Chapter III #3
I’ve never known anything about Sam’s children or Yash’s relationship with them. He always claimed his friends abandoned him once they had kids.
Outside in the hallway the younger boy is sobbing.
Sam and I look at each other. I’m sorry, I try to say to him with my eyes. I’m sorry you can’t protect them from this.
‘They’re good boys,’ Yash says quietly.
Paige leans in from the doorway. ‘Rosemary says the doctor on rounds is down the hall.’
Rounds. Wasn’t it early for rounds? I look at the clock. Somehow it’s past five. I can’t account for this.
‘Can you put the game on in the family room?’ Yash says.
‘Ted’s doing that right now,’ she says.
Yash turns to Sam. ‘Time to get everyone out.’
Sam is already reaching for the remote. He cuts the sound and they all seem to know what to do. They high-five Yash on the way out.
I wait for them all to file out, then stand to leave, too.
‘Not you, Jordan.’ Sam says. Then more softly, ‘Would you stay?’
‘Of course.’ I sit back down, take Yash’s hand.
The doctor comes in followed by a flock of residents who quickly settle in a semicircle behind him. Yash and Sam are unfazed by this sudden array of strangers in the room.
‘Good afternoon, Mr. Thakkar,’ the doctor says without inflection, looking down at his iPad. He lifts his head abruptly and thrusts out his hand. ‘Dr. Gaucher.’
Yash releases my hand to shake his.
The doctor turns to me. ‘Mrs. Thakkar.’
None of us corrects him. I shake his dry hand.
‘How are you feeling today, sir?’ Dr. Gaucher says, with more pep than he seems to have in him.
‘Good,’ Yash says. ‘I feel great.’
‘Any pain or discomfort, on a scale of one to ten, one being the least amount of pain?’
‘Zero,’ Yash says.
I feel him trying to please the doctor, get his aid, by being such a good, pain-free patient.
The doctor places the coin of his stethoscope on Yash’s chest. ‘Seems like you’re breathing okay.’
‘Yes.’
‘And you’re getting enough morphine?’ He looks at all of us for the answer.
Yash and Sam nod.
‘Good,’ the doctor says, scrolling on his iPad. ‘That’s all very good.’
What about any of this is good?
On the other side of the room the residents strain to stay focused.
They flex their jaw muscles, shift their weight.
Their eyes travel around the room but never to our faces.
I study theirs, one at a time. I wonder what dramas have played out among them.
I can feel their youth in the room, a forcefield of energy and fear and longing and confusion.
I can feel it so strongly. And I know they sense nothing about us, two men and a woman in our late forties, none of our old entanglements or the freakishness of the three of us being in this room together now.
We are all caught in this performance, Yash pretending that he isn’t dying, Sam and the doctor that medicine still has something to offer him, and me in the role of devoted wife at his bedside.
Sam asks him a few questions about oxygen, liters per minute, a medication I don’t recognize.
The doctor answers them. ‘Anything else?’ he says and glances at his watch. Several residents do the same.
Keep ’em alive until 6:05. An old med school refrain.
We shake our heads no.
‘It’s nice to see you have family around you,’ he says. ‘Not everyone does.’ He leaves, the flock close behind.
Sam’s phone vibrates and he pulls it out of his pocket. ‘It’s Cole.’
Yash shakes his head. ‘Not again.’
‘He says he can’t get here till Tuesday now.’
‘And he wants to know if I’ll be dead by then?’
Sam’s laugh is still soundless. ‘More or less.’
Yash is pressing on the skin below his collarbone. ‘Feel this,’ he says.
Sam touches the spot on his chest.
‘Push down.’
Sam pushes.
‘It’s spongy, right?’
‘Kind of. That new?’
‘I think so. Feel it,’ he says to me, spreading open his blue hospital gown wider for me.
I push down on the spot. His bare chest surprises me. I forgot its barrel shape, its smoothness. The spot feels like a small balloon, taut but not dense.
‘Should I call him back in here?’
‘Let’s see if it goes away.’
Sam nods. ‘Shall I bring back the horde?’
‘Sure.’
Sam goes down to the family room and Yash squeezes my hand. ‘You see my cousin Jared, with all the hair? Aunt Sue and Uncle Percy’s grandson?’
‘That was Jared?’
‘I worry about that kid. Remember how his parents were supposed to come back and take care of him? They never did. Aunt Sue has had her hands full with him. He wants to be a graphic novelist.’ Yash rolls his eyes.
‘He wants to move to LA. He’s got some friend who knows people, supposedly.
It’s all a lark. Will you talk some sense into him? ’
‘How do you mean?’
‘He doesn’t have a clue. He’s just all up here.
’ He waves a hand above his head. ‘He’s not being practical.
There’s some girl out there he’ll probably get pregnant.
’ He sees my expression change, misinterprets.
‘Sorry, some very smart young woman. Just talk to him, will you? I worry about him. And I can’t help him anymore. ’
‘Okay. I’ll talk to him.’
‘Thank you. Tell him what’s what. Tell him how hard it is, the creative life. The risks you have to take. Tell him about all the people you know, including me, who don’t make it.’
What do you know about taking risks, I want to ask him. You played it so safe. Mr. Cautious. And I protected you the one time things went off the rails.
It is an unpleasant feeling, having this anger at someone who is dying.
The horde returns along with new visitors, people coming straight from work.
Two coworkers from the mayor’s office, a law school friend, a neighbor.
I give up my chair. Jared’s back in the room but the chairs around him are all taken.
Sam waves me over to his side. We lean against the far wall together.
I’m aware of how much blame I placed on him for everything that happened between me and Yash.
All this time I suspected he’d been intent on sabotaging us from the start, lording his moral superiority over Yash, and scoring his final victory by luring him to Atlanta.
But standing here beside Sam, who has probably not left this building in seven days, who has been only grateful and kind to me since I arrived, I see it might not have been so simple a story.
Beside him now, I actually feel like Jordan again. I feel so young, like I’ve been shot through a secret portal straight back in time.
‘Look at this.’ Sam hands me his phone. On the screen is a post on the Facebook page he created for Yash.
It’s a long passage by someone named Connie about going to K-Mart with Yash in eighth grade to get materials for a project and how funny he was just picking out magic markers and how after that she had a mad crush on him but he never knew.
I laugh and hand back his phone.
‘There’s one like this every few hours. All the unrequited crushes on Yash Thakkar.’
Uncle Bill gets up, which leaves a free chair beside Jared.
‘Excuse me,’ I say to Sam and push myself off the wall. ‘Yash has given me an assignment.’
I slip into the empty seat. ‘Jared, right?’ I say. ‘You probably don’t remember, but we once played Red Light Green Light in your driveway.’
‘I remember.’ He tries to smile. His eyes are a mess. He swipes at his nose. ‘You had a side ponytail and called me a tater tot.’
‘Side ponytail. Impressive vocab. My husband is still shaky on the difference between a dress and skirt.’ One of Yash’s aunts lifts her head in my direction. It feels strangely unfaithful to mention a husband in here.
‘I draw people. So I have to know these things.’
‘Yash says you want to write graphic novels?’
‘I’ve written two. Nearly done with the third. It’s a sort of a triptych.’
‘Has anyone seen them yet?’
‘Yeah. I have an agent. She’s waiting for the last one before she goes out with it.’
‘And you’re moving to LA?’
‘I was supposed to be out there for interviews today and tomorrow at Pixar—I have a friend who works there—but I pushed them till next week. They’ve been cool about that.
’ He looks at Yash, who’s talking to Sam and someone in a coat and tie who has just come in.
‘He’s like my dad or my brother, or both, really. I have to be here.’
This is the kid Yash was worried about?
‘He wants the very best for you.’
‘He thinks I’m a loser.’
‘No, he doesn’t.’
‘He does. He thinks my dreams are too big, that I’m in the clouds, drifting around.’
‘It’s more about him than you. He’s a worrier.’
He nods. ‘I know it’s out of concern. I just need to get to California. There’s a girl there. We’re not together or anything.’
‘But you’re going out to woo her.’
He leans back and tries to say something.
I wait.
‘I’ll probably be too sad to woo,’ he says with a lot of effort.
I pat his knee a few times. He has no idea how appealing an adorable big-haired grieving guy can be. ‘When you’re ready, you’re going to woo her socks off.’
‘Jesus,’ Yash says. ‘I said talk to him, not make out with him.’ The new people have gone and I’ve got my chair back. ‘You are not to be trusted, even at my deathbed.’
‘Jared’s going to be fine.’
‘You think?’
‘Totally.’
‘We’ll see. I’m leaving what I have to him. Not that it’s much. A very small nest egg.’
We’re silent for a bit.
‘Do you think I’ll know everything soon?’
My stomach turns over. I can’t meet his gaze and look down at our hands. ‘Probably.’
‘I’ll finally find out about that guy in Spain,’ he says.
I had a few boyfriends after Yash and before Silas, but I’ve only ever mentioned Paco. I was with Paco when Yash sent me the elephant poem.
‘I’ll tell you about that guy in Spain right now.’
Yash holds up his hand. ‘No. Don’t. I’ll wait for the EP afterlife version. All the gory details.’
‘Well, he’ll be the one with his sweaters tucked into his gray jeans.’
Yash laughs. ‘I knew he was a dweeb.’
‘It was a very cool look back then.’
‘Yeah, right.’