“Why? So people like you can take advantage of me? Let’s go.”
He walks off. I call Mikaela’s name and she appears in the hallway. Her eyes look red and a little swollen. She walks past me, not saying a word. I stand in the doorway of my grandmother’s room and observe her. She looks catatonic again, like I’ve known her to be for some time. I can’t explain what is happening. But I’ll have to worry about my grandmother later. The car ride is quiet as we drive to Mom’s. There’s a lot I want to say to him, but not in front of Mikaela. I’m hoping he will change his mind about staying, but we pull up to Mom’s house and he keeps the car idling. The gentleman that he is, he steps out of the car and opens my door for me. Mikaela gets out too, observing the house with a strange intensity.
“I’m sorry,” I say again.
“Have a good Thanksgiving,” he replies. He reaches in and grabs my bag for me. He sets it on the grass.
He’s about to step back into the car when my mom comes flying out the front door, racing down the driveway like something’s on fire. “Oh, hallelujah!! My daughter is home. Home, home, home!” She pulls me into a one-way hug. “I kicked out the renter in your twin bed. You’ll want to wash the sheets.” She lets go of me and grabs Jake. “Welcome, welcome! Come in, come in! Jake, I made a tuna casserole, all special, just for you.”
She then takes Mikaela by the arm and leads her inside. Jake looks unsure what to do. He’s too nice of a guy, I realize, to reject a tuna casserole made especially for him, no matter how mad he is at me.
He shuts off the car and we walk inside, side by side, but not speaking a word.
I am surprised that dinner seems to be ready. My mom is the kind who starts dinner at five and we eat at nine. I have vivid memories of eating carrots and potatoes, and then two hours later, getting the roast that was supposed to go along with it.
I drop my bag at the door, gawking as my mom comes in from the kitchen holding a tray, but it’s not a serving tray like you’d see in a Martha Stewart magazine. It’s a cafeteria tray, like I had to carry every day of my school life. And on top of it is a plastic plate with little dividers, just like my lunch was served on in school. There’s green Jell-O, vanilla pudding, rice, Salisbury steak, and a large helping of tuna casserole.
“Let me help you with that,” Jake says. What kind of Thanksgiving dinner is this? It’s like I’ve landed in the hospital and they’re bringing in my dinner. I probably nearly cringed to death at some point today.
I watch as Jake puts the tray at the head of the table.
“Don’t put it there,” Mom says. “We leave that open in case Hope’s father shows up. We did pray, remember?” She points to the third chair on the far side of the table. “But you can have Sam’s seat.”
“Sam?”
“Mom!” I bark.
“Ever since he left Hope stranded at the altar, I haven’t invited him back.” And she walks off to fetch another tray. Jake follows her to help, but casts me a look. The anger is gone. I look away. I can’t stand the pity that’s now in his eyes.
That’s when I notice Mikaela. She is sitting on the nearby couch, flipping through a photo album. Tears are in her eyes. I sit next to her, realizing she is not unlike me, in so many ways. She is hurting, this little girl with her wise ways about her.
I notice the picture she is looking at. It’s one of my favorites: Dad and I are standing out in the snow together, smiling at the camera.
“Holidays are hard, huh?” I say quietly.
“Do you ever worry about what’s next?”
“All the time.”
Her cheeks flush as a tear rolls down her face. I put a very gentle hand around her shoulder, as if I’ve never hugged someone before. Mikaela collapses into my embrace, leaning fully into my chest. We sit there for a while as I watch Jake and Mom carry in hospital food for our Thanksgiving dinner. My life is so surreal.
“Come, come! Time to eat!”
Jake smiles slightly at me as he puts the last tray down. I smile back. Could it possibly be my mother’s quirkiness might reconcile us to at the very least speaking terms?
We take our places, the three of us staring down at our food like you do when you’re in the hospital, unsure you should eat it because it might make you sick. You’re in a hospital after all. Surely it’s safe. It just doesn’t look safe.
Mom claps her hands. “After dinner, I have a surprise for all of us!”
Nobody has to say it, but we’re all thinking it: This isn’t it?
I glance at Mikaela. “This can’t be good,” I whisper.
She laughs and swipes away a final tear.
14
In the darkness of the shop, Jake stood in the midst of the chaos and destruction he’d caused. Flowers thrown everywhere. All of his cards ripped to shreds. It looked like a tornado had blown through. It’s exactly what his soul felt like too. At his feet, he stared at shredded pictures of rainbows and mountains and quiet streams winding into serene forests.
What a crock.
How could he have been so foolish to believe things always work out, somehow and some way? He bought into his own nonsense. He bought into carefully chosen, poetically rhythmic words that held hope up on a pedestal.
He slumped against the small wall of the front counter, sliding to the ground, wishing the darkness would just go ahead and suffocate him.
The problem was . . . he did believe it. It was like this thing in him he couldn’t shake. Whenever he lost hope or became disgruntled or even when his marriage and life fell completely apart, he knew that everything would, eventually, work for his good. More often than not, there was a peace that superseded all other emotions.
So why now? Why couldn’t he see anything good right now?
Somewhere nearby, he didn’t know where, he heard his phone buzzing. If he could find it, he’d probably throw it across the room. He couldn’t believe he let himself fall for a girl in a coma, of all things. He was so naive to think that was a safe thing to do. What a pathetic loser he was. He only had courage around a woman if she’s totally unconscious?
But he knew the truth. He’d had feelings for Hope long before that. He couldn’t even explain it himself, but there was just something about her that seemed right for him.
Keys rattled at the front door. Before he could scramble to his feet, it opened and Mindy stood there, her mouth gaping as she flipped on the lights. Then her hand covered her mouth as she saw Jake.
“Mindy, just leave, okay? I’ll clean this all up. I just had a . . . moment.”
Mindy’s eyes darted from crushed flower to broken glass to paper shredded so wildly across the floor it looked like something had exploded. That something was him.
“Jake . . . what’s going on?”
“Mindy, please. I just want to be alone.”
She eyed him. “No, you don’t. And I think that’s the whole problem.”
Jake sighed and looked away.
“Listen, we’ve known each other a long time, Jake. And I feel like I can speak forthrightly to you. You love her.”
“Mindy, don’t. Please.”
“No. Now you listen.” Her hands were on her hips. She was stepping carefully over all the mess on the ground. “You two belong together. I feel it.”
Jake rolled his eyes. “Really? Because I think it’s just one of us feeling it. The other one is unconscious and not even feeling needles stabbing into her feet.”
Mindy stood for a moment, looking around at the mess. And then she stooped to his level. She picked up one of the cards he’d ripped in half.
“She needs you, Jake.”
“Whatever.”
“I was just at the hospital. I was bringing up some tuna and bottled water to you. Who was that guy in the room with her?”
“Who knows.”
“He was sitting in a corner
, typing something on his phone. He wasn’t looking at her. Talking to her. He was just sitting there.”
“So?”
“So, you talk to her, Jake. You’re the one who’s helping her. You’re the one that should be in that room.”
“Look, Mindy, I appreciate the sentiment here, but it’s just not going to work out, okay? Even if there wasn’t another guy in the picture, how am I supposed to have a relationship with a comatose woman? Granted, that’s probably the only kind that can love me, because I’m so . . .”
“So what?”
“So . . . delusional. I write delusion, don’t I?”
“No. You write hope.”
“Well this isn’t looking too hopeful. And my life has never looked too hopeful. So I think I’ll get out of the card writing business and just stick to selling flowers to people who believe that romance and goodness and hope are still alive.”
“Don’t let this one roadblock keep you from the woman you love.”
“I don’t love her. I love the idea of her, that’s all.” Jake looked at Mindy. “I want to be alone. Just leave me alone.”
Mindy sighed and stood up. “Okay, Jake. I’ll leave you alone. But you need to know something.”
Jake looked up at her.
“When I was leaving Hope’s room, I heard two doctors and that nice nurse talking. And they said it wasn’t looking good for her.”
“What do you mean?”
“Something about her vitals not holding steady. I didn’t catch all of it, but they looked worried.”
Jake dropped his gaze, focused on the floor. What else could he do? What was he supposed to do? He wasn’t her doctor. He wasn’t her fiancé. He was nothing. He was the boy she always ignored.
“Don’t worry about coming in tomorrow morning,” Jake said. “I’ll be here. I’m coming back to the shop. I can’t miss any more work. I appreciate your being here when I needed it. I’ll see you after lunch.”
Mindy hesitated, then left, turning off the lights and locking the shop behind her.
Greetings from My Life
You just never know where you’re going to have a complete meltdown. It’s never where you expect. And I can tell you one thing, I wasn’t expecting it here, of all places.
Snow is drifting down in the most romantic of ways—big and soft though it hardly seems cold enough to snow. Jake is standing on my left. Mikaela on my right. And we’re all just frozen, but not from the temperatures—from shock.
“Isn’t that hilarious?” my mom says.
That phrase has probably never been uttered at a cemetery, but it has now. We’re all gazing down at a dark gray headstone. I can’t peel my eyes off my name, which is etched deeply into the stone. So is my birthday. And the other date.
“See? I forgot to cancel it!” My mother cackles. Nobody is laughing.
Mikaela starts to point. “But—”
“Bet you never thought you’d visit your own gravestone. Who can say they’ve visited their own gravestone!” More laughing by just the one.
I can feel Jake watching me, almost like he senses what is getting ready to happen.
I look at my mom. “You think this is funny?”
“It’s like being dead without being dead!” Mom’s hands pop up like she’s produced some sort of magic trick.
“You have no idea what it’s been like to have everyone tell me I no longer have an identity!” I’m yelling now.
Mom’s arms drop to her sides. “What? It’s not that big of a deal, dear. It was a mistake.”
“Not a big deal? I’m the one who’s still here, Mom. Trying to live. Trying to make something of the shambles my life has turned into! And you keep making it harder! You should have put up a stone for Dad so we could move on! Dad is dead, not me!”
It is a swift and stinging slap that I never saw coming. My head jerks sideways. I hear the gasps around me, the loudest one coming from my mom, who covers her mouth. Remorseful tears burst from her eyes just as I start to feel the sting.
I glare at her. “He’s the one who is gone, Mom. Not me. I’m still here. You keep saying he’s on his way home. Well, he isn’t!”
Mom’s expression hardens. Her lips stiffen into a tight line across her face. I’ve never once in my whole life seen this expression on her face.
“Well”—her voice is almost a whisper—“then maybe I should try to find him.” Her eyes are so wounded that it’s like her soul is spilling from her pupils. She turns and rushes off, toward the car.
“Mom!” I yell after her, but she doesn’t stop. I have to stop her. There is no telling what she’s going to do.
“But Landon,” I hear Mikaela say. I don’t have time to stop. I can’t let my mom leave.
“Mom, stop!”
“Landon, wait!”
I turn impatiently to see what is so important to Mikaela. She is pointing to the tombstone.
“Yes, I know, disturbing.” Poor girl. I wish she didn’t have to witness this.
“But look . . .” Mikaela says, her voice low like she’s telling a secret. “At the death date.”
I glance back to see my mom fumbling to find her keys in her purse, then I try to concentrate on what Mikaela is pointing at.
“It’s today’s date,” Mikaela whispers.
I kneel, reaching out to touch the numbers. An eerie somberness settles down over us as we all three stare at it.
I try to crack a joke about Mom even getting my fake death date wrong, but it comes out flat and dies right there at my feet. Nobody’s saying it, but we’re all wondering . . . is it some sort of premonition? Am I going to die today?
Jake touches my arm. “Your mom is leaving—”
I jump to my feet and run. She is already in the car.
As I get close, I notice the car parked next to Mom’s. There is a green “U” taped to the passenger window. I turn my focus back to Mom, but she is already inside the car and is starting the engine. I stand in front of the car, trying to wave my hands, trying to stop her. I can see she’s losing it right there through the windshield.
I hear footsteps coming toward me. Maybe Jake can try to get her out, talk some sense into her.
Mom and I stare at each other. She’s not really going to run me over, is she?
Then I hear the car slam into reverse. Mom is still looking at me as she hits the gas. The car jolts backward and I hear the most sickening thud. I look through the windshield. A small body flies into the air and then there is another thud. My mom screams. I scream. My feet feel as heavy as lead as I rush to the back of the car.
Mikaela is on the ground, blood pouring from her head, her journal open against the concrete, three feet away.
“Jake! Jake!” I scream. I look back and he has the door open, putting the car in park. He then rushes to my side. He is pulling out his cell phone.
I take Mikaela in my arms and cradle her little body, my tears wetting her face.
She is lifeless.
15
Jake carried the flowers tucked under his arm like they were a football, and tried to juggle three cans of tuna fish and two bottled waters. The smell of the hospital was, for the first time, inviting. He was here for the long haul. How could he not be?
The card he brought was folded in two and sticking out the back pocket of his jeans. He caught the elevator just as it was about to close.
When it opened, he hurried toward her room. There wasn’t a second to lose.
Bette was at the nurse’s station. She glanced up at him and he waved.
“Jake, I need to—”
“Give me a minute, Bette. I’ve got to do something first.” He walked right into her room, ready to tell Sam to get lost. He’d rehearsed the conversation a thousand times in his head last night when not a wink of sleep would come. Over the course of the evening,
his thoughts turned from anger and rejection to the idea that he didn’t, at this point, have very much to lose. Maybe she would never love him. But how would he know if he didn’t try? Maybe she would never come out of that coma, but somewhere deep inside he had to believe that she heard him. And if she died, she would know that she was loved.
In the room, the first thing he noticed was that her skin was very pale. She didn’t look as peaceful. Her mouth gaped open slightly. Her breathing looked ragged. He quickly set the flowers, tuna, and water down.
“Hope? Hope, can you hear me?”
He pulled the chair, which sat in the corner, right next to her bed.
“It’s me, Jake. I’m sorry I left a few days ago. But I’m back. I . . .” The words, as usual, caught in his throat. He pulled the card out of his back pocket. He’d taped it together early this morning, when he returned to the shop to clean up the mess he’d made. It was a rainbow and a river and a sunset and a storm cloud, all taped up together. Inside, the words were jumbled. Together, they didn’t make sense, but word-by-word, they held weight.
Hope. Healing. Surrender. Love. Strength.
He looked at her. It was time now. It was time to tell her everything she needed to hear. “Hope, I want you to know—”
“What are you doing here?”
Jake looked up. Sam stood in the doorway, his arms crossed.
“I thought I told you to leave.”
“You did tell me.” Jake stood. “I just decided not to listen to you. And I decided Hope needed to hear that she shouldn’t listen to you either.”
He glanced at the bed, where the card sat. “What is that? Your love note to her?”
And then, before he even knew how to stop himself, he rose, approached Sam—and shoved him.
Hard.
Sam stumbled backward, his eyes lit with surprise. Jake knew it was coming, but he couldn’t brace himself in time.
Sam shoved him back.
The next thing Jake knew, he had Sam slammed up against the wall. And then, in a flash, Bette was in their faces, her strong arms throwing them apart from one another. Jake adjusted his shirt, glaring at Sam.
Greetings from the Flipside Page 21
