One Summer

  Jack was focused on living.

  The next night as the clock hit midnight, Jack lifted himself off the bed and slowly walked around the room, supporting himself by putting one hand against the wall. He felt stronger, his lungs operating somewhat normally. It was as though his body was healing itself minute by minute. He heard a rumbling in his belly and realized that he was hungry. And he didn’t want liquid pouring into a line. He wanted real food. Food that required teeth to consume.

  Every so often he would smack his arm to make sure he wasn’t dreaming. At last he convinced himself it was real. No, it wasn’t just real.

  This is a miracle.

  11

  Two weeks passed, and Jack celebrated the week of his thirty-fifth birthday by gaining four pounds and doing away with the oxygen altogether. Miracle or not, he still had a long way to go because his body had withered over the months. He had to rebuild his strength and put on weight. He sat up in his chair for several hours at a time. Using a walker, he regularly made his way to the bathroom all on his own. Another week passed, and four more pounds had appeared on his frame.

  Things that Jack, along with most people, had always taken for granted represented small but significant victories in his improbable recovery. Holding a fork and using it to put solid food into his mouth. Washing his face and using a toilet instead of a bed pan. Touching his toes; breathing on his own.

  The hospice staff had been remarkably supportive of Jack after it was clear that he was getting better. Perhaps it was because they were weary of people leaving this place solely on the gurney with a sheet thrown over their bodies.

  Jack talked to his kids every chance he got, using his old cell phone. Jackie was bubbly and mostly incoherent. But Jack could sense that the older kids were wondering what was going on.

  Cory said, “Dad, can’t you come live with us?”

  “We’ll see, buddy. Let’s just take it slow.”

  With the help of the folks at the hospice, Jack was able to use Skype to see his kids on a laptop computer one of the medical techs brought in. Cory and Jackie were thrilled to see their dad looking better.

  Mikki was more subdued and cautious than her brothers, but Jack could tell she was curious. And hopeful.

  “You look stronger, Dad.”

  “I’m feeling better.”

  “Does this mean?” She stopped. “I mean, will you…?”

  Jack’s real fear, even though he did believe he was experiencing a true miracle, was that his recovery might be temporary. He did not want to put his kids through this nightmare again. But that didn’t mean he couldn’t talk to them. Or see them.

  “I don’t know, honey. I’m trying to figure that out. I’m doing my best.”

  “Well, keep doing what you’re doing,” she replied. And then she smiled at him. That one look seemed to make every muscle in Jack’s body firm even more.

  One time Bonnie had appeared on the computer screen after Mikki had left the room. Her approach was far more direct, as she stared at Jack sitting up in bed. “What is going on?”

  “I’m still here.”

  “Your hospice doctor won’t talk to me. Privacy laws, he said.”

  “I know,” Jack said. “But I can fill you in. I’m feeling better. Getting stronger. How’re things working out with Mikki?”

  “Fine. She’s settled in, but we need to address your situation.”

  “I am addressing it. Every day.”

  And so it had gone, day after day, week after week. Using Skype and the phone, and answering all the kids’ questions. Jack could see that more and more even Mikki was coming to grips with what was happening. Every time he saw her smile or heard her laugh at some funny remark he made, it seemed to strengthen him even more.

  It was on a cold, blustery Monday morning in February that Jack walked down the hall under his own power. He’d gained five more pounds, his face had filled out, and his hair was growing back. His appetite had returned with a vengeance. They had also stopped giving him pain meds because there was no more pain.

  The hospice doctor sat down with him at the end of the week. “I’m not sure what’s going on here, Jack, but I’m ordering up some new blood work and other tests to see what we have. I don’t want you to get your hopes up, though.”

  Jack simply stared at him, a spoonful of soup poised near his lips.

  The doctor went on. “Look, if this continues, that’s terrific. No one will be happier than me—well, of course, except for you. All of my patients die, Jack, to put it bluntly. And we just try to help them pass with dignity.”

  “But,” said Jack.

  “But your disease is a complicated one. And always a fatal one. This might just be a false remission.”

  “Might be.”

  “Well, without dashing your hopes, it probably is.”

  “Have others in my condition had a remission?”

  The doctor looked taken aback. “No, not to my knowledge.”

  “That’s all I needed to know.”

  The doctor looked confused. “Needed to know about what?”

  “I know I was dying, but now I’m not.”

  “How can you be so sure?”

  “Sometimes you just know.”

  “Jack, I have to tell you that what’s happening to you is medically impossible.”

  “Medicine is not everything.”

  The doctor looked him over and saw the new muscle, the fuller face, and the eyes that burned with a rigid intensity.

  “Why do you think this is happening to you, Jack?” he finally asked.

  “You’re a doctor; you wouldn’t understand.”

  “I’m also a human being, and I’d very much like to know.”

  Jack reached in his drawer and pulled out a photo. He passed it to the doctor.

  It was a photo of Lizzie and the kids.

  “Because of them,” said Jack.

  “But I thought your wife passed away.”

  Jack shook his head. “Doesn’t matter.”

  “What?”

  “When you love someone, you love them forever.”

  12

  Two days later, Jack was in his room eating a full meal. He’d put on three more pounds. The doctor walked in and perched on the edge of the bed.

  “Okay, I officially believe in miracles. Your blood work came back negative. No trace of the disease. It’s like something came along and chased it away. Never seen anything like it. There’s no way to explain it medically.”

  Jack swallowed a mouthful of mashed potatoes and smiled. “I’m glad you finally came around.”

  He saw his kids that night on the computer. He believed he actually made Jackie understand that he was getting better. At least his son’s last words had been, “Daddy’s boo-boo’s gone.”

  Cory had blurted out, “When are you coming to see me?”

  “I hope soon, big guy. I’ll let you know. I’ve still got a ways to go. But I’m getting there.”

  Mikki’s reaction surprised him, and not in a good way.

  “Is this some kind of trick?” she asked.

  Jack slowly sat up in his chair as he stared at her. “Trick?”

  “When we left you, Dad, you were dying. That’s what hospice is for. You said good-bye to all of us. You made me go live with Gramps and her!”

  “Honey, it’s no trick. I’m getting better.”

  She suddenly dissolved into tears. “Well then, will you be coming to take us home? Because I hate it here.”

  “I’m doing my best, sweetie. With a little more time I think—”

  But Mikki hit a key and the computer screen went black.

  Jack slowly sat back. He never heard the squeak of the gurney as the woman across the hall made her final journey from this place.

  Day turned to night, and Jack hadn’t moved. No food, no liquids, no words spoken to anyone who came to see him.

  Finally, at around two a.m., he stirred. He rose from his bed and walked up and down the hall before persu
ading a nurse to scavenge in the kitchen for some food. He ate and watched his reflection in the window.

  I’m coming, Mikki. Dad’s coming for you.

  A week later he weighed over one-sixty and was walking the halls for an hour at a time. Like an infant, he was relearning how to use his arms and legs. He would flex his fingers and toes, curl and uncurl his arms, bend his legs. The nursing staff watched him carefully, unaccustomed to this sort of thing. Families of other hospice patients observed him curiously. At first Jack was afraid they would be devastated by his progress when their loved ones still lay dying. At least he thought that, until one woman approached him. She was in her sixties and was here every day. Jack knew that her husband had terminal cancer. He’d passed by the man’s door and seen the shriveled body under the sheets. He was waiting to die, like everyone else here.

  Everyone except me.

  She slipped her arm through his and said, “God bless you.”

  He looked at her questioningly.

  “You give us all hope.”

  Jack felt slightly panicked. “I don’t know why this is happening to me,” he said frankly. “But it’s an awfully long shot.”

  “That’s not what I meant. I know my husband is going to die. But you still give us all hope, honey.”

  Jack went back to his room and stared at himself in the mirror. He looked more like himself now. The jawline was firming, the hair fuller. He walked slowly to the window and looked outside at a landscape that was still more in the grips of winter than spring, though that season was not too far off. He’d spent several winters apart from his family while he carried a rifle for his country. Lying in his quarters outside of Baghdad or Kabul he had closed his eyes and visualized Christmas with his family. The laughter of Mikki and Cory as they opened presents on Christmas morning.

  And then there was the memory of Lizzie’s smile as she looked at the small gifts that Jack had bought her before he was deployed for the first time. It had been the summer, so he had gotten her sunblock, a bikini, and a book on grilling. She’d later sent him a photo by e-mail of her wearing the bikini while cooking hot dogs on the Hibachi with mounds of snow behind her. That image had carried him through one hellish battle after another. His wife. Her smile. Wanting so badly to come back to her. That all seemed so long ago, and in some important ways it was.

  He went to his nightstand and pulled out the bundle of letters. Each had a number on the envelope. He selected the envelope with the number one on it and slid the paper out. The letter was dated December eighteenth and represented the first one he’d written to Lizzie. He gazed down at the handwriting that was his but that also wasn’t because the disease had made him so weak. Sometimes while writing he’d had to put down the pen because he just couldn’t hold it any longer. But still it was readable. It said what he had wanted to say. It was the accomplishment of a man who was doing this as his final act in life.

  Dear Lizzie,

  There are things I want to say to you that I just don’t have the breath for anymore. That’s why I’ve decided to write you these letters. I want you to have them after I’m gone. They’re not meant to be sad, just my chance to talk to you one more time. When I was healthy you made me happier than any person has a right to be. When I was half a world away, I knew that I was looking at the same sky you were, thinking of the same things you were, wanting to be with you and looking forward to when I could be. You gave me three beautiful children, which is a greater gift than I deserved. I tell you this, though you already know it, because sometimes people don’t talk about these things enough. I want you to know that if I could’ve stayed with you I would have. I fought as hard as I could. I will never understand why I had to be taken from you so soon, but I have accepted it. Yet I want you to know that there is nothing more important to me than you. I loved you from the moment I saw you. And the happiest day of my life was when you agreed to share your life with mine. I promised that I would always be there for you. And my love for you is so strong that even though I won’t be there physically, I will be there in every other way. I will watch over you. I will be there if you need to talk. I will never stop loving you. Not even death is powerful enough to overcome my feelings for you. My love for you, Lizzie, is stronger than anything.

  Love,

  Jack

  He put the letter back in the envelope and replaced the packet in the drawer. He slipped the photo from the pocket of his robe and looked at it. From the depths of the color print, his family smiled back at him. He thought of all the others in this place who would never leave it alive. He had been spared.

  Why me?

  Jack had no ready answer. But he did know one thing. He was not going to waste a second chance at living.

  13

  A few days later, Jack Armstrong was discharged from hospice and sent to a rehab facility. He rode over in a shuttle van. The driver was an older guy with a soft felt cap and a trim white beard. Jack was his only passenger.

  As they drove along, Jack stared out in childlike wonder at things he never thought he would experience again. Seeing a bird in flight. A mailman delivering letters and packages. A kid running for the school bus. He promised himself he would never again take anything for granted.

  As they pulled up in front of the rehab building, the man said, “Never brought anybody from that place to this place.”

  “I guess not,” said Jack. He held his small duffel. Inside were a few clothes, a pair of tennis shoes, and the letters he’d written to Lizzie. When he got to his room, he looked around at the simple furnishings and single window that had a view of the interior outdoor courtyard, which was covered in snow. Jack sat on the bed after putting his few belongings away.

  He looked up when a familiar person walked into the room.

  “Sammy? What are you doing here?”

  Sammy Duvall was dressed in gray sweats and had on a checkered bandanna. “Why the hell do you think I’m here? To get your sorry butt in shape. Look at you; you’ve obviously been dogging it. And they told me you were getting better. You look like crap.”

  “I don’t understand. You didn’t come by the hospice. And I left you phone messages.”

  The mirth left Sammy’s eyes, and he sat down next to Jack on the bed. “I let you down.”

  “What are you talking about? You’ve done everything for me.”

  “No, I haven’t. I told you at the cemetery that I’d always be there for you, but I wasn’t.” He paused. Jack had never seen Sammy nervous before. That emotion just never squared with a man like him. Nothing rattled Sammy Duvall.

  Sammy’s voice trembled as he said, “I should’ve come to visit you. But… seeing you in that place, just waiting to…”

  Jack put a hand on the older man’s shoulder. “It’s okay, Sammy. I understand.”

  Sammy wiped his eyes and said, “Anyway, I’m here now. And you’re probably gonna wish I wasn’t.”

  “Why?”

  “I’m your drill instructor.”

  “What?”

  “Worked a deal with the folks here.”

  “How’d you do that?”

  “Told ’em you were a special case. And you need special treatment. And if you’re okay with it, so are they.”

  “I’m definitely okay with it. That was one reason I called you.