, but as Lavin led her brothers out of the emergency room she knew that none of them would be able to handle anything in their stomachs.