Just Breathe

by Cammie McGovern

  It’s a tiny apartment with depressing brown shag carpeting, but on the walls is some of the loveliest artwork I’ve ever seen. Small oil paintings, mostly abstracts, that look like moody skyscapes and then, when you look closer, they have tiny, realistic objects floating through them: a teddy bear, a picnic basket, a child’s shoes. They almost remind me of the The Wizard of Oz tornado, except everything seems to float happily in its darkly colored patch of sky. Some items are connected. In one, a dog chases a ball down a slide of dark red. It looks ominous from afar, but funny close up.

  I try to remember what Jamie told me about her father’s career as a painter. How he was successful when he was younger, selling his paintings to high-end clients when he was in his early twenties. Then something happened that made him retreat from his own success. She never told me what it was, only that he hadn’t sold anything since she was a child.

  Knowing that he stopped working makes it all the sadder to look at these beautiful paintings now. I squint down at a date in the corner and am surprised. It looks like these are only two years old. Then I look at the initials beside the date. JAT.

  I spin around and look at Jamie. It doesn’t seem possible, and yet it must be. These aren’t her father’s paintings.

  They’re hers.

  I turn around and look at her in the dying light of the movie. The reflection of the credits rolls over her face. I remember her telling me that she used to paint, too, but it got harder and sadder after her dad died. I remember her saying, “Passions are tricky. They can take over and suddenly, in your mind, nothing else matters.”

  I go back to the sofa and sit down beside her. Sitting this close is enough for me to feel her spirit and remember more: How sick I was when I first got pseudomonas. How I thought I was going to die. How her voice in my ear kept me alive.

  You won’t always feel this way. You’ll get better. You can’t see the future yet, but it’s there. Just hang on.

  I whisper those words now. You won’t always feel this way. You’ll get better. You can’t see the future yet, but it’s there. Just hang on.

  Just hang on.

  JAMIE

  This is stupid, I know.

  It’s my second viewing of this movie, but it’s making me feel better. I like the way no one gives up in this story. The characters are all completely wrong about each other in their assumptions (absurdly so, really) but they forge ahead with their blind convictions. They barrel into parties and hotel rooms, wearing ball gowns and tuxedos, creating awkward situations they have to tap-dance their way out of.

  Who am I kidding? I love it because it reminds me of David, and I feel like he’s here, watching it with me.

  He isn’t. Any minute, my mom is going to call and check up on me. I’ll need to mute the TV and pretend I’m not crying. I’ll need to make a joke so she knows I’m okay for another hour.

  I push Pause and stand up. I go to the bathroom and splash water on my face. When I come out, it’s strange—I notice the paintings on the wall that my mother hung up months ago, while I was in the hospital. I did them in eighth grade, my last burst of creative fervor, after the show downtown and my dad’s devastating reaction to my Runaway Bunny paintings.

  It’s not you I have the problem with, he kept saying. It’s the assignment. So derivative. Asking for young people to paint imitations.

  In the month I had left before the end of school, I wanted to produce work that was entirely, unequivocally my own. I also wanted the pieces to connect. Three paintings that told a story, though I didn’t want the story to be too obvious. I put realistic toys in a maelstrom of color because that’s what growing up had felt like to me—pieces of childhood still in sharp focus; everything else, prismatic and confusing.

  What I never realized (how could I not?) was how close the abstract backgrounds were to my father’s paintings. Once my mother pointed it out, I couldn’t believe I hadn’t seen it for myself. It was like I’d taken sections of his old, most successful work, re-created them exactly, and littered the canvases with my childhood belongings.

  Later, when I brought the pieces home and compared them, it was obvious how I’d internalized his swirls of color. It was mostly true on the one I’d titled Youngest Child, that included a sippy cup and stuffed bear. With the others, the items aged upward until they included a dog we never had chasing a ball. By the third one, it’s as if I’d left my father’s influence behind.

  I haven’t looked at these for years—I didn’t understand why my mom hung them at all, with all the complicated baggage they represented. Now I look closer.

  They aren’t terrible.

  The hardest one to look at is the first one. It’s the least confident, the most tentative. The other two have—I can’t believe I’m thinking this—an exuberance to them. A joyful quality. I remember how it felt to work so intensely for a short period of time. How it took me out of myself, almost out of my body, and made me feel older, like I was floating above middle school and all its disappointments.

  Like being good at this might save me, or at least get me through, until the end of high school. Back then I believed such a thing was possible.

  Part Three

  Four Months Later

  Chapter Sixteen

  JAMIE

  THE FIRST TIME I see David again, I almost don’t recognize him. He looks like he’s put on at least thirty pounds, though he doesn’t look fat the way some people do when they’re taking steroids. He looks like himself, but fuller. More solid. His cheekbones aren’t so prominent. His hair is much shorter. All the curls are gone.

  I’m sitting in the cafeteria where I always sit now, at the same table with Missy and Bethany and the rest of the crowd.

  I watch David walk slowly up to his old spot at the microphone with Sharon on one side and Ashwin on the other. Apparently, the other seniors weren’t expecting this. When they see who it is, they all go quiet.

  Ashwin looks at Sharon, who nods okay. He leans into the microphone. “We have a surprise for you, everyone. As most of you know, David’s been out of commission for a little while, but today we’re super excited because he’s back at school to make our first announcements about senior-week activities!”

  The whole place goes crazy, hooting and shouting and stomping their feet. David leans into the microphone and tries to say something but gets drowned out. He smiles at first, then laughs awkwardly, looking a little flustered by it all.

  He holds up his hand, flat like a policeman stopping cars.

  “Thanks, everyone,” he says. His face is red. “Really. Thanks.”

  They still won’t stop. It’s awkward. He looks at Ashwin and tries again. “I have some announcements. You need to listen.”

  They finally quiet down, and he leans into the microphone. “It’s great to be back, you guys. Thank you for the nice welcome. The main thing I want to tell you—” He looks down at the piece of paper in his hand. He doesn’t sound short of breath, just nervous and flustered. “Is that we really need people to buy senior class T-shirts. They’re great-looking and this is our primary fund-raiser for senior-week activities. We can have a really fun grad-night party with entertainment and good food, or we can have a not-so-great grad-night party with a few bowls of pretzels and Brian here, singing karaoke. It’s your choice! Buy your T-shirts!”

  This doesn’t sound like David’s old announcements. It sounds like he didn’t even read what the paper said before he got up there. He shakes his head sheepishly. I think he’s trying to say I don’t really care if you buy T-shirts or not, but it’s hard to tell, and it’s not my place to guess. I haven’t spoken to or communicated with David or Eileen since he had his operation, so I can’t possibly guess what he’s thinking.

  For weeks, I’ve been trying to imagine what it’ll be like to see David again. Rita even gave me exercises where I visualize this moment so I can plan what to say. It’s good to see you. I’m so happy that you’re better. When I practiced this in my mind, he looked the same
as he did in the hospital. Now he looks so different, I don’t know if I can say it. He doesn’t seem like the same person.

  He goes to sit down, and the applause starts again.

  “Shine on, David!” Missy yells, so loud, he looks over at us. I scrunch behind a backpack so he won’t see me.

  I don’t know if this will work. There are two months left of school. I don’t know how I’m going to get through them if he’s back for good.

  Sharon’s back at the microphone, smiling at David, who’s sitting in his old spot at their old table. “Thank you, David! Just a reminder: you can buy T-shirts at the table in the corner or with one click on our web page. Do it for David!”

  Another resounding cheer rises from the crowd.

  “Did you ever run into him when you did that weird hospital job?” Missy asks when the announcements are over. “You couldn’t have, right? Because you worked on the kids’ floor.”

  I’m surprised. Ever since I started eating lunch with them again, Missy has tolerated my presence, but she hardly ever says anything to me. She never asks me a question. They know I left the job, but they don’t know anything I did there or why I left.

  I’m not sure what to say.

  She turns to Nicki. “Can you imagine changing David Sheinman’s bedpan? That would be wild.”

  “I never changed bed—” I start to say. I stop because they’re not listening anyway. They’re imagining some fantasy version of meeting him alone in a hospital room, just like I’m imagining my own version, which is obviously just a fantasy, too.

  DAVID

  The weirdest things happen when you’re taking steroids. To your body obviously, but also to your mind. At first, I didn’t understand, then I googled around and asked my friends on the CF chat boards: “Do you guys feel like your personality changed after your transplant?”

  “Oh God, yes,” Joyce answered within seconds. “I got really depressed for a while and then kind of manic. Is that happening to you?”

  A few minutes later, Calvin Richard weighed in, “I was the opposite. Super mellow, like I was on drugs, and then I realized: Oh right, I’m on drugs.”

  For me, it’s been a roller coaster of mood swings that started about a month after the surgery, when I was well enough to sit up and walk to the bathroom a few times a day. I felt better—I was definitely breathing better—but I was still too weak and too vulnerable to do anything I wanted to. Suddenly, I couldn’t stop shopping online and ordering things I didn’t really need.

  A few weeks after I got home from the hospital, Eileen came in my room and stared at the unopened boxes in one corner. “What’s with all this shopping? You’re acting like me all of a sudden.”

  I knew it was stupid, but I couldn’t stop myself. I ordered weird food that I thought would taste good, but didn’t. I ordered clothes because nothing I owned fit anymore. When I walked into my room again and remembered how I’d left the bed covered in vomit months earlier, I ordered new sheets.

  “You can’t just wash everything and expect it to be fine,” I told my dad.

  “You also can’t keep spending money like this,” he said gently.

  I ignored him. It was Eileen who finally got me to slow down. She was poking through a box of Harry & David fruit. “You remember that we still have grocery stores, right?”

  “You can’t get good pears at the store. Dad just bought a bunch that were mealy and disgusting. If you want decent ones, you have to order.”

  “Oh my God,” she said, grinning. “You sound crazier than me.”

  I’d been home for two weeks at that point, and I still hadn’t left the house. One condition of my release from the hospital was that I not expose my precious new lungs to predatory germs for as long as possible. “It might be a month before you can go outside,” the doctor told us. “Maybe more. Are you ready for that?”

  “Yes,” I said, because I would have said anything to get out.

  My last night in rehab, I lay awake late and made promises to myself: I won’t be moody and irritable with my family. I’ll remember how grateful I am to be home. I’ll remember how hard all this has been on them.

  It only took a day to break that promise. My dad had bought a new router in my absence, and for some reason my computer wouldn’t recognize it. I was the only person in our family with enough tech savvy to solve a problem like this, but either my brain wasn’t functioning well enough to do it or the glitch was real.

  “It’s strange,” Dad said. “Our computers all work fine.”

  “Well, mine’s fucking not fine, Dad, and I need to get on! I can’t be stuck at home for a month with no way to talk to people!”

  He took a deep breath and nodded. “No, of course not. We’ll figure this out. We’ll get someone out here.”

  Since then, I’ve had a blowup every two or three days. I try to control them, or at least vary my targets, but I can’t stop.

  “Buying a lot of stuff won’t solve your problems,” Eileen said, unwrapping the tissue around one of my pears. “I should know. I’ve been doing it my whole life, right? Then it turns out nothing’s ever as good as it looks online.”

  She was right. The food I ordered online didn’t taste much better than whatever my dad was buying at the grocery store. I hadn’t tried on most of the clothes, so I didn’t even know how they looked. Everything was waiting for my great new life to start. The life where I could finally keep up with my friends again and go to a party without having a coughing fit at a tiny thread of smoke. Where I could laugh without losing five minutes to coughing; where I could spend time—real time—with Sharon again.

  She’s the only person I haven’t gotten mad at these past four months. When I first came out of the surgery fog, I remembered nothing about the week before the surgery and the whole month before that is hazy and confusing. I remembered becoming friends with Jamie and going on two outings with her—to the movies and Denny’s—but I had no memory at all of going to Starlight, where they said I collapsed.

  The first time we talked about it, Sharon was upset, but mostly at herself. “I should have been there. I should have taken you myself. I didn’t understand why you were thinking about Starlight so much, and I’m just so sorry!”

  I thought about the whole summer I spent waiting for Sharon to get off work and call me: it was gratifying to have her feel a little guilty for being so busy. But no matter how hard I try, that whole week is a blank to me. I remember getting the idea that Eileen should sign up for Starlight; I remember thinking, Jamie’ll love it, too, but I don’t remember why.

  I wish I could recall more about my friendship with Jamie beyond this vague feeling that she was easy to spend time with and I liked talking to her. Eileen told me our parents filed a complaint against Jamie and the hospital, along with the outcome: the lawyers read all my emails and texts where it was clear that I’d been the one who asked her to help me leave the hospital twice before and they dropped the lawsuit. Apparently if you knowingly violate hospital rules, you don’t have a great case for suing the hospital, surprise, surprise.

  Eileen shook her head. “It was all pretty moronic, even for Mom and Dad. They’re just freaking out. They think we’re going to need all this money to take care of you, but they’re forgetting that we have money.”

  When I finally got my internet working, Jamie was the first person I tried to get in touch with. I pulled up our old threads and read through them, which only reminded me of how endless that time in the hospital felt. There’s a lot of talk about the movies that I watched and the origami I was working on. Now that I’ve returned to my real life, that one seems surreal and almost like a dream. Did I really spend hours folding origami? Why?

  I tried writing different notes to Jamie. The first one was casual with a general thanks.

  * * *

  Just wanted you to know I’m home now. Feeling okay except for having a fat face, mood swings, and Eileen around all the time complaining even more than usual. I wanted to say thank you
for everything and sorry about my lame-o parents. Nothing was your fault!

  I never sent that one because I knew what my parents had done deserved a bigger apology. A few days later, I wrote a different note.

  * * *

  I’ve been home for a little while now, wanting to get in touch with you, but I haven’t been sure what to say. I have a feeling there’s a whole story I don’t remember very much of. I’m worried that you got blamed for things that weren’t your fault, like me insisting that I had to leave the hospital or I’d go crazy. I told my parents none of that was your idea. No one in my family still blames you for anything. You were a good friend when I needed one. I wish I could repay you somehow, but I have a feeling that staying out of your life might be the most helpful thing I can do at this point.

  I waited a day before deleting that message.

  Maybe I was taking it all too seriously, I decided. She’s probably moved on and put the whole episode behind her.

  In the end, I took the coward’s way out. Afraid of saying the wrong thing, I never wrote her at all.

  Instead, I’ve been concentrating all my new moody energy on making things right with Sharon. She told me she was “confused and hurt” that I never asked for her help leaving the hospital.

  “Did you think I would never break the rules? That I’m too much of a goody-goody?”

  No, I wanted to tell her. I knew you’d never break the rules.

  I told her, “Jamie knew that hospital inside and out. I wanted to ask you, but I knew we would’ve gotten caught, and I didn’t want to get you in trouble, baby.”

  All things considered, Sharon and I have actually been doing surprisingly well. Much better than we were last summer when she worked ten-hour days at her mother’s real estate office and I sat around all afternoon and evening waiting for her texts. I remember feeling panicky back then that she was going to break up with me and less panicky this fall when she didn’t visit for days on end. Maybe it’s for the best, I actually thought, when I was in the hospital, watching Jamie’s movies and folding origami. I’ll see Sharon later, when I’m better.