Hope and Other Punch Lines

by Julie Buxbaum

  It’s entirely possible that there was a line. That there’s decency in the darkness.

  The jumpers have mostly been erased from history. It’s an unspoken rule that you don’t talk about them, but I’ve never been able to understand the stigma. When I think about those two hundred men and women, I think only of bravery, of taking one last leap of faith, of reclaiming their last bit of power the only way they could find it.

  At night, when I can’t sleep, I sometimes think about an article I read once about a lady who, as she fell, had the presence of mind to hold down her skirt so she wouldn’t flash the people below. I wish I had told Noah about her, how she should be the national treasure, not Baby Hope, because I realize that’s how I want to die. Not on my terms—no one gets to die on their own terms—and not in a blaze of glory. I want to scoop up dignity wherever I can find it.

  “Don’t be scared. I’m not. I mean, I am a little, but this is life with a capital L, right? Surgery, shmurgery.” I speak with a bravado I do not feel. I look up at the Wheel of Fortune puzzle, but the letters blur. I find myself irrationally annoyed about the preferential treatment given to the letter E.

  “Dad,” I say, and my voice grows serious. I decide there should be no fear, at least not about words. I want radical honesty. “It’s still and again. As in you are still in love with Mom, and you are also in love with her again. Just to be clear.”

  My words are punctuated by the tick-tick-tick of the big spinning wheel on television. We stop talking for a second and stare at the screen to wait in suspense as the pointer lands: a lady named Tess in a leopard-print blouse cheers when she adds a brand-new washer-dryer wedge to her dollar total. A cardboard representation of the possibility of the thing. Better than bankruptcy, if not quite as cool as the Hawaiian vacation.

  My mother once told me the most disconcerting part of being a parent is that you never get to settle into it, that your child is constantly being replaced with another version you don’t recognize. She said she looks at old photos of me and asks, Who’s that? I wonder now how it’s impossible to feel our own incremental growth. How this theory of hers could help explain the disconnect I’ve felt since I’ve started high school. I am me and also an unrecognizable version of me, both at the same time. How it’s possible I could have once been friends with Cat and now am not at all. Four entirely different people: the two mes, the two hers. Our new configurations, for whatever reasons, unreconcilable.

  It strikes me that Baby Hope only existed for as long as it took the photographer to take that picture.

  “You’ll have the biopsy; the tumor’s going to be benign. This will all be over. But it’s going to take us through a surgery to get to fine, and I’d like to fast-forward that part,” my dad says, again to the television. This is hard work we are doing here, the not-looking-at-each-other, the pretending-to-truth-tell. He wants to fast-forward to another iteration of me.

  But he doesn’t know I’m going to be fine. No one does.

  When I look up at the screen again, my brain fills in the missing letters, and I’m finally able to solve the puzzle, even before Tess.

  I shout out the answer, as if to claim the small, well-deserved victory of being right.

  “Put on channel four. Are you watching this?” I tell Abbi. I’m at home, in my room, in my pajamas. We’re talking on the phone, which feels weirdly intimate. I can’t remember the last time I made an actual telephone call, other than to Jack from the ER, but I needed to hear that she was okay. Her voice sounds lower and huskier than in real life.

  “Details are scant at this time, but eyewitness reports say that Baby Hope, who was made famous by a photograph taken on nine-eleven and who now goes by Abbi Goldstein, was rushed by ambulance to Garden State Hospital after she collapsed at a nearby summer camp. She is sixteen years of age,” reports Brittany Brady, the platinum-blond newscaster who is always outside and who always looks cold. “By way of background, the woman who saved Baby Hope’s life, Connie Kramer Greene, died less than one year ago from breast cancer, a disease many believe was caused by her exposure to toxic chemicals on September 11, 2001. In just the last five weeks, two New York City police officers who were part of the recovery at Ground Zero have died of nine-eleven-related illnesses. No word yet on whether Abbi’s condition is related to the attacks. One of Abbi’s best friends, Cat Gibson, has kindly agreed to talk with us this evening.

  “Can you tell us what went through your mind when you heard Abbi had been admitted to the hospital?”

  “Best friend my ass,” Abbi mutters.

  “It was a complete shock. I’ve known Abbi since we were little, and I don’t think she’s ever even broken a bone. I’m really worried,” Cat says through my television.

  “Has she been sick recently?” Brittany Brady asks.

  “Um, I don’t think so? I mean, she’s always had asthma.”

  “If Abbi is watching right now, what would you like to say to her?” Brittany Brady asks.

  “This is so meta. Because you are watching,” I say, and Abbi shushes me.

  “Like to her directly?” Cat asks, and Brittany Brady nods. “Right. I hope you get better, Abbi. My mom told me about her conversation with you. You didn’t have to cover for me about that, but you did—even after everything. So thank you.”

  “That was Cat Gibson expressing…,” Brittany Brady says, trying to cut her off, but Cat keeps on talking.

  “Abbi, you’re the brave one, not me. Always hugging all those strangers. Still, it’s hard when the person who’s supposed to know you best looks at you and only sees who you used to be. Come home soon, okay?”

  The newscaster keeps her face placid while she forcibly grabs the microphone back.

  “This is Brittany Brady reporting live outside of Garden State Hospital.” Then the news goes back to covering the president’s latest tweets threatening nuclear war and hence the destruction of humanity. I switch off the television.

  “Just when I thought I was ready to hate her,” Abbi says.

  “Brittany Brady? She seems okay to me, though I think someone should really buy her a coat,” I say.

  “Cat!”

  “Joking. Who knows? You’re better off without her. I’m starting to learn that sometimes there aren’t easy explanations for why people do the things they do,” I say. “Also, I think sometimes people think they’re protecting you when they’re really protecting themselves.” I look at the floor of my room, which is covered with boxes of my dad’s old stuff. My mom hauled everything up from the basement, including about a dozen photo albums I didn’t know existed. She wants to go through it all together, to, in her words, introduce me to my father. She seemed so hopeful, I didn’t have the heart to tell her that I don’t think he’s in there. As Sheila put it, a picture of a thing is not the same thing as the thing.

  “Sorry for bleeding all over you. I should have said that sooner. The most embarrassing moment of my life,” Abbi says.

  “Don’t apologize. Though you did scare the shit out of me, figuratively speaking. And out of Livi literally.” I open one of the albums, and my parents’ wedding photo stares back at me. I close it. There’s plenty of time for all this later. I’m no longer going to think of my dad as if he’s only available in limited quantities that need to be rationed. He’s dead, yes, but he lived for thirty-three years. I have a lot to catch up on.

  “I heard Brendan came to the hospital?” Abbi asks. “Please tell me he and Jack are hooking up. I need some good news today.”

  “According to Jack, they’ve been doing more than talking by the frozen fish,” I report.

  “Yes!”

  “Can I come visit you tomorrow morning? I…Yeah, can I come by?” I ask, and realize this is not suave at all. I’ve never been suave. I’m never going to be suave. Listen, my dad did pun competitions. I apparently have nerd encoded deep in my DNA.
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br />   “Sure,” she says. I smile.

  “I’m so happy that you’re feeling better, Abs,” I say.

  “Thanks.”

  “Oh, crap. You failed my test.”

  “What test?”

  “I called you Abs and you didn’t correct me. Now I’m really worried.”

  “You practically saved my life this morning. I think I can let one Abs go.”

  “Wait, I can call you Abs now?”

  “I guess.”

  “I knew it! There’s an Abs stage!” I pump my fist in the air, even though I know she can’t see me.

  “There’s no Abs stage,” she insists.

  “I never would have guessed that you’d have such an elaborate initiation ritual. I mean, I had to practically shower in your blood to get here. But it was worth it.”

  “Good night, Noah,” she says, all mock-annoyed.

  “Good night…Wait for it…,” I say.

  “Waiting,” Abbi says.

  “Good night, Abs.” I sigh with contentment, loud enough for her to hear. “It was so, so worth it.”

  “I’m here,” my mom says after we’ve both been pretending to sleep for at least an hour. My mother returned to my room around dinnertime, sheepishly donning her weariest divorce-smile and carrying a bunch of balloons, of all things, and now lies on the cot next to my bed. Despite arguing that I’m old enough to stay here alone for one night, that she and my dad should go home and talk, I’m relieved she ignored me. I didn’t realize that once darkness fell, the fear would slice right through me. “I mean, I’m here for you. I’m not going anywhere. I panicked earlier. Residual PTSD, maybe.” She pauses. “No, that’s an excuse. It’s seems so silly now, but I really believed if I worried about you enough, that that alone would keep you safe. Like my mother says when she reverts to Yiddish in an emergency, Kinehora. Imagining your future would jinx it. But the world doesn’t work like that. It never did,” she says.

  I don’t answer. I listen to the beep, beep, beep of the machines. Find comfort in their rhythmic reliability.

  “After the first plane hit, Dad and I started running back toward the Towers. To get you. But we couldn’t. There were cops, and all these people running in the other direction, and the roads were blocked, and it was impossible. Dad said that Connie would keep you safe—you were her favorite—and she’d been so excited about your birthday. She made you that crown. There was nothing to worry about, but of course this was before the Towers actually fell. We didn’t know. No one knew,” she says, and starts weeping quietly. “Sometimes the worst thing you can possibly imagine happens. It just does. But on that day, for me, it didn’t. I mean, I thought it did, it almost did, it could have, but then you came home. My baby came home.”

  “And so many other people’s didn’t,” I say, tears hot on my cheeks. I don’t have to look over at my mother to know her face is wet too.

  Tomorrow afternoon I will be knocked unconscious while doctors cut me open and tinker with my tumor.

  Tumor. Tumor. Tumor.

  Say that five times fast and it still doesn’t lose meaning. Believe me, I’ve tried.

  A surgeon will slice off a piece of my lung and then send it to a lab for analysis. Even if it’s malignant, the doctor, a middle-aged woman with gray-streaked hair and a cruel brisk efficiency, has promised there are options. That’s the word she chose—options. Not one sounded even slightly appealing. Other drugs, chemo, more surgery. She talked about stages, which made me think of that time Cat went on a baby food diet and she’d stare at the little labels and restrict herself to only jars stamped with the number 1 or 2.

  “It feels like the worst thing I can possibly imagine—you, sick—is actually happening, and I don’t know what to do. I’m so ashamed of how I keep failing to protect you. This isn’t how it’s supposed to be. You are a child.”

  My mother starts crying again, and I reach out my hand for her to grab.

  “None of this is your fault. That’s one of the reasons I didn’t want to tell you. I knew you’d blame yourself,” I say.

  “I think that makes me feel even worse.”

  “Mom.”

  “I have an idea,” she says, and clears her throat. “Tonight, let’s think happy thoughts. It doesn’t have to be about tomorrow. Or all the ways I’ve failed you, because oh, man, have I screwed this all up. I’m going to close my eyes and just for tonight feel all the best things. How proud I am to be your mother. How you’re the best thing that ever happened to me, even though I’ve never deserved you. How much I love you.”

  “I love you too.” I decide denial has worked pretty well so far. Right now, while I still can, I will dwell on the good stuff. That which cannot be taken away, at least not yet. My parents again, still, together, always there for me. Swinging on the porch with my grandmother. Noah and Jack grabbing my hands in friendship. A waiting room full of people I had no idea cared. A stolen moment illuminated in pink.

  * * *

  —

  In the morning, on top of my hospital gown, I put on a pair of oversized sweatpants and a too-small gray long-sleeve T-shirt with a shiny unicorn—what my dad picked out from my closet to bring me from home. I dab on some ChapStick. My unruly hair is pulled back into what I hope looks like an intentionally messy ponytail. The nurse refuses to unhook my IV, so there’s nothing I can do about the creepy slow drip into my bruised arm or the blue under my eyes from not sleeping.

  No doubt I smell like hospital and fear.

  No doubt I look as terrible as I feel.

  Even though Noah’s exactly on time, I jump when he knocks on the door. My parents, who are slumped in the corner, greet him with the same kind of apologetic kiss-ass grins they used when they met with my guidance counselor about my college prospects. Fortunately, they quickly excuse themselves to get coffee.

  “Why didn’t you mention you were an expert at musical chairs?” Noah asks, and though his tone is jokey, there’s a rehearsed air to the line, as if on the way over, he decided how he was going to break the ice.

  “Hi,” I say, and ignore his question. Instead, I smile. Noah being here changes the balance in the air, tips me back over toward gratitude.

  “Hi yourself,” he says back, and returns my smile. “So I have a speech prepared. I practiced on Jack last night, and it killed. Do you want to hear it?”

  “Sure.” I don’t really want to hear a speech. I want him to sit down next to me on the non-IV side of my bed and lace his fingers with mine. I want him to tell me that if he could survive open-heart surgery as a baby, I can handle a lung biopsy.

  I want him to tell me that I will not be assigned a stage. That I have been mistaken. This whole thing has all along been a comedy, not a drama. A silly adventure like Harold and Kumar, and just as nonsensical. I’ll get another fairy-tale happily-ever-after.

  For the first time since I coughed up blood and recognized deep in the hollows of my bones what sort of story I was living, I allow myself to think of the possibility of an alternative.

  But I know life isn’t a Choose Your Own Adventure book. The sort of hope swirling in my brain is dangerous.

  “Can I sit?” Noah asks as he takes the chair most recently occupied by my mom. Then he stands up again and decides instead to move to the end of my bed.

  “You don’t have to give a speech,” I say. “We’re good. Listen, you made it to the Abs stage. That’s a pretty impressive accomplishment.”

  “Am I squashing your feet?” he asks.

  “No.”

  “Good. I brought you gummy bears instead of flowers. Figured they were a more practical choice.” Noah puts the candy on the rolling cart and then fidgets with the string of his hoodie.

  “I hate hospitals. Look at that blue thing over there. That’s for medical waste. I spent the whole night wondering what gross stuff has been in there a
nd what’s in there right now and I pictured it, like, oozing together, and climbing out and attacking me while I slept.” I realize I should stop talking, let Noah say whatever it is he came here to say. That we could do better than discussing medical waste. But alas, I am me, and I am nervous.

  “You have a vivid imagination,” Noah says.

  “I do.”

  “Well, so do I. Which is sort of what I came here to talk about.”

  “You came here to talk about your vivid imagination?” I catch myself, and then mime zipping my lips shut and throwing away the key.

  He clears his throat.

  “Since I was a kid, I’ve been telling myself a story. This is embarrassing to admit, because it makes me sound like such an idiot, but after a while, I started believing that story, you know? It went from an idea to fact without my noticing. Am I making sense?” he asks.

  I nod. I tell myself stories too. We all do.

  “I have a confession to make: the whole tracking-down-people-in-that-photo thing was because I wanted to prove myself right. It wasn’t really about the newspaper. Or not only about it, at least. So Blue Hat Guy? That was my dad. His name was Jason Stern. I thought, until we spoke to Jamal, well, I thought he was alive,” Noah says, and he coughs a little on the word alive. Like it was shameful of him to hope. I so understand that feeling, the cruel embarrassment that comes with wanting what cannot be, that I can’t help myself. I reach out and grab his hand and squeeze. He looks up at me, surprised. “I thought…It sounds so stupid, and Jack has been telling me for years it was stupid. I never listened. I thought he used nine-eleven as an excuse to run away. Since I was sick as a baby, I figured it was too much for him. Everyone else in that photo survived. I assumed he had to have also.”

  I look over at our fingers, linked.

  “I’m so sorry, Noah.” I try to catch his eyes, but they are darting around the room. Looking anywhere except at my face. I wonder if everyone, if everything, dies twice. If that’s how grief is: cyclical, never finished. The Towers are still falling. And falling again.