All These Lives

by Wylie, Sarah

  His hand wraps around mine, moving it in a surprisingly firm shake.

  The laughter subsides as new conversations crop up and our hands untangle.

  “Thanks for the chair,” I say as he pulls another one from the stack and sets it on the ground. It’s weird that he’s sitting by me almost voluntarily. It’s weird that Jena keeps looking over her shoulder, staring at us. It’s weird that Jack’s mom and my mom are talking, but not about me and how I’ve made her son’s life miserable for the past sixish years and, by the way, why has Jack done all the work for that math assignment he and your daughter have?

  Talking is the perfect filler, for silence, averting questions, awkwardness. Now, if I could only think of something appropriate to say. So far, I have:

  So, sexy beast, you couldn’t live a couple days without me, could you?

  And:

  Have I ever told you that you look adorable when your natural glow isn’t obstructed by the glare of the whiteboard?

  And:

  Personally, I think it’s still early on to meet the parents, but what do you think? Could you see yourself at Thanksgiving dinners’ forever-and-ever amens?

  “So, what are you doing here?”

  I’m pissed Jack beat me to it, especially since given enough time and with some luck, I might have come up with it myself. “We’re winter RVing,” I say. “Apparently, it’s the latest holiday fad.”

  “I thought those were staycations … or something.” He stares down at his lap.

  A feeling that is equal parts surprise and pride hits me. “Jack.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Did you just make a joke?” His lips tilt up, sheepishly. “I mean, practice makes perfect, but bravo!”

  This time he laughs, a rich, deep sound that dances around us in the air, gentle, unobtrusive.

  “Thanks. Well, I guess this explains why you weren’t at school Friday. I mean, I wondered where you were.” Pause. “My aunt and uncle own this place. They live round the back,” he says, pointing to round the back, which I assume is the second building Dad and I saw, coming in. “We used to come here all the time in the summers and even in winter. My dad’s a huge fan of ice-fishing.”

  I note the similarity, for the first time, between Jack’s dad and the younger man, who must be his brother, sitting two seats from him.

  “Are you?”

  Jack shakes his head. “Not really. The most fun I have on these trips is trying to start a fire.”

  I open my mouth to speak. “Without matches,” he says, before I can. His voice drops a little. “I guess Dad was in a nostalgic mood, so we decided to come out here for the weekend.”

  My eyes wander across the table, where Gareth is talking animatedly, his laugh loud and strong. I wonder if he had an accident or something.

  “Listen,” I begin, “I really have to apologize about our project. Only now that I see you do I remember that you wanted me to find pictures. I have this weird condition.”

  “Selective memory?” Jena chips in. We’re sitting about five feet away from her, but I didn’t realize she was listening to our conversation. Thank God I didn’t say anything compromising. Or of an about-that-kiss nature.

  Jack shakes his head. “Don’t worry about it. And let’s not talk about school.”

  Or the Kiss. Or the fact that the last time I saw you, you wrote me a note with a subliminally pissed-off message.

  “Who’s talking about school?” Gareth has wheeled over so he’s next to Jack now. “We’re going ice-fishing! Who’s talking about school?”

  “Nobody,” Jack says.

  “Who’s talking about school?”

  Jack grins. “Nobody,” he and Jena say at the same time, while I watch, mildly amused.

  “There’s a lake close by,” Jack explains, delving into the history of the thing and how wide and deep it is, etc., but I’m only pretending to listen. I always imagined, being the über-geek he is, that he’d have come from some really uptight, academic lineage, where his family ate together every night while watching CNN (I mean, if they owned a TV), and his parents still maintain that he’s too young for the birds-and-the-bees talk. Meeting the Penners, however, suggests an entirely different situation and a more troubling one, at that. It appears that Jack owes one hundred percent of his chronic geekiness to himself and no one else.

  We all stand, feeding off Dad’s and Gareth’s enthusiasm, making plans to meet in an hour for the Great Ice-Fishing Escapade, after everyone’s dressed for the cold. Even Jena and Mom plan to go.

  “Hey, Dani,” Jack says as I push my chair back and start to follow Dad. “You’re planning to come, right?”

  Before I can answer, Jena jumps in yet again. “Of course she is.”

  “Good.” And he actually seems to mean it. “I can show you how to light a fire. I mean, without matches. In case you ever need it.”

  Jena stares at him, amused. Mom’s arm slithers around her, wrapping her in reality and dragging her away from me.

  I follow.

  26

  Jena has decided that Jack is in love with me. I think she’s trying to get me back for attempting to set her up with Rufus.

  She sits on the bed, her top coat unzipped. “Did you see how happy he was when you said you were coming fishing?”

  “‘Happy’ is a strong word. I’d call it more ‘resigned.’”

  Her expression falls slightly as she senses that my walls are up and she’s not nearly strong enough to climb over. Not even today when she is leukemia’s version of Superwoman.

  She’s not ready to concede, though. She has other plans.

  Today, we will act like regular sisters, gossiping about boys and crushes and sharing feelings. We will make up for months upon months of not talking about anything so we didn’t have to talk about It. We will make up for years upon years, the ones we might miss. Now is all we have. Let’s be sisters today.

  “Jena? I need to take your temperature!” Mom calls from the front.

  Jena pulls herself up, her bones creaking and howling and giving her away, even when her heart is strong and her will is kick-ass and her temperature is “Perfect! What did I say about God looking out for you, missie?”

  Dad is not in the RV. When he returns a few minutes later, slightly on edge, and brushes his teeth while Mom is busy praising God and hugging Jena, I figure he’s a bonafide smoker once more, a backsliding, deceptive husband. Yet another statistic to add to our many.

  I intentionally brush his shoulder as he advances from the bathroom smelling entirely too minty not to be suspicious. I mean, if Mom was concerned with anyone but Jena.

  Insisting she doesn’t want to take any chances, Mom packs a bag full of medical supplies—in addition to your basic first-aid kit—and nearly forgets Jena. I remember, though, and walk behind her the whole way there.

  The day passes in a bit of a blur. Unsuccessful attempts at ice-fishing (Dad). Questions about the legality of our activities (Jena). Then, of course, the starting of fires.

  Technically, Jack starts all but three. Two sort of belong to Jena. I’m not particularly enthusiastic about the whole thing, especially since it’s too cold for them to last more than a couple of seconds anyway.

  “Sure you don’t want to try?” Jack offers for about the sixteenth time this hour. Jack is different than I imagined. He’s confident when he knows what he’s doing. He also never gets too far away from his dad, helping him maneuver unleveled paths and hauling around stuff so Gareth doesn’t have to put anything on his lap.

  “I’m positive.”

  “Oh, come on,” Jena says, still looking smug over the fact that she successfully accomplished this one thing—the second fire on only her third attempt. “Once upon a time there was a chicken called Danielle.”

  I glare at her. “She attacked a fool named Jenavieve.”

  “There’s no need to name call.” My sister shrugs her weak shoulders, playing with a circle of snow she picked up from the ground beside he
r. “Whatever. Can I have another turn, Jack?”

  Jena and Jack seem to have hit it off. Not in a romantic way, I don’t think, but in that way you act when friends or cousins come over and you haven’t had guests in a long time and don’t want them to ever leave. That’s Jena. Jack? Well, I suppose he’s happy just to be wanted. And, according to my sister, to be around me.

  At some point, I’m not sure when, I give in and agree to light a fire. Except I’m really particular about it not burning out. So as soon as a tiny blue flame appears, and Jena and Jack ooh and ahh over the little creature, I bend over it, fencing it in with my hands and urging it to last just a little longer. I even—and I’m not proud of this—feed it the sleeve of Dad’s coat, the one he let me wear because he got too hot and I try to help out where I can. For a second, it appears to work, but then Jena is yelling.

  “Oh my God, Dani, what are you doing? You can’t do that.”

  Jack is equally stunned. “That’s really dangerous … and isn’t that your dad’s?”

  I stub the sleeve into the ground to put out the fire. Then I go back to hovering over my flame, willing it to live and to resist the cold, the force of the wind, the pull back into the earth where it melts and it’s like it never existed.

  But slowly, surely, it dissolves, eating at itself, growing smaller and smaller. I can’t fan it back to life. Do I leave it and let it die? Or fight fight fight to make it burn?

  In the end, it doesn’t matter.

  I can’t do anything. Nothing to save it.

  Jack and Jena are no longer saying anything, just watching me.

  I try to pull my throat out of my stomach. “Well,” I say, but my voice comes out like more of a whisper. “That sucked.”

  “Yours lasted the longest,” Jack offers.

  “I try,” I say, flopping down to the cold ground, holding the burned sleeve of Dad’s coat out to Jena. “Can I say you did this? I mean, I doubt he’ll disown you, in your condition.”

  “I think,” Jack says, “that we should attempt some ice-fishing. I’m not very good, but I’ll show you guys.”

  “Sounds like a plan, Jack.”

  “Yeah,” I agree. “Let’s ice-fish.”

  And we do, except we don’t catch anything. Jena starts to cough and the tip of her nose, plus the bit between her nostrils and her upper lip, reddens. I’m glad Mom’s pills are at the bottom of Bag Three. I watch Jena closely, trying to determine if she’ll need me, need my life today. Mom wants us to hurry up and get inside please. Dad makes his apologies and we round up to leave.

  “Dani?” Jack stops me as I turn to go. “I’m glad … I mean, I had a good time today. You’re … your family is nice.”

  “I’ll tell them.” I smile, feeling relieved for him that it’s just me he’s talking to, and not a real girl. I mean, a girl he has a chance with.

  “Well,” I say, hoping Jack understands that I’m saying goodbye.

  “Um, about Thursday,” he begins, clearly not understanding. He shifts the cooler he’s holding from his left hand to the right. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to be rude in the note,” he says. I fight the urge to tell him that he wasn’t, I’m just observant. “It just bothers me when people pretend like everything is okay when it’s not.”

  His tone suggests that statement is not exclusively directed at me. “If that’s supposed to have some deep and profound meaning, I don’t get it.”

  He seems to consider whether or not to say more. “My dad,” he says finally, staring at the handle on the cooler. “It’s been more than a year since the accident, and I don’t think he’s talked about it once.”

  My eyes travel to Gareth, who is several feet away from us, laughing about something with his brother. “Maybe it was traumatizing.”

  “Well, he acts like it was no big deal, like it never even happened. He doesn’t like me to know when he’s in pain. I guess he thinks it makes him weaker or something.”

  All I can think is that Jack shouldn’t be telling me this. We don’t even really know each other.

  “And then,” he continues, “he gets all ambitious and wants to go ice-fishing. In the fall, he wanted to take his wheelchair on one of the easier trails we used to hike. We didn’t even make it halfway.”

  His voice is soft and sad and pricks my fingers and throat.

  “He tries to hide it but it makes him really frustrated and depressed.” Jack sighs. “Sometimes I think it would be easier if we were all more honest about what we can and can’t do. It’s not a sign of failure if you can’t do something.”

  I’m staring at Gareth again and thinking about his strong hands, the square, muscular shape of shoulders that act as arms and feet. What can’t he do? “What can’t you do?”

  Jack considers the question for a second. “Um, well,” he says, “no matter how precise I try to be, visualizing the trajectory and path of a basketball, I can never seem to get it into the hoop. At least not without a couple of misses first.”

  I decide not to inform him that I have no idea what tra-jeck-to-ree means. “That’s terrible, Jack. How can you even look at yourself in the mirror?”

  He grins. “And most people think I’d be good at video games, but I’m not. I’m awful, actually.” A short laugh escapes him. “And sometimes I write down stuff to say to you in the margins of my Spanish notebook, and I can never remember it.”

  My head snaps up. “Wait, what? What kind of stuff?”

  “Um…” His face flushes. “I don’t know. Stupid stuff. Like, ‘How was your weekend’ or ‘I like your new haircut’ or ‘I…’” He appears to change his mind about the last sentence and his voice fades. “Just stuff like that.”

  My teeth are gnawing on the inside of my cheek and Jack’s face looks like it’s burning, and probably we’re both in pain. I shouldn’t have asked, but I was curious, and now I’m supposed to say something.

  “Hey, can I ask you something?” I say, which a) is a total placeholder and completely defeats the purpose, and b) I don’t wait for his reply, which also defeats the purpose. “Have you ever thought about Jena?”

  “Like … what?” He looks confused. “How do you mean?”

  I temporarily stop nibbling on my cheek so I can answer. “She’s really pretty.” And almost as soon as I’ve stopped, I want to go back to it, to digging my teeth into the inside of my face. “Especially when she’s not wearing sixteen jackets.”

  Jack doesn’t say anything; he stares down at his hands. Maybe he’s trying to make his mouth bleed, too.

  For some inexplicable reason, I get this urge to rewind and take it back, or say something nice, or maybe, maybe, even see if his lips remember mine. But my feet are already leading me away from him, and I don’t know what I’m bad at, but I know what I’m good at: stomping all over the hearts of nerdy boys. And I can be honest about it, Jack.

  “See you on Monday,” I call over my shoulder, then hurry away before he has more to feel embarrassed about. I don’t know why I care. I guess because Jack Penner is actually sort of a nice guy. And nice guys deserve nice girls. And nice girls get cancer, and lose their chance at happiness.

  The wannabe nice girl steps aside and waits for them to get better so they can live happily ever after with boys that are good for them.

  She hurries to catch up with her family.

  * * *

  Thankfully, Jena does not ask about Jack again. She goes to bed early. She says she’s not unwell, just tired, so maybe I won’t need the pills tonight.

  I slip into bed at eleven, after watching a late-night talk show with Dad, while Mom reads some booklet she apparently got at Jena’s last appointment.

  The last thing I expect to hear is Jena’s voice, a soft whisper against the blanket of darkness. “Do people ever talk about me at school?”

  I hear her breathing slowly, waiting for the answer. In, out, in, out.

  “I didn’t know you were awake.”

  In out in out. In.

  She’s wa
iting.

  “Sometimes.”

  “They ask you?”

  In. Out. In. Out.

  “Yeah.”

  It’s because of Jack. That’s why she’s asking all these questions, suddenly thinking about life outside of It, the life she had before and the one she’ll have if there’s an after.

  “Do you remember Teddy’s funeral?” She doesn’t wait for me to answer, but I do remember. Teddy was this guy Jena befriended during chemo treatments. She begged me to go with her and Mom to his funeral in December. To support her and hold her hand, keep my shoulder squared so when she needed to sob into it, we wouldn’t collapse onto each other or the people on either side of us. It was the first funeral either of us had been to. There was no ghost sighting, no open casket or dead-person smell. It wasn’t a big deal.

  “Everyone there was either related to him, treating him, or sick, too,” Jena says.

  If I’m supposed to say anything now, I fail.

  “That’s probably how my funeral will look.”

  I fail with distinction.

  “Mom would kill me if she heard me say that.”

  “So why would you?” I hear myself asking, before I decide to.

  “Because it’s true. I didn’t say I would die. I said my funeral would look like Teddy’s if I did.”

  “Well, then don’t.” My voice muffles into my pillow and away from her, but I’m sure she hears it, too.

  She doesn’t answer right away, silence settling in between us, loud and haunting. Maybe it’s too late. Maybe she has died already.

  “If I die, you can have all my stuff.”

  My lips are glued together.

  “You know you’re the only person I’d ever trust with my things. My trophies, my clothes, my room. I know you hate when I talk like this but just in case … I think you should know.”

  Pause.

  “It’s weird, but I don’t mind talking about it. It’s not that I’m not scared—I am—but I guess I’m kind of used to it now. When I have a fever or I throw up or have a bad day, Mom automatically thinks that’s it, that this is the end and I’m going to die right now. You can tell by her face.”

  The word-vomit keeps coming, like something in her has come undone and now she just wants to tell me anything and everything and she can’t stop.