Warhead

by Jeff Henigson

  I held the magazine up and shuffled through the pages. The sheet I was looking for fell onto my bed.

  It was divided into two parts. The first was a short description of teen depression. Being a teenager isn’t easy, it said, and it’s natural to feel down sometimes. But depression is overwhelming sadness that sticks around for weeks or months or even longer. People experiencing depression can’t just “snap out of it”—they often need professional help or adult support. And there’s nothing wrong with that. If you think you might be experiencing depression, please stop by the student counselor’s office or ask a trusted adult for help.

  The second part was the quiz. There were five personal statements, and you had to answer with a number indicating how much each statement applied to you in the past month: one meaning hardly ever; two, some of the time; three, most of the time; four, all the time.

  I’m finding it hard to concentrate. Definitely a four, but it wasn’t like it was from depression. After all, a chunk of my brain had been removed and the rest of it had been irradiated. Whatever.

  I have difficulty sleeping or I sleep too much. I wasn’t having the slightest bit of trouble sleeping, at least in the past month. It was the other extreme. Sometimes I didn’t even want to get out of bed. Four.

  I feel like my friends and family don’t understand me. That question kind of freaked me out. I mean, no one in my family understood me, that was for sure. As for my friends, Paul did, a little, but not the cancer stuff, and while Monique originally had that part covered, we’d had our blowout fight and she was out of the picture. I chose three.

  I feel hopeless about my future. That was tough. Part of me definitely worried that I was going to die from cancer, even more now that Sylvia had, but I was pretty good at burying that fear. I had been hopeful about my wish—up until the point when Mom might have destroyed it. I guess I wasn’t looking forward to what was ahead for me, but that wasn’t, like, constant. Three.

  I’m experiencing chronic pain, or problems from a physical disability or a serious illness. That statement seemed stupidly phrased—at least for me. What the heck were problems from a serious illness? I was pretty sure—based on personal experience—that serious illness was the problem itself.

  Still, I had to give it a number, and considering I was not only going through chemo, but due for my next round, I put down a four.

  At the end of the statements, it said to add the numbers.

  If your total is between…

  1 and 5—Depression is unlikely.

  6 and 10—Depression is possible. Speak with the counselor or talk with an adult if these symptoms persist.

  11 and 15—Depression is likely. Definitely speak with the counselor or talk with an adult.

  16 and 20—Depression is highly likely. Immediately speak with the counselor or talk with an adult. Do not put it off.

  No matter your score, if you have thoughts or plans of suicide, immediately tell an adult.

  I seriously couldn’t believe I scored 18. I mean, I didn’t feel depressed, and it wasn’t like I was even close to thinking of killing myself. But if this quiz put me in the “highly likely” range for depression, what would the neuropsychological evaluation reveal?

  * * *

  •

  As I sat in the hospital for my last round of chemo, in the same room as before—the one with a crappy view of the parking lot—my gut was churning. It wasn’t the chemo, either. I was on a new drug that kept my nausea mostly under control. Instead, I was filled with anger—the smoldering, persistent ire toward my mom for crushing my wish, and a newfound outrage at my chemo doc. I’d begged him to hold off for a few days, because I had a truly important event to attend, but he absolutely insisted we “stick to protocol.” The result: I was going to miss Sylvia’s funeral.

  Mom kept trying to get a conversation going between us, but I shut every attempt down. I’d tell her I needed to rest, or that I had to “focus internally” so I wouldn’t get sick to my stomach. When she tried to put a positive spin on everything by asking if I was happy this was my last round of chemo, I snorted and said, “Yeah, Mom. I’m just really enjoying myself.” She winced, but I wanted her to suffer. Okay, maybe not suffer, exactly. But I wanted her to know what my pain felt like.

  On the third day, she finally managed to give me some space. I’d told her flat out that it would be easier for me to rest if I had the room to myself, and after letting out a long sigh, she said she had some errands to run. I frankly didn’t care what she was up to. I just wanted her to leave.

  In her absence, the anger inside me faded. You’d think that would be good, but nothing came in its place. Without the anger to focus on her, I felt alone.

  That’s when I thought of my wish—what it meant to me. I’d turned to it so much, I realized. When I felt isolated, like today, I imagined it ahead of me. It had the power to connect me. When I longed for my dad’s warmth, something I’d wanted my whole life, I saw a chance in my wish to earn some of it.

  Without the wish, there was emptiness. The vacuum inside me was so deep, so profound, I felt like I was saying goodbye to my own existence.

  * * *

  •

  After they released me from the hospital, as soon as I was no longer feeling miserable, I decided to say goodbye to Sylvia. Mom stared at me with a dazed look when she saw me appear upstairs in slacks and a button-down shirt. “You look so nice,” she said. Then her eyebrows squished together. “You know it’s Sunday, right?”

  I tried to speak but started coughing.

  “Are you okay?” Mom asked.

  I nodded, grabbing a cup from the cabinet and pouring myself some water from the dispenser. I took a sip. My lungs seemed to calm.

  “I’m going to visit Sylvia’s grave.”

  Mom pressed her fingers to her lips. She set down the towel she was holding and stepped toward me, her arms opening.

  I lifted my wrist to look at my watch. “I’ll be back this afternoon,” I said, slipping past her.

  “Aren’t you hungry?” Mom said. “I could make you something.”

  There was a large ceramic bowl on the kitchen counter filled with fruit. I pulled out an apple and held it up at eye level. Mom frowned, but I didn’t acknowledge her.

  “Breakfast to go,” I said, and walked to the front door.

  * * *

  •

  It took a while to get to the cemetery, and ages to find Sylvia’s grave. I passed one headstone after another, gripping the flower arrangement I’d picked out at a market on the drive down, calculating how old each person had been when they died. Even though several had been born more than a hundred years before, very few were dead at seventeen. It wasn’t fair. Seventeen was more like when your life was supposed to take off.

  I was close to heading back to the entrance to ask the attendant for better directions when I found Sylvia’s tombstone. It was the newness of it that drew me, in contrast to the decaying tablets all around it. When my eyes landed on her name, I gasped, feeling my body stiffen.

  I stood there for several minutes, unsure what to do. I didn’t know any prayers for this kind of thing. The ones they’d said at my grandma’s funeral, when I was nine, were in Hebrew, and I couldn’t remember a single word. Sylvia was Catholic, anyway, so I figured it wouldn’t be appropriate. I didn’t know how to proceed, and suddenly I didn’t know why I’d come.

  I looked across the road, where there was a small group gathered for a burial. I watched them for a moment. Everyone was gathered around a casket, focused on a minister standing out in front, with some of the folks weeping. The exception was a little girl, maybe five, who was shifting on her feet and looking around, like she was disconnected from the group. Disconnected was exactly how I felt.

  Why had I come? I didn’t really know. I mean, people went to funerals to say goo
dbye—that was how I always understood it. But I wasn’t exactly feeling that. Or at least, not just that.

  Sylvia and I had seen each other only a few times—at the first meeting of our support group, at another held in a hospital basement, and at Monique’s party. We’d spoken on the phone just twice before Aura told me that her cancer had come back. After that, I’d sort of disappeared. So it wasn’t really about saying goodbye.

  I could feel a pit in my stomach. Sylvia had told us her family didn’t give her any support. Aura had let me know, after Sylvia’s recurrence, how much she would appreciate a call. So what did I do? I ditched her. Exactly at the moment when she needed me.

  I was overcome. My breathing quickened, like Amiga panting when it was hot out, but I couldn’t get enough air. I became light-headed. I felt a sudden onset of nausea, which forced me to drop to one knee. I placed a hand on my stomach, trying to understand what was happening inside me.

  The nausea wasn’t the same as what I used to go through during chemo. It didn’t have that chemical feel to it. It was like I was the source. Disgust—with myself.

  That was when it hit me—why I’d come. Not to say goodbye, but to be forgiven. And how do you get forgiveness when the person you’re asking it from is dead?

  There was no way around it: I’d failed Sylvia. And with her gone, I couldn’t give her anything.

  Maybe I can give to others.

  My wish came to mind then. It was about reaching out to the world, trying to make it better. It was so much larger than me. If I got to do it and my cancer came back, and, like Sylvia, I died young, my life at least would have mattered. And if I managed to pull through, maybe the realization of my wish would make it okay that I got to survive.

  I couldn’t give up. There were huge obstacles, but I had to overcome them. I owed it to Sylvia.

  My nausea faded and my breathing calmed. I picked up the flowers I’d set aside and knelt next to Sylvia’s grave. I imagined her body in the ground below. I placed the arrangement over her chest, where I thought her heart would be, and bowed my head. I said I was sorry, even though I knew she couldn’t hear me. But then I made a promise: I would try, with all my heart, to do some good for the world.

  I woke up in a daze, to Mom telling me I’d missed my alarm, and once again started coughing, which I’d been doing most of the night. Mom was opening the blinds but hurried over when she heard my lungs go into spasm. “That doesn’t sound good,” she said.

  “I’m fine,” I said. “Just overslept.” I started to sit up, but she put her hand on my forehead.

  “You’re blazingly hot, honey. You need to see a doctor.”

  “Mom, I’ve got school.” If I went to a doctor now, it would give Dad a reason to can my trip. The coughing got more intense. I grabbed a tissue. When I pulled it away from my mouth, I saw it was covered with speckles of blood.

  It turned out I had pneumonia, which I’d thought was exclusively for old people, in my left lung. I guess I would’ve said the same about cancer before getting it, but still, I’d never heard of a teenager coming down with pneumonia. Anyway, Dr. Farbstein put me on strong antibiotics and banned me from school for an entire week. I was so wiped out by the time he delivered his diagnosis—he made me go through a ton of tests, including a chest X-ray—that I didn’t even bother protesting.

  I slept the whole afternoon, waking up to the rumble of Dad’s car pulling into the driveway. A few minutes later, I heard his feet on the staircase, along with Amiga’s. I quickly gathered all my used tissues and stuffed them under my pillow, then grabbed a math book and flipped it open just as he walked in.

  “How are you feeling, son?” he said.

  Amiga came over to the bed and sniffed me. I reached down and scratched her head.

  “Me? I’m perfectly fine. Just been hunkering down on school stuff.” I tilted the book toward him.

  “What sort of math are you working on?” I had no idea what I was looking at. The page might as well have been written in Russian, another subject I’d fallen behind in.

  “You know, the usual.” I snapped the book shut and changed the subject. “Anyway, what’s up? Did you need something?”

  “I simply wanted to see how you were feeling. Mother informed me of Dr. Farbstein’s pneumonia diagnosis.”

  Dad was building a case against me.

  “Oh, that? Did she mention it’s only one lung?”

  “Yes, she did. Also that Dr. Farbstein said it was potentially dangerous.”

  “Well, I thought the same thing about brain cancer, but you told me from the beginning everything would be fine, right?” That got him to stop talking. “Anyway, I just need to take it easy for a bit, and of course I’ll dedicate myself to my schoolwork in the meantime. I should probably get back to it.”

  “What about dinner?”

  The last thing I felt like doing was eating.

  “I had some chicken soup earlier. I’m still full. I think I’ll just get to work here, if that’s okay.”

  Dad looked at me for what felt like ages. I knew he was thinking about the trip. His mouth was slightly open, like he was going to say something, but then he bit his lower lip and finally nodded. He walked out. Amiga followed.

  For several seconds after he left, I felt energized—and relieved. I noticed my heart beating quickly. I thought maybe I would try to get some studying done—God knew I needed to. But as my heart slowed, the fatigue returned. It wasn’t long before I’d fallen back asleep.

  * * *

  •

  Antibiotics never cease to amaze me. After just three days on them, my coughing had stopped. My energy was still a little low, but my body was on the right track.

  Mom could tell. We weren’t talking that much, but she had a habit of sticking around the house when I was sick, and that morning, after checking in on me, she decided to run some errands.

  Over breakfast, I thought about whether I was being selfish, feeling all this anger toward her. After all, she was obviously concerned about me. But then I thought back to the appointment with Dr. Gourevik and how she had opened her big mouth. He was hesitant to sign the medical release, but he’d gotten so close to doing it. Mom had to know that saying what she said would fill him with doubt. I decided my anger was justified.

  I took a nap after breakfast, waking to the phone ringing a few times but falling back asleep. When I went upstairs in the early afternoon for lunch, I checked the answering machine. One call was from our gardener, saying he couldn’t come that week. The second, which got me fully awake, was from the Starlight Children’s Foundation. They hadn’t received the medical clearance form. Without it, I couldn’t go on the trip.

  I absolutely had to do something. What, exactly, I didn’t know. That was when Dad popped into my head. I wondered what he’d do in a situation like this. He always said that to solve a problem, you first needed to identify it. That was clear enough. The problem was Dr. Gourevik. Once you understood the problem, Dad would say, you had to tackle it head-on. In this case, that could only mean one thing: I had to call Dr. Gourevik.

  One of his secretaries answered. “I need to talk to Dr. Gourevik,” I told her. “I’m one of his main patients.”

  “Are you experiencing a medical emergency?” she asked.

  I thought about it.

  “Not really.”

  “Then I’m happy to take a message for him.” Clearly, I should’ve said it was an emergency.

  I decided to reason with her.

  “As I’m sure someone in your position knows well, privacy is of utmost importance to the doctor-patient relationship. I really need to speak with him directly.”

  “I’m afraid I can only pass along messages. Who can I say is calling?”

  “Forget it,” I said, and hung up. Sulking, I went back downstairs.

  One of the things I�
��d always been good at was impersonations. I had President Reagan nailed, along with some famous actors, and I could rap like the Beastie Boys. Juniors and seniors at my school were all assigned to advisory groups—they were supposed to help us steer through things together—and I ended up in Mrs. Cocumelli’s. She was our drama teacher. She once told me that my impersonations were “utterly convincing.”

  Twenty minutes later, after warming up with my Jimmy Stewart voice practicing lines from It’s a Wonderful Life, I called Dr. Gourevik’s office again. The same secretary I’d spoken to before answered. I put my thespian skills to work.

  “Well, hello there,” I said. “Would Hermann happen to be in the office?”

  “Who may I ask is calling?”

  “Dr. Huntington,” I said. I did a very guttural throat clearing. “I’d greatly appreciate a quick chat about one of our patients in common whom Hermann is treating for glioblastoma multiforme.”

  “Just a moment,” she said. It worked.

  “Hermann Gourevik,” my doctor said a moment later. His sinuses sounded even more impacted than usual.

  “Hi, Dr. Gourevik. It’s Jeff Henigson calling.”

  “Excuse me?” He did not sound like a happy camper.

  “I’m sorry, your secretary refused to let me talk to you, but it’s hugely important.”

  “I do not appreciate deceit,” he said in an ice-cold voice.

  “Of course you don’t. And I apologize for being anything less than honest and transparent. Here’s the thing: You remember my wish? Well, the Starlight Children’s Foundation has once again asked for a copy of the medical release signed by you, and since I’m totally healthy and have no brain tumor recurrence, as the latest scan has shown, well, all you need to do is to sign that document we left in your expert hands and send it on its way. I believe we included a prepaid addressed envelope.” There was a long silence. “Um, Dr. Gourevik?”