by Elle Tyler
“What do I have to do with this?”
She stilled, but then suddenly sweet, nineteen-year-old Everly Anne Brighton transformed into her father 2.0.
“You have a differential due, yes?”
“You’re gonna hold my grade hostage unless I agree to whatever you’d like me to do?”
Everly shook her head. “I already made sure you wouldn’t pass. Have you checked your notes lately? Not much there, right? Too many days spent wondering about the girl and not her condition. Even if Logan liked you—which he doesn’t—his notes aren’t much better. He’ll be lucky if they let him become a janitor in a hospital.”
“I’ll just go to your father and tell him—”
She cut me off. “Tell him what, Callum? That you were too smitten with his daughter to pay attention in class?”
I stepped toward the door. “I’m not being strong-armed by a ninety-pound girl.”
Everly jumped off the bed and didn’t permit me passage without my having to touch her, the last thing I was going to do.
“Don’t you have it right there?” Her finger corkscrewed into my chest. “Doesn’t that feeling live just right there?” She stared up at me, and more than anything I wanted to look away, push away, get away, but the invisible cord wouldn’t allow me to move.
“What?” I snapped. “What am I supposed to have, Everly?”
“The cancer. The helplessness you felt. The wish. Hasn’t all that scorn made a home right there?”
“Right now? Definitely.”
“Only your ego is bruised. Get over it. I’m trying to save this guy’s life.”
I pushed her hand away. “Even if I didn’t mind your little game, I don’t see how I could help.”
“I need someone to make a case for me. Argue that I’m capable of making decisions for myself.” She folded her arms across her chest. “I’m under a conservatorship. I know, when I die, my father won’t want any part of me to go to someone. He’s too selfish. He’ll want them all for himself. So... So I need a doctor to plead my case to a judge. I don’t want to be some science experiment. And Truscott doesn’t want to die.”
I laughed in disbelief. “I’d still be a resident at best, Everly Anne. You think a judge will listen to me over your father?”
“Yes,” she said, “because your father has witnessed Timothy abusing his power.” She looked up at me after a moment. “Your dad’s the one who gave me the oven mitts so Timothy wouldn’t make the nurses tie me to the bed at night.”
I exhaled. “If it was keeping you safe, a judge won’t care. It’s part of protocol.”
She argued, “Your father didn’t think so.”
“He didn’t care enough to stay and make sure it didn’t happen anymore, either, Everly. He’s not... If you’re betting all your chips on him, then you’re already beat. He’s not like he used to be, and he won’t care about this.” I twisted the handle. “And neither do I.”
She sidestepped me. “Well, I do. In fact, I care enough to make sure you fail and never get to become a hollow doctor who doesn’t care about saving someone’s life at the expense of your ego.”
I looked at Truscott. “I’m sorry, but I can’t help.” And then I tried to ignore Everly as she followed me into the hallway. We ended up in the elevator. She stood and stared until the doors closed. “My father has a drinking problem,” I told her. “He hardly remembers where our house is most days.”
“Sounds more like a geography problem.”
I nodded. “Funny.”
She grew quiet for a moment. “He was the kindest man I ever knew.”
“Yeah.”
“But I’m not betting all my chips on him. I’m betting them on you.” She flattened her back to the wall of the elevator and watched the numbers fall. “Do you ever read the Bible?”
“No. I left fairy tales in my childhood.”
“Hope is an anchor of the soul,” she said. “I read that in the Bible. Maybe for some people it means, as long as you’re hopeful you have a soul. For me it means getting to the heart of what makes someone tick. I’ve taken God’s words and used them for my own selfish gain. But also to help someone. Does that make me a bad person?”
I looked away from her and fixed my eyes on the numbers. It felt safer. “You didn’t find my hopefulness, so don’t sweat it, Everly.”
“Not yours,” she corrected. “Timothy’s. His hopefulness rests in there being a solution to my condition, even though his logic knows that it’s impossible. But it’s there, and it’s his only weakness, so I have to use it against him.” Everly turned to me then. “He’s already threatened by you because of your father’s history with me. If you turned in a strong differential, it would only shake him more. I can give you all the answers—I just need you to do the footwork.”
We reached the floor I’d originally pressed, but I punched for it to go back up.
“Everly, do you honestly believe Brighton wouldn’t know you were spoon-feeding me information?”
“Doesn’t matter. Actually, it might even make him more fearful, because then he’d know I have someone fighting in my corner. And what could he do? It’s not like he’s going to stop the differential now. He’d have to ask the whole class to start over halfway through the semester with a new patient. Even if he faked my death, that wouldn’t work.” She laughed.
“Twenty others will also know the answer. You understand that, right? I have to share my notes.”
Everly stepped closer to me. I could smell her hair and skin floral and bright against the musk of the sterile elevator. “Maybe you should have a problem sharing your super-in-depth note-taking-skills with the rest of the class. Maybe this should be what you address first thing after we get back from the Fourth of July break this weekend.”
I shook my head at her. “You want me to finish my differential in one weekend?”
“God built the entire world in seven days. This is only words on a piece of paper.” Her cheek dimpled as she smiled. “I won’t even use ‘just’.”
“This seems like a shitload of trouble to suffer through to help a boy you like.”
“You’re right, it does. So maybe there’s something more going on here.” She flattened against the elevator wall again.
“Yeah, it’s called coercion.”
She argued, “No, you’ve had it from the first day.”
So tired. “What’s that?”
“You cared,” she explained. “I know doctors. I see their intent before I ever hear them speak. I’m quiet because I watch, and I watch because talking too much gives away all your secrets, but listening earns you the secrets of others, and when you’re at the mercy of everyone, it’s essential to know what makes them tick. When I watched Logan, I knew he was going to become that asshole doctor who drives a BMW with some dumb acronym on his license plate like RES4PREZ. He’s all glory lights and void of connection. The worst kind of doctor.”
I asked, “So what does that make me?”
The elevator stopped. Everly remained in place, but answered, “You took me to Central Park and told me your secrets. You’ve always treated me like a person.”
Nurse Ratchet was waiting for us when the doors opened. Everly gave a brief smile to me and then exited. I wasn’t reprimanded by the nurse because, at the foot of the hallway, Brighton waited for Everly.
He seemed more curious than wrathful.
FEW THINGS HAPPEN BY COINCIDENCE
11.
MY STEPMOTHER Marta was in the middle of packing summer clothes in a spare room when I arrived home.
“Oh, hello, Callum.”
“Where’s Pop?”
“Resting.” Her fake smile was more honest than her words. Rest in our house meant he was passed out drunk. I stepped into the room and nearly choked, covering my arm over my mouth.
“What the hell is that smell?”
“It's a mixture of moth balls and cinnamon. Not pleasant, I know, but I was in the middle of pulling out summer clothing and
found some decorations in the—” Marta paused immediately and looked away from me. “Well, I just found some old boxes. There were scented pine cones inside. It's quite amazing the smell hasn't gone away, not even after such a long time.”
My stomach churned with betrayal. “You have no business in my mother's attic.”
“I was only looking for our suitcases so I could start packing for Montauk. Andrew said he’d get them down, and then he stayed up there for the entire morning. When he came back down empty-handed, he went straight to his office and then I lost him to...” She swallowed down the bitterness she never allowed to surface. “He was just very emotional.”
I relented because I had to get this anger in check before I could go to the attic.
“Why didn’t you just wait for me?” It was a stupid question, and her eyes agreed. Still, I argued my case. “Christ, I’m not thirteen. I can go up to the attic.”
She folded her arms across her chest. “My name is Marta.”
“I'm aware, but you see, there's this deal Christ and I have when I'm pissed off. He lets me take Holy names in vain in exchange for my noble work healing the sick. We're good to each other like that.”
“Mocking our Lord isn’t an improvement on taking His name in vain, Callum.”
That freed the ire. “And pretending to be my mom after you were upstairs snooping through her shit, trying to figure out why my father just can’t let her go, isn't helping to ebb the contempt I have for you right now, Marta.”
She ignored the venom I spewed because she’d waded through it for nearly a decade. “I wasn't snooping. I would never do that.”
“Too scared of what answers you’d find?”
Marta turned away. “Yes.”
“God would be so proud of your commitment to Him and your willingness to tell the truth.”
“Pride is a sin,” she chastised. “If you went to church with us, you'd know that, Callum.”
“Then what's the point—? Strike that question—I don't want to know. The luggage? Yes or no to help. I could be doing something useful like studying right now. Think fast.”
“I'd love to spend time with you under the guise of packing summer clothing. Yes.” I followed her out of the room until we reached the ladder leading to the attic.
“I detected a bit of wise-ass in that response,” I said. “Will God wait until we're done packing to smite you? I don't want to be guilty by association.”
“Being a wise-ass isn't a sin,” she argued. “If it were... you'd have been toast a long time ago.”
***
The attic reflected a world that no longer existed. My hand rested on hardwood flooring I remembered playing on as a child while my mother rehearsed her lines. The tall gold-framed dressing mirror still rested against the far wall, near the window.
A few boxes in the back of the room hid the luggage Marta needed. I couldn’t talk myself out of digging inside of the boxes, where I found four red-velvet Christmas stockings. My hands trembled as I stared down at the broken lines of glitter where our names had started to chip off. For a moment, I thought it best to shove them back inside the box, but it felt too wrong, so I shoved them under my arm and moved on to finding the luggage. Before I crept back down the ladder, I mustered a bit more courage and opened the drawer where I remembered Julep's Bible was hidden. At first, my only thought was to take it and leave it on Marta's pillow to screw with her, teach her a cruel lesson about not prying through my mother's things, but as I pulled out the book and flipped through the pages, I paused on the passage about hope being an anchor to the soul.
A soft voice reminded me that few things in life happen by coincidence.
THE TETHER WAS
TOO TIGHT
12.
I SPOTTED EVERLY in the back of the café near the bookcases.
A peculiar thing happened when I looked at her this time. I guess you could say I went blind for ten seconds—but I think the truth was the rest of the world faded when she was in the room. My senses knew that Cecily was sitting in the right-hand corner, texting away on her iPhone, and around the rest of the café were scattered a few people I knew from the hospital, but in the midst of it all, there was only Everly at the bookcase, still holding all of my attention and want in the world.
Her smile was polite and in no way matched the feeling that arose in me when I first saw her. I could have been anyone else to her—just another person looking for a book. The word “deflated” wasn’t enough to describe the low that replaced my high. But I understood.
“Hey,” I began, turning toward her, away from the books. The most important book was in my hands, and I offered it to her.
“A Bible,” she said. “And look at that, it’s not on fire.”
And for a blink in time, we were caught up like that. Mirrored smiles. Familiar.
“I did a little reading,” I told her.
“Have you?”
“Don’t believe me?” I asked.
“Proof’s in the pudding.”
I cleared my throat. “‘People swear by someone greater than themselves, and the oath confirms what was said and puts an end to all argument. Because God wanted to make the unchanging nature of his purpose very clear to the heirs of what was promised, He confirmed it with an oath. God did this so that, by two unchangeable things in which it was impossible for God to lie, we who have fled to take hold of the hope set before us may be greatly encouraged. We have this hope as an anchor for the soul, firm and secure. It enters the inner sanctuary behind the curtain.’”
Everly nodded, but no light lit her eyes. “Well done. You memorized a Bible verse.”
“I thought it’d make you happy to know I was reading more than medical books.”
Her back flattened against the bookcase, and she sighed. “All self-righteous people take an oath—military men, lawyers, godly men, doctors, etcetera. According to this passage, God took the oath so that you could believe in His word and so that hope would never abandon you when you crept behind your curtain of hurt to hide. I think God was the only one upholding His oath, and the rest of the world's noble oath-takers are full of malarkey.”
I feigned offense. “To think I was going to buy you a brownie after all the shit you put me through the other day.”
The faintest smile grew in the poke of her cheek. “I don’t like food any more than I like false oath-takers.” She finally looked at me in a way that only she owned. “What do you think?”
I shrugged. “People in general suck at being good. I think that's why God left that magical 'repent and I'll forgive you' clause.”
“In a way,” she agreed. “But I also think it's a test. Like when you tell a child to do something, just so they won't.”
Everly had a dry crack on her bottom lip that held my attention. It looked as if she had split it open several times. A little dried blood lingered on her lip. “So God's whole plan is reverse psychology? I bet He's bummed about the outcome of that plan.”
“Are you here to debate religion with me, Callum?”
“No, but you already knew that.” I poked at a well-worn book spine. “If... if I do this, no games. You give it to me straight. I don’t have time to play around.”
She agreed, “Neither does Truscott.”
“How long do you have? What’s your expectancy?”
“Age three.” She smiled.
“Why are you still alive?”
“Some might say it’s all the planning my father has done. The rules. The routine. But I think it’s because I haven’t done this yet. Like Truscott is just meant to have my heart.”
I reminded her, “You promised no ‘just’.”
“Sorry.”
“What happens if Truscott dies before you?”
“Then it wasn’t my purpose after all.”
“This is crazy.” I half-laughed. “I can’t believe you talked me into this.”
“I didn’t do anything. I told you—it was already there.”
I glan
ced around the café. “We can’t really be seen talking to each other outside of class without students from the other groups complaining about me cheating.” I took a breath. “I’m going to my parents’ house in Montauk for Fourth of July break. I want you to come with me. We can talk freely, without anyone looking over our shoulder, or school, to contend with.”
Everly shook her head. “My dad will never agree to that. The beach? No nurses? This heat? It’s a lost cause.”
“My father will be there. And, for the record, you’re not the only person who can argue well or use someone’s words against them.”
Everly took the Bible from me and flipped the cover open. “You have a pen? Write ‘to Everly Anne, love Callum.’”
“Why?”
“I’m gonna leave it on my dining table. He snoops in all my things, so if he sees you’re giving me presents, particularly a Bible, it’ll only add to the mystery of our relationship. He was quite baffled when I stepped off that elevator with you.” She smiled proudly.
I wrote what she said but told her, “This was my mother Julep’s Bible. I want it back.”
Everly stuck the Bible in her backpack. “I promise you’ll get it back.”
That same stillness blanketed over us, but it was a fork in the road this time, not a loop. I knew my feet needed to go one way and she needed to go another, but the tether was too tight around us. My hope wondered if that meant she wanted to stay just as much as I did, and that was a stupid thing to do, because there was only one reason she needed me, and it had nothing to do with invisible cords and pulls. I looked her over and wondered about all her layers. The ones I could see hanging on her shoulders and around her waist in colorful fabrics. The ones hidden underneath her skin and safely away from the world. A part of me hated the secrets in that moment. I wished I could reach over and magically wash away the charade with one wave of my hand. But most of all, I didn’t want her to leave.
“Here’s a dumb question,” I said, nodding to her hair. “Is that color natural?”