Jesse's Wish, page 6
‘What have I agreed to, Max?’
Back in her room, Jesse lies in bed, a dinner tray in front of her, her favourite pasta with a tub of ice cream. She can only stomach the ice cream. Amy’s family has taken her downstairs to the canteen, so Jesse’s on her own for now. She pushes the pasta around on her plate, lost in thoughts of project plans and proofs of concept and how they all tie in with her memories. Her mind is whirring with possibilities, but she’s also aware that she’s more tired than usual. She is brought back to the room when her mum and Sam appear at her door.
Sam jumps on Jesse’s bed hugging his sister tightly. Her mum joins in on the hug.
‘Well, sweetheart, you’re looking a bit brighter this evening.’
‘Mum, you missed him. He came back. Sam, he came back!’ she squeals with delight.
‘Who did we miss, honey?’ her mother asks.
‘Alex. He came—’
‘The person you sent away yesterday. The one who upset you?’
‘Yes, he came back and guess what, he’s going to help me with my wish.’ Jesse notes the concern in her mother’s eyes. ‘You don’t need to worry, Mum. His name’s Alex and he really gets what I want to do. He understands my vision in a way that no one else has before.’
Sam wriggles out of his hug looking at his sister with big eyes. ‘Your dream’s coming true?’ His voice is full of wonder.
‘It looks like it,’ she says, ruffling her brother’s hair.
Jesse hears the heavy footsteps that can only belong to her father. ‘How’s my baby girl?’ Dean asks as he kisses Jesse on the top of the head.
‘Dad, Alex came back, we’re going to make my wish.’
‘What?’ Dean says too firmly, looking from Jesse to his wife.
‘My game, well, my experience, my wish—’
‘Don’t you think you should be concentrating on getting better? Not some silly game!’
Jesse blinks, stunned. It’s not some silly game, she thinks. Her dad doesn’t realise how cutting his words can be. She looks to her mum for support, to find her already studying her face, taking in her hurt and disappointment.
‘Dean, that’s enough,’ Mandy says, taking one of Jesse’s hands in hers. ‘Jesse was just telling us about Alex’s visit.’
‘Who is this guy, Alex?’ Dean spits out. ‘What do we know about him?’
‘Dad!’ Jesse cries out.
‘He’s the person who wants to help Jesse get her wish. Don’t worry, he’s been vetted by the hospital and the foundation,’ her mum says, clearly trying to pacify her husband.
But Jesse’s father is not to be mollified. ‘Wasn’t he the one who walked out on you yesterday? Why are we trusting someone like that?’
‘Dean,’ her mother says firmly, ‘you’re being unreasonable. Let’s just hear Jesse out.’
‘Oh, unreasonable, am I?’ He laughs hollowly. ‘Yes, it’s so unreasonable of me to expect a level of caution when it comes to young men hanging around my daughter—’
‘Stop it. Stop it!’ Sam yells, pulling away from Jesse.
‘Look what you’ve done!’ Jesse’s mum snaps.
Going on the defensive, Dean backs away, hands raised. ‘OK, I’ll shut up. Forgive me for giving a damn.’
‘Yes, that’s right, you shut up, you’re good at that, really good at not saying what you’re thinking or feeling except to criticise—’
‘Stop it. Jesse, make them stop,’ Sam pleads, his hands over his ears.
Dean attempts to reach out to his son, but Mandy steps in his way. ‘I think it’s best if you go now.’
‘Fine, I’ll see you all later,’ he says, walking out of the room.
Jesse has been watching all this in horror. Just a few minutes ago, she was buzzing with energy and excitement; now she’s watching the people she loves most in the world – the people this wish is for – tear each other apart. She touches Sam on the shoulder, and he crawls up into her arms. When their mother attempts to hold him, he flinches.
‘Leave Jesse and me alone,’ Sam stammers.
‘Darling, I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to fight with your father.’
‘I said leave us alone.’
Jesse nods at her mother, indicating that she’s got this.
Mandy stands, helplessly looking at her children. Sam’s words are like knives to her heart, and tears spring to her eyes.
‘It’s all right, Mum, I’ll look after Sam for a while. It’ll be all right.’ Jesse’s voice is calm but firm. Mandy registers how their roles are reversed. Her child is taking charge of the situation, as her parents squabble like teenagers.
Fighting back tears, Mandy stumbles to the door. She turns to see Sam sliding under the covers with Jesse, her arms enfolding him. Outside the room, Mandy leans against the wall trying to compose herself. Visitors walk past, seeing her visibly upset, they look down and hurry on – they can only guess what she’s dealing with. Everyone in this ward is facing the unimaginable. Looking up Mandy sees Dean enter the nearby Parents’ Room. She follows him, wary of another outburst but unsure what else to do.
At the door, Mandy watches as Dean scans the room. Two distinct groups are gathered at each end. He looks at the group of mothers, nods at the ones he recognises. The women are drinking coffee, sharing concerns about their children, comforting each other where needed. At the far end of the room, the fathers congregate. A game of football plays quietly on a big screen and all eyes are on it. Dean gets himself a glass of water and joins the men. Mandy continues to stand at the doorway, not yet ready for Dean to see she’s there. They are only a few metres apart, but the distance between them could be continents wide.
‘How you doing?’ several of the men ask Dean as he approaches.
‘You know how it is,’ he answers.
All the men murmur in agreement. Yes, they all know exactly how it is.
‘Great mob, that Inspire a Wish foundation,’ one of the men says quietly, not making eye contact with anyone.
Dean stares grimly at the screen, not answering.
An awkward silence surrounds the men for several moments before one of the fathers changes the subject.
‘So, who’s your money on here, Dean, think our boys can pull it off?’
Mandy registers Dean relaxing a little and so goes to join the women. She sees his head turn towards her but chooses not to meet his eye.
‘How are you bearing up, Mandy?’ It’s Lauren. Her little boy is only seven but has been in and out of hospital almost as often as Jesse has.
‘I’m getting there. Good days and bad days, you know?’ She takes a deep breath. ‘Jesse, though, she’s amazing. I wish I had an ounce of her strength.’
It’s all she can do to stop herself from crying. She feels Lauren’s hand on her shoulder, another hand patting her back. She lets the tears come. These women know, they understand, in a deeper way than any of her well-meaning friends and colleagues who sympathise but can’t comprehend what she’s going through. These other mothers do, and she’s grateful to all of them.
Someone sits her down, another woman offers her a glass of water. Mandy feels held here, her feelings acknowledged and allowed to flow – no judgement, no blame. She senses Dean looking at her again, and this time she raises her eyes to his. He doesn’t seem angry any longer, just deeply sad. He holds her gaze but then, in a gesture of defeat, he turns back to the football game.
This is Dean all over, she thinks to herself. His fear of losing control, of uncertainty, of the prospect of loss. His blunt refusal of anything that might remind him of Jesse’s prognosis. His lack of acceptance, stuck forever in the anger part of the grieving process. She cannot fix him; she has given up trying.
‘I’m home!’ Mandy burst into their house. ‘And I have a surprise!’
It was an evening in July. Mandy was late. She had driven from the dealership, buzzing with the excitement of a new purchase. Her first car bought from new, not second-hand, the kind that she had been dreaming about for years: leather interior, heated seats, a state-of-the-art sound system. It handled like a dream. And it was, not a reward, exactly – she checked herself. Actually, yes, why not? It was a reward – for the promotion in April, to publishing director, her family had been too sad to celebrate. For her birthday in May that went unmarked – which was understandable, given everything that was going on at the time, with Jesse’s health and with Sam playing up at school – but it was her fortieth. Even though she told them the family dinner Dean, Jesse and Sam cooked for her was enough, the handmade cards from them all, including the one Dean had been bullied into making with his daughter and son, had touched her deeply. But then again, there was the last eighteen months of hell.
‘Good of you to drop by,’ said Dean, under his breath.
It was his turn to cook tonight, and he made his usual fare of pasta bolognese, heaped with veggies and so much cheese it could never be called healthy. But it was delicious – Mandy loved it when he cooked. Carbs galore. But just like everything he did these days, his dinners were loaded with resentment and anger. He acted sometimes like he was the only one affected by Jesse’s illness. They had been a great team, once upon a time, parenting together effortlessly (it seemed from this vantage point) through sleepless nights, the terrible twos and countless everyday challenges, but now his emotions, his fury, were taking up all the space, burning up all the oxygen in the room. It was tiring and unnecessary and she didn’t know how much longer she could cope with being his sparring partner.
Jesse and Sam were already sitting at the dining table, waiting to be served. Mandy jangled her keys. ‘Want to see my new ride?’
The kids gasped at each other with delighted, surprised looks on their faces. Sam jumped away from the table, tearing through the door and taking the steps down to the driveway two at a time. Jesse stood up more cautiously but no less enthusiastically, squeezing Mandy’s arm as she went by. She was growing stronger, Mandy felt, but it was slow. So much slower than Amy’s progress. She checked herself: she shouldn’t be comparing Jesse’s recovery with Amy’s. They were two different girls with different battles to face.
Dean barred her way to the outside, arms folded across his chest. ‘So when were you going to talk to me about this “new ride”,’ he demanded, the last words laced heavily with sarcasm.
Mandy sighed. ‘We did talk about it, Dean.’
‘And I thought we agreed that now wasn’t the right time.’
‘We didn’t agree anything,’ Mandy was careful to keep her voice to a low hiss. ‘Yours is not the only opinion that matters in this house. I needed a new car, and we can afford it. I don’t see what your problem is.’
‘A black car? You said you wanted a black car.’
‘Oh, for goodness’ sake. You’re being ridiculous.’
She pushed past him and walked down to the car. He was not going to spoil this for her, she wouldn’t let him. She felt his presence behind her, heavy and dark, but focused instead on her children: Sam, lolling across the bonnet of the car as if hugging it; Jesse, standing a little way off, laughing at her brother.
Mandy pasted a smile on her face. ‘Who wants a quick spin?’
Sam jumped up with his hand in the air. ‘Shotgun!’ he called.
Jesse dashed to the front passenger seat. ‘You’ll have to fight me for it!’
‘Dad?’ Sam called out. ‘Are you coming?’
Dean was scowling, the muscles in his jaw working furiously, staring daggers at her beautiful, expensive-looking, chic black car, the kind of car she always wanted. She was over feeling angry about his anger, which seemed so random to her, so aggressive and unreasonable. If anything, all she felt now was exhaustion. ‘Dinner will be cold,’ he said, turning back up the path, away from the car and his family.
Mandy hoped that the kids didn’t notice the tension at dinner. If anything, they were too hyper, laughing and giggling about the short drive along the bay road, Sam extolling the virtues of the sound system, the way the car took the curves, the comfort of the front seat his sister allowed him to have. Jesse talked about all the places she could drive her to – the cinema, the mall and athletics, once she was well enough to start back – which made Mandy laugh and say that she hadn’t realised her job title had changed to personal chauffeur. Dean sat silently at the table but separate from the family conversation, forking pasta into his mouth, while Mandy tried to keep the atmosphere light. But her children were quicker than usual to take their plates into the kitchen and clear the table. Sam seemed eager to go to bed straight away, while Jesse kissed her mum on the cheek before heading off to her room to do homework, leaving Mandy and Dean alone, together.
Dean scraped his chair back, getting up and heading to the kitchen. He started loading the dishwasher noisily, pointedly. Mandy followed him, standing in the doorway watching him clean up, dreading the conversation they were about to have. That they needed to have.
‘We need to talk, Dean,’ she said finally.
‘Oh, I thought my opinion didn’t matter,’ he shot back.
‘That’s not what I said, and you know it.’ Mandy took a deep breath. ‘You’re acting unreasonably about this. We weren’t talking about it, not properly, just going round in circles, there just didn’t seem to be any point in continuing. The dealership was running an offer, so I decided why the hell not. With my promotion, we can afford the repayments, and you never outright rejected a new car. I didn’t tell you before now because I was afraid of your reaction.’
‘Afraid of my reaction.’ His voice sounded calm. Flat.
‘Yes, to be completely honest.’
‘Well, perhaps we could have used all this new money you’ve got to fly out to Cyprus, see if we could have got a cure there.’
‘That’s unfair, Dean. That’s something we definitely did talk about – there is no treatment in the world better than what she’s receiving here, and you know it.’
He turned to face her, his eyes swimming. ‘I asked you not to buy a black car,’ he said, using the same controlled tone as before.
‘What? Oh, for God’s sake,’ Mandy said. ‘What is your problem? I’ve always wanted a black car, you know this. I think they look stylish. What’s wrong with that?’
‘It’s not just a black car though, is it?’ The anger that Dean had been barely suppressing came to the fore, and he punctuated each word by stabbing his forefinger on the kitchen counter. ‘It’s the colour of a hearse. You are going to be ferrying around our daughter – our sick daughter – in a fucking hearse.’
Mandy stood still, as shocked as if her husband had slapped her across the face. Dean stalked past her, his expression fixed and grim. She finished loading the dishwasher, then wiped down the benches and swept the floor, all the while their argument going around and around in her head. They were both exhausted, both angry. They were misunderstanding each other and not giving each other grace. But to make things right would take more energy than Mandy could spare at this point in time, especially as she wasn’t sure Dean would be able to meet her halfway. If Jesse’s illness had taught her anything, it was that some problems are insurmountable and some problems are not yours to fix. She put the broom and dustpan into the cupboard, ran a cloth around the sink and the taps, then leaned both hands against the counter and stared at her reflection in the dark glass of the window, readying herself for the next confrontation.
She found him in the living room, his head in his hands. When he looked up at her, his eyes were red-rimmed, but she didn’t think that he had been crying. She knew he wouldn’t let himself. Her heart ached for him in that moment, especially as she knew she was about to hurt him more.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said softly. ‘Not for the car, not for its colour, but I should have told you that I had bought it. I’m sorry for springing it on you like that.’
Dean nodded, running his hand over his head. He seemed very subdued. All the fight had gone out of him. For now.
‘I think you should see someone, Dean,’ Mandy said gently.
He snorted. ‘Like that’s the solution.’
‘We can’t go on like this. It’s got to stop,’ Mandy told him, feeling strangely emotionless. She knew the tears would come, the guilt at breaking up her family. But this conversation was long overdue.
Dean looked down at the floor, rubbing his hands together, the muscles in his jaw working. ‘I know we can’t,’ he said finally.
Mandy sat next to him. ‘By “we”, I meant the kids, and me. We can’t keep being held hostage by your moods. It’s not fair, on Sam and Jesse most of all.’
Dean let out a deep sigh, as if he had been expecting this. ‘I know.’
He pressed his thumb and forefinger against his eyes, shuddering. Mandy placed her hand on his back. There was still love there. But right now, it was buried under anger, resentment, sadness and fear. In the face of Jesse’s uncertain prognosis, Mandy was putting everything she had into making life better for her kids. She needed to look after herself too, in order to show up for them in the way they needed her to. And Dean? He wasn’t letting the ones who loved him, love him. He was so intent on being strong that he wasn’t letting himself be cared for. And Mandy saw, with sudden clarity, that if he wasn’t going to let her care for him, then it was a job she could no longer take on.
He looked round at her, eyes red. ‘Seeing someone. Counselling. It’s not going to fix it, is it?’
She rubbed his back. ‘You never know. It might. If you give it a chance.’
He sniffed again. ‘That’s not what I meant. It’s not going to fix her, is it? What’s the good of counselling, what the point of making myself feel better, when . . .’
He left his sentence hanging, unable to say the words as he put his head back in his hands. They sat there, the two of them, on the couch, touching, but as far apart as they had ever been.
