One Sweet Day

by Elle Tyler

  “Well, that’s good... That she’s doing well, I mean.”

  “Yeah.”

  I went back to work, but I felt her eyes still on me.

  “You’re in trouble, aren’t you?”

  “No,” I laughed sourly. “That’s the most messed up part. I didn’t get in any trouble at all. I mean I basically kidnapped my teacher’s daughter, and he hasn’t even called the cops. The worst I’ve been treated is a crappier work schedule and orders forbidding me to see Everly. But even that is getting easier to do, when it should be harder.”

  Marta hummed. “Maybe her father wanted you to take her but couldn’t admit to it.”

  “I don’t think that’s it. He’s probably just using it to blackmail me later, if I try to help Everly again.”

  “Callum,” she said softly, “some people are unable to control themselves. They might not want to hurt someone they love, but it happens anyway. So maybe his lack of response is actually a cry for help.”

  I shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe.” I finished working with my head down. When she had the ham and side dishes all packed up, I offered her a ride to church.

  I carried the food to the kitchen and tried to avoid anyone who wanted to make small talk. A few of the women from the neighborhood recognized me, and I had no choice but to stand around with a smile on my face and listen to their stories and answer questions about what my life had become. I was practically force-fed cookies and other dishes that lined a plaid tablecloth.

  I sat in the back of the church as they wiped down pews and made sure poinsettias were placed perfectly. A group of girls stood in the front of the church and rehearsed Christmas carols.

  I dialed Tatum at the hospital and asked her to call Everly’s room. When she picked up, I walked to the front of the church and held out my phone so she could hear them sing. They treated her to “O Holy Night” and “Little Drummer Boy” before the table of cookies was more important than praising the Lord.

  “Did you hear?” I asked Everly.

  “It was beautiful,” she laughed. “Best Christmas present you could have given me.”

  “So was that, topolina.”

  “What?”

  “Hearing you laugh. You know how much I love it.”

  She grew quiet, and I tried to picture her face, the shyness that always lingered in her eyes.

  “So,” she began, “are you at church?”

  “I was trying to find my inner goodwill. I hear it’s popular to have this month.” She laughed again, and I closed my eyes to the sound of it, how far away it was. A sigh escaped my chest. “I love you, Everly Anne Brighton. I know I’m not supposed to say it so literally, but sometimes all the reasons I already have for loving you bear repeating. So... I love you. If I had time to recount the six hundred different ways, I would.”

  She was quiet for a moment and then said, “Yes, I’ll have the ultra-dry meatloaf with a side of watery broccoli for dinner. Sounds scrumptious.”

  “Your dad’s in the room, now?” I guessed.

  “Of course I want the fruit parfait. What horrible meal would be complete without one?”

  “I’ll come see you tonight. I love you, Everly Anne.”

  “Oh, believe me, I feel the same way about you, sir!” And then she hung up.

  Marta found me and asked if I’d stay for service. I told a half-lie about needing to get to work soon.

  “I’ll catch a ride back with someone. You go ahead.”

  I stood, but my feet couldn’t move until I evened us out. “I never thanked you.”

  She searched my face in confusion but then softened. “It’s what any good mother would have done.”

  “But I haven’t treated you like one—and that was wrong. You didn’t ask for this when you married my dad.”

  “I did, actually. I knew exactly what I was getting into when I married Andrew. And I have never once regretted that choice.” She pursed her lips when I raised my brows. “Okay, maybe a few times I regretted it. But I’m glad I didn’t falter in my moment of weakness.”

  “Yeah, well, I faltered in mine. That’s for damn sure.”

  “You were just a boy, Callum. No one is ever going to hold that against you.”

  “But I’m not anymore. I haven’t been for quite a while.”

  She smiled sadly. “In your eyes, I might never be your mother, but in my eyes, you have always been my son. So, to me, I think of you that way—that same young boy who used to hold Andrew’s hand when you went to visit Julep in the hospital. The same boy who was always too sad to open his presents on Christmas. The same boy who needed someone to make his lunch and send him off to school and make sure he did his homework. Just as I saw you then, I see you now—and that day in the attic was no exception. You were just as innocent and scared. I wasn’t going to be responsible for breaking your heart twice in one lifetime.”

  I shook my head. “I wasn’t angry that you married my father—it was never about you. Not really.”

  She touched my hand. “I know that.”

  Marta walked with me to my car, carrying a container of food and a bag full of cookies. “I know everyone in our family goes into hibernation on this day, but I thought maybe your Everly might like a little Christmas cheer, if you saw her later.”

  I took the container and cookies from her. “You know... I haven’t been much of a willing participant in this whole need you have for children and family, but Everly yearns for a mother. She never knew hers—she died at birth. She’s never even seen a picture of her.”

  Marta touched my arm and apologized but then said, “Did you know what her name was? Maybe... Maybe you could find a picture of her somewhere. Andrew told me her father is important... So maybe there’s a public picture of them together.”

  I nodded. “Yeah, that’s a good idea.”

  “But in the meantime,” she said, resting her hands on the containers, “I’ll be happy to help her any way I can.”

  GRADUATION

  Part Five

  A PLAN TO FAIL

  25.

  I WAS IN HYSTERICS.

  “He doesn’t even have both hands on the wheel!” Tatum held her forehead as she watched Nick practice driving an ambulance, the final requirement for becoming an EMT. “I told him he should have just become a cop or firefighter!”

  “God knows you don’t need to use two hands to be a firefighter, Tot.”

  Nick went flying by us again as we watched him circle the hospital parking lot for the fifth time. Wheels screeching, rubber burning, and still... only one hand on the wheel.

  “He hasn’t even turned on the siren!” she wailed. “What does he think this is? He’s not chasing down the enemy! He’s trying to get an injured or dying person to a place where we are going to save his life! How will anyone get to the hospital...?” And then she broke off in Greek, screaming at him as he whizzed by again.

  I began to laugh but was halted as Brighton emerged from the doors behind us.

  “I need to talk with you,” he said grimly. “Now.”

  The fact that he didn’t even raise a brow to the madman whizzing around the parking lot in an ambulance he no right to be driving correctly, let alone insanely, made my skin stiffen.

  I followed him to the end of the first floor where he stopped before a large fish tank. For a few moments, he simply stared at the fish as they swam.

  “I heard from Arthur Baumgarten,” he finally said.

  I waited but that was all.

  “Yes,” I began, “I’m applying for residency at Atlanta Memorial.”

  He turned, arms crossed over his chest. His eyes might as well as have been coals, they were so dark and heated. “Then what the hell was all this for, Trovatto?”

  And this meant Everly.

  “I already told you—I love her enough to let her go. Trying to take her away in a devious manner almost killed her. So I’ve decided to love her the right way, instead.”

  He stepped closer. “By moving away fr
om her?”

  “I’m guaranteed a job. I’ll need to provide for her.”

  He blinked. “You’re planning on taking Everly with you?”

  “Eventually, sir, I will take her with me, yes.”

  “And you believe I’ll just let her go with you? Paying the bills doesn’t make you any wiser than me, Callum. She’s on the last legs of her time frame. You don’t have enough chances left to learn and get it right.”

  “Then compromise with me,” I snapped. “Let me at the very least love her before time runs out.”

  Brighton’s jaw clenched; his hands fell to his sides. “Are you really so blind? Why do you think you’re not facing a slew of charges right now? Kicked out of school?”

  “Because you like games of manipulation,” I answered tiredly. I was so done with this argument.

  His feet stopped just before mine. We were about the same height, but his shoulders spanned wider, making his presence loom over mine. “I gave you three times as much work as any other student and the worst rotations I have made any student suffer in nearly five years. I gave you a differential that was impossible to solve. I threatened your future and your family. Today you will graduate at the top of your class and have a spot guaranteed in Atlanta. If you had left my daughter alone, I would have happily offered you a job at Presbyterian. So tell me something, were my brutal efforts to make you better in vain?”

  “I don’t owe you anything,” I argued, “because you weren’t the one who pushed me to become a better doctor. Just as you aren’t responsible for Everly being alive—not completely. It’s her spirit. It’s her fighter’s heart. It’s her hope, an anchor that you care nothing about.”

  “That’s why you’re green,” he fumed. “You haven’t listened to a thing I’ve said! The point is why have I given you the chance to prove me wrong over and over again? I could easily get rid of you, Callum. That isn’t the problem. The problem is what to do with you now. You proved me wrong... So what do I do with you, Trovatto? I’m obviously not going to just hand you my daughter, and you’re too stupid and unwilling to back down. Duplicity is not an option, either.”

  “Well, if you are the great groomer you profess, why not allow Everly to choose? She’s been under your influence for twenty years. Let her decide.”

  Brighton laughed mockingly under his breath. “It has nothing to do with my ability. Love clouds the mind. So whatever I have instilled in her would be lost to fairy-tale-type mentality.” He stepped around me. “The truth is that I have allowed you to do exactly what you wanted. I let you love her, at minimum. Wish granted, Callum.”

  All I could think was, Why is he goading me? He wasn’t trying to win. He was leading.

  Marta’s words from Christmas Eve found me.

  I looked at him and declared, “I want to offer her everything that you can’t, Dr. Brighton.”

  He faced the fish tank again. “Then perhaps my counter offer should be that I would have to offer her what you can’t provide, Callum.”

  “And how would that work?” I asked.

  “Firstly, she’ll be staying in New York. And I’ll remain in charge of her medical care.”

  My hands trembled. “And secondly, sir?”

  “If... If Everly surpasses her twenty-first birthday..., she can go with you.”

  Nervously I asked, “Go with me where, sir?”

  “She’s no longer mine after that age. I never dreamed she’d live past three, let alone twenty-one, so... those years belong to her. She can do with them what she wishes.” He faced me. “I’d like to see you prove me wrong once again—that her life isn’t a simple string of science and meticulous routines and rules that have kept her alive.”

  I leaned closer. “There is only one thing I love more in this world than proving you wrong, Dr. Brighton.”

  He turned toward the hall and took several steps before he paused. “And be sure to tell your idiot friend to keep both hands on the wheel.”

  I smiled to myself, but then called back to him, “What did Arthur say when you told him you’d hired me?”

  Brighton paused and then angled toward me. “Why would I have told him that?”

  “You just said I passed all of your tests... and Everly is staying here, so... Why wouldn’t you hire me?”

  “Well firstly, Callum, you didn’t ask to be hired by me. You went behind my back and applied for a—as you said—guaranteed position.”

  I already knew the trap I’d walked into. “I actually believed you had a shadow in your chest.”

  “Pardon?”

  “A suggestion of where your heart must have once lived,” I expanded with fire. “But you don’t believe Everly will ever see her twenty-first birthday, so you’ve offered me nothing.”

  “I told Arthur you were the best student in my class. You have a job. That was what you wanted and you got it. Well done.”

  I shook with anger. “No, all I did was walk into a trap.”

  “I told you, Callum,” he said, “you’re green. You should have known better than to ever cross me.” He tucked his hands into his coat pockets as he said, “But my word is true. If she lives, she’s free to go.”

  “And if she dies?” I snapped. “If the last year of her life is spent being heartbroken rather than loved beyond measure..., what does that prove?” I stepped toward him on the verge of wiping him off the map. “Why are you so afraid for someone to love her—because you can’t?”

  It was there, right there, in that small millisecond before he blinked that I found his weak spot.

  I shook my head in disgust. “For God’s sake, she’s your daughter. How could you not love her?”

  “I do love her. She is the only person I give a damn about in this world. Can you honestly not see that?” He lurched forward. “You are the one I don’t care about. Everyone else and their ill-formed opinions about my daughter are the ones I don’t care about.”

  “What about her opinion? That doesn’t qualify either?”

  “Her opinion puts her at the mercy of her feelings, and her feelings are the gateway to recklessness, because she doesn’t know when to stop. Everly only has pleasure guiding her choices. Of course love feels great to her—how could it not? She’s never endured the downside.”

  “That’s where you’re wrong, sir, that’s where you are so damn wrong. Everly is scared, she has desires—of course she does!—but she also understands how fragile her life is and how easily giving into those feelings could end badly. The thing is, Dr. Brighton, she doesn’t only fear for herself... She fears for me, too. So while you think love is the reason she might leap off the edge, understand that love is also the reason why she hasn’t.”

  ***

  The room was filled with friends and family of my graduating class, but Everly Anne was the only person I saw as I moved through the crowd.

  “So handsome.” Everly ran her hands over my suit before I hoisted her up in my arms. She laughed against my face, and then we were lost in tender kisses. Her fingers guided through my hair firmly, lovingly, before she pressed her cheek to mine and clung hard.

  “We made it, topolina,” I said. “I graduated.”

  “You sure did,” she whispered back. “Dr. Trovatto. Still my favorite.”

  I pressed my face into her hair bundled up on her shoulder. “Your dad said I could keep you.” She stiffened in my arms. I stroked her hair and held tighter. “But there’s a catch.”

  She sighed, “Always.” Everly pulled back to admire my face. “We have to stay in New York..., right?”

  I didn’t want to answer that question. “He said you’re free to go wherever you wish after you turn twenty-one.”

  Her face puckered. “You and I both know that’s not going to happen.”

  “You have no idea when you’re going to die any more than I know when I’m going to die, Everly Anne. I could get stabbed walking to work tomorrow or get pushed off the train platform and be squished like an ant. They gave my mother less than a year, a
nd she lived for almost five. They told you age three was your limit and you’re twenty. So why couldn’t twenty-one be just as wrong of a guess?”

  She pulled free of my embrace. “Because no one has ever lived that long with CIPA. Do you understand those odds, Callum?”

  “And how many of them had the resources and knowledge you have?” I argued. “There’s only a little over two hundred cases recorded, Everly. That’s worldwide, not just our country.” I framed her shoulders. “It’s only a God complex telling you what your expiration date is, because none of us ever really know... And I was under the impression you weren’t fond of God-complex-bearing doctors.”

  Everly watched me for a moment before she said, “So where are you taking me after I turn twenty-one?”

  I pushed her hair off her shoulders. “Anywhere that allows enough time for a proper kiss.”

  She shook her head. “Geography won’t be able to fix that.” Her hands slid over my graduation suit. “Now you belong to everyone, doctor.”

  My fingers lifted her chin. “Tell those lies to my heartbeat.”

  She tipped on her toes and pressed her lips fervently against mine. We were caught up like that until Brighton found us. I peeled myself away from her to face him.

  “We need to get going,” he said to her. For a split second, I swore I saw regret in his features.

  Everly looked at me with the same expression, except her regret didn’t run and hide.

  I aimed my intention toward him but kept my eyes on Everly. “My family is going to dinner after we leave here. You’re invited to join us.” I had to make myself look at him because I wasn’t afraid and he needed to understand. “Both of you are welcome to join us.”

  I wasn’t going to wait for answer because I already knew what he would say. So I just imprinted my thumb on her chin and smiled. “701.”

  BREATHE LITTLE BREATHS

  26.

  THE LAST NIGHT I lived in New York, Brighton allowed me to walk right up to his front door and see Everly Anne one last time.