One Summer

8

The room was small but clean. That wasn’t the problem. Jack had slept for months inside a shack with ten other infantrymen in the middle of a desert, where it was either too frigid or too hot. What Jack didn’t like here were the sounds. Folks during their last days of life did not make pleasant noises. Coughs, gagging, painful cries — but mostly it was the moaning. It never ceased. Then there was the squeak of the gurney wheels as the body of someone who had passed was taken away, the room freshened up for the next terminal case on the waiting list.

Most patients here were elderly. Yet Jack wasn’t the youngest person. There was a boy with final-stage leukemia two doors down. When Jack was being wheeled to his room he’d seen the little body in the bed: hairless head, vacant eyes, tubes all over him, barely breathing, just waiting for it to be over. His family would come every day; his mother was often here all the time. They would put on happy expressions when they were with him and then start bawling as soon as they left his side. Jack had witnessed this as they passed his doorway. All hunched over, weeping into their cupped hands. They were just waiting, too, for it to be over. And at the same time dreading when it would be.

Jack reached under his pillow and pulled out the calendar. January eleventh. He crossed it off. He had been here for five days. The average length of stay here, he’d heard, was three weeks. Without Lizzie, it would be three weeks too long.

He again reached under his pillow and pulled out the six now-crumpled envelopes with his letters to Lizzie inside them. He’d had Sammy bring them here from the house before it was listed for sale. He held them in his hands. The paper was splotched with his tears because he pulled them out and wept over them several times a day. What else did he have to do with his time? These letters now constituted a weight around his heart for a simple reason: Lizzie would never read them, never know what he was feeling in his last days of life. At the same time, it was the only thing allowing him to die with peace, with a measure of dignity. He put the letters away and just lay there, listening for the squeaks of the final gurney ride for another patient. They came with alarming regularity. Soon, he knew it would be his body on that stretcher.

He turned his head when the kids came in, followed by Fred. He was surprised to see Cecilia stroll in with her walker and portable oxygen tank resting in a burgundy sling. It was hard for her to go outside in the cold weather, yet she had done so for Jack. Jackie immediately climbed up on his dad’s lap, while Cory sat on the bed. Arms folded defiantly over her chest, Mikki stood by the door, as far away from everyone as she could be. She had on faded jeans with the knees torn out, heavy boots, a sleeveless unzipped parka, and a black long-sleeve T-shirt that said, REMEMBER DARFUR. Her hair was now orange. The color contrasted sharply with the dark circles under her eyes.

Cory had been saying something that only now Jack focused on. His son said, “But, Dad, you’ll be here and we’ll be way out there.”

“That’s the way Dad apparently wants it,” said Mikki sharply.

Jack turned to look at her. Father’s and daughter’s gazes locked until she finally looked away, with an eye roll tacked on.

Cory moved closer to him. “Look, I think the best thing we can do, Dad, is stay here with you. It just makes sense.”

Jackie, who was struggling with potty training, slid to the side of the bed and got down holding his privates.

“Gramps,” said Mikki, “Jackie has to go. And I’m not taking him this time.”

Fred saw what Jackie was doing and scuttled him off to the bathroom down the hall.

As soon as he was gone, Jack said, “You have to go, Cor.” He didn’t look at Mikki when he added, “You all do.”

“But we won’t be together, Dad,” said Cory. “We’ll never see each other.”

Cecilia, who’d been listening to all this, quietly spoke up. “I give you my word, Cory, that you will see your brother and sister early and often.”

Mikki came forward. Her sullen look was gone, replaced with a defiant one. “Okay, but what about Dad? He just stays here alone? That’s not fair.”

Jack said, “I’ll be with you. And your mom will too, in spirit,” he added a little lamely.

“Mom is dead. She can’t be with anyone,” snapped Mikki.

“Mikki,” said Cecilia reproachfully. “That’s not necessary.”

“Well, it’s true. We don’t need to be lied to. It’s bad enough that I have to go and live with them in Arizona.”

Tears filled Cory’s eyes, and he started to sob quietly. Jack pulled him closer.

Jackie and Fred came back in, and the visit lasted another half hour. Cecilia was the last to leave. She looked back at Jack. “You’ll never be alone, Jack. We all carry each other in our hearts.”

Those words were nice, and heartfelt, he knew, but Jack Armstrong had never felt so alone as he did right now. He had a question, though.

“Cecilia?”

She turned back, perhaps surprised by the sudden urgency in his voice. “Yes, Jack?”

Jack gathered his breath and said, “Lizzie told me she wanted to take the kids to the Palace next summer.”

Cecilia moved closer to him. “She told you that?” she asked. “The Palace? My God. After all this time.”

“I know. But maybe... maybe the kids could go there sometime?”

Cecilia gripped his hand. “I’ll see to it, Jack. I promise.”