How to Save a Life (13 page)

He looks at me for a moment, and I go on.

“Actually, he’s more than just a patient to me. He’s a foster kid whose parents are long gone, and let’s just say that I’ve come to love him like he’s my own. He doesn’t have many friends, and he’s never had a party with other kids. I don’t think he has much time left, so . . .”

“Of course he can join our party,” Jamie says, his eyes warm and his tone suddenly gentler. “But are you sure it’s okay from a germ perspective? I thought the kids with lowered immunity weren’t supposed to interact much.”

“I promise I have zero concern about that. When he wakes up in the morning, it will be like this whole thing never happened.”

Jamie gives me a strange look, but he nods. “Absolutely, then. The kids on my floor are really great, and if I explain that we have a guest from another floor joining us, they’ll be excited. What’s his name?”

“Logan.”

“Well, then, how about you and Logan come up in half an hour? That should give us time to get set up.”

I smile at him and point to the stack of cardboard boxes behind me. “I brought cupcakes, if that helps.”

Jamie raises his eyebrows. “You thought of everything. Well, what are we waiting for, then? Let’s get these party supplies upstairs.”

After I’ve ridden up with Jamie to the ninth floor and deposited my balloons and cupcakes there, I head down to the eighth and emerge directly into Sheila’s line of sight.

“Please tell me you got laid last night,” she says as I walk across the waiting room toward the nursing station.

I sigh. I’m not in the mood for this conversation right now. Besides, I’m on a mission to smuggle Logan out. “Sheila, can we not do this in front of guests?” I ask, nodding to the grandmother in the corner who is glaring at both of us.

“What?” Sheila asks without lowering her voice. “It’s a normal question. You’re a thirty-nine-year-old woman who’s never been married and who probably can’t even remember the last time she had a man in her bed. You getting a bit of action would be a service to society. The whole world would rejoice with you.”

“Or maybe me getting laid for the sake of getting laid would be the worst mistake I could make right now,” I say. I grab my iPad from the desk. “Maybe life is about being kind to the people we love and apologizing when we’ve made mistakes—not merely screwing each other’s brains out.”

She gapes at me, and I hear the grandmother in the corner stifle a laugh. I feel a bit bad—I know I’m hitting close to home for Sheila—but at the same time, I’m out of patience.

“I have that doctor’s appointment today, so I’m going to take the rest of the day off,” I tell her.

She looks confused. “Why didn’t you just call in, then?”

“I wanted to see Logan.”

“Girl, I have never seen a patient take to a nurse the way that kid has taken to you.”

I smile. “It’s mutual. Believe me.”

“Good luck with that doctor’s appointment!” she calls after me as I begin to walk away. “Everything’s going to be fine!”

“You know what?” I say to myself. “Maybe it is.”

“
I
HAVE A surprise for you,” I tell Logan as I round the corner into his room.

He sits up in bed and yawns. “I don’t think anything can top Six Flags.”

I shrug. “Maybe not. But let’s try. Oh, and happy twelfth birthday.”

He laughs. “Twelfth?”

“You bet. How are you going to get to be a teenager if you don’t turn twelve?”

He sobers quickly. “Jill, I’m never going to be a teenager. You know that.”

“Listen, kiddo, you know better than anyone that age is just a number. Time doesn’t exist the same way for you and me that it does for other people. So if we decide you’re twelve, then you’re twelve, okay?”

He studies my face for a moment. “Yeah, okay. So what are we doing to celebrate?”

I offer my hand. “Let’s get you out of this boring hospital room, and I’ll show you.”

Logan laughs and heads into the bathroom to change into jeans, sneakers, and a T-shirt. We slip out of his room, sneak past the nursing station while Sheila’s back is to us, and head to the elevator, where I punch in floor nine.

“Uh, we’re celebrating on the cardiology floor?” Logan’s expression is dubious.

“No. We’re celebrating on the floor of birthday surprises.” The elevator dings and the doors slide open, revealing a waiting area filled with balloons. A banner overhead reads,
Happy Birthday, Logan! Happy birthday, Alison!
Logan’s jaw drops.

“Is that . . . for me?” he asks as we step off the elevator.

“Of course. It’s your twelfth birthday.”

Jamie walks into the waiting room then, and his eyes light up when he sees us. “You’re just in time! You must be the birthday boy!” He crosses the room and shakes Logan’s hand. “I’m Jamie, and wow, do you have a firm handshake for a twelve-year-old!”

Logan laughs. “I’m mature beyond my years.”

“I can see that. But I hope you still like cupcakes and balloons, because we sure have a lot of them, thanks to Jill here.” He holds my gaze for a beat then claps Logan on the back. “Now what do you say we go see the other kids? They’re excited to meet you.”

Logan grins and heads off down the hall in the direction Jamie is pointing.

“Thank you,” I whisper to Jamie, who smiles broadly.

“Are you kidding? Thank
you
! The kids are super excited about the cupcakes. I can’t believe I forgot to pick some up!”

We follow Logan down the hall, and Jamie catches up to him and opens the door to the nurse’s break room, which has been turned into a festive, streamer-covered party room. Music pumps from a pair of speakers in the corner, and a dozen kids ranging from about six to eighteen circulate with cups of fruit punch or water in their hands.

“Some of the kids are on more restrictive diets,” Jamie whispers in my ear, “but at least everyone here seems to be having a good time.” He claps his hands and whistles, and the kids turn to him. Someone turns the volume of the speakers down. “Hey, guys! I’d like to introduce our
other
birthday kid, Logan! Logan is twelve years old today!”

Logan beams as the kids all clap and wave hello to him.

“Logan, these are the kids I spend a ton of my time with. And it also happens to be Alison’s birthday. She’s turning eleven!” He gestures to a tiny girl with a dark pixie cut. She reminds me of a delicate fairy as she smiles, stands up, and goes to give Logan a hug. “What do you say we all sing ‘Happy Birthday’ to Logan and Alison?” Jamie asks.

Everyone cheers, and I join in as Jamie starts the happy birthday song. When we’re done, Logan is beaming from ear to ear. I don’t think I’ve ever seen him look so happy. He’s usually wearing the troubled expression of a world-weary adult who’s already seen too much. But for now, he just looks like a carefree kid, which tells me that this is the right thing. My instincts were spot-on; in all the time he spent with Katelyn, Frankie, and me, he never really had the chance to simply be a child. And it means just as much to him as I’d hoped it would.

“The kids who are stuck here long-term don’t get to meet many new people,” Jamie explains, handing me a cup of punch, as we lean against the wall and watch the kids joking around with each other. Logan is right in the thick of what appears to be a makeshift dance-off as someone turns the speakers back up again and a Taylor Swift song comes on. “So this is really special for them.”

“It’s special for Logan too. He spends a lot of his time alone.”

“You said he’s in foster care?”

“Sort of.” I explain that Logan’s parents were never really in the picture and that since his cancer diagnosis his foster family dropped him, leaving him a ward of the state. “He’s been in the hospital ever since, with a social worker responsible for signing off on his medical procedures.”

“That’s the saddest thing I’ve ever heard,” Jamie says. “All kids should have a parent who loves them.”

I hesitate. “I kind of feel like maybe I’m that parent for Logan. Does that sound crazy, considering I’m just his nurse?”

“It doesn’t sound crazy at all. There’s so much more to parenthood than just biology or adoption paperwork.”

“You really think so?”

“I do.” He pauses. “You know, my daughter, Caroline, was a patient here several years ago. She died here.”

“I’m so sorry.”

He shakes his head. “Thank you. What I was going to say was that Caroline had a mother. My ex-wife, Jen. And from day one of Caroline’s diagnosis, it’s like the parent switch was just turned off. Jen wanted nothing to do with doctor’s appointments, hospitals, or dealing with the aftermath of treatments. When Caroline needed her most, Jen disappeared.”

I know bits and pieces about Jen already because of what Jamie has said to me on previous versions of today, but it doesn’t make it any easier to hear. “I’m so sorry,” I say. “I can’t imagine leaving a child like that.”

“Which is exactly why I suspect you’re more of a parent to Logan than Jen ever was to Caroline—even though Jen was Caroline’s biological mom. Families aren’t always put together in the way we expect. My advice? Let Logan know how much you love him, and how you’d do anything for him. He’ll remember that. I think—well, at least I hope—that Caroline knew that about me at the end. I think it brought her some comfort. I was always going to be on her side, no matter what.”

“That’s really good advice. And believe me when I say I’m one hundred percent sure that Caroline felt your love.”

Jamie blinks a few times, and I can tell that he’s trying not to cry. “I sometimes wonder about how life can be so unfair. How do kids like Logan and Caroline get dealt such a raw hand? Not only are their lives filled with doctors and hospitals, which has to be kind of scary, but they both had to deal with losing parents. It doesn’t feel fair.”

“Then again, maybe there’s more going on beneath the surface than you know,” I say carefully. “I don’t believe that life is that unfair either. Maybe some kids get to live fuller lives than we think.”

Jamie stares at me. “Caroline said almost those exact same words to me the day before she died. But what do you mean? I never understood what she was talking about.”

“Life works in mysterious ways,” I tell him. I don’t know what else to say; certainly he wouldn’t believe me about the tree.

We’re interrupted by Logan bounding over to show me an iPhone video game one of the other kids introduced him to, and when I’m done talking to him, I look up to find that Jamie has disappeared.

12

“
T
HAT WAS THE
most fun day
ever
,” Logan says a few hours later as I settle him into bed. “Even better than Six Flags.” We stayed on the cardiology floor until the patients there had to be moved back to their rooms, and then we helped Jamie clean up before heading back downstairs. I caught Jamie looking at me with a puzzled expression several times, but he didn’t ask me anything else, and I didn’t volunteer.

“How much do you think I can tell Jamie about the tree?” I ask Logan once he’s tucked in and occupied with surfing through the channels on his television.

“I don’t know. You know we’re not supposed to talk about it. But if Jamie is Caroline’s dad, maybe it’s okay if he knows after all. Maybe she’d want him to.”

“How much do you know about Caroline anyhow?” I ask. “Are you sure she’s the one speaking through the tree?”

“I think so. I mean, I’ve always assumed, anyways. Who else would it be? And even though the advice she gives is wise, it’s also easy to tell sometimes that she’s just a kid like us. I know she watches Jamie every time he waters the tree, and I’ve heard her crying before.”

“Crying?”

Logan nods. “When her dad leaves. I think she misses him.”

“Or maybe she’s upset that she can’t let him know she’s okay. Maybe she sees how much he worries about that.”

Logan shrugs. “Maybe. But I don’t think she can ever talk to him. I think she can only talk to people she’s helping, people who are dying. And it’s not like Jamie’s going to believe you if you tell him some crazy story about how the tree talks, and how it’s actually his daughter controlling it.”

I think about the expression on his face when I said that some kids get to live fuller lives than we think. “But maybe he would.”

“I really like him, you know,” Logan says after a moment. He yawns, and I can see his eyelids growing heavy. The party tired him out. “Jamie, I mean. Caroline was lucky to have him as a dad.”

“I think so too.”

After spending a bit more time with Logan, I avoid Sheila again and head down to the lobby, where I sit beside the tree. Logan and I made a pit stop on the way back from the party to ask the tree for one day more, so there’s no real reason to be here now except that I’m curious about Caroline’s connection to the tree—and the tree’s connection to Jamie.

I hesitate for a moment before reaching out to touch the warm bark. “Can you hear me?” I whisper after a moment. A passing couple gives me a strange look, but I ignore them. “I’m just wondering whether the voice I keep hearing is Caroline’s. Caroline, is that you? I’m friends with your dad, Jamie. Well, I sort of am.”

The tree vibrates almost imperceptibly, and I wonder if I’ve imagined it. Encouraged, I go on. “The thing is, Caroline, I think I’m in love with your dad. I know the timing is terrible, but I want to make sure he’s okay. And I think he’d be more okay if he felt better about you. I think maybe he’s still carrying around some guilt and some questions. I want to help him answer those questions, but only if it’s okay with you.”

I wait, but nothing happens. I could swear that I feel the tree vibrate again, but it’s equally possible that I’m losing my mind—or at least that I’m imagining the vibrations.

“He really loves you, Caroline,” I add after a moment. “It’s why he’s still here all the time, why the hospital is so important to him. He hasn’t let you go.”

“Let go,” the tree whispers, clear as day.

I look around, startled, wondering if the family passing by has heard the voice too, but they’re not paying me or the tree any attention. “Did you just say, ‘Let go’?” I ask in a low voice.

“My dad should be happy,” the tree whispers. Then the leaves rustle a little, as if a breeze has blown through. “Happy.”

“It
is
you, Caroline,” I say, warmth flooding through me.

There’s silence for a moment, and then the tree says clearly, “Tell him.”

“Tell him?” I ask, wondering how on earth I’ll manage to deliver the message without making him think I’m crazy.

A moment later, I hear the answer to the question I haven’t asked aloud. “If you really love him, tell him the truth. It’s time.”

And then the tree shudders and goes silent. “Caroline?” I venture, but the bark is growing cold, and I know her presence is gone for now.

I sit there in silence for a while, digesting what the tree said and wondering if I just might be crazy after all if I think a long-dead girl is speaking to me through a tree. My thoughts are interrupted some time later by Jamie sitting down beside me. “Hey,” he says softly.

“Hi.” He’s sitting so close that his thigh is touching mine, which sends a river of warmth flooding through me.

“You know, my daughter asked me to plant this tree,” he says after a moment.

“Oh?”

“She wrote it in her will.”

I stare at him. “Your daughter had a will?”

“Sure did. Written in green marker on a very serious-looking piece of yellow construction paper. I still have it.” He smiles slightly, lost in the memory for a moment, before clearing his throat. “You know, there was a different tree here before this one.”

“Wait, there was?” I rack my brain, but I can only remember a bare-bones lobby with an old-fashioned sign welcoming people to Atlanta Children’s Hospital.

“Sort of. It was just a potted tree in the corner, maybe eight feet tall or so, but Carolyn loved it. She knew the hospital was planning to get rid of it in the expansion, and it was one of the last things she talked about before she died.”

“Really?”

He nods. “She was delirious at the end, but she kept telling me to tell the tree good-bye, and that the tree knew she was going. I didn’t understand, but it seemed so important to her.”

“It was,” I murmur, and Jamie gives me a strange look.

He pauses before continuing. “I can still remember the last thing she said to me, word for word, like it was yesterday. She was just lying there, so small and fragile, almost like she was disappearing into the sheets of her hospital bed. But she grasped my hand like someone much stronger. She looked right in my eyes, and she said, ‘Don’t cry for me. I’ve lived more than most people ten times my age.’ ” Jamie pauses and takes a deep breath. Without thinking, I put a hand on his leg to comfort him, and I’m surprised how intimate it suddenly feels. “Then, she was quiet for a few seconds and she said, ‘You have to plant another tree. For me. It’s the only way. I have to help the other kids.’ I asked her what she meant, but she was silent after that. She smiled, closed her eyes, and then she was gone.”

I don’t say anything for a moment. I’m thinking about the whispers I heard, the recommendation that I tell Jamie the truth. But I don’t know where to begin. “Jamie—” I say after a moment.

He holds up a hand. “I know it sounds crazy. But then I found the construction paper will in the drawer beside her bed. It wasn’t just delusional ramblings. She really meant it. I don’t know why it was so important to her, but it was. So I had to plant a tree here. It was her last wish.”

“She lives on through the tree,” I blurt out, but instead of looking shocked by my words, Jamie simply nods.

“I’ve always felt that way too,” he says, and I realize he thinks I’m speaking metaphorically.

“No, I mean really,” I say. “She’s still here. Like she said, she’s helping other kids.”

Jamie nods again. “Because the tree serves as an inspiration. I know. I’ve always thought that it’s a symbol of life and survival. Here it is, closed into the hospital like so many of these kids, and yet it keeps thriving and growing.”

“Right, but it’s more than that.” I take a deep breath. “It has . . . powers.”

Jamie cocks his head and studies me for a moment. “That’s what Caroline used to say too. About the old tree, I mean. I always thought it was sort of poetic. It was nice to believe that there was something magical out there, something that didn’t revolve around operations and blood pressure monitors.”

“I’m not explaining it right,” I say. I look up at the tree and silently ask for guidance, but it stays quiet and motionless. “The thing is, when Caroline said she’d lived more than people ten times her age, I think she meant it.”

“I’m sure she did, in a way. She was always looking on the bright side.”

“No, but what I mean is that I think the tree that used to be here was able to grant her extra days. Or not extra days, exactly, but she got to keep repeating the same day over and over and over again, until she got to experience the things she wanted to in life. And when she knew that the hospital was going to take the tree away, she asked you to plant a new one so that the tradition could keep going.”

Jamie stares at me. “I don’t understand what you’re saying.” He shifts uneasily, moving farther away from me.

It’s too late to turn back now, so I continue. “There’s magic in the tree. I know it doesn’t make any sense, and I can’t explain how it works.” I take a deep breath. “Caroline speaks through this tree, somehow, and she helps people who are terminally ill get a second chance at living.”

I stop abruptly, and the silence is deafening. Jamie opens and closes his mouth a few times, and then a shadow crosses his face. “It’s really unkind to make jokes at my daughter’s expense.”

“I’m not making jokes! I promise!”

Jamie stands abruptly. “I tried my best with her, and nothing can take away the words she said to me at the end. They meant everything. And you’re making light of them? I don’t understand why you’d do that, and I don’t appreciate it.”

“Jamie!” I exclaim, but he’s already walking away. In a moment, he’s through the front door.

I stand to follow him, but something holds me back. “Time is short,” the tree murmurs. “Love is always rooted in truth. Listen to your own heart.”

“I don’t know how,” I murmur. But as I stand there, staring at the tree, I’m hit with a realization. I’ve been spending my repeated todays trying to patch together the lives of Logan, Frankie, and Katelyn, and now I’m trying to help Jamie. But what about the holes in my own life? What about the love missing in my own world?

I think of Jamie’s words:
Nothing can take away the words she said to me at the end. They meant everything.
And suddenly, I’m not thinking of Jamie anymore. I’m thinking of my own father and the things that need to be set right before I go.

“
W
E
’
RE JUST ON our way out,” my dad’s wife, Sharon, says when she answers their front door thirty minutes later. “I would have told you that if you’d bothered calling first.”

She purses her lips at me, and instead of feeling riled up and annoyed, which is usually the reaction Sharon elicits from me, I just feel sad. We’ve never really gotten along, and now, I think we’ve run out of chances. Strange to think that this is a regret I’ll die with.

“I’m very sorry to interrupt your plans,” I say. “I just need to see my dad for a few minutes.”

Her expression grows even more sour. “Can’t you come back tomorrow, Jill? This is a huge inconvenience.”

“I need to see him now. Please.” I don’t wait for an answer. Shooting her an apologetic look, I squeeze past her through the front doorway. “Dad?” I call from the base of the stairs.

“Jill?” He appears a moment later on the landing wearing khakis and an undershirt, a speck of shaving cream still clinging to his neck. “Are you okay? What are you doing here?”

“I need to talk with you.”

“Of course.” He’s already starting down the stairs, a concerned look on his face. “What happened?”

“Bill, you really don’t have that much time,” Sharon says. She steps up beside me, and I notice that her face looks like she’s just eaten a particularly sour lemon. “We have that dinner, and Jill didn’t call first, so . . .”

“She’s my daughter, Sharon,” my father says, surprising me. “If she needs me, the least I can do is be there for her. God knows I haven’t done that enough.”

It’s enough to make me tear up, but Sharon just snorts. “Oh, and when is the last time she made an effort with you? Do you need to borrow money, Jill? Is that it?”

I turn to her just as my father reaches the bottom of the stairs and puts a hand on my arm. “No, Sharon. I don’t need money. I’ve never asked my father for money.”