by Amber Kizer
These people don’t yell.
Vivian’s brow filled with thunderclouds. “I have a job. I am a painter, an artist. Why do I need college?”
“It’s important.”
“For what? Why?” Vivian threw up her hands.
“Are you simply trying to be difficult?”
“I’ve told you how much I hate going to school.”
“But you don’t cough anymore.”
“No one seems to know that but me,” Vivian answered.
“Do you want me to talk to the principal again? He could make an announcement,” her mom offered, softened with the reminder that Vivian was an outcast at school.
“No. Don’t you dare!”
“I’m just trying to help.”
Her dad stayed focused on his main point. “You’re going to college.”
“I am? I don’t think so.”
“Over my dead body,” he growled.
“Over yours? How about mine?” she roared, then slapped a hand over her mouth as if to capture the words, but they were free.
“Vivian!”
Her parents whitened and grayed (Pantone 9320 and 656), the air sucked from their lungs, the heat extinguished completely. They sat heavily, silent, as if trying to comprehend how she could say that.
She means it.
Vivian licked her lips and blinked. “Well, that’s what we’re pretending, isn’t it? That I have four years to study stuff I don’t care about before I die? If I’m lucky, I won’t die in the middle of my freshman year and leave you without a college-graduate daughter.” The snide in her tone was coated with grief and sadness that hurt so much I wanted to escape it by any means possible. She doesn’t look ahead because it hurts too much.
“You don’t know what you’re saying.”
“You are not going to die.”
“Yes, I am. Sooner than most people.”
“With that attitude, young lady, of course you will. You have to be positive. Think optimistically.”
“What attitude? Reality? I shouldn’t have to go to school.”
“Be realistic, then. You’re at school about twelve days a year. It can’t possibly be that bad.” Her dad loved math and logic puzzles.
“Don’t exaggerate, it’s not helping,” her mom chastised Dad.
“Not that bad?” Vivian agonized. “They’re worried about making the basketball team, or if some butt-scratching boy like, likes them. They don’t get it. None of them understand.”
“You don’t give your compatriots enough credit.”
“I don’t know what you think happens, but they make fun of me for being short, or coughing, or being sick, or all the side effects of the drugs that make me break out and grow hair like a damned Chia Pet.”
“Vivian!”
“School is non-negotiable,” her dad repeated.
“The CF doesn’t change the rules for you.”
But it should.
“I know. You’ve said that my whole life.” Deflated, she gave up.
“And look what a life you have.” Her mother began sniffling. “You have life unexpected.”
Her dad closed his eyes. “And we got the biggest gift of extra time. More time with our precious girl.”
Her mom cried. “We got a second chance with you.”
“Parents shouldn’t have to bury their children,” her dad agreed, wiping his face on his sleeve.
Vivian couldn’t bear the raw grief that flowed over her parents’ faces.
“I know.” She gave in. Gave up. Just gave. I didn’t blame her for caving; it was as if they didn’t hear her. Couldn’t hear her. Their expectations that she beat the CF cast her in a warrior’s role she didn’t want.
“You have to fight harder, Vivian,” her mother reprimanded.
With his arms around his sobbing wife, Vivian’s dad dipped his head toward the doorway. “School Monday. No arguments.”
“Yes, sir.” She scuttled out of the room, but collapsed at the top of the stairs. With her arms tight around her knees, Vivian laid her head against the banister and listened. She’d learned long ago eavesdropping was the only way she discovered the truth about her health.
“She can’t die.” Her mom broke the words into puffing breaths.
“I know.”
“We can’t let her give up.”
“I know.”
“She doesn’t understand how hard we’ve fought.”
“I know.”
“She has to want to live. I think she’s losing her will to live. How can she throw away her future like that? Just when she has new lungs?”
They don’t understand.
Tears of grave dirt (Pantone 17-1436) filled Vivian’s eyes. It wasn’t that she wanted to die young. She couldn’t avoid it. Her oldest friend from the CF floor had been twenty-eight when he’d gotten new lungs. Then he’d died eighteen months after the transplant. She hadn’t even gotten to say good-bye.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Parents shouldn’t have to bury their children.
No, they shouldn’t. Children should grow up, marry, have babies, retire, and then the parents, after they are grandparents or great-grandparents, should drift off into sleep one night and never wake up.
At least, that’s what I used to think. Why did I assume that was inevitable? Like that was the way the world worked for everyone?
I never went to a funeral before I died.
Vivian was at fifteen and counting.
Samuel went to six.
Leif, at least, buried three of his four grandparents.
I didn’t even go to my own funeral. I didn’t know why I couldn’t go, but maybe because I was connected to the pieces of me-still-living and not the parts that were buried that day. I didn’t even know where my body was buried. Why do I care?
I’m not alive.
But I’m not dead.
I tried smacking light switches and making Samuel’s monitors go fuzzy. I tried to invade the sleeping dreams of them all, but aside from knowing the dreams as they experienced them, I influenced nothing. Not a moment. None of these people know me.
Misty walked by my memorial case on the few days she went to school, but she never lingered.
Vivian rushed by it once.
Leif was never scheduled in that part of the school.
Samuel’s cousin Rebecca, my locker neighbor, left a postcard of an angel tucked into the corner of it. Not because she knew Sam had my pieces, but because she was sad she hadn’t gotten a chance to know me. Would I have noticed her death? Would I have gone to her funeral? Did any of my classmates attend mine?
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Samuel narrowed his search down to Oregon and Washington. Idaho was a wash. Sixty obits, ten car accidents, but only two organ donors. A little more digging told him neither was the right age, or organs, for his donor.
“I’m having lunch with Father Kelly; then I’ll pick up dinner groceries.” Mrs. Sabir stood in the doorway of his bedroom. The strain between them since the camping trip was fierce and palpable.
He barely glanced up from the screen. He was so close.
She frowned at the additional strings and clippings hanging from the walls, the ceiling. “Samuel, aren’t you getting a little carri—”
Carried away? You think? Thank you for noticing.
“Hey, Mom, can you get more sauerkraut?” He interrupted her and ignored her question.
“Should I call Dr. Myers?” She crept closer and touched his forehead as if feeling for fever.
“Why?” He jerked away from her hand.
“You’ve eaten three jars this week. Maybe it’s a side effect of the medications?”
“I doubt it.” But he stopped and wondered.
Good question. Why are you eating tons of pickled cabbage when you don’t have to?
“Then why are you eating so much of it?” she queried.
“I don’t know. It tastes good.” Samuel shrugged and turned back to his search engine. He entered the ke
ywords teenager, died, sauerkraut and hit Enter.
His mother never gave up on anything. She wouldn’t start with this. “I could never get you to eat sauerkraut when you were little.”
“Maybe—” Samuel waited to see if he got any hits with his search.
“What?”
“Maybe my donor liked, um, sauerkraut.”
Uh, no. I liked Sour Patch Kids. Sour jelly beans. Not sour cabbage, or sour socks, the way it smells.
She shook her head, obstinate and positive he was wrong. “I gave you those packets on cell memory. There is no evidence that people who think they like something new because of their transplant are right. It’s a silly theory.”
“Maybe.” Samuel shrugged. He knew it wasn’t worth arguing with her.
“I’m calling the doctor.”
“Fine. But pick some up too, okay?” Samuel tried changing keywords, and order, and every combination he could think of. No hits. He made a note.
Seriously? Who would put sauerkraut in their kid’s obituary? Even if they loved it. My mother would say I drank sparkling formula and used caviar to teethe on. Something that sounded extraordinary. Not sauerkraut.
Leif’s world shrank to the basics under extreme parental scrutiny. School, home, covert phone calls to Vivian, online chats with MiracleMan Sam. His life was so different grounded. It was as if they feared he’d go from liking country music to being a felon in one fell swoop. But Leif didn’t miss practice. Didn’t miss working out. School was his only official social venue and even with that it lacked appeal.
“Hey, Leif.”
“Hi.” Leif bit his tongue rather than tell her she was in his way. She stood there expectantly and he realized he was supposed to know her name. Karin? Kara? Kasey?
Karly! Even I know she’s the senior most likely to be Playmate of the Year.
He gave up and inwardly sighed. “What’s up?”
“A bunch of us were talking and your name came up and we wanted to know … Do you have a date for prom?” She tossed her head and a whiff of vanilla body lotion tickled his nose. He didn’t feel anything but annoyance.
Huh.
“Don’t girls ever do anything singular?” he muttered under his breath. “It’s always ‘we.’ Like a herd.”
True, unless we are outcasts, and then we beg for herds.
“No, I don’t.” Leif hadn’t even realized it was prom season. Last year, as a sophomore, he’d gone with Ashley before she graduated. A group of the team went together, partied into dawn, slept the day after. Nothing R-rated happened, but it was more because he didn’t find drunk girls sexy than because she was unwilling. He’d gone because it was expected. He didn’t want to go this year. He was tired of expected.
Hmm …
“Oh, great. That’s great. So—” She lit up like he’d handed her a puppy.
Oops. Craptastic. Even I saw this train raging toward the wreck. He stopped her before she embarrassed herself. “I’m not going. I already have plans.”
“Oh, oh.” It seemed as though she couldn’t quite wrap her head around the idea of scheduling anything up against prom, let alone picking that other thing.
Even over you.
“See ya.” Leif stepped around her and didn’t look back. If he hadn’t been so focused on getting away, he would have realized I wasn’t the only one paying close attention to the conversation.
Vivian watched Leif talk to the modelesque beauty. She ducked into an alcove instead of walking by them. She studied Karly. Wondered if the head toss was a gesture normal girls were born with. Karly got flirting and instead, Vivian got CF.
I felt Vivian’s envy of Karly’s typical beauty. What color would Vivian say jealousy was? Green was given, but what universal Pantone?
Behind you, dammit, behind you!
Vivian was so engrossed in spying, she was quickly cornered by a couple of tall, gangly bullies who routinely sought her out for sport jabs.
“Hey, phlegm-face. Haven’t heard you cough much today.” A couple of the jerks pretended to hack up innards in coughing fits so bad they should break ribs.
The alcove offered no escape route, but Vivian shimmied toward the side and leaned around the corner with her back to lockers. With the acumen of a veteran, she tried to ignore their taunts. And on the outside it appeared she did quite well. Inside, not so much.
I wanted to shout at them, they were so common. There was nothing special about picking on the tiny girl who coughed a lot.
Nothing.
Rage (Pantone 485) and fear (Pantone 5405) and weariness (Pantone 15-0942) battled inside Vivian until she choked on emotion, breathing around tangible colors. This was why she hated school. This was what her parents didn’t understand. This was the uselessness incarnate of why she didn’t belong here.
At least be creative in your targets, you craptastic Neanderthals.
“Come on, we’re just kidding. Don’t cry.”
“Yeah, don’t cry. Your snot will drown us all.” They chuckled and high-fived.
Inside Vivian’s head, I heard our middle-school guidance counselor repeat that bullies must feel powerless in their own lives to get a rush out of this behavior. I wish we believed him.
A teacher poked her head out of her classroom with a frown—maybe it was the volume of their taunts, or maybe a special teacher sense finally kicked in—but it was enough to give Vivian room to squeeze past and hurry away.
Vivian refused to allow them to witness her tears. She’d long ago given up crying because people were mean. If she cried every time someone made fun of her she’d never stop.
She simply wished—
Her phone beeped. Incoming message.
Vivian read the words without really seeing them. As if the message downloaded the situation, the emotions, in one fell swoop. “Sally in ICU. Time is short. She wants to see you.”
Another friend dying.
Someone give her a break. Please?
Vivian stashed her books in her locker and left her homework in there too. This was why she didn’t bother to worry about school any more. What was the point?
What is the point? I echoed her thoughts in agreement.
She headed toward the exit and passed Leif, who was bent over a drinking fountain.
“Hi, Leif,” she said, slowing her step.
He didn’t look up. Didn’t stop drinking.
The jerks followed her and began coughing again.
Vivian didn’t want Leif to see them, or hear them, or ask her about them. He never looked at her as though she was sick. She didn’t want that to change. So she rushed on, wondering if he’d noticed her and ignored her, or if he really hadn’t heard her say hello.
She headed toward Memorial Hospital. Sally was barely thirteen. Why can’t she get lungs and a heart? Why had Vivian instead?
Why had I lost mine?
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Misty snuck a wad of papers from the recycle bin, under the copy machines, on the library’s first floor. The bright papers and crazy prints were a total score, even if wonky and wacky on the misprinted pages because the copier was drunk, or high, making concert flyers. White copy paper made boringly white cranes.
She weaved through tables of college kids studying for finals and a couple of senior citizens playing chess, to the nook she considered her real home.
Everything appeared just as she’d left it. The computer wasn’t even turned on.
While the screen spun and booted, Misty sharpened a pencil and logged the latest set of medical bills into a makeshift ledger of lined paper. Notices about overdue, and unpaid, and lots of red stamps made her shrink deeper and deeper inside herself. She’d pay them. How? She wasn’t trying to get away with anything. But if they’d asked her? She would have picked an easy death last October over this constant fight to just not be miserable.
She means it; she’d rather be dead than misery’s burden to the world.
My heart ached. She logged on to MiracleMakers’ message c
enter and waited.
Nothing but the blinking cursor, and her friend Sam, seemed easy. Nothing was. Misty typed again.
M: u wanna chat?
After several weeks of messages, she’d picked up Sam’s favorite phrase. When he didn’t immediately respond, she assumed him busy. He was always there. Always available to chat with her. She depended on that. On him.
He’s getting sausage and sauerkraut, but he’ll be right back.
I worried that Misty depended on this cyber connection to get her through each day. How fast had this relationship become her whole world?
It’s amazing how time loses meaning when there is only one good thing in a sea of pain.
While she waited, Misty began making the rectangles into squares of all sizes. Folded creases ripped quietly against the corner of the desk.
S: whats up Foggy Morning?
Misty’s delight when Sam’s message popped up was effervescent, as if she’d swallowed happy and it poured out each pore.
M: happy to see you here
S: o crse
im always here 4 u
With each typed line, Misty folded a crease, or two, of her origami cranes. So that every few minutes her flock hatched another bird.
Sweat went from damp to dripping along her brow and caused a shiver of goose bumps to line her arms.
There’s something wrong with her.
I knew she worked up to asking Samuel her question of the day. She’d been thinking about it constantly.
M: do u believe in God?
S: do u?
M: no
S: why?
M: i don’t think he can exist in a world like this.
S: u mean wars
& famine
& bigotry?
No. Misty meant families like hers, working until they died, trying to find purchase on the ledge. Her obligations to them. To the world. To this miracle she had been given and would like to give back. God couldn’t be present in any of that.
I haven’t seen him either. Just saying.
M: that 2
if u believe in God
then what r u?
S: hmm
do i have 2 be something