by Emma Young
Telling Joe the truth was, I think, the second biggest risk of my life.
I think: I’m the kind of person who will take significant risks.
We find soft leather armchairs in a café close by. The misted-up windows and stacks of paperbacks and board games on the shelves make it even cozier.
When we’ve got our drinks, the first thing I ask is if he isn’t meant to be at a meeting.
“I should be at a meeting,” he says, nodding. “I should also be in jail, or at home with Dad.”
I say quietly, “You should be at home with your dad and mum. I should never have got sick. But here we are.” I push the mint leaves in my mug around with my spoon and take a sip. It’s the first time I’ve had mint tea made with fresh leaves, and it’s a minor revelation. “The first time I met you, I thought you knew. I thought, he must be videoing everything and in five minutes I’ll be all over the news.”
“If you thought that, why didn’t you walk away?”
“After I told you about the surgery, why didn’t you go back to your office instead of coming after me? You could have taken your editor the story of the year. You still could.”
His expression darkens. “Why would you even think I might do that? I wanted to help you, remember.”
And I do want him to help me. But Joe’s taken in a lot. I can wait another day for the favor I want to ask him. Right now I want to enjoy just being here, with him.
He frowns at my neck. “You weren’t wearing that before. It’s kind of unusual.”
My hand darts up to my necklace. “My doctor gave it to me.”
“Your doctor? It’s a strange-looking stone.”
“Actually, it’s a bit of Moon rock.”
“Are you serious?” His face softening, he reaches out to touch the acrylic sphere. “It came from the Moon,” he repeats, his voice so low I can barely hear him. “When Neil Armstrong talked about what it was like to look back at Earth from the Moon, he said, ‘I didn’t feel like a giant. I felt very, very small.’”
“Your mother told you that?”
“I read it . . . in a book she gave me.”
“To the stars.” I touch his tattoo. “This is to do with her?”
“We come from the stars,” he says. The expression in his eyes like none I’ve seen before, except for on that bench after O’Neill’s. “When our sun ceases to exist, our atoms will be blasted into space. So maybe mine and hers will be together again someday.”
“To the stars,” I whisper.
He nods.
“What was it?” I ask him. “A hobby? Or was she a cosmologist?”
“Kind of in between. She volunteered at the California Academy of Sciences.”
“I’d like to go there,” I tell him.
He looks down, takes my hand, gently twists my fingers in his. “I’d like to take you. One day.”
I stay sitting there, with Joe, not talking, waiting for him.
“So, I’m wondering something,” he says.
I nod.
“Was there supposed to be a moral to the story about the hamster and the chips?”
I smile. I can’t help it. I shake my head. “I was just trying to think of something true to tell you about me.”
“Did you eat all the chips?”
“A lot of them. And I don’t even really like crisps.”
“So why did you eat them?”
“I guess . . . Elliot used to win things a lot. Academic things at school, anyway. This was my moment of triumph. So what if it was because of a sparkly hamster cape?”
He smiles. Then he glances away. I follow his gaze to a clock on the wall, by the board games.
“I don’t want to go,” he says. “But I should get back to the office. Someone’s helping me with a story. A real one, about a center for immigrant kids.”
I nod. “The beautiful woman from the lift?”
His smile returns. “If that would make you jealous, then yes . . . Actually, it’s the editor. You’d better have my cell.”
I find my phone, activate it, and enter the number he tells me. I’m halfway up out of the chair when he reaches for my hand. I sink back down.
His expression is intense, and I’m suddenly scared that, though he just gave me his number, he’s realized he’s actually not okay with who I am—or with me asking about his mother.
His face so close, he says, “Other side effects of hanging out with you: insomnia, due to recurrent recollections of a night in a motel in Lexington . . . the sensation of having been pulled up from under ice.”
My heart melts, burns, implodes, does all kinds of medically impossible things.
“I guess we must be on the same drug,” I whisper.
A smile—the deepest so far—warms the blue of his eyes. “Just so you know, I’d like to take as much as I can for as long as I can.”
“Yeah,” I say. “Me, too.”
43.
The radio’s on. It’s set to a channel in a language I can’t understand, and I don’t ask the taxi driver to change it because I’m happy tuning in to my thoughts.
As Boston’s apartment blocks and stores streak past, blurred by rain on the windows, I’m thinking of Joe—of course, of Joe—and also Louise Brown.
The first IVF baby, born in 1978, her life has been devoured by the world’s media ever since. Only recently, she revealed that her parents received blood-spattered hate mail after she was born.
If devoutly religious types believe she’s an abomination . . . Well, I already have an idea of what they’d make of me.
But it makes no difference. I know what I have to do.
Wednesday.
3:24 A.M. I compose a text to Elliot: Is there anything I could do that would make you not love me? Then delete it.
I think about what he told me: Don’t listen to Mum or Dr. Monzales. You have to make up your own mind about what you want.
10:30 A.M. There’s a room off the gym designated as a break space for the rehab nurses. The door’s often left ajar, and I’ve glimpsed a plain-walled space with a fridge, kettle, vending machine, and half a dozen uncomfortable-looking chairs.
Jane, I know, usually takes a break at ten thirty. Jane, I’ve also sussed out, is not that popular with the other nurses, so there’s a reasonable chance I’ll catch her by herself.
I knock, then go in without waiting. The thud of feet on treadmills, the scrape of the gait-training system, relatives’ encouragements, and even Vinnie shouting “Move it!” are all silenced as I click the door shut.
There she is, her long brown hair down, entering a code into the vending machine keypad, alone.
She takes a heavy step to face me. “Rosa?”
A bar of something drops into the collection slot.
“I’m on a break. Do you need something?”
“I need to talk to you.”
“Patients aren’t—”
“I need to talk to you.”
Whatever she just bought, she leaves it where it fell.
“You want to sit down?” she asks.
I shake my head.
I’m nervous. But I shouldn’t be. “I came to tell you I heard you,” I say, hoping my voice sounds stronger than it does in my head. “I woke up one night when you were praying over my bed.”
She gives me a look that I know is meant to mean: silly girl. “Praying for someone is a good thing, Rosa. Prayers have a real power to heal.”
“You weren’t praying for me.”
She looks wary. Folds her arms.
“I heard you. I should have said something, but I didn’t.” My blood’s rushing. I wanted to keep calm, but it’s not possible. “I heard what you said, about the disunion of the soul and asking God to bring peace to whatever I have.”
“Peace is a wonderful thing, Rosa.”
“You were praying that I’d die!”
“No—”
“I heard you.”
“You were recovering from the surgery,” she says firmly. “W
ith all those meds, you could have imagined anything.”
“I heard you.” Too shrill. Rein it in. In a calmer tone, I say, “And I know you’re the nurse who passed on information to Sylvia Johnson’s father.”
Now she goes very pale.
“If you make a headache go away with a painkiller—isn’t that unnatural?” I ask her.
“Rosa—”
“Agriculture—that’s unnatural, too, right? Isn’t that playing God?”
She shakes her head, as though I’m the unreasonable one.
“I know: Whatever I say, you won’t get it. You shouldn’t work here,” I tell her. “You shouldn’t be a nurse here.”
“Who have you talked to?” Her voice is almost a whisper.
“No one yet. I’ve thought a lot about it. If I were the only patient you worked with, then maybe I’d keep it that way . . . but I’m not.”
My heart’s thudding so hard it’s hurting.
But as I leave her and go back into the gym, and I’m surrounded by noise and kids and the blues of harbor and sky through the unscreened windows, the unpleasantness of confrontation transitions into a rush of achievement. And I am going to tell Dr. Monzales. Partly because while I’m the first of my kind, soon, I’m sure, there’ll be others like me.
• • •
Midnight.
I’m lying in bed, staring at the ceiling, wide awake, thinking.
After lunch, I found Dr. Monzales in his office, and I told him about Jane.
“I am . . . stunned,” he said. And he looked it. He promised there would be a full investigation, but for now she would be put on immediate suspension.
With that done, I’m ready to ask for Joe’s help.
I can’t put it off any longer.
I call him.
I hear ringing.
More ringing.
“. . . Rosa?”
“Hi. Can you talk?”
There’s a muffled shuffling. Maybe he’s rolling over. Then a click. Perhaps of a lamp switch.
“What’s wrong?” he asks.
His voice is slow. Still sleepy. I wish I were there with him.
“There’s something I have to do,” I say. “And I need your help. But it’ll help you, too.” I sit up halfway in the darkness and reach for a pillow from the floor to stuff behind my back.
“You don’t need to help me,” he says.
“Will you listen?”
“. . . Yeah, of course.”
For a long time after I outline my decision, Joe’s silent. I even start to wonder if he’s fallen back asleep. Then he says: “Right now, this might seem like the only way, but it isn’t. You do not have to do it.”
I sigh. “You won’t help me?”
“Don’t ask me, Rosa. You can’t ask me.”
“You won’t?”
“I can’t. So they might seem twisted sometimes, but I do have principles. I can’t upend them for anyone, or I’m not who I am.”
That sinking feeling drops right through me.
“. . . Okay.” I press the red circle on the phone and let it fall onto the duvet.
Twenty seconds later, it rings.
“Joe?”
“You hung up on me.”
“Sorry . . . I was thinking. You can’t help. I understand.”
“I can’t help directly. But if this is what you’re sure you want to do, I’ve got a much better way of going about it.”
“You do?”
“Believe me—it’s the only quarter-sane way.”
Thursday.
I leave my tray of porridge, coffee, and orange juice untouched.
I grab my jacket and slip out of my bedroom. As I pass the rec room, I notice Jared in there, on one of the beanbags, asleep.
I continue on, taking the route that’s always led me to freedom—through the gym and into the park.
This early morning, it’s cold. And murky. So dark, in fact, it’s as though the sun hasn’t risen. Through thick gloom, I watch the lights of an airplane as it rises up and right across my field of view, which makes me think of my first nights here at the hospital, and how desperate I was to be whisked away.
I remember Jane, and her lie about the mirrors. Jane catching me when I lost my balance in the park. Jane praying over me. Joe by the bench. Joe outside O’Neill’s. Joe in my head, in my heart, in my bed.
I zip the jacket right up to my chin and make for the path that skirts the harbor wall.
In my pocket, I have what I need.
I picture Mum, Dad, Elliot—and I reject the no in the back of my mind. Because I have to bring resolution to Sylvia and me, and the fact is, I’m convinced there’s only one way to do it. No one else, apart from perhaps Joe and Elliot, might understand, but this is my life, which Sylvia gave to me, and I believe it’s the only rational thing to do.
I’ve experienced so much since I arrived in Boston. So many strange and supernaturally vivid moments. So I shouldn’t feel too scared of the next step—and yet, I’m terrified. I think: I am the kind of person who follows through even when she’s terrified.
• • •
My phone vibrates in my pocket. It’s Joe. I accept the call.
“Hey,” he says.
“Hey.”
“Where are you?”
“In the park.”
“It’s not too late to change your mind.”
“Yeah. It is.”
The phone at my ear, the harbor to my left, I walk to the bench marked for Denise. It means something to me, so I’ll do it here.
I sit down. Behind me, the hospital looms. I tuck my hair behind my ears. And I look out over the water, at the moored yachts and blocks of offices and apartments containing people who have no idea that I—the kind of I that I am—exist.
It’s time, I think.
“I am a little scared,” I confess into the phone.
Silence. Then he says, “So, there’s this other quote I remember. Maybe not exactly. Hold on . . .” Twenty seconds later, he’s back. “I found it. John Young, when asked if he felt nervous before he made the first space shuttle flight, in 1981, said, ‘Anyone who sits on top of the largest hydrogen-oxygen fueled system in the world, knowing they’re going to light the bottom, and doesn’t get a little worried does not fully understand the situation.’”
“I guess I understand the situation.”
“I guess you do.”
My plan is to make the telling last as long as feels right.
After I record my story—from first symptoms right through to my new talking, walking self—onto my phone, I’ll send the audio file to a list of email addresses that Joe compiled for me. There must be 150 names on it. Editors and deputy editors of news websites and blogs, newspapers and magazines around the world. I’ll also send it to Althea Fernando, with a note apologizing for the awful lie I told her about being Sylvia’s sister.
Would I have Sylvia’s blessing to do this—to tell the world about us?
I don’t know.
When I called Joe and woke him up at midnight, I asked him to write my story. If he did, he said, he’d be exploiting a personal relationship, which his ethics wouldn’t allow. It would also draw the media spotlight to him, and inevitably to his parents, and he didn’t want that.
It would make him famous, I said.
“I already told you I don’t care about being famous,” he said. “I care about being the kind of person I want to be.”
I told him I cared, for myself, too—which was why I couldn’t change my mind. And if I didn’t do it, I’d always be scared, waiting for the day someone finds out. And I’d always be pretending to be something I’m not.
From Denise’s bench, I look off to my right, to the patch of now pretty sorry-looking trees, where Sylvia’s father found me. I can’t see anybody. Not there, or closer to the hospital, or by the harbor wall, or under the cedars. The football-playing doctors and the nurses with their noodle boxes will come later. Or maybe they won’t come at all, partly becaus
e of the bad weather, but also because of what I’m about to do.
“You still there?” I say into my phone.
“Yeah,” Joe says. “I’ve got the stills we took of you into one file. I’m going to email them to you. When you’ve finished recording, send everything out to the list. Don’t forget to include the time of the video conference.”
“I know, I won’t.”
“This should satisfy the ones who want the immediate story. But you will still be hounded. You’re absolutely sure you don’t want to talk to your doctor first, or your parents?”
“You’re sure you don’t want the exclusive?”
He doesn’t answer. He knows I already know what he’d say.
“Anyway,” I say, leaning back on the bench, eyes up on the dim sky, “you’ll always have a backup story to sell. If you get desperate.”
“Yeah, what’s that?”
“My secret sex with Frankenstein’s daughter.”
Silence.
“That was meant to be a joke.”
“But there will be nasty headlines,” says a voice from behind me—not from my phone.
I twist my head around and slowly lower my phone from my ear.
I get up. Joe. He’s in gray jeans and a black jacket, collar up, and he’s striding from the direction of the main entrance.
I feel a smile spread right across my face.
“Okay?” he says. “I didn’t think it was the greatest idea for you to do this alone.”
I reach out. He’s here. Now my arms are around him. His are around me. By Denise’s bench, where we met. His warmth and solidity are a still-unfamiliar shock.
“There will be nasty headlines,” he says again, this time with his lips close to my ear. “You’ll have to try not to read them.”
I nod into his neck.
“And after you’re done, you have to go back inside to your room. You promise you’ll stay there till we work out how bad the fallout is?”
I nod again. “I know the plan.”
“I know how they work,” he says, pulling back a little so he can see my face. There’s so much concern in his eyes that it hurts. “Some of them will be merciless. But if you give them everything you can now, it’ll help them move on.”