Finding Jack, page 24
She pushed the blanket off and gathered up our empty food containers. “But I can’t do anything. And all it showed me is exactly how much I didn’t understand what Sean was going through, how much harder it was than I knew.”
“But you’re sticking it out. You’re there and you’re feeling and you’re trying. Jack isn’t. I can’t do anything about that.”
“Yes. Because I think it works for some of them. But talk to me if I ever get word that one of the kids I’ve tried to help actually dies. It’s hard enough knowing it might only be a matter of time.”
She climbed back onto the couch with me. “Look, you know I’ll have your back forever. But I don’t think it was fair to say Jack isn’t trying when you haven’t fought the same kind of fights.”
“That’s not fair. You’re acting like I don’t understand what it feels like to work hard and fail.”
She was unmoved. “I’m not saying you don’t work hard. You do. You’ve faced a lot of challenges, but I don’t think you’ve ever had to face real failure, the kind that cripples you because there’s nothing in the world that you can throw at it to fix it.” She sighed and smoothed her side of the blanket. “I’ve only had to deal with that for the first time in the last few weeks, and unless there’s some major life story you’ve told me, you’ve never faced the kind of stakes that are so high that it’s win or die.”
I wanted to tell her she was being dramatic, but something about the quiet way she said it stopped me. Her words about high stakes had echoed Jack’s. We sat in silence for a long time, and she didn’t try to scrub away the sadness and put on her cheerful face. Finally, I broke the silence. “I had no idea that it was so hard for you sometimes.”
“I know. Because I didn’t tell you. But Jack tried to.”
An ugly, gray feeling crawled up through my stomach and spread through my chest. It was shame. “Ranée…I think I basically told Jack he was weak for running away.”
Her gaze sharpened. “Weak? Did you use that word?”
“No, but I basically implied that he was because he was…”
“Being a stupid hermit?”
“Something like that.” The shame crawled up the back of my throat like acid reflux.
“But you didn’t say that he was weak. And you can come back from that.”
“I need to call him and apologize.” The urge was overwhelming, almost like panic. “What should I say?”
She pressed me back against the couch as I leaned over to fumble for my phone. “No. Don’t call him. You’re right that this isn’t your problem to fix. That’s the first thing you have to see. This is a problem that you can’t solve by hammering at it. You can’t. He has stuff he needs to work out, and maybe he will. But he might not. Not for a long time, if at all.”
I shrank away from her, curling in slightly to protect my core from her gentle words.
“I don’t know exactly what you’re feeling right now, but I can see on your face that it’s hard. And I’m so sorry for that. But you’ve been overdue for a heartbreak. I would never wish it on you, but I don’t think we get to avoid them forever.” She leaned over and drew me down to her lap, letting me keep my arms wrapped around myself. It felt like the only thing holding me together when all the pieces inside of me wanted to fall apart, fractured by the unbearable sadness I could finally feel. It wasn’t a sadness over things not working out with Jack. It was the tiny glimpse that Sean, then Ranée, had given me of the magnitude of the pain that Jack must be carrying. And if it was enough to curl me into a ball, how was he still standing?
We stayed that way for a long time, an hour or more, just quiet, while I cried. The tears I’d cried the previous night were because I’d been hurt by Jack. These were because I hurt for him. They were quieter and infinitely harder.
And when I stopped crying, Ranée sat me up and put her hands on my shoulders, looking me in my swollen eyes. “That’s the kind of crying someone does when she’s giving up on a relationship. I don’t know how you guys can make this work, but just ask yourself if you’re ready to quit on something that matters this much to you. And that’s all I’m going to say about it.”
Then she put on Netflix and watched old episodes of Murder, She Wrote in silence until I finally fell asleep again and Ranée made me go back to my bed.
By Saturday afternoon, I felt more human again. I’d made myself a real breakfast, gone to the gym, and run Ranée’s insights through my mind so many times that they got enough mileage to qualify for the Boston marathon. For all her bulldozer tendencies, she’d found the kindest possible way to tell me a hard truth: I lacked empathy.
I did. Whether I hadn’t had the experiences necessary to develop it was beside the point. It was me who lacked some of the basic emotional skills that a real relationship required, not Jack.
I sent Jack my first text since walking away from him.
I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have pushed.
It wasn’t meant as an invitation to say we should try again. Nothing had changed except that I realized I’d judged him far too harshly. But that didn’t suddenly mean we had a path to move forward. All of the same obstacles blocked it.
But it didn’t really matter what I meant, because by the time I was getting ready for bed, he still hadn’t answered.
Ranée stopped by my room with a cup of chamomile tea. “I have a feeling you’ll need this tonight.”
“I’m okay.”
“Then why do you look so sad?”
I tapped my cell phone. “I texted Jack a few hours ago, told him that I shouldn’t have pushed. He hasn’t texted back, and I don’t think he’s going to.”
She sat on the bed. “He’s tried in big and little ways to tell you how deep this pain runs for him. He may not believe that you really get it this time.”
“That’s because I don’t. A tiny bit, maybe. More than I did. But nothing like what he must have gone through to walk away from it all.” I plucked at the bedspread a couple of times. “About that. I have a plan. But it’s hard.”
“I’m listening.”
“Do you think I should volunteer at Benioff?” That was the children’s hospital. “Maybe it would help me understand things better.”
She looked thoughtful. “I know Sean mentioned that they were always looking for volunteers at his hospital. The kids need the company or someone to play with them, and the parents need a break. I’m sure every children’s hospital is like that. It’s going to be hard watching the staff facing down battles that can’t be won and fighting them anyway. It’s going to wear you out, but…I don’t know. My time at the barn has made me softer and stronger at the same time.”
I turned the idea over in my head. “It sounds so hard.”
“Maybe this is something life is trying to teach you right now. I think you have the right idea.” Then she slipped out.
I sat there and thought about nothing else for the rest of the night.
Chapter 40
I snapped a selfie in front of the welcome sign at Benioff Children’s Hospital as Sharon Kerns, the volunteer coordinator walked by. She stopped and smiled. “First shift, right? Are you excited?”
“Nervous,” I admitted.
“Don’t be. The kids, they’ll make it clear if they want company or not. They’re used to the volunteers. Sometimes they want you in there but don’t want to talk. Just follow their lead. You’re doing these parents a huge service. Don’t forget that.”
“I’ll try not to,” I said. I was a respite playmate, essentially, on call to keep any of the kids company so their parents could run down to the cafeteria or take a walk without having to worry about leaving their sick kid alone.
“You’re going to do great. But don’t forget that there are no photos allowed once you’re on the floor. Privacy laws.”
“I know, I promise. I just need to send a text and then I’ll put the phone away.”
“Sounds good. Let me know if you need anything,” she said with a short wave as she continued through the double doors leading to the patient rooms.
I stared at my screen, unsure what to say. I hadn’t texted Jack since the apology I sent after my disastrous trip up there. That had been a month ago, but I’d put my free time to good use, applying to the hospital’s volunteer program and finishing their orientation and training.
Hi, I started, then paused, trying to figure out what to say. I blamed everything on you. I’ve realized I have some growing to do. Just wanted you to know I’m trying. Then I attached the picture so he could see my volunteer badge.
It didn’t explain everything I wanted to tell him, but I wasn’t sure there was anything to say, really. Not when it came down to it. Even if I gained the insight and emotional capacity of Mother Theresa, we might as well be worlds apart as ten hours apart in terms of trying to keep a relationship alive long-distance. But I owed it to him to show him that I’d heard what he said on our last, awful morning together. He’d gotten through.
I turned off the phone, took a deep breath, and pushed through the double doors to do what I could for a dozen kids fighting a battle I could never understand.
All the training in the world couldn’t have prepared me for the next three hours. I sat with four different kids while their mom or dad stepped out for a quick dinner. They ranged in age from three to ten, three girls and one boy. Two of the girls, the youngest one and an eight-year-old, didn’t want any interaction. I quietly sat and watched TV with them until their parents returned. A four-year-old girl wanted me to work the same twenty-piece unicorn puzzle with her over and over but didn’t want to talk. We just put the pieces together then she’d dump them out and say, “Again,” and we’d start over.
The ten-year-old was a boy, and he was playing a video game when I stepped into his room. I smiled at his mom. “Hi. Sharon said you requested respite?”
She stood and stretched. “Yeah, thanks. This is Tate. I’m going to go get some dinner.” Her eyes flicked down to my name badge. “Emily is here to hang out with you until I get back, Tate. Why don’t you tell her about all the stuff you’re building?”
He was a skinny blond kid, pale like most of the kids on the ward, with big brown eyes. He flicked me a glance. “Do you like Minecraft?”
“I don’t know anything about it,” I said, settling into his mother’s chair as she slipped out of the room. “Would it be super annoying if I asked you to explain it to me?”
He heaved a tired sigh. “I guess I can do that.”
For the next forty minutes he explained all kinds of things like redstone and polished granite. I wasn’t much of a gamer, but I didn’t have to pretend to be interested. This wasn’t as much about shooting or winning stuff as it was about building. He’d made the world’s most imaginative superhero lair with cheerful digital cubes of stone, grass, and wood.
When his mom came back, she thanked me again as I left, but I said, “No, thank you,” and I meant it.
I turned my phone on as I left the hospital. When I saw a text alert from Jack, my fingers froze. I’d forgotten how it felt to see his name on my screen. It was like the moment when I opened one of my favorite books for a re-read and settled into the sweet comfort of the familiar opening lines.
Hey, Em.
It was as good as, “Mr. and Mrs. Dursley of number four, Privet Drive, were proud to say that they were perfectly normal, thank you very much,” as far as happiness endorphins went.
You’re amazing. But it is HARD. Don’t put yourself through that. You don’t have to prove anything to me.
It felt like there should be more, but that was it. I don’t know what else I wanted there to be. He didn’t sound mad at me. I already knew I’d re-read the part where he called me amazing so many times it would imprint on my eyeballs. But the rest of it…
What was there for him to say, really? I could volunteer every night of the week, but it would change nothing about the fundamentals of our situation.
I tapped out the only reply I could. I think I’m doing this for me.
Tate was the only kid still on the floor when I went back the next week. Volunteers had to commit to a three-hour shift at the same time every week for six months, and I could only do Thursdays, so the coordinator had told us to expect to see a new crop of faces on every visit. Mostly that was a good thing. It usually meant that the kid had been released to go home because they’d stabilized enough or completed a round of treatment.
As much as I wanted to see Tate’s new creation, it made me sad that he hadn’t been released yet. I poked my head in, and his mom gave me a tired smile. “Perfect. I’ll grab some dinner, if that’s okay.”
“That’s great,” I assured her. “You build any cool new worlds, Tate?”
“I’m making a spaceship out of grass. Want to see?” And I pulled up a chair while he walked me through it.
This time when his mom came back, I turned on my phone long enough to order an ebook about Minecraft basics before I stopped by the next room. I really hoped Tate wouldn’t still be there the next week, but if he was, I wanted to be prepared.
I read it, just to be safe. Tate wasn’t the only kid who liked Minecraft, I’d noticed. It might give me something to talk about with other patients too. But when I saw his name on the card outside his door again the following week, my heart sank. We weren’t supposed to ask about their diagnosis. If the parent or child wanted us to know, they’d tell us. Our job was just to provide a break, and often a big part of the break was not talking about why we were all in a hospital room together.
“Hi, Tate,” I said, stepping into the room.
“Hi, Emily,” he said. He was the first kid to know my name when I walked in, and it made me happy that he remembered but sad that he’d been here long enough to learn it.
“Dinner,” his mom said like she didn’t have the energy to speak a full sentence. I watched her slip out, her shoulders down before I forced a smile on my face and turned back to my patient.
“Hi. So I was thinking about your spaceship. What if you built a secret room with polished andesite?”
He’d been lying back against his pillows, but at this, he raised the back of his bed higher and studied me, a faint glint in his eye. “How do you know about andesite?”
“I’m smart like that. Want to show me how to do it?” And he did. When his mom returned an hour later, I smiled at him. “Thanks, dude. My nieces are going to be so impressed the next time I visit them.” I surrendered my seat to his mom and turned back at the doorway. “Hope I don’t see you next week, Tate.”
He grinned. “Hope I don’t see you either.”
But I stopped at the store on the way home and bought a Minecraft Lego set just in case. Ranée found me studying the pieces when she came home from a date with Paul.
“What are you doing?” she asked.
“Getting design ideas so I can help one of the kids at the hospital.” I picked up some dirt blocks and snapped them to a gray piece to study the effect. “Ironically, although I work for a software company, it turns out that I’m better at building imaginary stuff in analog.”
“You like volunteering, huh?”
“It puts things into perspective for sure. Like stuff at work is both less irritating, because I realize that problems I used to think were a big deal are definitely not a big deal, and more irritating, because I constantly want to choke people who are making it a big deal while I chant, ‘There are worse things, you idiot.’ So that’s been interesting.”
Ranée laughed. “I get it.”
“How was your date with Paul?”
“Fine.” She still wasn’t comfortable giving me details no matter how often I promised I didn’t care. “Speaking of dates…”
“Nothing to speak of,” I said. “Haven’t checked my app, don’t know when I’ll feel like it, and Jack hasn’t texted, and I don’t know if he will.”
“Here’s a new development. I’ve been keeping tabs on Jack through Sean, but Sean is moving out of Featherton.”
I set down my Legos. “He got the job?”
She grinned. “Yeah. He starts at the VA in two weeks. He wants to know if he can crash on the sofa until he finds an apartment.”
“That’s so great! Of course he can crash. Tell him congratulations for me.”
“I will. But now I won’t really have a Jack connection anymore.”
“It’s okay.” She’d passed on Sean’s reports about Jack, which amounted to “same old, same old” every time. “I’m sure if something big ever happens to Jack, Sean will let us know.” I’d miss getting a more personal account, but I still followed Jack’s Twitter feed as he posted his Photoshops, as funny and absurd as ever. Us falling apart hadn’t affected his sense of humor. Then again, there hadn’t been an “us” for long enough to think it should.
“I still think he’ll come around,” she said. “Maybe you should text him again?”
But I shook my head. It wasn’t pride that stopped me, or that it was his turn. It was something else I couldn’t explain. And even if I could understand and work through the feeling that held me back from texting again, I wouldn’t know what to say. I’d told him sorry the last time, but now after almost a month at the hospital, I could already sense how paltry that word was for the apology I owed him for not understanding. I wouldn’t know how to find the words that captured the realization that was growing in me with each shift I worked.
“I’m starting to get why he doesn’t have anything to say to me. It’s okay. And now if you’ll excuse me, I have to play with my Legos.”
The next Thursday, I brought the kit with me. I figured I’d challenge Tate to a build-off, see who could make the coolest thing while his mom got her dinner, him digitally, me with my Legos. But when I got to his door, it wasn’t his name there anymore. My heart sank, until I realized it meant he’d been able to go home, and then I smiled. That’s exactly what he and his mom had both wanted. What was a bunch of dumb Minecraft Legos compared to that?
