Chapter 21 Noelle
Noelle
Iwake up to the sound of rustling next to me. I shoot upright, but it’s only the custodial staff, emptying the bin next to the bed. “Sorry,” the woman says.
Her eyes are so kind, I instantly tear up. “It’s fine. Thank you for your help.” She works Tuesday through Saturday. Her name is Jojo.
We’ve been here long enough that I know her name.
Jojo pauses, the garbage bag in hand. Behind her, Leif is still asleep, his bruises faded to pale yellow. His parents sleep too, on the cots on the far wall.
“Isn’t it time for your walk, Noelle?” Jojo asks.
I glance at the clock on the wall. She’s right. It’s two in the afternoon—the time I usually do a few circles of the corridor outside the room.
“It’s a beautiful day outside,” Jojo says. She looks out onto the snowy hospital grounds.
It’s not the first time she’s hinted I should go out and get some fresh air. I haven’t done more than step out the front door since we’ve been here.
But today, I follow her gaze. She’s right, it’s beautiful. The sky is blue, and there’s a little creek back there, running through several bare-limbed trees lined with snow. An old man is out there feeding some little birds, holding his hand out for them to land on it.
Despite my mind consumed with Leif, I can’t help the little shudder that runs over me.
Leif would laugh at me if he saw me.
I glance back at him, then at Jojo, who’s already moved on to the other trash cans in the room.
“Thank you,” I say, as I pass her for the door.
As it turns out, the man doesn’t speak any English, only Chinese. But we make do with gestures. He’s generous, and pours seeds into my hand when he sees me looking at the bag.
He mimes what I’m supposed to do, and after a few bracing breaths, I grit my teeth and hold my hand up in the air.
When the first one lands, I shriek and drop the seeds.
The man laughs, then gives me more.
He points to his eyes, widening them. He’s telling me to keep my eyes open.
I drop the second batch too.
But with my eyes open, I see a familiar car pull up. My mom gets out, crossing the snow toward me, a sad smile stretching across her face. She’s been here almost every day, dropping off supplies for me and Leif’s family.
“I haven’t seen you smile recently,” I say when she reaches us.
“I haven’t seen you feeding birds…ever.”
“I haven’t been successful yet.”
The man shakes the bag of seed at Mom, saying something in his language.
She looks at me, then nods and goes over and gets some seed. “Should we do it together, Noelle?” she asks.
“Okay,” I whisper.
Mom sprinkles the seed in my hand, then holds it up, never moving her own.
“When they land, don’t do anything, okay, just stay still.”
“Okay,” I whisper again.
It only takes a moment for one to land. I nearly pull my hand back, but Mom holds it tight. The bird lands, its little feet light on my fingers, and makes a quick peck into the seed. And just like that, it flies off again, only to be replaced by another.
I laugh.
“You did it,” Mom says, beaming.
I did it.
We thank the man, then Mom guides me to the bench down by the creek.
“I’ll never forgive Dan for making you scared of birds,” she says as we watch the man.
“Dan?”
“He told you they used to be dinosaurs. Don’t you remember?”
“No.”
She shakes her head. “I didn’t know until years later, when he confessed he told you they wanted to eat you.”
“Oh my God,” I say. “I’m going to kill him.”
Mom laughs. “I’ll tell Monique. She’ll do it for us.” Monique is Dan’s fiancée—she’s a video game designer, and we love her almost as much as he does.
We’re quiet a minute. The old man packs up and we exchange goodbye waves. He understands my thank-you, and he nods before heading for the hospital. I wonder who he’s here for.
Mom and I sit in silence for a moment. Then, my eyes on the birds still pecking in the snow, I say, “I’m sorry I left your new business without any help at the busiest time of year. I know Monique’s been helping out, but she doesn’t know all the prices and the order you like to put things in and—”
“Noelle,” Mom says. “Don’t you dare.”
“I’m sorry I left acting, too.”
Mom’s quiet.
“I know it was my responsibility, since you didn’t get to do it, and raised us instead. I’m sorry.”
Mom shakes her head, looking at me almost like I’m a little dense. “It was no sacrifice. It was a natural ending.” She takes my hand, her eyes not leaving mine. “You are what I always wanted, honey. You and Dan.”
Tears stream down my face. I’m so used to them now I don’t bother wiping them away.
So Mom does. She takes out a tissue and dabs at my face, then brushes the hair from my cheek. “You know when I was most proud of you, sweetheart?”
I shake my head, my throat tight, nose snotty.
“Well, it changes every time I see you. But right now, it’s the way you’re holding this family together. I see the way they look at you. They love you, sweetheart, just like they love Leif.”
My throat constricts.
“But professionally? It wasn’t when I saw you starring on Broadway, Noelle.
” She cups my cheek. “It was when you left it behind. You didn’t quit lightly, and you didn’t give up.
You knew in your heart you weren’t being true to yourself, and you walked away.
That’s when I knew I made the right decision all those years ago.
That’s when I knew I’d done right by you. ”
I’m so stunned, for a moment I can’t speak.
I had this notion in my head for years that Mom had to sacrifice something to be mine and Dan’s mom and Dad’s wife. But to her, she was always right where she wanted to be.
I sold her short.
“He didn’t wake up today,” I whisper. “The doctors tried something to wake him up and he didn’t.”
A long silence passes, where the sound of the creek trickling over the rocks fills my ears. The birds have moved on, leaping and fluttering in the brush by the water.
“Whatever happens with Leif,” Mom says, “I know you’ll be okay, honey. You’ll make him proud. You’ll make us all proud.”
I can’t speak. I can only blink, and look at the birds, wondering what I was ever scared of, and hold my mom’s hand.
There are so many of them the next night.
Aunts, uncles, grandparents. Nieces, nephews, cousins.
Friends. Colleagues. More who don’t look related to the Kelly’s at all.
One of Connie’s friends flew in from Florida.
Another from New Mexico. Even my parents and brother and Marissa, shockingly, are here—she texted me, I told her what was happening, and she just dropped everything and showed up.
“That’s what happens when tragedy strikes,” Mom says. “People hold you up.”
“I can’t believe they let them all in,” Sasha says to me now, her voice soft and distant and barely there, the way it’s been since it happened. I squeeze her hand. Someone pulled some strings with the nurses. I don’t know who. I just hold her up, as best I can.
Once everyone’s gathered around Leif’s bed, his dad clears his throat.
“Thank you for being here,” Griffin says, his voice as broken as he looks.
Deep lines cleave his face—he’s aged a decade since Leif’s accident.
He looks to Sasha. Her lips are tight, her face pale.
But when Griffin looks to me, as he and Sasha have been doing over the course of these terrible days, I give him an encouraging smile.
My heart feels like shattered glass, but I reserve my pain for the hidden corners of the hospital. The bathroom. And the rare private moment by Leif’s side.
“It’s Christmas Eve,” Griffin says, “and I know you all want to be home with your families—”
“No,” Enzo says, cutting him off. His eyes are rimmed red. He’s taken this hard. He was on the phone; he heard the car hit Leif. “I don’t know about everyone else, but this is exactly where I want to be.”
“You’re our family, Griff,” Cass says.
Murmurs of assent ripple across the crowd. Sasha’s eyes spill over with tears and I squeeze her hand. She clings tight as Griffin nods.
“The doctors are being cautious with their prognosis,” he says.
“But Sasha, Noelle, and I are choosing to believe Leif is going to be okay. I’m not a religious man, but Leif is religious about his love for this universe we live in.
So I’m making a request to the stars above tonight, and today, we need your help. ”
He looks to me then, along with Sasha. Everyone follows their gaze.
From my pocket, I pull out the thing I found in my coat pocket after conquering the birds: the little gold necklace Leif took into space.
I held onto it until now, feeling like I needed everyone’s strength to imbue the little piece of jewelry.
I affix it around Leif’s neck, resting the clover against the pulse in his throat.
Then I clear my throat and set my shoulders back. I’m a trained actor, not a singer. But singing was a part of my education, and I can hold a tune. My voice is clear as I begin the first line of Silent Night.
At first, no one joins me. But when she sees me look imploringly at the crowd, Leif’s aunt Reese, the actual singer, joins in, harmonizing with my melody. A moment later everyone’s singing along, and to me, it sounds like a chorus of angels.
After the last note, we sit in the silence for a moment. Then Griffin asks that no one say goodbye to Leif. “We’ll all be saying hello to him soon.” His confidence threatens to crack my heart in two.
Tear-drenched hugs and goodbyes amongst the rest of us ensue a moment later. My parents both squeeze me so tightly I can hardly breathe, and Mom hands me a cloth bag I set down in the chair unopened. Snacks, probably. She’s been the only reason any of us are eating anything at all.
I hug her again, whispering thank you.
Dan hugs me too, for once without a drop of brotherly head ruffling or teasing. “Love you,” he says.
A short while later, it’s just me and Leif’s parents around the bedside, along with a doctor who waited on their rounds until the crowd had left. She shines a flashlight in Leif’s eyes and writes notes.
As she tucks her flashlight back in her pocket, Sasha grabs her arm, looking at her with such pain my heart does crack then.
“Why didn’t he wake up?” Sasha asks, her voice anguished. “When you did that thing?”
“It’s possible he wasn’t ready,” the doctor says. It’s the same thing she said yesterday. But today, she glances at all of us, and says, “But I’m afraid you’ll also have to prepare yourselves for the possibility that he won’t wake up.”
Sasha sucks in a shuddering breath and turns into Griffin’s chest.
There’s nothing else we can do but wait.
Leif’s parents sit down in the two chairs on their side of his bed, and I sit down in the single one next to the window. I turn away to give them space to keep vigil over their son while I go through the bag Mom left.
Like every day, there’s food in a container, which I set on the table for Sasha and Griffin. But under that, there’s a book. She hasn’t brought any since the first few days. I can’t focus on a book long enough to read. I’ve tried. The words just blur together.
But when I pull it out, I’m shocked to see it’s My Journey to You. This is the novel about the moon I liked the best last year. At first I think it’s a copy. But when I open it, I realize it’s my copy. The one I stuck the letter to Leif in, and the photo of Grandma Betty and Carolyn.
I pull the letter out. With everything that happened, I forgot to destroy it. Now I pull it out of the envelope with shaking hands.
I look across the bed at Leif’s parents. They’ve leaned in on each other, their eyes closed.
My eyes blur as I read it.
I’ve made a life out of missing you.
I reach up to the bed and take Leif’s hand, squeezing it hard as if that might remind him he has to wake up. “I refuse to be okay with only missing you.”
I clear my throat, lean forward, and in a low voice, read the ending part of the letter next to Leif’s ear.
I look up at the space between the stars, and I make one wish. That wish is that you’ll wish for me. That you’ll tell me I’m more important to you than the moon and stars and all your dreams. Isn’t that selfish?
Wake up, Leif. Please wake up.
I remember that conversation we had years ago, on the roof of the Rolling Hills. Are we playing out my fear?
Wake up, Leif. Tell me we’re not doomed.
Tell me what you see out there, Leif. Tell me if you can see between the stars.
Be safe so I can see you next Christmas.
And wish for me.
Leif doesn’t move, of course. So I stick the letter back in the book and set it down on the bed next to him. I kiss his forehead. I graze my finger over the little clover at his throat. Then I lie my head down on the bed and close my eyes.