Second Chances

by P. D. Cacek

  The men were staring at her when she turned around.

  “Have our bill ready, won’t you?”

  PART TWO

  ENDINGS

  May

  Chapter Nine

  May 18

  Arvada, Colorado / 4:34 p.m.

  They were still staring at her.

  She couldn’t walk down a hallway or into a classroom or run track or even find a nice quiet corner of the quad to sit and eat lunch, alone, without feeling their eyes on her.

  Not that she ever caught them doing it, they were too clever, too fast, but she knew they stared just like she knew they still whispered about her – because she’d been the girl who fell through the ice but came back like nothing had happened.

  Except it did, to her friend, who didn’t come back.

  And it wasn’t just her fellow students. Jessie had caught her teachers doing the quick stare-and-look-away.

  It was like being under a microscope.

  Or the star of a freak show.

  I hate you! Don’t touch me! Freak!

  Abbie had gotten some of the fallout for being her sister but, in true rah-rah cheer squad fashion, tried to put a positive spin on it.

  They’re just worried about you, Jessie.

  Let them worry about finals and graduation and the stupid senior prom and leave me the hell alone!

  If just one person had called her Frankenstein when she showed up at school her first day back or asked her what happened or just stared and didn’t look away it might have been easier to pretend everything would get back to normal.

  Even though she knew it never would. She was the girl who came back. Alone.

  Jessie had finally accepted that on the last Monday in April when Carly’s parents brought her home. It was called locked-in syndrome and it meant, according to Google that Carly was awake and knew everything that was happening around her but couldn’t do anything about it except twitch and mutter and maybe, if she was lucky, open her eyes.

  Carly was trapped inside her body and it was all Jessie’s fault.

  And there was nothing Jessie could do about it.

  “How’s it going?”

  Jessie blinked and the world came back in real time. “What?”

  “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to startle you. I was just asking how your studies are going.”

  Jessie looked up from the language arts textbook she’d brought with her. Finals were a week away so she always made sure to bring a book or worksheet with her when she came by to sit with Carly after school. It was a great cover and as long as she looked like she was studying her father was okay with her spending hours at Carly’s bedside.

  Of course the truth would come out once she got her grades.

  “Fine. They’re fine.”

  Mrs. Wingate smiled at her from the doorway. “I’m going to start dinner. You’re more than welcome to stay if you like.”

  Jessie got the same invitation every time she visited, just like she had when she came over to work on a project with Carly. But she knew Mrs. Wingate was just being polite. Jessie was fine and their daughter wasn’t…why would they want her there?

  “Thanks, but not tonight.”

  “Well, then can I bring you a snack?”

  “No thanks, Mrs. Wingate. I’m okay.”

  “Are you sure? Carly’s always ravenous after school. How about an apple?”

  “Yeah, okay. That sounds good.”

  It didn’t, but what was she going to do, tell Carly’s mom that she hadn’t been hungry, really hungry, since the accident, was living on yogurt and crackers and string cheese and had rediscovered her childhood talent of pushing food around her dinner plate without actually eating any of it?

  What a revelation that would have been.

  “How about I add a few oatmeal and raisin cookies,” Carly’s mom asked from the doorway. “They’re your favorite, right?”

  Jessie smiled. Oatmeal and raisin were Carly’s favorites. “Yum.”

  “Good. I’ll be right back.”

  “Okay.”

  When Mrs. Wingate left, Jessie closed the book and tipped the rocking chair forward. The rocking chair was Carly’s place and she’d sit there, rocking back and forth, talking about one thing or another while Jessie sat on the floor at her feet and gazed upon her beauty.

  Jessie still could, gaze upon her beauty and all that, but it was different looking at her from the chair. It was still Carly’s chair and after Mrs. Wingate fed Carly paste through her stomach tube and changed her adult diaper Mr. Wingate would put her in the chair so she’d remember what it felt like. But until then Jessie could sit in it.

  And pretend.

  “Your mom made oatmeal cookies,” Jessie said, “with raisins. Mmm. You better wake up or I may eat them all.”

  It wouldn’t have been a reasonable threat even if Carly had been awake. They both knew Jessie hated raisins in cookies. And hated walnuts in brownies. And practically gagged at the thought of anchovies on pizza. Aside from Abbie, Carly was the only other person in the whole world who knew everything about Jessie.

  Well, almost everything.

  Scooting the rocking chair closer to the bed, Jessie took Carly’s hand.

  “I know you can hear me, Carly, and I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you, but I do love you. See, I’m…I’m not gay and I would never have, you know. I’m…I don’t feel…I’ve never felt like a girl inside, you know. I’m trans and I love you. So it’s not really weird if you think of it that wa—”

  Carly’s hand twitched.

  “Carly?” Jessie squeezed her friend’s hand gently. “Do it again, okay? Squeeze my hand.”

  For a moment nothing happened, then Carly made a sound and her hand twitched.

  “Oh my God. Carly…. You moved your hand on purpose, didn’t you?”

  Twitch.

  “Oh God, Carly, I’m sorry.” Jessie pressed the hand to her lips and held it there. “I didn’t mean to scare you, but this is so great. And what I just said, I wanted you to know because I….”

  Still holding Carly’s hand, Jessie looked back at the door and held her breath, listening until she heard the soft metallic sounds coming from the kitchen.

  “I really love—”

  Carly’s eyes were open, staring at Jessie.

  “Carly?”

  Carly’s eyes widened for a second then shut and didn’t reopen.

  “No!” Jessie let go of Carly’s hand and began shaking her. “Carly, open your eyes again. Come on, open them, okay? Carly, come on, you can do it.”

  Carly’s eyelids fluttered but didn’t open.

  “Please, just open your eyes one more time. Just open them and I’ll go away and never come back. Come on, open your eyes again.”

  Freak!

  Jessie laid her friend’s hand on the bed and stood up. The word was so clear, so real it was almost as if Carly had somehow learned to use her own inside voice.

  “I’m not a freak, I’m just…different, but I do love you. I’ve loved you from the first minute I saw you…but I won’t do anything, okay? I shouldn’t have kissed you and I’m sorry I scared you. I didn’t want it to be like that. Can you forgive me?”

  Don’t touch me. Leave me alone.

  Freak.

  “I’m not a freak, Carly, and I still want to be your friend. Just your friend, nothing else. I was wrong to…you know, and I shouldn’t have done it. I should have told you first and…but I know you could never love me like that and I know you’re mad and hate me right now, so if you want me to go, just do something, okay? Open your eyes or yell at me or call me a freak again and I’ll go away and never come back. I promise. Just do something and I’ll go.”

  Carly didn’t open her eyes or mumble or move…except for the little finger of her right hand. />
  Twitch.

  Jessie picked up her textbook and held it against her chest, wrapping both arms around it for protection.

  “Was that it? Did you do that on purpose? If it was, do it again and I’ll—”

  “Jessie? Did you say something?”

  Jessie glanced at Carly’s little finger – it didn’t move – then turned toward the door.

  Mrs. Wingate was holding a plate of cookies and sliced apples in one hand and a glass of milk in the other.

  “I was just telling Carly about school. You know, stuff.”

  “That’s nice. You’re a good friend, Jessica. Here’s your snack.”

  Mrs. Wingate waited until Jessie sat down in the rocker before handing her the plate and glass. Jessie set the milk and plate on Carly’s bedside table, an easy reach from the bed if only Carly would open her eyes.

  “There’s still a couple dozen left, Carly,” Mrs. Wingate said as she walked to the bed and took her daughter’s hand, “and I don’t want them to go to waste. Do you think I should give them to Jessica to take home? Would you like that, Jessica?”

  Shoving a cookie into her mouth, Jessie rocked herself out of the chair and stood up.

  “Ah otta oh….” Jessie picked up the glass and drained half of it. The cookie despite the raisins was a bit dry. “I gotta go.”

  “But, your snack.”

  “Um, it was really good but I forgot I have…this thing I promised to do with Abbie. Sorry about wasting the milk and stuff.”

  “Oh, don’t worry about that, I’ll just put the cookies in a baggie so you can take them home.”

  “Great.”

  “Come along, I’ll walk you down. Say goodbye to Jessica, Carly. Will we see you tomorrow?”

  Jessie looked back at the bed. Carly’s little finger twitched.

  “No, not tomorrow.”

  Carly’s hand lay still.

  * * *

  Denver, Colorado / 7:52 p.m.

  The Colorado Council of the U.C.U.A. was very good about keeping its chapter membership records up to date, so all it took was a moment’s pause to verify that the name and face on his ID card matched those in the electronic database, and Jess walked through the doors of the Pepsi Center. The invitation had included a section and seat number, so it felt very similar to going to an Avalanche or Nuggets game. The only differences were that Jessica wasn’t with him and he doubted there’d be food and beer vendors walking up and down the aisles.

  Even the atmosphere inside the giant sports arena felt like a game night: the air crackling with excitement and filled with the sound of cheering voices and stamping feet, as a near-record crowd looked down at the five chairs and speaker’s podium on the raised purple-and-white platform that had been erected on the division line. Three cameras – right, left, center – faced the platform while a fourth, hand-held, filmed the crowd.

  When Jess’s section appeared on the jumbotron they all stood up and hooted.

  The sense of being at a sold-out game increased exponentially when the giant screen shifted away from the crowd to follow five people, two men and three women, as they walked out onto the court and made their way to the platform.

  The crowd, Jess included, went wild.

  He knew the faces of the U.C.U.A. International Executive Council almost as well as he knew the faces of his daughters. If there had been room between the rows of seats, Jess would have fallen to his knees and given thanks, but since there wasn’t, he collapsed back into his seat when Lady Cassandra Bellingham-Deighton, a petite gray-haired woman in a deep purple tailored suit and sensible shoes, walked to the podium and raised her hands for silence.

  “The members of the U.C.U.A. International Executive Council wish to thank all of you for coming tonight. We have traveled through many countries and countless cities and in each have met the men and women who are at the forefront of our organization…men and women like all of you who are gathered here tonight…and we are humbled by your strength and perseverance. We applaud each and every one of you!”

  The remaining four council members stood as a group, turned so that each would be facing a section of the stadium, and applauded.

  “Unum corpus. Una anima,” Lady Bellingham-Deighton said into the podium’s microphone. “One body. One soul.”

  “One body!” The crowd chanted back. “One soul!”

  “And now it is my extreme pleasure to present a man who surely needs no introduction, our own Dr. Kan Ölversson.”

  Jess watched the giant monitor as the small woman stepped back and a Viking god stepped up to the podium. The man had given up a lucrative career in clinical neuroscience when he witnessed, firsthand, a close personal friend die during an epileptic seizure only to awaken as a complete stranger who spoke Cantonese instead of Icelandic.

  He was one of the founding members of U.C.U.A. and had spent the last four years, and his considerable knowledge, in an ongoing and well-promoted search to find a solution to the problem.

  Raising his arms, the man smiled down on them from the jumbotron’s screen.

  “My fellow True Borns, prepare yourselves for a revelation…. I have the answer we have been searching for.”

  Chapter Ten

  May 24

  Arvada, Colorado / 1:23 a.m.

  Jess couldn’t get the images out of his head. The video, only fifteen minutes of it, if it was even that long, was simplicity in itself. One step that was so simple a child could accomplish it without effort.

  A figure of speech. The Executive Council had made it clear that for insurance, liability and legal purposes no True Born under the age of twenty-one would be allowed to perform the procedure.

  It really was so simple and straightforward that Jess was amazed no one had thought of it before. And when he raised his hand to volunteer, he’d felt a sense of illumination and clarity and joy that he hadn’t felt since being ordained.

  There’d been a number of papers to sign, of course, including the standard release and indemnity forms, verbal oaths to repeat and be recorded and a new photo ID for the DME (durable medical equipment) authorization card, so the meeting had gone on far longer than usual, but Jess left the Pepsi Center feeling as though it was God, by way of the U.C.U.A., who had revealed to him his life’s true purpose.

  But it was late.

  Shutting the passenger’s side door as quietly as possible, Jess glanced toward the lighted window on the second floor with a feeling of fatherly concern – it’s after one in the morning and they’re still up? – and excitement – it’s after one in the morning and they’re still up!

  What he had to show them could wait until morning, but he just couldn’t.

  He needed to show them now.

  * * *

  Dad’s home.

  I know.

  We better turn off the light.

  Why? He already knows we’re up.

  Studying.

  Jessie hunched her shoulders and leaned closer to the French verbs worksheet she’d forgotten to take on her pretense study visit that afternoon. She’d be lucky if she’d be able to conjugate half of them on the final.

  Luckier still if she could talk Abbie into breaking their no cheating promise.

  Which she hadn’t been able to.

  Yet.

  Je parlasse, tu parlasses, il parlât, nous parlassions, vous parlassiez, ils parlassent…. Come on, you know you’re better at French than I am.

  I’m better at a lot of things.

  Jessie sat up and turned toward her sister’s side of the room. When they were little, their parents had put their cribs side by side with the headboard against the wall opposite the door, toys to the left and the double desk/bookcase to the right.

  It’d been a perfect arrangement until they began middle school and Abbie discovered boys and Jessie figured out she was
n’t like other girls. Now Abbie had the right side of the room with the double-wide closet and Jessie had the left with the window and an IKEA wardrobe.

  It wasn’t ideal, but it worked well enough. So far.

  “Come on, Abbs, just this once.”

  Abbie turned off her desk lamp and stretched. The light from Jessie’s lamp turned her sister’s shadow into a giant against the far wall.

  “No. We made rules, remember? We don’t cheat on tests and we don’t listen in on each other’s conversations like…when…I’m…with…Paul.”

  Jessie swallowed. She hadn’t meant to, and it had only been once…when she was still in the hospital and got bored and…just tuned in. For a minute. Accidentally. Sort of.

  She hadn’t known they were kissing; she’d thought Abbie was drinking a Slurpee.

  “I said I was sorry.” Jessie turned around in her chair. “And I promised never to do it again.”

  The shadow giant glided across the ceiling as her sister stood up and walked to her bed.

  “So you say.”

  Jessie sat up straighter and crossed her heart. “I swear. So will you help?”

  Abbie pulled the sheets back and took off her robe. She liked to study in her pjs and robe. Jessie was still in her jeans and sweatshirt.

  “No.”

  “Jesus, Abbie, don’t be such a tight-ass.”

  Her sister feigned shock as she crawled under the covers. “Language! French. Study.”

  Come on.

  Abbie turned on her reading light. The giant disappeared.

  On one condition.

  Jessie sat up straighter.

  Talk to Dad.

  Jessie cocked her head to one side. About what?

  About Carly.

  What about Carly?

  About her opening her eyes and moving.

  Jessie stood up, her shadow more monster than giant as it raced toward her sister. “You just yelled at me for listening to you and you—”

  “I didn’t mean to, Jessie. I was worried about you and it just happened.”