Madison had been the one to call and tell me that the interview was on TV, but a couple of my friends called my cell phone afterward. The conversations went like this:
Them: Hey, there’s these pictures of Steve Raleigh with some mystery girl who looks a ton like you.
Me: Really?
Them: Yeah, besides the brown hair, she could be your twin.
Me (making a note to myself that I need to bleach my hair back to blond before I see any of my friends): Really?
Because I was not about to tell any of them the truth. I didn’t want them flipping out or bugging me to meet him, and I certainly didn’t want a repeat performance with the paparazzi. Of course, this didn’t mean that I didn’t want Steve to take me to prom, because, hey, how cool would that be?
My parents watched the interview with worried expressions. I think they half expected reporters to call our house. They didn’t, much to Leah’s disappointment. She was more than willing to go on TV and give an exclusive about Steve’s trip to see us.
“People should know the truth about what a wonderful guy he is,” she said.
“Jeremy shouldn’t,” I said, and that was the end of it. We all agreed that we wouldn’t ever say anything about meeting a famous actor.
Mom conferred with one of her friends who was a hairdresser and who then came over and redid my hair. When she was done, it looked . . . blonder, but not like it had when I started out. My hair, apparently, was going to take time to recover.
Friday morning the entire family set off for Las Vegas to go to Sunrise Children’s Hospital. Before school Madison had stopped by with a teddy bear for Jeremy and a hug for me. Her hair had already reverted to its natural color. It looked exactly the same. I envied the way she could glide back into her regular life.
On the trip to Las Vegas, I played cards with Jeremy, trying to squeeze out a few more moments of normal before we arrived at the hospital. “You never finished the story,” he said to me. “What happened after the crows?”
Yes, what? He hadn’t believed any of my supernatural attempts to escape. I decided to go with the obvious. “We decided to climb out. You know how sometimes we go to those rock-climbing walls? The cliff walls in the underworld are just like that. Well, except lots bigger.”
“Then why doesn’t everyone climb out?”
“Because the cliff walls are so steep and so tall most people give up after a while. But you wouldn’t give up, would you?”
He looked at me, his eyes serious, and didn’t answer.
“Promise me you won’t ever give up, okay?”
His eyes stayed serious. “Doesn’t the Grim Reaper catch people who try to climb out?”
“I’ll distract him while you climb. You’ll be fine.”
I let him win the game. Then I let him win another. Perhaps it was the wrong thing to do. After he’d won the third game, he looked at me critically and whispered, “You’re supposed to be happy—I wished it.”
“Sometimes it takes a little while for a wish to kick in,” I said.
“Like how Robin Hood didn’t come right away?” he asked.
“Right. Like that.”
“Okay. But you’ll be happy soon . . . right?”
I hoped so, but I knew it could only be true if the surgery went well.
“I’ll be happy if you don’t give up,” I said.
We reached the hospital and my parents signed Jeremy in. Then we waited. My parents went into a back room to go over insurance papers. Leah and I took turns reading him stories. Every once in a while, her voice caught in her throat, which made the situation feel even more painfully real. She was the one in the family who’d stayed the calmest about Jeremy’s treatment, and now even she was breaking. I took her hand and squeezed it, just like I had when we were little girls.
My parents came out, and we waited again. The hospital had told us to be here at eleven-thirty—two hours before the surgery time. Apparently this was how long it took to do the paperwork. We all went back into a pre-op room, and the nurse took his blood pressure, weight, that sort of thing. Then Jeremy changed into hospital pajamas and got to play Nintendo while the nurse asked my parents questions. We waited some more. A child life specialist came in to explain the procedure to Jeremy. An anesthesiologist came in to talk to Jeremy and ask more questions.
I wondered how everyone could manage to sound so normal, so cheerful, when this was anything but.
Finally we walked out into the hallway, gave Jeremy a last hug, and they led him away.
“Keep climbing,” I whispered, but he was too far away to hear me.
Twenty-eight people sat in the waiting room. I counted them, multiple times, in between staring into space and chewing my gum so hard that my jaw ached. I finally threw the gum out. Mom and Dad talked to each other in hushed voices. Leah flipped through pages of a magazine without reading any of it.
We waited, and waited, and waited.
I told my parents I needed to stretch my legs. I left the room and walked down the hallway slowly. Strangers went by me, washing past me like debris in a stream. I didn’t know where to go. Eventually I ended up at the chapel. I peered at the door but didn’t open it. When you’re not on speaking terms with God, you don’t drop by his house. He probably wouldn’t be happy to see me.
People kept walking by me, but I didn’t move.
Really, when one looked at all the horrible things in the world, what evidence did anyone have that God or a spiritual world existed?
But even as I thought of this possibility, I couldn’t believe it. People weren’t firecrackers who burst into the night sky with brilliance and glory, and a moment later faded away to nothing. Our souls had to be more lasting than that.
I thought—I nearly said the words out loud—“God, if you love me even a little bit, you’ll make sure they get the whole tumor. You’ll make it so my brother will be all right.” Then I remembered I’d prayed like that right before Jeremy’s first MRI.
And that hadn’t turned out well; I obviously already knew the answer to whether God loved me. Still, I shut my eyes and whispered, “Please make him better.” Then I walked back down the hall, listening to the squeak of my shoes against the floor.
I went back to the waiting room and watched the clock hands push forward. I heard every rustle of magazine pages being turned, like dry leaves crackling across pavement. Finally the doctor came into the room and asked to see my parents in one of the adjoining private rooms.
Leah and I weren’t invited to that talk, but it didn’t matter, I could tell the news as soon as I looked at the doctor’s weary face.
Something had gone wrong.
I sat not moving, as though I could stop time this way, as though I could keep the bad news at bay if I turned to stone.
Twenty minutes went by. My father reappeared in the waiting room, his eyes rimmed with red. He motioned for Leah and me to follow him into the room. When we walked in, my mom wouldn’t look at us. “They couldn’t remove the entire tumor,” Dad said. “It’s too connected. It’s already in vital parts of his brain. . . .”
He didn’t say more, but we knew what he meant. The cancer would eventually win this battle. I couldn’t bring myself to ask how long Jeremy had left. Was it months? Weeks?
I was wrong about not being able to cry. Because the tears came, instantly, relentlessly. I couldn’t stop them. My dad hugged me, but it didn’t help. I took a step backward, choking on emotion. I couldn’t control any of it.
Finally I said, “I’m going out to the van,” because I didn’t like falling apart this way in front of my family.
I didn’t walk, I ran through the hospital.
None of my efforts had made any difference. None of my prayers had been heard.
I will not go on, I thought. I won’t. I will throw my soul to the wind and blow into a thousand pieces. I will wash up on a shore somewhere like bleached and broken driftwood. I will dry out in the sun until I—and any gift I ever had—shrivel into the
sand.
I’m not sure how long I sat in the van. Long enough that my ribs ached from crying and the tears stopped coming. My thoughts didn’t dry up as easily. I shut my eyes, trying to erase the phrase that pounded inside my mind: God, why don’t you love me?
I heard the door open. I figured it was Dad, but when I looked up, it was Steve climbing inside.
“You came,” I said. It was all I could get out.
He slid in beside me, his eyes full of consolation. “Ron booked a flight for me, remember?”
I did remember, but I figured Steve would change his plans since he came yesterday.
“I brought Jeremy his Merry Man things. The costume department whipped them together as soon as I told them why I needed them.” He reached out and stroked my hair. “Your parents told me about the surgery. I’m so sorry.”
I didn’t answer. I just leaned toward him, and he hugged me. Neither of us spoke for a while.
When he pulled away from me, he said, “Your family is in the recovery room with Jeremy. You should be there with them when he wakes up.”
“I can’t.” The words tore from my throat. “I know I’m supposed to be strong, and I’m supposed to go on somehow, but I don’t want to. Ever. I want to be resentful and angry and destroy things.” I didn’t say the rest, which was that I wanted to hurt God. It sounded like an impossible task, as impossible as outwitting the Grim Reaper.
Steve ran his hand over my back. “Yesterday you asked me what the purpose of life is. I’ve thought about that ever since. I think it’s to do good no matter what life throws at you, to not let the pain turn you bitter. It’s something we have to learn, something we have to make ourselves become.”
“What about little kids who die? What’s their purpose, then?”
“Little kids don’t have to learn it. They already know.” Steve laid his hand over mine. “You’re not going to turn bitter, because Jeremy wants you to be happy. That’s what he used his last wish for. You’ve got to at least try.”
I didn’t answer or even look at him. I knew he was right, but I couldn’t put on happiness like it was a sweater or something.
“Think of one thing to be happy for. Just one thing.” As he said this, I realized he spoke from experience. He’d pushed through devastation at some point, and now was passing on survival advice.
“But nothing makes up for this,” I said.
“I know, but you can find something to be glad about every day. He loves you, that’s a big thing.”
And then I knew his devastation had been his fight with his family. It was easier to talk about them than it was to talk about Jeremy. My voice became steadier. “Your parents do love you. Before I left, your mom gave me a hug and told me to take good care of you.”
His eyebrows rose. “She hugged you? She didn’t even hug me.”
“She might have if you hadn’t stormed off.”
He tilted his head, surveying me. “What did you say to them anyway? When I got back home, they’d left a message on my answering machine. My mom said she hoped I had a good trip, and my father came very close to apologizing for being short-tempered during my visit. It’s not like them at all.”
“I didn’t tell them anything that wasn’t real, or at least true.”
“Uh-huh.” I knew he didn’t believe me, but he smiled anyway.
I gave his hand a squeeze. “I’m happy you came.”
Steve glanced down at his watch. “And I’d better get changed. Robin Hood has to deliver the clothes.”
“Tell my parents I’ll come in when my eyes unswell. I don’t want Jeremy to see me this way.”
He nodded. “I’ll tell them.”
I watched him stride across the parking lot and into the hospital. I tried to think of all the things I had to be happy about. A family who loved me. More time with Jeremy, even if it was a short time. I couldn’t think of anything after that because I started crying again.
I would never make it into the hospital at this rate.
Half an hour later, Steve came out dressed in his Robin Hood costume, drawing the attention of every person in the parking lot.
He opened the van door and held his hand out to me. “Jeremy is awake and asking for you.”
“I can’t go like this,” I said, but I got out of the van. “I won’t even be able to talk coherently.”
“That doesn’t matter to him,” Steve said.
When we walked inside the hospital room, all I could think about was how little Jeremy looked in the hospital bed. White gauze wrapped around his head, covering the wound.
He saw me and lifted his head a fraction. This must have hurt because he immediately rested his head again. He waved me over. The medication slurred his voice, but I could still sense his excitement. “Annika, you don’t have to worry about your story anymore. I know how it ends.”
My heart stopped. I couldn’t speak. What had they told him about his condition?
“I dreamt about it,” he said. “I went to the underworld, and I climbed up the walls like you told me.”
His words painted an immediate picture in my mind. I could see the dark cliffs and Jeremy’s tiny figure pressed against them, climbing. Ragged peaks towered above him, harsh, imposing, presenting an impossible task.
“I didn’t see you, I didn’t see anyone. I was all alone, but I knew the Grim Reaper was waiting at the bottom, and I didn’t want to stay with him.”
I saw Jeremy’s fingers grasping to find handholds on the cold rock wall, but he was slipping. He wouldn’t be able to hold on. I knew this, and I couldn’t help him.
“I’m so sorry,” I said.
“I thought I would fall,” he said, “but then a big light came, and God took hold of my hand. He said I didn’t have to climb anymore because I could fly.” Jeremy sounded quite proud he knew something I didn’t. “So you don’t have to worry about how to get out of the underworld. God takes care of that.”
I saw this too, saw Jeremy surrounded by light and for a moment felt that God turned and looked at me—not with reproach, but with a smile of love.
Then I was back in the hospital room, breathless and blinking.
“That’s a beautiful story,” I said, as much to myself as to Jeremy. “That’s exactly the right ending.”
From beside me Steve took hold of my hand and squeezed it. I held on to his hand but kept my eyes on Jeremy. “I’ll tell you as many stories as you want when we get home.”
“Tell me some of me as a Merry Man,” he said.
“Oh, you’re the best Merry Man. You have lots of adventures. Robin Hood takes you everywhere, and you shoot better than everyone.”
“Good.” He let out a happy sigh, and glanced at Steve and me with a sly smile. “Don’t worry,” he whispered. “I won’t tell Maid Marion about you.”
“Thanks,” I said. Then I bent over and gave Jeremy a kiss.
Janette Rallison, Just One Wish
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