I nod, too shocked by Caleb’s tiny outburst to form words.
Mom points to the phone in my hand. “Do you want us to wait for you while you make your phone call?”
“Oh yes,” I say in a high-pitched voice that sounds nothing like me, but Caleb doesn’t notice. “I was going to call Kendra back. She’s called three times, so it must be important.” I force myself to move into the kitchen. I catch Mom’s eyes over my shoulder as I pass behind the couch and mouth “Thank you” to her. She smiles in return and snuggles closer to Jacob. One of her homemade quilts is spread across them. It’s the most relaxed I’ve seen him since the accident. My heart melts with the first twinges of hope for his recovery.
I grab a bottle of water from the refrigerator and head outside to the backyard.
“I knew it! I knew it! I knew it!” I squeal as soon as the door shuts behind me and I’m out of their earshot. I twirl around, doing a happy dance underneath the stars. We’ve only been out of our house for a day, and he’s already showing improvement. Mom’s willing to let us stay for however long it takes to figure things out. She talks like reconciliation is possible, but that’s only because she doesn’t know the whole story.
I waited all day to hear from Bryan, but it was radio silence. That’s the last thing I expected from him. He usually doesn’t leave me alone after we’ve fought and refuses to be ignored. He leaves angry rants on my voice mail until he fills up my mailbox and spends hours rage texting, but there’s been none of that. I don’t trust his sudden absence, but I’m not going to let him spoil this moment.
I can’t wait to tell Kendra about Caleb. She’s going to be so excited. I tap her name. She cuts into the first ring without waiting for me to say anything or bothering to say hello. “They’re taking Jacob off life support tomorrow,” she blurts out.
“What?” Everything from the moment before vanishes in that instant. “That can’t be right. There’s no way Lindsey would do that. Something must’ve happened.”
“I know.” Kendra’s concern comes through the phone. “It’s so weird. It’s like she changed her mind overnight, and that’s so unlike her, especially after how hard she’s fought for him. It doesn’t make any sense.”
There’ve been lots of medical emergencies with Jacob since he’s been in the hospital and times when we were sure that we’d lose him. We used to get calls in the middle of the night all the time that his oxygen saturation levels had dropped so low they didn’t think he would make it through the night or that fluid was building up on his brain and causing ministrokes, but it’s been a while since we’ve had one.
“Maybe he took a turn for the worse, and she’s just now getting a chance to tell people,” I guess out loud.
“I have no idea. She just texted me an hour ago and told me to tell you.”
She couldn’t have sent a group text to both of us? How come I always have to find out important things from Kendra? Such childish thoughts, but that doesn’t stop them. “Have you talked to her?” I ask, shoving my jealousy aside and trying to act like an adult.
“Nothing except the text. I have no idea what to do. That’s why I’m calling you.” She sounds fried.
“I don’t think there’s anything for us to do except be with her.” I’ve become skilled at being with someone in incredible pain. I’ve sat through hours of grief and terror with Caleb. I felt so powerless in the beginning because I was driven to do something to make him feel better, but that’s not what he wanted or needed. He’d experienced something awful, seen things no child should have to experience, and no words of comfort or support made it any less hideous or painful. It wasn’t until I accepted that that I was able to be there for him.
A few beats of silence stretch between us before Kendra speaks. “Do you think she expects us to be there when it happens?”
“I would assume so.”
I hear her sharp intake of breath.
“I’m not sure I can do that.” Her voice trembles. “It’s too close to . . . it’s just . . .”
I don’t make her finish the sentence. “Of course. I’m sure Lindsey will understand.”
THIRTY-SEVEN
KENDRA
“Lindsey has to understand, right?” I ask Paul. He’s hunched over Reese’s algebra homework at our dining room table. He’s trying to figure out the problem Reese gave up on an hour ago before he went upstairs to shower. Reese is still responsible for all his homework and assignments while he’s suspended, which means we’re filling in as his substitute teachers. Paul’s done most of the work for him.
It’s been almost two days without a pill, and I’m walking around like I’m covered in Teflon because one bump might send me into the abyss again. I don’t listen to anything stimulating so that I can keep my emotions at bay. No music. No social media. Books. Pictures. None of it. Not when I’m trying to function in the world. Even then, I’m barely keeping it together. I had a meltdown at the gas station last night, and I still haven’t made it through the grocery store without a panic attack. “There’s no way I can be there for . . . see, I can’t even say the words.”
“You don’t have to,” Paul says, letting me off the hook like Dani did earlier.
I appreciate his understanding as much as I did hers. “Are you going to go?”
He shakes his head. “I texted Andrew and asked if he wanted me there, but he said no.”
“I still can’t get over how ‘whatever’ she was about the video.” Paul agrees with me about the sexual tension between Sawyer and Jacob in the video. I showed it to him as soon as I found it, and his reaction was identical to mine. It’s weird talking about it on the eve of Jacob’s passing, but in my mind, he’s been gone. It’s just taken Lindsey this long to accept it. I told Paul to let me go immediately if I’m ever declared brain dead. I wouldn’t want to live like that. It’s not living.
“Speaking of videos, I’ve been wading through the videos and pictures from the Delta Tau house that night.” He grins like a schoolkid. I don’t wait for him to finish before butting in.
“You found something?” He has surprised me with his cyberstalking skills. He’s been at it since Luna told us about the Delta Tau party, searching for anything from the party that has the boys in it. Paul wants someone to blame, and a college fraternity house with underage drinking gives him a perfect place to point his finger.
He pushes Reese’s homework aside and grabs his MacBook, flipping it open. Social media images and videos are frozen on his screen. Videos are hard to come by since most of them are posted on people’s stories and gone within twenty-four hours. “There’s almost nothing from that night. Kids aren’t stupid, and I guarantee they deleted everything once Detective Locke came around asking questions.”
“I don’t trust him.” How could he know about the party and keep it from us? There is only one answer—he doesn’t trust us, and it’s impossible to trust someone who doesn’t trust you.
“He’s just doing his job. Anyway”—he clicks on one of the movies, bringing it to full screen—“I started thinking, and what are the chances that night was the first time the boys went to a party at the Delta Tau house?”
I nod eagerly. I like where he’s going with this.
“Turns out the boys had been there quite a few times. Our kid really liked to party.” He nudges my shoulder. “Kind of like his mom.”
I shove him playfully. “Shut up!” The night we got back together after high school was at a college fraternity party after he barged in on me using the bathroom and threw up in the sink. He kisses me on my cheek, and I giggle in response, but my laughter stops in my throat like I’ve broken an unspoken rule—you’re not allowed to have fun after your child dies, or you’re disrespecting his memory. Paul doesn’t notice and moves on like everything’s okay. How does he do that?
“I’ve been working my way through other parties, and I finally got lucky. I stumbled on this one during my lunch break.” He presses play. The screen fills with the frenetic moveme
nt of young people. Loud talking, laughter, and music playing in the background. A shirtless Sawyer dances into view, arms up, beer in one hand and the other fist pumping. His classic grin spreads wide across his face. A girl breaks through the crowd and grinds up against him. His smile gets bigger. Paul pauses the video and enlarges it. He doesn’t say anything. Whatever it is, he wants to see if I can see it for myself and doesn’t want to lead me.
At first, I can’t take my eyes off Sawyer and the girl dancing on him, but there’s nothing amiss about the two of them. They couldn’t look happier. I shift my eyes to the rest of the photo. They quickly land on Jacob standing in the entryway of the same hallway that the couple just pranced through. He’s leaning against the doorframe with his arms crossed, staring at Sawyer and the girl. Anger and rage contort his features. There’s only one way to describe the glare in his eyes—it’s murderous.
THIRTY-EIGHT
LINDSEY
It’s been five hours since they turned off Jacob’s life support, and Andrew and I are glued to our spots next to his bed. My back aches from being hunched over this way for so long, but I can’t bring myself to move. Neither can Andrew. My left arm cradles Jacob’s head while Andrew holds his shoulder, one of his hands lightly placed on his chest. We take turns talking to him. Sometimes we sing. Other times we read. Tears drench our faces; the white linens surrounding him are wet.
Jacob’s nurse keeps coming in and asking if we need anything. Do we want water? Food? To use the restroom? Each time we decline, and each time she reminds us that it’s okay to settle into our chairs or walk around to stretch our legs because this could be a long process. The last time she was in, Andrew snapped at her to leave us alone. Hopefully she’ll listen.
The actual moment was quick. Once all the machines were unplugged and everything was ready, it was a swift upward movement, and the tube came out of his throat. They plugged his tracheostomy hole and stepped back while we held our breath and waited for what would happen next.
Andrew and I were on each side of his bed in the same positions we’re in now. Wyatt and Sutton said their goodbyes before they removed Jacob from his support because we didn’t want them in the room if he was one of those individuals who went quickly like they were choking to death. They’re in the waiting room with the others. We kept it small. Only family and close friends.
Jacob’s breathing and heart rate will slow and then stop. I listen to the sounds of him breathing on his own with amazement like I did when he was a newborn. He’s my first baby, so everything was new, and like any first-time mother I was hyperfocused on everything he did. I spent hours staring at him while he slept, filled with equal parts fascination and fear. If he slept for too long, I held my finger underneath his nose to make sure he was still breathing. I’ve never spent a minute staring at Wyatt or Sutton sleeping. Not because I didn’t want to but because there was never enough time for me to sit down long enough to watch them sleep.
Once again, I’m brought back to his infancy. The circle of life, except this circle is broken and moving backward. He’s supposed to watch me crawl back into infancy, not the other way around.
“How long can he go on like this?” Andrew asks the nurse, Manuel, as soon as he walks into the room. Dark circles blacken Andrew’s eyes like we’ve been up for days. These eight hours have been excruciatingly long. Last time Jacob teetered between life and death, we had the adrenaline boosts to sustain us. Desolation doesn’t work the same way.
Manuel adjusts the pillows behind Jacob’s head as if that will make some kind of difference, but I understand the need to do something other than sit in silence next to his bed. It’s the second shift change, so Manuel will be with us for the next eight hours if Jacob decides to keep breathing.
“Like the doctors explained earlier this morning, most children take around six hours to pass. Some a bit less. Others a bit more,” he says.
“Yes, but how long?” Andrew won’t allow him to be vague. He likes to corner the nurses, as if they’re likely to give him more information than the doctors.
“We can’t predict that. There’s no medical certainty about any of this.” He’s tall and sinewy with white-blond hair shaved on each side, a cowlick at the back of his head.
“What does it mean if he keeps breathing on his own?” There’s a hint of hope in Andrew’s voice.
Don’t do that, Andrew. Please . . . don’t.
“It could mean a lot of different things. These things take time. Sometimes the children fight to hold on, and it can be helpful if their loved ones give them permission to go—”
“We’ve been doing that,” Andrew interjects.
He’s been doing that. Not me. I can’t bring myself to tell him to go when I want to yell at him to stay: Don’t leave me.
“Oh, that’s great,” Manuel says like we’ve done something to be proud of. He takes another glance at the only machine left next to Jacob’s bed. It’s monitoring his vitals so we know when his respirations and heartbeat stop. “Dr. Merck will be in by the end of the evening to discuss what you’d like for us to do in the interim.”
What a strange way to refer to the gap between now and his passing. I get more afraid to leave the wider it grows, because his passing is that much closer and I don’t want to miss it. I can’t stomach the idea of not holding his hand when he takes his final step. I held my pee for so long today that I’ll probably end up with a UTI. Eventually, I didn’t have a choice, and I raced down the hallway and back as quickly as possible, not even wasting time on washing my hands in the bathroom sink. I used the one in Jacob’s room instead.
“Is there anything we can be doing to make things easier?” I hate the thought of him suffering.
“All you can do is wait,” Manuel says as he gets ready to leave. “Dr. Merck will be here shortly to talk about next steps.”
There’s not supposed to be another step. This is supposed to be the end.
THIRTY-NINE
KENDRA
“First of all, who is the girl? Do we know that yet?” I blow up the picture we spliced from the video and examine her like I might have missed something the first ten times I enlarged the image. She’s a beautiful girl with olive skin and dark, curly hair that she flips over her shoulders flirtatiously every few seconds. She wears a tight white tank, exposing a black bra underneath and a pair of ripped jeans that accentuate her long legs. I don’t recognize her as any of the girls Sawyer brought home, but he didn’t bring many girls to the house. I assumed it was because he didn’t have a serious girlfriend, and that’s how he played things off to me, but maybe that wasn’t the case. He could’ve had a girlfriend.
Or a boyfriend. The thought comes a half second later. Maybe Jacob?
Paul taps on one of the other open tabs, bringing up screenshots from the girl’s Instagram. Libby Walker. She’s a freshman at Berkeley. Her pictures are everything I hate about Instagram—scantily clad and seductive poses with cheesy inspirational quotes about seizing the day and being your best self splashed across them.
“I’ve combed through all her social media accounts and the ones of her closest friends. Her and Sawyer don’t have any other pictures together. I can’t even find them in any group photos, so I’m pretty sure she’s just some random chick that he happened to be dancing with at the party that night.”
I zoom out and then go back in, centering on Jacob’s face. “I can’t tell if he’s angry at Sawyer or her. Can you?”
He shakes his head and wrinkles his forehead. “I’ve blown this thing up and watched the video at least a hundred times since I found it. I’ve gone back and forth probably just as many. Honestly, I can’t tell. The only thing for sure is that he’s pissed off.”
“I’ve never seen him that angry. Ever.” Jacob favored Andrew that way—calm, even tempered.
“I wonder if Detective Locke has seen it,” Paul says, thinking out loud.
I haven’t talked to Detective Locke for almost twenty-four hours, which is the
longest we’ve gone without speaking since he came into our lives, but what’s the point if he’s not going to tell us the whole truth? That’s the same as lying to me. “Did you send it to him?” I ask.
“Not yet.”
“Are you going to?”
He tilts his head to the side, eyeing me curiously. “I hadn’t considered not doing it. I guess I didn’t know that was an option.”
I shrug. “It’s not like he’s being honest and up front with us.”
“Nah. That’s silly. Besides, what do we gain by keeping it a secret from him? There’s nothing we can do about it on our own. It’s not like we can go on a hunt and question the girl ourselves.”
“You’re right.” I hate to concede, but he is.
“Besides, I still trust him.”
I huff. “You would.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” His eyebrows rise in offense.
“You always assume the best in people.”
“O . . . kay.” He draws out the word. “I’m sorry for being optimistic, I guess?”
My phone buzzes with an alert, and my heart stills. It’s been like that all day. We’ve been waiting for news about Jacob since our morning coffee. Normally, I wouldn’t reach for my phone in the middle of a conversation because it drives Paul nuts, but this could be the latest update. He pauses our conversation while I check my phone.
“Well?” he asks while I scan the text. He’s been as anxious to hear something as me.
“He’s still breathing on his own,” I say with disbelief. “Maybe Lindsey will get her miracle after all.”
FORTY
DANI
Waiting for someone to die is a lot like waiting for someone to be born. They’ve given us a private room while we wait for updates on Jacob. There are framed nature pictures on each wall; one has snowcapped mountaintops, and the others are all sandy beaches. A television is mounted in the corner on an endless loop of hospital infomercials because the channel is stuck, but someone turned it on earlier to have more than the silence to listen to. I liked the silence better. Two tables stacked with old magazines and a few donated books sit between the couches and chairs.
The Best of Friends Page 16