One Last Song

by S. K. Falls

  “I guess you can tell we come here a lot,” Zee said. “Hey, Ralph!” she called to a waiter. “Usual, please.”

  The guy flashed her a thumbs-up sign and looked at me. “And what about you?”

  “Um, just a, uh, a coffee, please.” I felt like my social bones were stiff with disuse, popping and creaking awkwardly at my effort to exercise them. I glanced sideways at Drew to see if he was staring, but he was already sprawled on a couch in the lounge area and pulling some papers out of his messenger bag.

  I took a seat on a recliner and Zee collapsed melodramatically on the couch next to him, hoisting her feet up so her boots were on his papers. He pushed her legs off impatiently. “Not now, Zee.”

  She didn’t seem to mind his tone. Rolling her eyes at me, she said, “He’s on a mission and can’t be disturbed.”

  I smiled a little awkwardly. “What mission?”

  “It’s always something new,” Zee replied.

  “It’s important,” Drew said, moving the sheet of paper on top to the back. He looked up at me. “It’s a petition for a TIDD member.”

  “Jack doesn’t come to TIDD anymore, ergo, he is not a member,” Zee said, as Ralph brought us our coffees. “Thanks, hon. Put it on my tab, will ya?”

  I took my coffee and tried to pay, but Ralph shook his head, his hoop earrings jangling. “First time no charge,” he said. “Hope you’ll come back.”

  “Stop flirting with her and give me my coffee,” Drew said, feigning annoyance. “What do I have to do to get some service around here?”

  I watched them, my brain teeming with questions. How could they act like this, like it was any other day? Didn’t they want to go skydiving or setting world records? Why were they wasting their time with me when these were their last days? I felt like this was all just a dream, a surreal, bizarre dream from which I’d wake up at any moment. Maybe Dr. Stone and I would discuss it at my next appointment—the implications of coffee and a yellow car.

  When Ralph went back behind the counter, Drew set his coffee on the table in front of us. “Jack’s too sick to come to TIDD meetings,” he said, as if there had been no interruption. “That doesn’t mean he’s not a member anymore. I don’t understand why you’re so against this.”

  “It’s just a bad idea for the group to be involved in something so divisive,” Zee said, her eyes going dark in a way I was sure wasn’t common for her. “We depend on the hospital administration for fundraisers and other things.” She looked at me. “They’ve paid for family members’ hotel rooms in the past, when people had to be hospitalized in a different city. They pick up the bill for stuff like that all the time. And they’re totally against this plan.”

  I nodded and took a sip of my coffee. It scorched my tongue.

  Drew sighed. “It’s Jack’s choice.”

  “Jack isn’t… all there anymore. You know that. You’ve got to admit it.”

  Drew ran a hand through his hair, a gesture I’d always thought was annoying and pretentious on guys. On him, it looked genuine. I could see frustration in the tightness of his jaw. “That’s not his fault. That’s part of the very thing he wants to stop.” He looked at me. “I’m sorry. We’re probably talking over your head. The thing is we have a TIDD member who’s too sick to come to meetings now. He’s got encephalitis—a brain infection—as a complication of cancer. So he wants to petition the court for physician-assisted suicide.”

  Physician-assisted suicide. I looked at Drew, sitting there with his cane balanced against the arm of the couch. I wanted to crawl inside his brain and see what he felt when he said those words. Was it frightening? Or did he feel like it didn’t apply to him? I knew what I’d be doing that night: researching more about Friedreich’s ataxia, just how quickly it progressed.

  “I… see. That’s, um, euthanasia. Right?”

  “Right.” Drew took a deep breath. “I think it should be his choice.”

  “Do you think the court will approve something like that?”

  “It’s considered a felony in New Hampshire,” Drew replied. “But I’m hoping a petition from the community might change the court’s mind.”

  Zee made a noise somewhere between a snort and a laugh. “Are you kidding? Do you live where I live? This conservative little town’s never going to approve of something like that. It’d hurt their delicate sensibilities too much. Besides, I’m with them on this one. The nature of Jack’s disease makes it too close to call. How do we know it’s really what he wants and not just what his addled brain is saying?”

  Suicide. This guy, Jack, wasn’t exactly talking about offing himself in the usual sense of the word, but he was asking to be able to choose how and when he died. I’d considered it once.

  Once, when I was in the eighth grade, I’d been admitted to the hospital. I had a severely upset stomach and a high fever, and they were working hard to try to find the cause for my infection. I remember it was the middle of the night, and I’d been up and down, alternatively throwing up and thrashing around and even having the occasional seizure when Mum came in to the room. She sat with me, took my hand, and asked me very seriously if what I wanted was to die. She said she’d watched me suffer so long that she was seriously trying to understand my motivation. Surely it wasn’t just that I liked being sick, right? What kind of fucking weirdo likes being sick?

  I thought about Mum’s question long and hard, I really did. My feverish thirteen-year-old brain could see she truthfully wanted to understand me. I thought she deserved my serious consideration of the matter. But then I realized that I didn’t want to die. What she didn’t understand, what no one understood, was that I enjoyed that place right there in the gauzy veil between life and death. I liked feeling powerless and sick and diseased.

  When they found out what the cause of my infection was, they discharged me immediately and gave my parents a referral to yet another therapist.

  I’d been imbibing fecal matter.

  Chapter Eleven

  Zee insisted on dropping Drew and me off, even though I told her I’d be happy taking a cab. I watched her out of the corner of my eye as she drove, her head bobbing in time to the Bob Marley track on her sound system. One of her braids was coming undone, and a strand of wispy red hair stuck out at an odd angle. I had the intense urge to tug on it, see if it would fall out. Her body was likely still radioactive from all the chemo. I remembered reading somewhere that the poison from those toxins remained in a patient’s body long after treatment itself was over.

  To me¸ it seemed an unfathomable luxury to be a cancer patient. The world was made to sympathize with cancer patients. They were heroes of billboards on the interstate, of touching ads with tender music that interrupted our favorite TV shows. We cheered on celebrities who developed, and fought, cancer, shaving our heads when they lost their hair in a show of moral support.

  When we pulled into the gates of The Mills, Drew let out a whistle. “I knew this place was supposed to be ritzy, but I’d never been inside myself.”

  I spread my hands out magnanimously. “You’re welcome.”

  Zee did that snort-laugh thing.

  “Where did you grow up?” I turned slightly so I was half facing Drew. That was about as much as I could handle right then. It was like he had a superpower, like he could light me on fire simply by looking at me. Even as I thought it, I knew just how cliché it sounded.

  “New York City,” he said. He tapped the head of his cane against the open palm of his hand as he talked. I watched, hypnotized. “I loved it, but when it came time for college, I wanted to go somewhere quieter.” A laugh, a rumbling sound deep in his throat. “I know, I know. Most kids want to go somewhere to party when they’re in college. Not me. I’d had enough of that growing up.”

  Zee rolled to a four-way stop sign and I directed her.

  “What do you mean?” I asked. “Were your parents gone a lot or something?”

  “Ha. No. The problem was that they were never gone.” His eyes ran over my face, a
s if he was assessing my willingness—or ability—to hear his story. “Look, I don’t want to lay all this on you the first time we meet. I might scare you off.” He grinned. “Why don’t you come hang out with us Thursday night and I’ll tell you more?”

  “Oh, yeah. Come out with us! Pierce’ll be there, too.” Zee bounced slightly in her seat.

  “Come out where?”

  “Sphinx again. We never go anywhere else.” Drew grinned. “It’ll be fun, though. We’ll chill, drink a couple of beers—”

  I shook my head at him. “I can’t. I’m only eighteen, remember?” I felt weird saying that, like I was a child compared to these two with their serious illnesses and legal ages.

  “Oh yeah, she’s a young ’un,” Zee said. “That’s okay, they just won’t stamp your wee hand and you can sit sipping your Diet Coke like a good girl.”

  I laughed.

  “So?” Drew asked, the cane hitting his palm just a touch more rapidly. “Will you come?”

  I pointed, and Zee pulled up in front of my house.

  “Sure.” I handed him my cell phone, my heart racing. “Put your number in there so I can text you if anything comes up.” It was, hands down, the bravest thing I’d ever done in my life.

  I stood on the driveway and waved as Zee’s bright yellow car zipped off, a little spot of jaundiced sun on the gloomy street. I clutched my cell phone in my hand, just a tad heavier now with Drew’s number and Zee’s, too. When I couldn’t see them anymore, I keyed in the code for the garage and walked into my waiting house.

  * * *

  My fingers played with the syringe in my pocket as I stuck my boots by the mudroom door and ventured out into Mum’s craft nook. She sat hunched over the roof of her dollhouse doing something to the shingles, her usual cup of tea sitting off to the side.

  “I’m back.” I held my arms out to the sides, like I was displaying my body for her to inspect. When I realized that, I let my arms fall back down.

  “I hear.” She didn’t look up. The weird scorching smell of the wood glaze she used traveled up my nostrils.

  “I ended up volunteering late at the hospital today.” I pulled out a barstool and sat down, hooking my feet on the spindles underneath.

  She took a sip of tea, glanced at me, and returned to her work. “All right.”

  “What are you doing? To the roof, I mean?” I watched her head, the blue-black of her hair reflecting the recessed lights in the ceiling.

  “Glazing the shingles.” Her tiny brush paused and she took a deep breath before looking up at me. “Don’t you have something else to occupy your time, Saylor? You’re making me nervous, staring at me while I work.”

  Childish rage bubbled in my chest, white hot. “Well, gee, I wish I could, Mum, but it seems you thought it absolutely necessary that I be pulled out of college to come home. So if I seem a bit cabin feverish, I guess you only have yourself to blame. Jesus Christ.”

  “Watch your language.” She sighed, her shoulders rounding out as if she was so tired, she didn’t have the strength to even hold them up.

  I looked away, not wanting to see just how tiresome she thought I was. My gaze swept across the enormous Christmas tree–shaped cardholder on the wall that my mother diligently got out every year. Dozens of fancy, glittering Christmas cards still adorned it; Mum hadn’t gotten around to putting it away yet, probably thanks to the rigmarole of having to tend to a wayward daughter. My parents got about a hundred cards each holiday, most of them from my dad’s clients or golfing buddies. There wasn’t a single one from people we actually cared about, real friends or family.

  A memory came to me then, unbidden. I was around ten years old, ecstatic to be out of school for winter vacation. It was the middle of the night, and I’d come downstairs for a drink of water. When I walked into the living room to cross into the kitchen, I caught sight of Mum sitting in front of the lit fireplace, tears rolling down her cheeks as she struggled to rip up a greeting card. Her hands were shaking as she tried to get her fingers to tear the thick cardstock. Still, besides the silent tears, her expression was absolutely stoic.

  I’d stood by the entryway, hardly daring to breathe. Even then, I could tell this was a private moment, one Mum would not appreciate being observed. But in the shadows that night, I felt like I’d gleaned a rare look into Mum’s hidden life, one that she kept completely separate from the one she let me see.

  The next morning, when she’d been preoccupied with something else, I’d poked around in the fireplace and seen a snippet of an address label. The card had come from London. I only knew of one person who lived there.

  “How come I’ve never met my grandmother?” I hadn’t realized the question had even been forming when I spat it out. When she looked up at me, her eyes wide, I felt like my face must’ve reflected the same surprise.

  “What?”

  “Where is she? Is she even still alive? She used to send us Christmas cards and then they just stopped. What did you say to her?” I didn’t really care about not seeing my grandmother. But my mother’s mother was a sore subject and I couldn’t help but wonder if what I’d seen so long ago had something to do with Mum’s caginess on the matter. Now seemed as good a time as any to bait my mother with the subject.

  When Mum set her brush down, I noticed with a small measure of spiteful satisfaction that her hand trembled a touch. “Why are you bringing this up now?”

  “I just think it’s weird that I don’t get to have a relationship with any extended family. And you refuse to talk about her at all. What kind of person doesn’t even want her child to know her own mother?”

  My mother took another sip of tea, and I could see she was trying to maintain her composure. Apparently anger won out, though, because she set her teacup down with a crash, spilling some of the liquid onto the table, where it beaded and reflected the light like a pretty piece of glass.

  “You don’t know the first thing about my mother. You think you deserve so much, but do you ever think about what you do to deserve it? What have you ever done for me? What do you do for anyone besides yourself?”

  Her words cut at me, slashing and ripping, until I was sure my skin was in ribbons. We stared at each other, breathless. A beat pounded in my head.

  Selfish.

  Unlovable.

  Selfish.

  Unlovable.

  My cell phone vibrated in my pocket. I pulled it out.

  Just making sure you haven’t changed your mind about Thursday! –Zee

  Turning away from my mother, I keyed in, I haven’t.

  Chapter Twelve

  Tuesday evening, I was sprawled horizontally across my bed, reading more in the PDR about drugs used to treat multiple sclerosis, when my phone beeped with an incoming text. I glanced at the screen, expecting another reminder from Zee. But it wasn’t her. It was him. My heart began pounding a steady beat, just a bit faster than normal.

  I’m craving deep-fried Chinese doughnuts. Do you like those?

  I bit down on my lip to keep the smile from spreading as I typed.

  I like them.

  Okay. What time should I meet you?

  Fingers trembling slightly for reasons I didn’t care to explore, I typed back, Meet me where?

  China Garden downtown. They have THE best Chinese doughnuts. They’re deep-fried. But I may have mentioned that already.

  I stared at the screen. A date. Was he asking me out on a date? My phone beeped again. A picture of Chinese doughnuts, deep-fried to a golden brown. I almost snorted with laughter. One hour?

  I’m there.

  * * *

  Right before I walked in, when my palm touched the cold metal of the door handle at China Garden, I had a momentary freak-out. What the hell was I doing here? I’d already put myself in so much shit by participating in the TIDD group. And then I’d gone to coffee with Drew and Zee. But now… now I was here, by myself, taking the farce one step further. Sure, I’d told Zee I’d go with them to Sphinx. But that was Thursday, st
ill forty-eight hours—a lifetime—away. This was here. This was now.

  Then I caught sight of him through the glass. He sat in the corner, head bent over something—a napkin?—big fingers clasping a pen that looked kid-sized in his hands. His cane rested against the side of the table, graceful, silent, waiting.

  I pushed the door open and walked in.

  When my shadow fell on him, he looked up, blue eyes distracted for a moment before they cleared, like cloudy ice turning to warm, sparkling water. Just for that smile alone, I thought. It was worth coming here just for that smile.

  “Hey.” I took off my coat and sat, stuffing it into the corner of my side of the booth, unable to look into those eyes again just yet.

  “Grayson.” I felt his gaze on me, heavy, weighty. His smile seeped through his words. “Tell the truth. Are you here for the deep-fried Chinese doughnuts or the excellent company?”

  I laughed and looked back into his eyes, promising myself I wouldn’t get swallowed up. I wouldn’t. This was just one… get-together. One meeting. My chest throbbed, but I balled my fists on the table, refused to check on the abscesses. Kept smiling as I carefully unfurled one finger to point at the napkin he’d been writing on. “So, what’s that? An ode to the deep-fried doughnuts?”

  He set his pen down and folded the napkin neatly. “This? Ah, nothing. Just a song I’m working on.”

  “A song? You’re writing a song?”

  He nodded, looking amused at my surprise.

  “And that’s ‘nothing’ in which world? Can I see?” I held my hand out, curious. I’d always been fascinated by people who could create something from nothing. Maybe a parallel could be drawn—me and my illnesses, an artist and his masterpiece. But maybe that was sacrilegious.

  Drew handed the napkin over after a beat, a faint crimson tinting his cheeks. Was he feeling… shy? I found the idea strangely endearing. Opening the napkin, I read what he’d scrawled in his ridiculously messy hand, words tossed across the paper like a handful of birdseed.