by Elle Tyler
“Who is Dr. Brighton?” she asked.
“Um…” He must have waved behind his back to the mad-man shouting at the other officers. “Everly Brighton is his daughter.”
There was a pause. I imagined he showed her a picture—which only made me laugh to myself. Of all the times to produce one.
“Does she look familiar?”
“Yes,” Marta said. “She was with Callum on Fourth of July. She was very sweet.”
“Was she here on Thanksgiving by any chance? The doc seems to believe she was.”
She paused for a moment before she replied. “You know, Officer Stroud, this might seem like gibberish to you, but I’ve been Callum’s mother for many years, and I have to tell you, it breaks my heart to say no, she wasn’t here on Thanksgiving. I had hope for Callum... But I think it’s very hard for him to let his heart be vulnerable. I’m sure you can understand why.”
“Yes ma’am. I do. But... the troublesome part about this is... Well, I did see your son with a girl on Thanksgiving. He didn’t seem too heartbroken to me.”
Marta laughed. “Callum’s never had a problem getting ‘girlfriends.’ But that’s not the same as allowing yourself to love someone, Officer Stroud, now is it?”
“No, ma’am. I guess it’s not.”
And then Brighton’s voice was back at the door.
“What are you talking about now? What has she told you?”
Marta spoke before the cop. “I’m Marta Trovatto, sir. Nice to meet you.”
“Ah, the back-up wife. Yes, I’m sure you’d love to solidify anything Andrew has to say, wouldn’t you?”
My father cursed him out in Italian, and then Marta asked him to calm down. “It’s fine, it’s fine. I’ve been getting juvenile behavior like that for years. Believe me, I can handle another couple minutes’ worth.”
“What is he keeping in that attic?” Brighton demanded. “Don’t tell me Julep’s memory. No woman could be that big of a doormat.”
“Her memory?” Marta asked. “Why no, sir, I don’t believe our attic is large enough for that. But I’ll tell you what it is large enough for. Every Thanksgiving, Andrew and I round up little children from our city and lock them away up there. Oh, we have hundreds of them, all kinds and creeds. Your Everly has made a perfect addition, what with that peach hair of hers and all. So unique-looking. It’s truly brightened the group up so nicely.”
I had to smile, because not only did she roundhouse kick him in the dick, but she also kept her story straight while doing it—Everly had peach hair in July and blonde on Thanksgiving.
Marta broke out into a coughing fit.
“We should get going,” Officer Stroud said. “Sorry for wasting your time. Feel better, Mrs. Trovatto.”
And I wish I could say that was the worst of what happened and that the rest was smooth sailing—Everly and I lived Happily Ever After, and her father forgot all about her—but we weren’t a fairy tale. We were a sky with fleeting stars.
So it didn’t surprise me when she wasn’t in the attic two nights later. While I had learned the power of hope, I hadn’t the desire to learn the point of faith, because I’d expected to have the elastic of my heart stretched and broken eventually.
I stormed out of my house with only my anger unlocked, gunning for Brighton and fully prepared to suffer the consequences.
Three blocks closer to her house than mine, I came to a pause as everything precious in my world lay on the sidewalk, unmoving.
“Oh, fuck me... No... No... Everly... EVERLY …” I rushed to where she lay and crushed my knees to the concrete as I twisted her head to find a pulse faintly disappearing under my touch. “No. You can’t die, yet. You promised.”
And there wasn’t a debate when I looked to my right. I knew where I had to go.
I swept her up in my arms and ran until I reached her house. My foot kicked the shit out of the front door until all the lights turned on, and Brighton swung the door wide, full-on cursing and ready to kill. But then he saw the lifeless doll in my arms, and the war between us came to a halt. He laid her in the backseat of his Range Rover, and I was only allowed to ride along because, if her heart stopped, I would be needed. When we reached the city streets, traffic was blocked because some asshole on a bike had gotten hit by a cab. Her pulse dropped beneath my fingertips. I didn’t ask for permission as I popped the door and pulled her into my arms. I could run faster than we were moving in traffic. The hospital was only ten blocks away. Brighton abandoned his car and ran with me until we reached Presbyterian.
As soon as we reached the ER entrance, he wrenched Everly from my arms and rushed her in with orders to the nurses as they flew down the hall. I followed, but as soon as he had her on the gurney, he turned around and I was subjected to Timothy Brighton full throttle. He thrust me into the wall and kept a fistful of my sweater choked around my neck.
“Maybe when she dies you will see that this was never a game to me!”
“She was on the sidewalk near your house. She was probably coming home.” I had to lie, because truth was I had no idea how she’d ended up there.
He slammed me into the wall again. “And why were you there?”
“I was going for a walk to clear my head. I saw her and...”
He tightened his grip until my air supply was cut off. Wrathful words flew at me in a mad rush. “Do not lie to me! Do not even try your weak attempt to convince me you don’t care about Everly! I have seen it with my own eyes! You think I didn’t watch the two of you in class every day? You’re the only one she even acknowledged! You’re the only person who has ever made her defy me! She ran away from home because of you and your foolishness—making her believe she could live normally. She’s not an average girl! She could never ever live an average life!”
“You’re right,” I snapped back, “she’s not average. She’s incredible. She’s inspiring. She’s tougher than you or I could ever wrap our simple minds around. But the difference between us is I would allow her to decide what to do with those qualities. I love her enough to let her go, if that’s what she wanted. At best, you only love yourself.”
“Everything I do is because I love Everly,” he fumed. “Everything.”
“No, everything you do is because you love controlling people. Everly is an easy target. At least she was. That’s why you hate me so much. I took away your control.” The ire in me bubbled over. I didn’t care who watched us, who was alarmed. I was going to explain this shit to him until one of us broke. “For Christ’s sake, you just admitted you know I care about her—that you witnessed it—and still you’d deny her that because of your own fear! That’s not called love, Dr. Brighton. That’s called being an egotistical, manipulating prick who doesn’t give a shit about his daughter.” I shoved him off of me. “You don’t even have pictures of her in your home. How do you think that makes Everly feel—to walk around her own house and not see memories of the things that made you proud or happy?”
He pressed the butt of his hand to head as if he suddenly had a headache. “That statement proves how green you are, Callum. Do you have any idea what childhood was like for Everly? She didn’t go to a first day of school or celebrate birthdays or ride a bike. I expected every day to be the day she would die. She spent ninety percent of her life in the hospital with injuries or being monitored to prevent injuries. There was no book to teach me how to treat her. She wrote the book on CIPA! Trust me..., there wasn’t anything worth photographing about that!”
My fists balled. “Well, I’ve seen things that should have been captured. For starters, the fact that Everly wants to give her heart to her friend if she dies first. And how she laughs, how she really laughs, when she’s in the moment. How she keeps quiet when in actuality she’s really full of words but too scared to share them because no one ever listened to her. And of course..., the hope in her eyes as she watches fireworks bloom.”
His face pulled tight, and he surged forward as if she wanted to hit me again, but I turned the t
ables first. “The only reason I ran her to your house and not mine was because it was best for her. I don’t give a damn what your plans are for me, how you’d like to ruin me, but I won’t let you do it to Everly. Your first mistake was underestimating how much someone could love her. Never forget that.”
***
Anemia. That was my new least favorite word. Well, that and “forbidden.” As in, “I’m sorry, Callum, but Dr. Brighton said you’re forbidden from seeing Everly.”
I wasn’t going down without a fight. So I sat on the floor outside of her door every minute I wasn’t working in the hospital. I had my books and laptop, and I studied there. I had scary hair-net lady-prepared hospital food and ate it there. I had a crunchy blanket and flat, worthless pillow, and I slept there.
I had security escorting me away every other hour.
I had the worst rotations.
I had the largest work load.
I had no friends on the inside once Cecily found out it was all a scheme.
I had a failing plan until a certain favorite nurse of mine was transferred to Everly’s floor.
I had an unblood brother who had the Greek motto ΜΟΛΩΝ ΛΑΒΕ** tattooed on his arm and an ability to create a diversion like none other.
Tatum found me during one of my overnight rotations. “Scary Brighton is in the lab. You have ten minutes tops. Go.”
At the other end of the hallway, a very upset man with his blood type on his boots was trying desperately to find his troops that didn’t exist. Security ushered toward him as he pushed all of the paperwork from the nurse’s station into a fit of disarray.
“The politicians are reptiles!” Nick shouted. “Listen to me! The entire House of Congress showed up and ate the heads off my entire platoon!”
I rushed to Everly’s room and closed the door. Her eyes were closed as if she were sleeping. She didn’t hear my footsteps as I inched closer. There wasn’t anything I wanted to say more than I wanted to kiss her. She fluttered awake as my mouth touched hers. I pulled away briefly and then gave another light kiss on her lips. She gasped and tried to speak, but I cupped my hand gently over her mouth.
“I’m not supposed to be here. Just listen for a moment, all right?” She nodded. “Why did you leave the attic?”
“I’m sorry.”
“I’m not mad. Quick, tell me.”
“I wrote a letter. I felt like if he heard from me why I ran away, it would offer some type of closure. I was gonna stick it in his mailbox. I remember counting the cracks in the pavement and then everything went black.”
I nodded. “Well, he knows everything now.”
“Are you in trouble?”
“No, worse. I’m forbidden.”
She rested on her pillow and blankness overtook her gentle face. The only way she wasn’t beautiful was when she was hopeless.
“I had to take you to him, topolina. I didn’t have a choice when I found you on that sidewalk. You might have died.”
She kept her eyes on the plastic railing of her bed. “You should have left me there. You said you wouldn’t interfere with my death if it meant I wouldn’t have to suffer anymore. Tomorrow I’ll have my blood swapped for some stranger’s. Now I don’t even have a say about what body parts they can take away and replace. I won’t even be me anymore.”
I had seen her chart, so I knew he was making the right medical decision. But trying to convince her was pointless. She was right, too. It was her body, her life, and no one had consulted her wishes.
Her silence was her fear. I touched her cheek, and she closed off completely, eyes pressed tightly as if she could wish me away.
“I’ll do it for you,” I said.
She cried, “Do what, Callum?”
“I’ll be your donor.”
She sighed tiredly. “You understand what a blood transfusion is, right?”
“You’re O negative, and so am I. I won’t be able to compensate all of it, obviously, but I’ll give you as much I can. Unless... You know... You want me dead for bringing you back to Timothy. I’d completely understand. And in that case, you can have it all. Just write me a nice eulogy, all right?”
She opened her eyes. “I’m going to use just in every sentence.”
I smiled down at her, and when she let me kiss her face it finally hit me: how scared she truly was, how much she had to bear simply to stay alive.
“601, Everly Anne.”
She hid her face in my shoulder. “Yeah,” she whispered, “you’re still my favorite, too.”
***
I brought him a brown paper bag.
“Sorry about the wrapping, but it was the best I could do on short notice.”
Truscott took the bag from my hand and rolled the top down. Inside, he found a coffee cup filled with chocolate gold coins.
“Everly asked me to bring you this,” I said. “I’m not really sure why. I guess it’s a Christmas present.”
He smiled weakly. “She kept her promise.”
“What promise?”
He unwrapped one of the coins and took a mouse-sized bite. “I always told her that when I got better, I’d take her out for coffee.” He looked away. “It was lame, in retrospect, but it was just something I always heard adults say in movies. The man is always like, ‘Hey, maybe sometime we could grab a cup of coffee.’ And the woman is always like, ‘Yeah, that sounds nice.’ And then, ten minutes later, they’re married and having a baby.”
I smiled at him. “Truscott, I don’t want to be the bearer of bad news, but I don’t think that’s how it works in real life.”
He looked at me as he rolled another coin between his hands.
“Well..., how did you do it?”
“Do what?”
“Make Everly fall in love with you... How did you do it?”
I treaded carefully. “How do you know she’s in love with me?”
His bit his cheek. “Because she gave me something of hers. I wasn’t... You can’t tell her, okay? I know it was wrong.” He took a breath. “I read her journal. She... talked about you. A lot.”
“Friends don’t spy on each other, man.”
“I know,” he said regretfully. “But I also know Everly—how her mind works—and I think she wanted me to read it, so I’d know she and I were just a dream.” He raised the mug. “But she still kept her promise. We have ‘coffee’ together all the time.”
All the cogs clicked at once. “You’re the reason she steals the suspended coffee orders..., aren’t you?”
“You mean the Token of Faith coffees?”
“Sounds like something Everly might say... Sure.”
“She thinks we’re all connected—that everything each person decides becomes a link to another life.” He exhaled, lowered his head to his pillow. “She said, somewhere in the world, my heart waited for me, and all we needed to do was to find the carrier. So, one day, she comes in here all excited, saying she saw some girl put a jar for free coffees in her café, but it wasn’t really just one day, it was my birthday, and she made me make a wish that one of those tokens was meant for me.”
“How would drinking coffee get you a new heart?”
“Everly likes signs and symbols,” he explained. “Like the dictionary—that’s like her mom, Merriam, because it’s like a teacher or some crap. I don’t know. Anyhow, the coffees aren’t coffees, it’s her way of ‘seeing’ a sign, because my dream was to get well and take her out to have coffee, AKA date her, marry her...” He waved me off.
“So she’s following the sign?” I guessed.
“Something like that. Yeah.”
“I see,” I said quietly.
He fell quiet, too, and I carried out my actual duties as his doctor. Before I left the room, he asked me, “Do you?”
“Do I what, Truscott?”
“Love her. Do you love her back? Like she loves you?”
I sat on the edge of his bed. “Do you still have Everly’s journal?”
He stared at me perplexed but no
dded. “It’s between the mattresses.”
I dug around until I felt the binding against my fingers. The pages fanned as I rolled them against my thumb. I held it up as proof, showcasing the slender width.
“Even if every page in this book was filled out front and back with thoughts of me, it would only be a fraction of how much I think of her, Truscott.”
*ΜΟΛΩΝ ΛΑΒΕ: Come and take them
THE GAME CHANGER
24.
CHRISTMAS EVE HAD ALWAYS been an unpleasant time for my family. My father hides in his room all day, Marta stays busy cooking food no one except her church friends will eat, and I take a bouquet of flowers to my mother’s grave and sit in my car until the sun sets.
Marta was on course as I entered the kitchen that morning. She had every burner working, pots filled to the brim bubbling with homemade marinara, lasagna noodles, ham in the oven, and fresh rolls set out on trays. Cookies lined one section of the counter.
“Did you sleep?” I asked. She jumped at the sound of my voice and turned.
“Good morning, Callum.”
“It, um... It smells good in here. How long have you been cooking?”
“I told the church I’d take over Mrs. Rossinburg’s cookie duties on account of how troublesome Andrew has been. So... I’ve been here a while.” She smiled tight and then went back to work.
“Do you want...? I mean, I don’t know shit about cookies other than I love them..., but... maybe I could help somehow. If you want.”
She turned and stared at me. “I could use a hand, sure.”
We worked silent and awkwardly for a long time. I assembled layers for the lasagna, spooning sauce and cheese, and she wrapped up platters of food.
“I’m sorry I didn’t put up stockings this year,” she said. “But they’re in the attic, and I didn’t want to bother Everly.”
My hands stilled. “Everly went home.”
“Oh.” Her hands stilled, too. Then she looked at me. “Oh, Callum.”
“It’s all right. She’s doing better now, actually. She needed a blood transfusion.”