“Ah,” he says. “Gotta love technology. You should put a sign up or something.”
“We have. A few times. People rip it, write on it. One time someone even stole it. So we just stopped trying.”
“Wow,” he says. “That’s kind of crazy.”
“Yeah,” I say. “Well, listen, I’ll go get the key from the desk and get your money back for you.”
“No, it’s fine,” he says. “The money doesn’t matter, I just want to get this printed.”
“What is it?” I ask, curiosity getting the better of me. “Something to do with your video game?”
He looks down, embarrassed. “No, uh . . . nothing like that. It’s just a . . . business plan.”
“Really?” I say, surprised that he has any ambitions outside of the video game. “What kind of business?”
“You know that old golf course just outside of town? The run-down one?”
“Yeah,” I say. I remember passing it in the dead of night on the way to New Hampshire. With Eric. I swallow and push him out of my mind.
“I want to buy it. Bring it back. It’s a great location,” he says, looking at me now. His eyes are shining.
“Huh,” I say. “Good for you. Well, I’ll go get the key now.”
I return a few minutes later and he’s standing at his carrel straightening a stack of paper—his business plan, I presume. I unlock the coin box at the printer and retrieve $4 worth of quarters for him, putting them in a plastic cup I picked up from the desk.
I set it down next to his computer carrel. “Here you go,” I say.
“Thanks,” he says, sitting back down and turning his attention back to his game.
I stand there for a minute, until I’m overcome by my nosiness. “Hey, why do you come in here every day? Just to play this game?” I’m embarrassed as soon as it’s out of my mouth, not realizing how rude it was going to sound. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean—”
“No, it’s OK,” he says, but then he just stares at the screen and doesn’t respond. After twenty or thirty long seconds, I’m about to walk off when he finally speaks.
“My parents died. Last year. My mom from breast cancer. And then my dad a few months later. Freak accident.”
“Car wreck?”
“No, he fell off the ladder while trying to clean the gutters.” He chuckles softly. “Mom was always telling him to hire someone.”
“My god, I’m so sorry.”
“Yeah,” he says. “Anyway, my parents were pretty prominent people, and so afterward, people kept calling, dropping by my house and my office unannounced to check on me, sending me things, and I just couldn’t take it anymore. The reminders. The pity. So I took a leave of absence from work. And then one day I wandered in here to get away from it all. And then I kept coming. I didn’t really think about it, but I guess it was a good distraction. It was easier than being out there, anyway.” He waves his hand toward the door. “Guess that sounds a little crazy.”
“No,” I say. “It doesn’t. Not to me.”
He looks up, surprised. “Really?”
“Yeah,” I say.
He nods. “Cool.” He turns back to his computer, and I turn back to my desk, tears in my eyes for the second time that day.
OVER THE NEXT few weeks, Madison is even more relentless in her calls, texts, and random unannounced visits at the library and my house. I try to ignore her, but she’s pretty much impossible. Finally, one day she’s waiting on my front porch when I get home. I park my bike behind the fence and walk up to the front steps, stopping at the bottom.
“Please just go away,” I say, pulling my keys out of my bag.
“Not until you hear me out.”
I cross my arms and look at her.
She takes a deep breath. “When I first saw you at the gas station a few months ago, I was shocked. It brought back so many memories—so many feelings that I tried to forget over the years—especially guilt about that god-awful, stupid bet and what it did to you.
“And then, when you said you needed a job, yes, I wanted to help, I wanted to do anything I could for you, to make up for what I had done. And god, when I found out about your condition and how you’d been spending your life—that Donovan had been telling the truth—I felt even worse. So yeah, maybe it was a little pity project, or whatever you want to call it, just to selfishly lessen my remorse.”
At this, I roll my eyes and scoff. She holds up her hand. “I admit that,” she says. “But, Jube, the more I got to know you, the more I liked you. And then, I was so excited just to have a friend in my life. You have no idea how hard it’s been since Donovan and I split up. They say when things like that happen, you find out who your real friends are, and it’s true. Turns out, most people in my life were just there because they thought Donovan and I were some golden couple, or because he was some bigwig at the bank, and when we got divorced I was so alone. And then, there you were. And you needed me. But it turns out, I needed you, too. More than you know.”
I stare at her, taking this in. And I realize I always just assumed Madison had a million friends, like she did in high school. It never occurred to me she could ever be just as lonely as I was. As I am.
I bite my lip, wanting to stay angry—knowing I should be angry—but when she looks at me, I know I’ll forgive her. That I already have. Besides, Mr. Walcott always said beggars can’t be choosers, and really, she’s the only friend I’ve got left.
“Jesus, Madison,” I say, dropping my arms. “Can you get off my porch?”
She looks at me with sadness. “Yeah,” she says, her shoulders sagging. She starts down the steps.
“Don’t be so dramatic,” I say. “I need you to move so I can unlock the door and let you in.”
“Really?” she asks, her head popping up.
“Yes,” I say. “Really.”
“Oh my gosh! I wish I could hug you.”
“Let’s not get carried away,” I say. “We just made up. And since I’m your only friend, you probably shouldn’t chance putting me in the hospital.”
Later, when we’re settled on the couch catching up over cups of coffee, Rufus lying contentedly at my feet, I fill her in on Eric. “Oh, Jube,” she says. “That sucks.”
And I sadly laugh at how succinctly that sums it up. Then I ask her the question that I’ve been mulling over ever since Eric left my house.
“Do you sometimes wish you had never met Donovan?”
She looks at me, thinking. “Sometimes, yeah,” she says. She takes a sip from her mug. Swallows. “And then I look at Sammy and Hannah and Molly and that’s when meeting Donovan becomes the best thing that ever happened to me.”
I nod. “But what if you didn’t have kids? What if you and Donovan had gotten married and then he cheated and you had nothing to show for it?”
“What are you asking? If love is worth the risk?”
I shrug. “I don’t know.” And then: “Yeah, I guess that is what I’m asking.”
She lets out a long breath, chuckling a little on the exhale. “Listen, love can be a real shit-show,” she says. “Especially my love life. Had I known that Donovan and I were going to end up the way we did, would I have still gone through with it? I don’t know. But that’s the thing, isn’t it? We never know. Loving people, trusting people. It’s always a risk. And there’s ever only one way to find out if it’s worth it.”
I sit back, taking this in. And then out of nowhere, I think of Michael. And what he said in the library—how life is easier when you hole yourself up away from the world, away from the pain. How I did that for nine years. And then when I finally came out of hiding, I met Eric. And even though it hurt—even though it still hurts, every second of every day—would I really rather have never met him? In those nine years alone, I never experienced even an ounce of the pure joy, the exhilaration I felt in those few moments with Eric.
And I wonder, if I hole myself back up, protect myself from the world and the people in it—what other moments will I be mi
ssing?
And that’s when I know that Madison’s right. You have to take risks.
ON SUNDAY, I wake up, let Rufus out, and eat a poached egg on toast, cut into tiny bite-size pieces—though my agoraphobia seems better, I still have a profound fear of choking to death. Then I go stand at the door to my mother’s room. I stare at it, as if taking mental pictures of the scalloped bedspread, the knockoff perfume jars on the dresser, the full jewelry boxes—and then I begin.
It takes most of the morning and afternoon, sorting the things in her closet, her drawers, making piles for charity, trash, and to keep, the what-to-keep pile being the smallest of them all. Rufus watches with mild curiosity from his perch just inside the door to the room. I break down the bed, pushing the frame, mattress, and box spring out into the hall, along with the dresser, the nightstand. And then I dive into the first of her three jewelry boxes. I know it’s all costume—she took the few good pieces she owned with her to Long Island—but I go through it all, anyhow, if only just to hold each necklace and earring one last time. To conjure the memory of when I last saw her in them.
It’s not until the bottom of the third box that I find it—a letter, addressed to Kimberly Yount in Fountain City, Tennessee. The return address is my mother’s, mine—from when we lived in Fountain City. A black rubber stamp has been pressed into the front between the two—RETURN TO SENDER. I flip it over to find that it’s unopened.
I stare at it. And wonder who it could be. She never mentioned a Kimberly, even when we lived in Tennessee, apparently just a few miles away from this woman.
I sit down on the hardwood floor and slide my thumb under the flap, ripping through the old glue with little effort. I pull a folded piece of lined notebook paper out of the envelope and unbend its creases. I start reading.
Kimmy,
I know you don’t want to hear from me, but you won’t return my calls. Not that I blame you, I guess. I just need somebody right now. And you’re the closest thing to a friend I ever had.
Jubilee—that’s my daughter, that’s what I named her, maybe you already knew that, I don’t know—anyway, the doctors, they’re saying she’s got something awful. And I’m scared. They’re saying I can’t touch her. That no one can.
She’s always been an anxious girl—long before these problems started. She would wake up in the night screaming bloody murder like you never heard. Night terrors, that’s what the doctor said. But I knew it was something more—like she was born scared of the world. Like she always knew what she had before I knew it. And I thought it must have been my fault. You know I don’t believe in sinning or God punishing people or whatever, but I also know it’s not right, what I did—and maybe Jubilee has to pay for that? Like karma, or something.
And now that she’s got this thing, she’s even more jittery than before, although I guess I can’t blame her. She won’t let me anywhere near her. The doctors said if I was safe, if I wore gloves, didn’t have any skin-to-skin contact, it would probably be all right. But she’s just so frightened.
I bought this nightgown at Belk—this ugly old thing with long sleeves and about eight miles of fabric. (I don’t know who sleeps in something like that—although on second thought, I guess it’s exactly like something you’d wear. No offense.) And some nights when Juby’s sleeping, I sneak into her room and put my arms around her, careful not to wake her, not to touch her skin. And oh, she smells so good. Just like my baby girl, even though she’s six now. And it just breaks my heart.
I don’t know why I’m telling you all this, except maybe it’ll make you feel better to know that I’m in a world of hurt. And I guess I deserve it for ruining your marriage like I did. Or maybe I just want you to feel sorry for me. Lord knows I could use a friend right now, even if it’s out of pity.
Anyway, for what it’s worth. I’m sorry.
Vicki
When I finish, I read it again. And then a third time. And though it’s got clues to who my possible father is and insight to my mother’s past that I never dreamed of knowing—and am not even sure that I wanted to know—all I can focus on is that ridiculous nightgown I found in her closet and used as my Halloween costume. And I’m laughing even as my hands shake and tears roll down my face. My mother—who owned far too many too-tight blouses and smoked far too many cigarettes and was far, far from perfect—she held me. She loved me. The only way she knew how.
EVENTUALLY, I PICK myself up off the floor, put my mom’s letter in the what-to-keep pile, and continue with the sorting. A few hours later, muscles aching, I go downstairs, satisfied with the day’s work. I sit on the sofa, pick a book off the top of one of my teetering stacks, and decide to spend the rest of the evening reading, Rufus’s head in my lap.
Tomorrow, I’ll move my furniture in.
Right after I call Dr. Zhang.
epilogue
Seven years later
“What’s miraculous about a spider’s web?” said Mrs. Arable. “I don’t see why you say a web is a miracle—it’s just a web.”
“Ever try to spin one?” asked Dr. Dorian.
E. B. White, Charlotte’s Web
* * *
* * *
The New York Times
A RARE CONDITION, A RADICAL CURE by William Colton
Every day for the past eighteen months, Jubilee Jenkins drank tea. But not just any tea—a special brew, formulated with a heady mix of Chinese herbs by New York doctor Mei Zhang. The same mix of herbs that Jenkins also applied to her skin as a lotion twice daily and bathed in every night.
No, it’s not the latest fountain-of-youth trend, but a treatment for a rare condition that has left Jenkins, 33, on the sidelines for most of her life. An allergy. To humans.
It may sound like something out of a Michael Crichton novel, but it’s all too real for Jenkins, who was first diagnosed at the tender age of six. “It was devastating,” she said. “I couldn’t have a regular childhood, for fear of being touched.”
The affliction (first reported by the New York Times 28 years ago) only grew worse as she got older, confining her to her house for most of her twenties. But then she met with Dr. Zhang, who had an idea: to use genetic sequencing to isolate the human protein she was missing—the one (or ones) her body would attack when it was detected on her skin after contact with others—and to slowly introduce it to her system in the form of immunotherapy, a treatment that’s had some success with severe food allergies.
Jenkins resisted at first. “I had lived my whole life this way.” She shrugs. “I guess I was just scared.” But then something changed her mind. “I met someone,” she says, ducking her head. “I guess he made me realize I wanted to be a part of this world—with or without my allergy. It would just be easier to live in it without it.”
Dr. Zhang’s team of geneticists isolated the protein rather quickly—within five months—but five years of treatment garnered disappointing results. “She could tolerate minuscule amounts, but every time we tried to increase it, she would react. After a few years, we were finally able to up the dose, but we were nowhere near a cure. Nowhere near the realm of her getting a handshake or hug from somebody without a severe reaction. And that, obviously, was the goal.”
That’s when Dr. Zhang decided to try a novel approach that she’s been researching for more than ten years: HFAT-3, or Herbal Food Allergy Treatment. It’s a combination of Chinese herbal compounds and extracts that have been found to reduce inflammation, block histamine release—and even alter the molecular biology of immune system cells. In other words, they reduce the body’s knee-jerk reaction to a known allergen and can even prevent anaphylactic shock.
“My herbal treatment has worked very successfully—about an 80 percent cure rate—for various food allergies. And I just thought, why not? What did we have to lose?”
As it turns out, nothing—but they had everything to gain.
In February of this year, Jubilee was given the news she’d once only dreamed of. “ ‘You’re cured’—that’s w
hat Dr. Zhang said. I don’t think I really believed it. Even when she hugged me,” Ms. Jenkins said. “It’s a miracle.”
But Dr. Zhang disagrees. “It’s just science,” she said. “And a little bit of really good luck.”
* * *
* * *
JUBILEE
“OH DEAR, SOMEONE ripped a page of Charlotte’s Web,” says Louise, reaching in the drawer for the Filmoplast.
I look, and my heart leaps into my throat. It’s the book. The same blue hardback binding. The little girl with the red dress. “I’ll fix it,” I say, taking it from her just so my hands can touch the same place his did seven years ago when he read to me under the cover of darkness in the library. I hold it to my nose, even though I know it will only smell like a musty old book. I inhale anyway. Louise looks at me funny and then grabs her purse. “I’m going to lunch.”
Mr. Walcott used to say, “Time heals all wounds.” But it’s not true. Time doesn’t heal anything. All it does is dull the memory, until some reminder—like a classic children’s book—sharpens the focus, takes your breath, and all the feelings come rushing back.
I revel in it for a minute, then set the book down on the top of the circulation desk, smooth a piece of Filmoplast on the torn page. When I close the cover, a bark grabs my attention. I look up and see Rufus dragging Madison into the library.
“What are you doing? You’re supposed to leave him tied up outside!”
“Oh, like I’ve ever had any control over him,” she says. “Are you ready to go?”
I laugh, marveling at how I can never be mad at her. Even years ago when I felt completely betrayed by her, I caved at her first sincere apology.
It was only a few weeks after that Louise got her job back. Not because of Madison—there was nothing she could really do. But because the library received an anonymous donation for $400,000, a whopping sum that put Maryann in such a good mood, she forgot why she was ever mad at me to begin with. A lot of chatter ensued among the staff on who could have made such a gift. I thought it was Donovan at first, but Madison howled when I shared my suspicions. “I mean, he’s doing fine at the bank, but his salary isn’t even close to that much money,” she said.
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