“He saves his family,” I say. “Drags them out of the past and puts them into people from the present. He loves them enough to do that.”
Father Mike shrugs. “And he spends the rest of his time gutting his enemies without even knowing why. And the people he saves, they’re not his family, are they?” He glances at my sketchpad again, and it’s like he’s trying to see through the cover to each page beneath. Then he looks at me the same way and it makes my skin itch.
“Sure they are.”
“No, Andy, they’re not.”
“You just don’t understand.”
“Maybe not,” he says. “But his family is gone, and nothing is going to change that. He’s got to stop living in the past and focus on the present. He’s got to find a way to live for now. That’s how Patient F becomes a hero.”
Suddenly, I feel like we’re not talking about Patient F anymore, and I just want to bail, but I’m afraid that will make him suspicious, so I choke out a laugh. “You really suck at this,” I say. “That’s probably why you got sent here instead of to a real church.”
Father Mike pushes my sketchpad all the way across to me. “I requested to come here.”
“Yeah, well, that’s weird. Anyone who chooses to spend all day hanging around a place full of the sick and dying is weird.”
“I agree.”
That’s it. I grab my pad and get up, but I trip over the chair behind me. Father Mike watches me as I fight gravity and sort myself out. I feel his eyes all over me and I wonder if he really can see all my secrets.
Arnold is waiting for me near the menu board, which features yellow noodles and a chicken bathing in a giant pie. He shoves a worn book into my hands. “Frankenstein. You’ll like this one.”
“I think I read this.”
“Read it again.” He looks like he wants to say more, but his tongue is choked with lingering anger and the words go unsaid. He leaves me standing by the board more confused than ever.
When I was fourteen, I went through this awful phase where everything my parents did annoyed me. I thought they were these terrible tyrants out to make my life perfect hell. Thankfully, I got over that. And even though I never considered my parents even remotely close to cool, I came to believe that they had a better handle on life than me, that they’d figured it out. When the world felt like a wasteland of suck, I held on to the hope that one day I would grow up and have all the answers, just like my parents.
As I look over at Arnold and then at Father Mike, I realize that adults are just as fucked as the rest of us. No one really grows up. No one unravels all of life’s many mysteries. They just grow older and become better liars.
Trevor looks like shit.
There’s no kinder way to say it. Trevor is my friend, and I hate seeing him like this. He’s hooked up to more wires than Pinocchio, and he eats through his IV now. I didn’t think it was possible for him to lose any more weight, but this hospital seems keen on proving to me that things can always get worse.
Trevor tries to sit up when I first walk into the room, but I wave him back and lean against the door frame, trying to conceal my shock at his appearance. His skin is as pale as the underside of a frog, and his cheeks have sunken in. He’s emaciated.
The blinds are open, probably Lexi’s doing, and the early night sky is almost as bright as day.
I had a couple of hours to kill before I could see Rusty, and I decided to come here. There was a time when here was the only place I wanted to be.
“Hey, Droopy,” he says, and mutes the TV. “Long time.”
I pull the chair out of the corner and sit, propping my legs on his bed. “Sorry, dude. Been busy. Work and Grandma. You know.”
“Oh, I know,” Trevor says, forcing his thin voice to sound suggestive. “Lexi reckons you’ve met a guy.”
She’s too smart for her own good. “Obviously she’s got too much time on her hands if she’s dreaming up that crap.”
Trevor limps through a chuckle. “No way, Droopy. It’s all over your face. What’s his name?”
These are the kinds of questions I expect from Lexi, not Trevor, but it’s clear that he’s hungry for more than just food.
“You remember that kid who came in a couple of weeks ago, the one who was set on fire by some of his classmates?”
“That guy?” Trevor gapes at me.
I shrug. “I read to him sometimes. Steven—the ER nurse I told you about? He’s been picking up some shifts in the ICU, and he lets me visit Rusty. That’s his name, by the way. Rusty McHale.”
“You like him,” Trevor says. It’s not a question. More like a friendly accusation.
I’m not sure how to respond. Maybe I do like Rusty. He’s more than an ordinary patient to me, more than someone I just read books to. But it’s all so confusing. This isn’t high school. Things are more real here. Falling in love would complicate my life. Not that I love Rusty or think he loves me. See? Complicated.
So I say, “I don’t want him to die.”
Trevor gazes at me with his huge, watery blue eyes. They’ve always been big, his eyes, but now that his face is little more than a skin-draped skull, they look bigger than the moon.
“I was dating this girl when I got sick,” he says. “Sick the second time. I beat the leukemia when I was six. Trounced it. Me and my parents figured we’d beat it this time too.” Trevor tries to sit up again, and I help him with the controls on the bed. “My parents are good people—just so you know—they’d be here if they could. But somebody’s got to pay for this palace.”
“I know about your parents,” I say, but I realize too late that Trevor’s not saying this stuff for my benefit so much as for his own. Maybe it’s something he needs to remind himself of on rough days like these.
“The girl’s name was Siobhan.” He grins. “Isn’t that a great name for a girl? Siobhan Fitzpatrick. She had long black hair down her back, shiny and soft and always smelling like mangoes. Sometimes I was afraid to touch it. Like I might ruin it. And her eyes were this brown, like suede. Plus, she was smoking hot.”
“Of course she was,” I say, grinning back.
Nurse Merchant pops her head in, gives us a wave when she sees that we’re talking, and disappears.
Trevor closes his eyes, and after a couple of seconds pass, I think he’s fallen asleep. It wouldn’t be the first time. It’s different now, though. Now I worry about what happens if he never opens his eyes again.
“Trevor?”
“I’m here,” he says. “I was just remembering her.” He looks at me. Maybe through me. “We had all these plans. We were going to be the prom king and queen. We were gonna drink ourselves silly and road-trip to crazy places like Arkansas or Canada.” He turns his head toward the window, and yellow light bathes the stark planes of his face. “I thought I loved that girl.”
“So, what happened?” I ask. Trevor has joked about girls before, but he’s never mentioned Siobhan.
“I got sick again. She was okay with it for a while, but watching a person rot is tough. My hair fell out, and I dropped a ton of weight. She would call me to go to the mall, and I’d have to tell her that I couldn’t get out of bed.” Trevor sighs. “I broke up with her before I came here. We’d been talking, and she told me that she couldn’t bear the thought of me dying. Like it was a foregone conclusion.”
And then Trevor pins me down with his big blue moon eyes, and he says, “Love’s more than holding hands and going to dances. It’s two people who struggle to live, even when they should maybe both be dead. When maybe one of them would be better off dead.”
I hold Trevor’s stare, and neither of us speaks for a little while. I wonder what kind of man he would have grown up to be had he not gotten sick. Death makes philosophers of us all, but I think that Trevor would have always been the kind of man who looked beyond the curtain of blind mediocrity that most people are content to leave closed. I think Trevor would have been exceptional. Trevor is exceptional.
“You’re wron
g, Trevor.” My voice is jarring in the silence.
“Come again?”
“You’re wrong about love.”
“What do you know?” He’s bitter now. He should be bitter. His past and his future are both rooted in loss.
“Love isn’t static. It’s not about simply holding on. It’s about action and consequence.”
Trevor sighs. “I’m tired. I think I need to sleep.”
I sigh too and nod my head. “Okay.”
I get up and drag the chair back to its place. Trevor rolls onto his side and faces the window. The decorations from his special day still adorn the walls, but they’re looking limp.
“You were right to let go of Siobhan,” I say, “but that doesn’t mean you don’t deserve to fall in love.”
“It wouldn’t be fair to let any girl love me.” Trevor mumbles to the wall. “I’m a heartbreaker, Droopy. Guaranteed.”
“Her heart’s going to break either way.” I leave the room and stop at Nurse Merchant’s station.
“How you doing?” I ask.
Nurse Merchant eyes me suspiciously. Trevor and Lexi took all the heat for sneaking out of their rooms—they denied I was even with them—but I think Nurse Merchant suspects the truth. “Fine, Andrew. You should visit Trevor more often.” She massages her temples. “His doctors are hopeful about his new treatment, but you should still try to get by when you can.”
“I’m keeping an eye on Death,” I say. “I won’t let her take him.”
“Sweetie, when it’s your time, it’s your time. Death is the one thing none of us can escape.”
That’s not the sort of sentiment you’ll find inside greeting cards, and her honesty is one of the reasons I love Nurse Merchant.
“Can I visit Lexi?”
“She’ll probably strangle you if you don’t.” Nurse Merchant waves me toward Lexi’s room and picks up her pen. “I’ve got all this paperwork to do.”
“Thanks,” I say.
Lexi’s sitting on her bed, surrounded by books. There’s an empty tray of food beside her, and she’s wearing a bandanna. She’s never worn a bandanna in all the time I’ve known her. It looks odd.
“Heya, Lexi.”
“Drew!” Lexi tries to crawl out of the bed, but she’s caught in a tangle of IV tubes and monitor wires and, of course, mountains of books, so I go to her and wrap her in a tight hug. When I step back, Lexi slaps my shoulder and says, “Where have you been?”
I walk around to the window and sit on the sill. The lingering heat of the day feels good on my back. I didn’t notice how cold I was until now.
“Why don’t you tell me where I’ve been?” I tease her. “According to Trevor, you have a theory about that.”
Lexi doesn’t even have the grace to look embarrassed, which is why I love her. “It’s that Rusty boy, isn’t it? The one who was . . . the one in the ICU?”
“Oh my God,” I say, trying my best to imitate Lexi’s excited tone. “He’s so swell, and I think he’s gonna ask me to prom!” Then I roll my eyes.
“Drew!”
“Lexi.” I fold my arms over my chest and attempt to mimic my father’s masterful face of disapproval. “Bullies set him on fire. I highly doubt he’s in the mood to date. Anyway, I only read to him. I’m taking him Frankenstein after I leave here.”
Lexi glows as bright as a star. She looks like I just told her that we danced the night away. Seriously, she’s wearing a smile big enough to stretch across the sky.
“Will you stop staring at me like that?” I say. “We’re just friends.”
“Sure you are.”
I point at her bandanna, hoping to change the subject. “What’s up with that?”
Lexi touches it thoughtfully, as if she’d forgotten she was wearing it. “My hair is growing back. But it’s all wispy and gross. This was my mom’s idea. Her only good one.”
“Can I see?” I don’t know what makes me ask. Curiosity, yes, but there’s something else. Lexi didn’t go around bald because she was strong and proud. For Lexi, it was a protective measure, a wall that stopped people from asking her about her cancer. It didn’t make her vulnerable; it made her untouchable. The bandanna is unexpected, and I’m dying to know what’s changed.
“I’d rather not.”
“Oh, come on.”
“No.” And that’s that. Lexi owns the last word. She created it, patented it, and she’ll murder anyone who tries to take it from her. “How’s Grandma Brawley?” she asks, clearly better than me at changing the subject.
“Wanna go see her?”
Lexi grins. “Nurse Merchant is still mad at me for the last time.”
“It’s worth a shot.”
It takes a lot of begging, but I use my considerable charm to convince Nurse Merchant to let Lexi accompany me to Grandma Brawley’s room. I have a strict forty-five-minute deadline, though, and if we’re not back on time, Nurse Merchant swears that she’ll call the police. I believe her.
I wheel Lexi through the halls. This is like a vacation for her. She smiles at everyone, waves at the nurses and orderlies she recognizes. Lexi’s been in and out of this hospital often enough to know many of them.
The nurses on duty nod at me when I wheel Lexi toward Grandma’s room, despite that it’s close to the end of visiting hours. I try to keep quiet so Mr. Kelly doesn’t notice us, but he’s got a sixth sense, and he calls out from his room: “Andrew! Come here, Andrew!”
Sighing, I pull Lexi’s wheelchair to a stop beside his doorway. “Can’t talk today, sir. Busy, busy.”
“The nurses are still trying to do me in, Andrew!”
Lexi turns around in her chair so that she can look at Mr. Kelly. She smiles. “Me too.” She pulls off her bandanna to reveal thin fuzz on her scalp weakly working its way topside. “Just look what they did to my hair.”
Mr. Kelly chuckles. “It looks beautiful. But better stay away from the orange Jell-O—just to be safe.”
“Thanks.” Lexi takes command and wheels herself straight into Grandma Brawley’s room. By the time I follow, she’s already got her bandanna tied in place.
“Not a word,” she warns me.
“He’s right, though. It’s beautiful.”
“Shut up.” She rolls around to Grandma Brawley’s window and throws open the curtains and the blinds. I stroll over to join her. The view is worse than Lexi’s. The window looks directly onto an abandoned construction site. Rusted beams sit idle while the concrete silently crumbles.
“What’s this?” Lexi asks. She’s holding the picture frame with the lock of red hair.
“Did I ever tell you about my grandfather?” I ask.
Lexi shakes her head. “You never talk about your family.”
I move the visitor chair so that I can sit across from Lexi. “Sandy Brawley,” I say. “He and my grandma met when they were just fifteen, living in Hell’s Kitchen. There was a war going on. World War II.
“Sandy and Grandma got married the day before he shipped off to the front lines. The war was near its end, but she knew there was still a chance that he wouldn’t come home.
“Sandy only had two things to give Grandma: this lock of hair, and a tiny apartment that had belonged to his parents. It was a small place, barely big enough for the two of them, but it was his, and he gave it to her. There was this little window that looked out onto the street, and every day when Grandma got home from work, she sat in a chair and waited for Sandy to return.” I pause to stare out the window for a long, dramatic moment.
“Nine months later,” I continue, “she had my dad. And every night, she rocked him to sleep in the chair, waiting for Sandy to come home.
“There were letters at first, but then they stopped. No one could tell her anything. Everyone thought he was dead. But Grandma stayed in that chair, waiting for Sandy to come home.
“The war ended. My father grew up. He married my mom and had me.” I tilt my head and smile. “And still Grandma sat in that chair by the window, with nothing bu
t the lock of hair and a handful of hope. She refused to leave her post until finally she just couldn’t take care of herself any longer. Dad had to put her into a nursing home. Even then, she sat by the window in her room, waiting for Sandy to come home.”
I finish my soliloquy and look up to see tears running down Lexi’s face. She’s staring at that lock of hair like it’s made of stardust. “Drew, that’s so sad.”
I nod my head slowly, sigh heavily, and then I bust out laughing. “I’m only kidding.” I say. I laugh so hard that I start to snort. “I have no idea whose hair that is. And, anyway, that’d make me, like, over forty years old.”
Lexi clenches her jaw hard. She returns the frame to the nightstand. “I hate you.”
“Seriously,” I say, “this isn’t even my grandmother. She’s just some lady I visit when I need peace and quiet from the likes of you.”
“You are such a liar,” Lexi says. But she doesn’t wheel away. “It’s still sweet. Even if it’s not true.”
“There’s nothing sweet about it,” I say, but I’m not laughing anymore. “If that story were true, it would mean she wasted her whole life waiting. Sometimes you have to seize life by the balls, Lexi.”
She frowns, gazing at Grandma Brawley. “I know all that. But I still wish someone loved me enough to wait forever.” She wheels back around the bed and right out the door. I jump up to chase after her.
“Hey, Lexi!”
She stops, spins her chair around to face me. “What?”
“There is.”
“Is what?”
“Someone who loves you enough to wait for you. He’s waiting harder than I’ve ever seen anyone wait.”
Lexi’s jaw trembles—I’ve blindsided her, but she refuses to show it. “Let’s get back before Nurse Merchant goes ballistic.”
“Yeah,” I say. “All right.” But I can’t help thinking that if Rusty had someone like Lexi to hold on for, then maybe I could keep him from dying. Maybe he would see that the world isn’t such a cold, dark place.
Only, I don’t know anyone worthy of him.