Wake

by Abria Mattina

  “Alright, but we should drive separately. You’ll probably want to leave before I will.”

  “How sick is he?” Frank asks.

  “You’ll have to wear a mask around him. He still coughs a lot and he’s tired, but his breathing is much better and most of the time he’s alert.” I sound like I’m talking about an old man.

  “I got him something.” Frank goes to the junk drawer beside the fridge and pulls out a Get Well card. He hands it to me for approval and I try not to smile cheekily.

  “You’re really trying hard here, aren’t you?”

  Frank mutters something that sounds suspiciously like, “It was Doug’s idea,” and stalks away to the front hall. “Are we going or not?”

  *

  As Frank and I ride the elevator in silence, I wonder if he’s pulling some reverse psychology trick on me. Pretend to support my relationship with a former cancer patient, accept him into the fold, and then…what? Ship me off to military school?

  I’m not sure what to expect when we exit onto the third floor. Frank isn’t good with delicate situations. He even makes me carry the card, since he can’t be seen to show any kind of sensitivity or emotional aptitude. This visit with Jem is probably going to be short and awkward.

  We sign in at the nurse’s station and take masks from the bin on the counter. Elise comes along a moment later, whistling to herself and carrying a can of juice from the vending machine.

  “Oh, good, you’re here,” she chirps, and links her arm with mine. “You’ve got to see this. It’s hilarious.” Frank follows behind us, keeping to the center of the hall like he’s walking through a correctional facility.

  “What happened?” If it isn’t a good time to visit, I’m sure Frank would be happy to postpone.

  “Some idiot intern turned the drip on his painkiller up too fast,” Elise says of her brother. “He’s high as a kite.”

  I remember all too vividly how Jem and painkillers get along. “How’s his stomach?”

  “Fine now, after he barfed up an entire meal and what I’m sure was his spleen or pancreas or something.”

  Frank coughs uncomfortably. “Maybe we should come back later, Will.”

  “No, he’s fine now,” Elise says cheerfully. “He’s very uh…friendly, at the moment.”

  As we come up to the door of Jem’s room a nurse walks out smiling and shaking her head. I can hear singing: “I’ve got a lovely bunch of coconuts…” Of all the annoying songs to sing. I finish the line as I approach the bed, because I can’t let the poor bastard embarrass himself alone. Jem looks at me with such innocent joy and says, “You know the words!”

  “Imagine that.” I lean forward to kiss his forehead and he giggles like a little kid.

  “Touch my face.” He grabs my hand and makes me poke his cheek. “It’s bread!” Jem finds this wildly funny and carries on laughing, happy as a pig in shit. Ivy just shrugs apologetically, but Elise leans over and bites her brother’s eyebrow with her lips.

  “You’ll eat it all!” he says through giggles.

  “I’ll save you some,” she promises. Jem stops giggling suddenly and goes very still. We all know what that means. Elise clears out of the way and Ivy and I both reach for the basin at the same time. Jem still manages to vomit all over himself and the blanket.

  “I’ll go ask for a new one,” Elise volunteers, and makes a quick exit. She looks a little green from watching the puke show. Frank turns to follow her, but ends up standing awkwardly between the hall and the threshold like he doesn’t know whether to leave or help. Jem is so out of it that all he manages to say is “ew” regarding the taste in his mouth, and I help him rinse while Ivy grabs a pair of gloves from the box by the sink.

  “Can you sit up, sweetie?” Ivy folds the dirty blanket away and between us we help Jem sit up on the edge of the bed. She helps her son take off his soiled shirt, and then tells him to lean on me for balance while she gets a clean one out of his backpack. Jem rests his head on my shoulder and his arms around my waist. This is the first time I’ve really got to hold him without a shirt on, and he’s too stoned to appreciate the moment. He just hums into my neck and squeezes my sides sporadically. It doesn’t occur to him to be embarrassed, and for that I’m thankful.

  I look up and Frank is eyeing Jem’s back curiously, like he’s some strange and exotic animal in a zoo. I suppose it’s natural to be put off by what cancer does to a body, and his paleness and the prominent shape of bones can be shocking at first. Even though Frank is a paramedic, he’s not used to having this view of a patient. I don’t think of it until someone reminds me that it’s not typical; this is just Jem, to me.

  “Here, love,” Ivy prompts him, and tries to guide Jem’s arms into the sleeves of the clean shirt without disrupting the monitor nodes that line his chest and hand. It’s a long and delicate process, which Jem resists with childlike whines in his throat, resentful of the fact that his mother makes him lift his head and let go of me. He won’t let her button up the new shirt, because he won’t turn away from me.

  “Come on, Jem, time to lay down.” Ivy puts a hand on his shoulder to guide him, but Jem shakes his head slowly.

  “I’ll stay here,” he mutters.

  “Give him a minute,” I mouth to her over his shoulder. If we let him have his way for a few minutes, eventually he’ll become easily distracted again and we can move him. I rub his back and hum what I can remember of the Bach we’ve played. Jem smiles against my neck and kindly scolds, “You should have shared the scissors.”

  “Shall I tuck you into bed?” I prompt him. Jem stubbornly tightens his grip on me.

  “No.” He sounds like a tired, petulant kid.

  “Let’s do up your shirt so you don’t get cold.” I shift him in my arms to reach his front, and he doesn’t like that. Jem whines wordlessly until I let him back to his original position with his head on my shoulder and my arms around his back. Ivy gives a bewildered shake of the head, and I smile to let her know it’s okay.

  “Want me to help move him?” Frank offers quietly. It’s true that we could probably shift Jem into a prone position without much trouble, but then he would fuss and try to sit up again. Best let him decide when to lie down.

  “Hurts,” Jem murmurs.

  “Where?” He doesn’t answer, so I ask him to show me.

  “Right there,” Jem says. He hasn’t moved or pointed, but he thinks he has. I slip a hand under the edge of his shirt to touch his stomach.

  “There?”

  Jem winces.

  “Are you going to throw up again?” Ivy is already reaching for the basin while Frank shifts restlessly. Jem opens his drowsy eyes and looks up at me.

  “I don’t want to anymore,” he says, like I’m the one forcing him to vomit and he’s begging me not to.

  “Okay,” I agree, and rub his back. “You don’t have to. Just relax.” His eyes close and his feet start to swing, knocking gently against my shins. “Are you ready to lie back now?”

  “I’ll stay here.”

  “Aren’t you cold?”

  “Soft.”

  “Maybe he’ll fall asleep,” Ivy whispers. I nod. “Are you okay like that?” she says even quieter, and I agree. Elise comes back with the new blanket and Ivy drapes it around Jem’s shoulders.

  “Your breathing sounds better,” I tell Jem. He grunts at me in response.

  “He coughed up a lot this morning, but he’s been better throughout the day,” Ivy volunteers. We talk over Jem’s head and he doesn’t seem to mind it. Occasionally he interjects nonsensical statements and we just roll with it. Ivy tells me that they’ve been weaning Jem off the supplemental oxygen since yesterday. It started with turning down the flow, and today he’s been taking brief breaks from wearing the cannula. It takes added effort to breathe without the oxygen for support, and so he hasn’t had much success at weaning while tired and dozy, but there is progress.

  Frank tries to make small talk with Ivy, obviously uncomfortable with
watching Jem and I cuddle. When he’s not speaking or sighing into my neck, Jem is tugging gently at the side of my shirt or touching the ends of my hair.

  “I like you,” Jem declares softly. I give him a squeeze and tell him I like him too. “We’re going to be friends,” he says with quiet anticipation, and smiles with his eyes closed.

  “I’d like that.”

  We stay wrapped up beneath his blanket for another quarter of an hour, during which Jem says, “Annoying as fucking eggs,” for no apparent reason, before he finally starts to doze. We lay him back in the bed and wrap the new blanket around his legs, and he falls asleep with a snuffle and a twitch.

  “Sorry he wasn’t up to visiting today,” Ivy whispers.

  “We’ll let him rest.” I’m mildly annoyed that Frank speaks for me without asking if I’m ready to leave, but with Jem high and asleep, he wouldn’t know I was here anyway. I hug Ivy and Elise goodbye and gently kiss Jem on the forehead. He doesn’t stir.

  Frank tears off his mask as soon as we’re in the elevator. “Hell of a thing, isn’t it?”

  “Yeah.” Whatever that means. I’m sure it would make perfect sense if I had a Y chromosome.

  “You’re very good with him,” Frank says.

  “Thanks.” Jem isn’t usually so difficult and demanding when he’s stoned, but I didn’t mind. It gave me an excuse to cuddle him uninterrupted for almost a full half hour.

  “He seems…reliant on you,” Frank says as the elevator beeps for the first floor. “That makes me nervous.”

  “Because you want me to leave him?”

  “Because you’re young, and relationships don’t often last when you’re young.”

  “Aren’t you and Doug kind of an exception to that rule?”

  Frank sighs and gives me the eye. I’m not supposed to bring this subject up in public. “It’s not easy,” he says finally. “No relationship is.” Frank can’t take depressing and personal topics for too long, though, and as we step out of the hospital he changes the subject. “Want to go for dinner at Ger-Bo’s?”

  The question is, do I feel like cooking?

  “I’ll meet you there.” Call it bonding time, since Frank is in the mood to try today. He made more of an effort than I thought he would in the hospital.

  “Love you, Frank.”

  Frank surprises me by wrapping an arm around my shoulders and pulling me in for a sideways hug. “I’m proud of you, kid,” he says lowly.

  “Are you sure?”

  He looks at me seriously and nods. “You’ve got your issues, but you’re a fine young woman.” That’s the most personal and endearing thing Frank has ever said to me, and I don’t know how to respond except to say, “I’m buying tonight.”

  “That doesn’t mean you can make me order the salad.”

  “We’ll see about that.”

  Jem: June 20 to 24

  Tuesday

  A man I’ve never seen before stands next to my bed, apologizing for some mix up with my IV drip. I have no idea who this guy is, much less why he’s apologizing to me, but Dad is glaring at him from the doorway so I guess there must be a reason.

  “Uh, sure, we’re cool.” It’s only after he leaves that I find out from Dad who the guy was—some intern who screwed up my painkillers yesterday.

  “Maybe he did something right. I don’t remember any pain.”

  “Do you remember anything?” Dad says testily.

  “Uh…no.”

  “You were out of your mind and vomiting. If it hadn’t been handled right, you could have developed further lung problems from aspirating food particles.”

  Thanks, Dad—nothing more picturesque than inhaling my own vomit.

  “You have to really try to eat well today, okay? You might not feel it now, but you’re weakened by what happened.”

  Actually, I do feel it. I’m just trying not to show it so he’ll quit parading around in doctor mode and let me go home sooner. The man watches me like a hawk while I eat breakfast.

  “I’ll call your mom and ask her to bring some of the soup from the freezer when she comes.”

  Willa’s is better.

  “Thanks, Dad.”

  Wednesday

  The attending physician has visited me an inordinate number of times today, and for no purpose other than to check my vitals and assess my respiratory status. It’s hard not to get my hopes up, but I suspect he’s doing it because he’s considering if I’m ready to be discharged. I’m still phlegming, but it’s no longer dark green or red and there’s much less of it. I can breathe better and go for long stretches without extra oxygen.

  At three o’clock, an hour before this doctor’s shift ends, he discusses the idea of discharge. I want to go home. I want to be in my own bed, on my own schedule, without the noise and interruptions and smell of the hospital. I want to have privacy again. I want real food and my cello and the sound of Mom singing in her office.

  Elise and Eric swing by after school. Dad and the attending are talking in the Family Room at the end of the hall, so Eric goes out to the vending machine to spy on them and see if Dad looks pleased or upset.

  Elise fills the silence while we wait for him. She’s all aflutter because the grad dance is this weekend, and the social planning committee still has to set up the decorations and tables and stuff.

  “Sounds like fun.”

  “Are you even listening?”

  “Of course.”

  “You’re lying.”

  “Okay, I’m lying.”

  “I’m trying to talk to you about important things and you just zone out.” Prom is not important. It’s just another school dance, but with a fancy name and a bigger budget. But it would hurt Elise’s feelings if I said that.

  “Sorry.”

  “So can I borrow that fedora you have in your closet?”

  “For the dance?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Fine, but I want a favor in return.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Don’t tell Willa I’m coming home, okay?”

  Elise imitates a confused dog, complete with head tilt, low whine and bewildered eyes.

  “I want to surprise her.”

  “Oh. That’s sweet.” Elise beams and rocks back on her heels. “I kind of have a surprise for you too.”

  I have a bad feeling about this. Elise doesn’t usually announce surprises. She springs them on people in the most violently exuberant manner possible. “What is it?”

  “Well it’s not really for you, but it is surprising.”

  I guess that she got her driver’s license, since she’s eligible now—she’s gone long enough without having another seizure—but that isn’t it.

  “I got a summer job.”

  “That’s great. Where?”

  “I’m cooking at a camp.”

  Jesus Christ on toast. “The same camp that that douchebag is working at?”

  Elise winces. “The very same.”

  “What the fuck, Lise?”

  “I’m just cooking; we won’t even work together ‘cause he’s a counselor. And I like cooking.” She pouts sweetly. “Not many students get summer jobs doing things they like.”

  “Tuck that lip in.”

  Elise folds her arms and huffs. “Eric was cool about it,” she says haughtily. I’m not buying it. I know this trick: she pits Eric and I against each other for her love in order to get what she wants.

  “Fine then.”

  “Fine.”

  “I’m not gonna be happy about it.”

  Elise sticks her tongue out at me. I know she wants this and that I should be happy for her, but I don’t trust that jerk she’s chasing, and who am I going to hang out with this summer when Willa isn’t available? It’s not like I have any other friends, and she knows it.

  “You’re going to be gone all summer.” That gets to her. Elise drops her arms and gives a long-suffering sigh, like she knew this was coming and doesn’t have a good counter-argument planned.

&n
bsp; “It’s not that far away.”

  “You’ve never been away from home before.”

  “So it’s about time. And you did it for five summers, so how hard can it be?”

  I glare at her. Cooking macaroni and cheese for campers and competing for music scholarships are not on the same level.

  “What if you get lonely?”

  “Ha.” She’s right; stupid argument. Elise makes friends wherever she goes, and she has that wingnut to keep her company if no one else will.

  “I get a weekend off at the end of July,” she says, “so quit whining. It’s not like you’re never going to see me, and there are these amazing things called phones.”

  “Are you actually going to call?”

  “Yes,” she declares, and pinches my cheek. “Now will you stop being so pissy?”

  I’m about to tell her no, I’m not finished yet, when Eric comes in, crunching loudly on a bag of chips. “You two fight like an old married couple,” he says. “It’s creepy.”

  “We do not.” We say it in unison and Eric struts around like he’s right. Ass.

  “Did you tell her you were cool with her going away to camp?” I demand. Eric shrugs like I’m overreacting.

  “Dude, imagine all the amazing shit we can do with her unguarded stuff while she’s gone. I say we make slingshots with her training bras.”

  Elise gives him a well-deserved kick in the shin for that one.

  “Damn it, kid, don’t cripple me. I’ve got to carry his ass into the house tonight.” Eric gestures to me, and my hopes rise of their own accord.

  “They’re letting me out?”

  “Yeah. About time, too. You’re not even that sick; just lazy.”

  I give him the finger and he offers me a chip. “Bugger off. And you won’t have to carry me in. I can walk just fine.”

  “We’re not supposed to tell Willa,” Elise adds. “It’s a surprise.”

  Eric shakes his head at me. “You know, most girls prefer flowers.”

  *

  I’m home before dinner and ridiculously happy about it, even though the short car ride has made me a little tired. The doctors sent me home with a miniature oxygen tank and a few new prescriptions. I have to go back next week for a checkup, but I don’t care right now because the house smells like home and everything is familiar.