by Nikki Rae
“So how long are you staying in California?” Mom asks, breaking me out of my thoughts. My parents look like they have instantly warmed up to Jonah, all thoughts of some older man taking advantage of their daughter seemingly vanished.
“A few days,” he says. “I'm visiting family.”
“I’m sure you’ve had time to see the sights too,” Dad says.
Mom butts in. “I'm sure he's very busy, honey.”
Jonah grabs my hand on top of the table. “Actually,” he says. “Casey was telling me about the aquarium here. That she goes every year?”
Mom smiles, unable to be rude to this man she’s just met. “Yes,” she says. “Ever since she was little.”
He fake-checks his watch. “I'd hate to steal her from you when she hasn't been home all that long...”
Dad finishes for him. “Go!” he says enthusiastically. “We get her all year ‘round. Who knows when you guys'll have time together again?”
I try not to read too much into Dad's words, but it’s hard. Time is running out. For me. For Jonah. For both of my parents.
I look to Mom, who’s trying to keep her expression blank, but I can tell she’s a little upset.
“I'll be back in a few hours,” I say, glancing at Jonah who smiles. “Right?”
He nods. “Promise.”
“You should come back afterwards too. Tell us what you think,” Dad says to him. “Right, honey?” he directs at Mom.
She takes a sip of her coffee and gives us a smile. “Sure!” she says a little too loudly. “We'd love to have you, Jonah.”
“Thank you, Mrs. Williams,” he says
Not wanting to waste any more time, I grab Jonah’s hand and lead him to stand.
“You two have fun,” Dad calls after us as I follow Jonah down the steps to his car, which looks beyond out of place in our driveway.
Once we’re in the car, Jonah starts the ignition and takes a breath. I think for a second that he’s about to say something about the situation, how he’s scared, how I’m scared, how he wishes things could just stand still for a little while, but instead he places a hand on my knee and says, “Where to?” with a smile.
***
I woke up some hours later, half expecting everything to spiral out of control, for a headache or nosebleed, or another seizure or something even more awful. But none of that happened. There was late afternoon sun shining though the many windows around us, Jonah had his arm wrapped around my waist, and my head was settled against one of the soft pillows. I didn't remember falling asleep, but now I was covered with a sheet. The rest of the blankets had gotten torn off of the bed somehow and they lay rumpled on the floor. My cheeks flushed when I saw that Jonah was not covered, just curled up beside me, his head nestled between my neck and shoulder.
I reached down and grabbed the comforter off of the floor, trying to disturb him as little as possible. I managed to cover him up with one hand. Not because I didn't want to look at him, but because he had taken the time before he fell asleep to take care of me. I thought of how he must always be trying to take care of people and failing. I wondered if anyone ever stopped to make sure he was okay. Covering him with a blanket was small in the scope of things, but it was a start. I could be that for him.
He wrapped his arm tighter around my middle and I leaned my head against his, content to feel his soft breath on my cheek as I drifted in and out. I stared at the tank with groggy eyes, unaware of the location of the lone seahorse inside, but knowing it was there was enough.
The next time I awoke, it was because my phone was buzzing on the nightstand. I rolled over to find that it was dark outside and Jonah was gone, but I could hear water running across the hall. There was a text from my mom. We had spoken on the phone every once in a while, but we were both busy, so we kept to texting. It was also easier to lie if she couldn’t hear my voice.
Mom: How is everything sweetie? I feel like I haven't talked to you in so long.
Me: Good.
I didn't know what else to say. I sat up straighter, flipping my messy hair from my face.
Mom: We're so happy you'll be home soon. Dad's driving me up the wall. He says you're a better cook than I am. Can you believe that?
I laughed quietly to myself, realizing just how much I missed them. I cooked for Dad in between my lunch break and going back to work most days, and last time I had burned soup on the stove, having to go to the grocery store and buy pre-made sandwiches instead. I remember Dad laughing at my humiliation that I couldn't even manage a can of soup for him. Then he hugged me and told me I took good care of him.
Me: I miss you guys.
Mom: Good to hear, sweetie. Can't wait to see you!
Jonah walked back into the room then. He was wearing dark grey pajama pants and nothing else, drying his hair with a towel. “Hi,” he said, smiling like I was the thing in his universe that made him happiest.
I set my phone down on the nightstand. “Hi,” I said.
He sat down next to me and tossed the towel onto the end of the bed. I hugged him and he wrapped his arms around me, kissing my forehead. “Are you hungry?”
I nodded against him. “No wine.”
Jonah laughed. “Not even a little?”
I snorted. “You want to clean up puke again?”
He kissed me, this time on the mouth. I kissed him back and it lasted longer than we probably intended, but when he pulled away I found myself feeling abandoned. Alone and cold. I wrapped the sheet around myself. “You get dressed and I'll make us something,” he said, giving me a quick kiss on the cheek. “No wine. I promise.”
I threw a pillow at him and he caught it, tossing it onto the floor with the other discarded blankets.
After I had showered and changed into my last pair of clean clothes—plain jeans and a long sleeved navy top—I headed downstairs. The two weeks’ worth I packed had stretched a week and a half more, and I was oddly thankful about it. Jonah had managed to throw a white T-shirt on and was leaning over the stove cooking something that smelled like chicken noodle soup, but it didn’t hold the salty smell the stuff from the can usually gave off. There were two candles lit on the table and the ceiling lights were dimmer than usual. When he realized I was in the room, Jonah smiled over his shoulder at me. “Sit down,” he said.
I sat so I could watch him. He took two bowls from the cabinet and spooned the food into them. He set down two glasses of water and then the soup on the table.
“Is this a date?” I asked, joking.
Jonah sat down across from me. “No,” he said sarcastically. “Never. Whatever gave you that idea?”
I pointed to the candles.
“These?” he asked. “These are not date candles. These are wax candles.”
“What's the difference?”
“Date candles are red and smell like roses. Wax candles are white and scentless, like these ones.”
I smiled, unable to contain it even though his joking was cheesy at best. “Good to know,” I said. “In case anyone else tries to light candles when I'm around.”
“Every woman should know the difference.”
We smiled at each other before we began eating in silence.
“But wax candles,” he said, just when I thought the joke had died. “Can be used for I'll miss you dinners.”
I looked up from my food, unable to say anything. When I looked into his eyes, he was sad, but smiling. Like he wasn't sure which emotion to show me.
I reached my hand across the table at the exact moment he did. I wanted to say so many things. That I would miss him too. That I didn't want to leave. That even though I knew it was hopeless and I had to go home that I was afraid of what my life would be like without him. I looked up at him and all of those things were already written in his expression.
So we didn't say anything, we just held hands and stared across the table for a long time.
***
We make it to the aquarium in about an hour's time. It’s late, but they’r
e open until eleven tonight, so we’re lucky. There are a few children running through the lobby, making excited sounds as they scatter in different directions. A replica of Megladon hangs above our heads, the plaster bones too white to look like they’ve been dug up.
“Wow,” Jonah says. “I'm already impressed.” He takes my hand and asks, “What should we see first?”
I immediately lead him to the tunnel of sharks. A small group of kids are already there, shouting when one swims over their heads. The rippling of the blue water illuminates Jonah's face as he watches the fish swim by.
“Everyone likes this one the best,” I say. Another shark, this one bigger than the last, swims close to the glass. Excited shouts from a little girl echoes around us. Jonah presses his hand to the glass. I watch him study the life beyond the barrier, lost in thoughts I can only guess.
I tug gently on his hand and he looks at me like I’ve woken him from a deep sleep. “Come on,” I say. “I want to show you my favorite part.”
He trails after me around the corner where I know the octopus won't be. Instead, there’s a tank of seahorses. “Dolly used to live here,” I blurt.
Jonah cocks his head to the side as we stop in front of the tank. “Dolly?”
I snort as I fight the urge to cover my face. “She was an octopus,” I explain. “She was my favorite thing before she was replaced.”
Jonah stares into the water as two yellow seahorses float past. “I wonder why they replaced her,” he says to himself.
I shrug. “Octopi don't live that long.”
“Neither do seahorses.”
I don't have a response for that. We just watch the fish in silence. He kisses me on the forehead, squeezing my hand.
“Are you any less scared?” I ask after a while.
He finally faces me. “No.”
“Me either.”
Jonah smiles. “It was nice to prolong it, though. For a little while.”
I fight the urge to cry. I know if I start, I won't stop. “Thank you,” I say.
He raises his eyebrows. “For what?” he asks. “If anything, I've made your life more complicated.”
I shake my head emphatically. “You gave me purpose.” As I say it I believe it more. “I'm not just a waste of time,” I say. “I'm not just a life ticking by anymore.”
Staring down at our hands intertwined, Jonah rubs my palm with this thumb.
His silence scares me. Like I had made everything too real again and ruined the slight reprieve we had given ourselves. “What is it?” I ask.
He smiles slightly. “You act like you haven't done the same for me,” he says quietly. “That I wasn't just waiting for the end of Myra's life before you came along.”
Unshed tears choke my voice.
“You can't imagine all of the things you've given me,” he says, finally bringing me close in the dimly lit room. “You've given me life. I can breathe again.”
I shake my head under his. There’s no way I had such an effect.
He kisses me then, full on the lips. When we finally pull away from each other, my vision blurs. But only for a moment.
“Let's get back to life, I guess.”
He nods. “I couldn't agree more.”
***
We sat down in the living room after dinner, it being our routine as of late. I watched the tank across from us and Jonah placed a hand on my shoulder, pulling me into him. I rested my head against his chest as he smoothed my hair behind my ear. “Thank you,” I whispered. “For everything.”
His hand rested on the nape of my neck. “Don't,” he said. “Don't thank me for anything.”
I turned so I could look at him. “Why?”
He swallowed. “Because you sound like you're saying goodbye and I don't like it.” Jonah's voice was strained when the words came out and my throat felt like it would close up completely.
“Okay,” I whispered. “No thank you’s.”
He smiled.
The striped fish swam up to the glass and bumped its nose against it a few times before choosing a different direction.
“What will we do now?” I asked after a while.
Jonah stroked my hair as he thought, or maybe he just didn't want to answer and was stalling. “I have to contact Myra.”
My heart pounded at her name. I didn't even know her and she made me uneasy. She was the symbol for the end of my life, and I wasn't ready to make her real yet. I cleared my throat. “Do you know where she is?” I asked, looking up at him.
He held my hand in his lap, stroking my thumb with his. A small smirk formed in the corner of his mouth. “Los Angeles,” he said softly.
I snorted. I couldn't help it. Of course she lived there. It was one more reason Jonah had chosen me as his match—Myra's match. It couldn’t be more perfect.
“All of her doctors are there,” he said, adding more reasons to my mental list.
“Of course,” I said, my voice hollow. I wasn't upset, just tired. Too many things had happened so quickly in such a small amount of time. My head was finally beginning to spin with all of it.
“I have to find her and tell her the news.”
I paused for a long time. “She knows about you?” I asked. “Have you talked to her at all since your ex-wife told you to leave?”
He sighed and that was enough of an answer. He sounded tired too. “Nope,” he said without humor. “So this is going to be interesting, to say the least.”
I should have been hurt. Or angry. Something other than just going along with all of this. I should have been telling Jonah off for luring me here and having a plan to get me back to California from the beginning, but I wasn't. All in all, my time was almost up. I wouldn't be using my lungs and he needed them. It was simple and it was easy. When I didn't add any emotion to it, it was like a business transaction and nothing more.
“Why don't you live in California if she's there?” I asked. “It would have been a lot easier for you.”
Jonah's fingers trailed up and down my back, causing tiny goose bumps to form where ever his cool hand touched. “We lived here before everything,” he said. “Not in this house, of course. But here, in Boston.”
“You didn't want to leave?”
He shook his head. “I guess you could say I've been kind of stuck here. Pretending I can make things go back to the way they were.” Jonah blinked a few times, staring off into the distance like he was reliving everything that had brought him to this point.
I cupped his face in my hand and turned it so he was looking at me. “Time,” I whispered. “Doesn't stop for anyone. Not me or you or her.”
He nodded once.
“You can't stand still, either.”
The life returned to his eyes then, like I had awoken something deep within him. He nodded again. I kissed him and he kissed me back.
“I'll book our flights tomorrow,” he said. “Okay?”
My lips left his for a second so I could agree, but other than that, we didn't speak.
***
We’re quiet on the ride back from the aquarium. There’s nothing to say, really. And everything. But it’s easier to stay quiet. There isn't enough time to talk about everything that we both feel. There never would be. But that’s okay. We don't have to.
We hold hands as we walk up the driveway to my house. We kiss one last time before he opens the door for me.
We would act like a couple. We would talk and he and my parents would get to know each other more. Then he would leave. He would see Myra, tell her the good news. I would tell my parents the bad.
Then we would deal with what came next.
We could go back to the aquarium again, maybe. If there was time. We could watch the fish swim past our faces in their safe little tanks. We could imagine what it would be like if I wasn't dying, if his daughter wasn't dying, either. We could pretend we were only walking through a tunnel and on the other side everything would be okay. The darkness would fade away and we'd be able to see each other again.
That's what I want as the clock ticked above our dining room table. It's what I want as I watch him drive away.
And as I close the door and faced my parents, I think of nothing else but the seahorse at Jonah's house, alone in its tank.
I wonder it’s still alive.
The End
Afterword
I’ve never done anything like this before in a book, but I thought it was important to write something after this particular story.
The Donor began, like so many of my other pieces, while I was trying to do something else. I was going to college, sleep deprived, stressed out, and I had workshop the next day. I was in a 9AM Spanish class, supposed to be conjugating verbs when this snippet popped into my head: There are worse ways to make money. And I remember thinking, were there?
Then the very first scene of Jonah and Casey meeting in the airport began to unfold. I realized right away that something was odd about their relationship; I just had to keep writing to find out what it was. This is probably one of the reasons the story is told in past and present sections. I wanted the reader to feel like they were always uncovering something--the way I did while writing it.
This was only supposed to be a twenty page short story. Something I handed in for workshop last minute that I would never touch again. But, like so many other things that pop out of my subconscious, this story became something more. It stretched and grew and took on a life beyond a short story.
I’ve always written for a few core reasons:
1. I have to. I feel weird if I don’t.
2. Something bad happens to me, a friend, in the world, etc. and I don’t know how to deal with it.
3. To understand something I never would have otherwise.
The Donor definitely falls into all three categories, but I found myself slipping into number three on most days. This was something I struggled to write for many reasons. Usually, these are the stories I’m most proud of. Not only because I can look back and see how much I learned or appreciate the hard work I put into it, but because oftentimes, the things that are hard for me to write are difficult because they come from a place of confusion, fear, or darkness. These are things I don’t often think about, let alone want to stick with for the six months or so it takes me to write a draft.