Just One Thing

by Holly Jacobs

  The guide got on his horse and started toward the trail. Lexie and her horse went next. Her mother followed.

  Her father had opted not to go for a ride and hollered, “Have fun,” as they rode by the car.

  Five minutes into the ride, Lexie decided her horse, which shared the name Lucy with her best friend, should have been named Lucifer. She knew that Lucifer was another name for the devil because her mom read her a book one night that talked about Lucifer, and Lexie had had nightmares for weeks.

  Lucy had a gait that was more a canter than a walk. How Lexie managed to stay behind the lead horse, she didn’t know, but every step Lucy took jostled her from side to side.

  Lucy kept leaning over and trying to snag pieces of grass.

  The guide turned around and said, “Just give a soft tug on the reins to tell her who’s boss.”

  Lexie did.

  And Lucy was very much reminded who was boss.

  Lucy was.

  “She took off across the field with me on her back and the guide on our trail. But that horse was fast. It felt like we ran for hours before the guide got alongside us and grabbed her reins.

  “That’s when I learned a lesson—what you think you want isn’t always what you want at all.”

  Sam smiled. “You discovered you didn’t want a horse?”

  “That’s exactly what I discovered. I was meant to read about them, but not ride them.”

  Sam had listened attentively, as always, but as I wound down, he looked disappointed. I knew what he’d expected and knew I had to say the words. Whatever this was on Mondays, no matter how much it hurt, I knew it was good for me. That working on the loom and talking here . . . well, it was good. I was a bit better every week.

  So I reached for whatever courage I had left and said, “I pulled those books—my old horse books—out for Gracie after . . .” She let the sentence hang there and scrambled for some footing.

  “She’d loved the story of my one and only horseback ride when she was small. I’ll confess; I may have embellished a bit. We’d finished Misty of Chincoteague, though at sixteen she was far too old for it . . .”

  Lexie closed the book and stared out the window at the beautiful spring sky. “Maybe when you’re better, we’ll go to Chincoteague. I’ve always wanted to see the ponies there. I want to watch them swim the channel. We’ll go together. It will be warm and—”

  “Mom . . .” Gracie’s voice was just a whisper. “I’m not going to Chincoteague, and we both know it.”

  Gracie looked so small in the bed. She didn’t look like a teenager, but just a little girl. A very sick little girl. But unlike when she was little, no amount of stories or cool cloths on her forehead would make her feel better.

  Lexie noticed the corner of Gracie’s old orange blanket sneaking out from beneath her pillow and for some reason, it made her tear up. Gracie had long since tucked the blanket into a drawer. She’d no longer needed its comfort . . . until now.

  “Gracie, miracles happen.” Lexie clung to that idea. For the last six months, she’d clung to that. The doctors talked about stage four, about treatments, finally about hospice, but still Lexie clung to the idea that a miracle was going to happen. That something would happen to save her Gracie. Her peacemaker. Her youngest.

  “No miracle this time, Mom. And I’m sad that I’m not going to learn to drive, or graduate, but Mom, there are so many things . . .”

  Gracie paused and drew a long but shallow breath. “I’m grateful . . .”

  She drifted off.

  Lee came in. Lexie didn’t need to turn to know it was him. She knew his footsteps.

  These last few weeks, as her life contracted and grew smaller, it took on a new rhythm that centered on Gracie. With her life so narrowly focused, Lexie had learned the sounds of the house in an entirely new way. Her two Cons had gradually traded in their heavy-footed steps for lighter, almost tiptoed ones. And Lee, his footsteps spoke of a hesitancy that he’d never had before.

  It was good that she recognized his footsteps, because he said very little to her. Lexie felt as if he blamed her for Gracie’s illness. She understood his anger—she was angry too. She was angry at the terrible disease that had her daughter in its sights. She was angry with a God who would let someone like Gracie suffer like this. Some days her anger was all that kept her going. Under its fire, she could move from one task to the next.

  But she wasn’t angry with Lee, or her kids. She wasn’t sure why he was angry with her. They should stand together and support each other. Instead, they were distant with each other and it felt as if, as Gracie’s health continued its downward spiral, the distance between them widened.

  Normally when Lee was out of sorts, Lexie did whatever she could to pull him from his funk. But this time, she didn’t have the energy to stave off his mood. It was all she could do to keep herself together for Gracie’s sake.

  “Lexie, can I talk to you?” Lee beckoned her into the hall. It was as far as she would go. She’d stuck to Gracie’s side for weeks and she wasn’t budging. She stood at the door, where she could watch her sleeping daughter.

  “You have to stop talking about miracles.” Despite his hushed whisper, Lee’s anger was palpable. “Gracie’s made her peace. Our job now is to make it as easy on her—”

  “Easy?” Lexie asked, her whisper strangled with her own anger, which suddenly had a target. “You want me to make it easy on my daughter—my barely sixteen-year-old daughter—to leave me? Hell no. I won’t do it. I’m her mother. I’m here to protect her, even if that means protecting her from you and everyone else who says there’s no hope. There’s always hope.”

  And just like that, Lee’s anger faded. Lexie had witnessed Lee’s profound sadness in the past, but this was deeper. It was complete.

  “Lex,” he said sadly and moved as if to pull her into an embrace. Or maybe he reached for her to cling to her, like a drowning man grabbing for something to hold on to.

  But Lexie couldn’t prop Lee up. She could barely keep her own head above water. So she yanked herself back from his grasp. “I won’t give up on her.”

  She went back into Gracie’s room and shut the door on Lee. She watched her daughter sleep.

  Gracie. Her baby. Her child.

  Her heart.

  The idea of losing her youngest was so abhorrent, it made her feel physically sick to her stomach.

  She hadn’t been close to God in a long time, but as she sat by Gracie’s bed, she bargained with Him. If He let her daughter get better, she’d go back to church. She’d say a prayer of thanks every day.

  As the days passed, her prayers became more frantic. She begged God to take her and let Gracie live. Anything. She’d do anything, make any deal, if only he’d save her daughter.

  But God wasn’t listening.

  Gracie grew smaller and smaller in that bed. So small that even Chincoteague stories were too big. They didn’t help. Instead, Gracie asked for a few of her favorite storybooks, but rarely could stay awake for something as short as Where the Wild Things Are.

  So small, so tired, so fragile . . .

  “I can’t tell any more tonight,” I said. I could smell that room. Even after so many years I knew that scent. Sam had talked about realizing he was in a hospital because of the smell. That’s how Gracie’s room had smelled at the end. Of medications and antiseptics. Of bodily functions she could no longer control.

  It had smelled of despair. My despair, not Gracie’s. Like her name, Grace had accepted what was coming long before I could.

  “I sat by her bed for a long time and when even the shortest storybook was too long, I talked about going to see the ponies at Chincoteague when she was better.”

  We never went to Chincoteague.

  I choked back my tears and rage at that thought.

  I looked at Sam and tried not to plead as I asked, “Your one-thing?”

  I knew my question sounded desperate. I needed to hear his one-thing, to think about Sam and somethin
g other than my daughter.

  “I gave up,” Sam announced.

  Sam sat in the wheelchair, staring out the window at the rolling hills of Pittsburgh.

  It wasn’t that he took note of how picturesque the southwestern Pennsylvanian city was. He didn’t. It was just something to stare at.

  His mother had been in yesterday. She’d talked to him of family news and the small happenings in her life. He thought about responding. Even tried once. But it seemed to take more energy than he had.

  It had been three months since he’d woken up. He’d stopped—stopped talking, stopped being angry and railing against the fates, stopped thinking. He’d stopped it all as completely as when he’d initially arrived at the hospital in a coma.

  The physical therapist came in and manipulated his shattered leg.

  Sam didn’t participate or complain. He complacently accepted the pain as if it were a penance—as if it could somehow help assuage some of the guilt he felt.

  It didn’t work.

  His mother came, day after day, and continued to talk to him. One day, she suddenly burst into tears and left.

  He should have called out to her. Just one word would have heartened her, but he couldn’t seem to manage even that.

  When he was little, his mother’s tears were enough to stop him in his tracks. She’d cried the time he’d gone out drinking with his friends and had been picked up by the local police. He’d never done it again.

  Now, he just couldn’t work up the energy to feel bad.

  When she left, the room got quiet and he went back to staring.

  Light to dark. Dark to light.

  Someone bringing food.

  Someone manipulating his leg.

  He barely noted those variations.

  He recalled a doctor coming in and talking about post-traumatic stress and using words like elective mutism.

  Even that couldn’t shake him from the listlessness.

  Then sometime later—hours, days, he wasn’t sure—he heard heavier footsteps come into the room.

  He sensed someone standing behind him, but couldn’t work up the energy to turn and see who.

  “Come on, Sam. It’s time to get up.”

  His surprise was the impetus he needed to turn. “Grid?”

  “So, Romeo, you can talk. Told ’em that Samuel Adams Corner wasn’t a quitter. I was right. Now, get up.”

  Sergeant Harrison Gridley was a friend. He’d been there the day . . .

  Sam’s momentary spurt of energy evaporated and he sank back into his seat, longing to just go back to staring and not thinking.

  “So, that’s it?” Grid was pissed. It didn’t take any special abilities to hear it in his voice.

  “You got nothing to say?”

  Grid pulled a chair over and moved into Sam’s line of sight.

  “Listen, I know this isn’t about your messed-up leg and other injuries. You’re too tough to stop over that.” He paused, as if Sam had answered. “I get it. It hurts. Ramsey, Smith, Johnson, Lyle, and Lennon. Their names are part of me. They always will be. I miss them, too, but you can’t just stop because of it.”

  He stood, pushed back the chair, and got the walker that stood in the corner.

  “Your PT guy said you should be walking. Hell, Sam, you should be talking and getting on with your life.”

  Grid reached down and threw the brakes on Sam’s wheelchair. “Come on.”

  Sam couldn’t make himself reach for the walker.

  “That’s it? You’re going to just stop? All those guys who didn’t get a choice, who aren’t going home, who will never hug their moms or their girls again, and you’re just going to give all that up willingly? I thought you were brave, Sam, but you’re not. You’re a coward.”

  He turned and walked toward the door. Then turned again. “You’re dishonoring the boys—you’re dishonoring every man who fought over there and will never have a chance to come home and live their life.”

  Grid left before Sam could try and find the words to tell him that he didn’t understand. Grid was right—it wasn’t Sam’s leg; it was . . . everything. A huge weight had settled over him. Grid was wrong; Sam didn’t have a choice. It wasn’t the pain of his injuries, but the pain of those losses.

  He sat in the wheelchair, staring at the walker. He wished he could go back to just staring out the window. He wished that Grid hadn’t come and disturbed his peace.

  No, peace wasn’t the right word.

  But he didn’t have the energy to figure out what the word would be.

  “Inertia,” Sam said.

  I nodded. I got that. More than most people would.

  “Every day Grid came to visit and pushed and prodded. He had the therapist show him what to do, and then he did it. Over and over. He twisted my leg. He pulled at it, stretching the damaged muscles. But more than that, he twisted me and pulled me from wherever it was I’d been hiding . . .”

  Two weeks after Grid arrived, he sat across from Sam.

  “Do you remember that night they served hot dogs and you started rhapsodizing about Smith Hot Dogs? They’re a western Pennsylvania thing, and you went on and on about how no other hot dogs could compare?”

  Despite himself, Sam was pulled into the memory. “Lyle said he was a hot dog expert because he’d competed in hot-dog-eating contests, and since he’d never heard of them, how good could they be?”

  Grid nodded. “And you challenged him to a duel. The guys cheered and egged the two of you on.”

  “Lyle won and I threw up.”

  “But they cheered as you puked,” Grid said with pride in his voice. Then his smile faded. “What would they think if they saw you now?”

  Sam didn’t answer. He was still in the middle of that memory.

  “I’ve been here two weeks, Sam. You’re talking now, and that’s good. But it’s not enough. You’ve got to get up. It’s time. You’ve mourned them. Now it’s time to honor them. Get up.”

  Sam remembered Lyle and their hot dog debate.

  Ramsey, a family man, had four girls. He used to joke that being deployed was his only defense against all that estrogen.

  Smith was a musician when he wasn’t fighting in wars. Even now, Sam could hear the soft refrain of Red River Valley.

  Johnson was an outdoorsman. He swore when he got home he was heading to Alaska. He longed for snow and ice. He was going to fish and lose himself in the wilderness there.

  And Lennon, who was just one of the boys, even if she was a girl. She could spit, belch, and tell a tall tale along with the rest of them. But sometimes, there was a softness that crept around her rough edges. That little girl on their last trip. She’d held her as if she were the girl’s mother.

  Sam felt the weight of their loss. It pressed on him, driving him back into himself.

  Grid seemed to sense it. “No you don’t,” he said, and punched Sam in the arm, not as hard as he could, but hard enough to remind Sam he could still feel.

  “Get up, Sam.” Grid’s voice was fierce. “You know they all would be pissed if they could see you here, wallowing. Just get up. That first step is always the hardest.”

  Without a word, Sam reached down and fumbled with the brakes on the wheelchair.

  He reached for the walker.

  “Just one step, Sam. Once the first one’s over, the second will be easier, and then the third, then . . .”

  Sam threw his weight forward and let momentum do the bulk of the work. He rose, unsteady.

  “Just the first step,” Grid whispered.

  And Sam reached his right leg forward, and set it inches in front of the left.

  It wasn’t much of a step, but Grid was right; it was the hardest.

  “I’m sorry,” I said.

  “Me, too,” Sam echoed.

  That was all. Maybe it didn’t seem like much to Jerry, who was nursing his beer at the end of the bar, probably listening to us again.

  But I knew it was something big.

  Something huge
.

  That week, things felt different. Somehow lighter. Sam’s friend’s words resonated with me. Sometimes you needed to take time to collect yourself.

  The first step is the hardest.

  I’d taken a year and wasn’t sure I’d collected myself very much. I still felt . . . adrift. Lost.

  Then I thought about it, and realized maybe I had taken a first step. I had friends now. Someplace to go every Monday. I felt as if I managed to reconnect with the kids.

  I had the tapestry.

  How had that very imperfect piece of cloth on my loom become so important? I wasn’t sure, but it was.

  I took Angus on a long walk on Tuesday. I owed him after last week’s neglect. It was cool enough that I needed a jacket. I wore an old black-and-red flannel shirt that had been Conner’s, once upon a time. He’d left it when he went to college, and I claimed it.

  Even though it had been years and it had thinned after repeated washings, I swore it kept me warmer than my fleece jacket. And it reminded me of my son. The boy he was, and the man he’d become.

  He was a cop.

  How an accountant and an art teacher had produced a law enforcement officer boggled me, but we had and he was.

  He’d been a good kid, and now he was a good man, keeping people safe in Erie. He believed in what he was doing. I envied him that. I was no longer sure what I believed in.

  Angus bounded through the woods, barking wildly at everything and nothing.

  “Come on, Gus,” I hollered. We walked and I waited for inspiration to claim me. That’s how it was when I walked. I’d think about my current project and I’d suddenly know what came next. Or I’d have a design for some pottery.

  Now, I wanted to know what I should stitch into my tapestry next. What I should work on between my Monday excursions.

  My life had settled into a rhythm. Mondays, then work until it was Monday again. I needed something to work on this week. Angus and I walked for hours that Tuesday morning waiting for direction for this week to come.