How to Save a Life

by Kristin Harmel

  WHEN I WAKE up the next morning, I realize that it’s once again Friday the seventh. The sun is shining, and my Cat in the Hat scrubs are laid out exactly where I put them on Thursday night.

  I reach for the scrubs, but then I change my mind and head into my closet instead. Today, I’m going to tell Sheila that I’m skipping work because of the doctor’s appointment. She won’t mind, and since I’m there anyhow, I’ll have a chance to check on my kids.

  I grab a sundress, a cardigan, and ankle boots and quickly brush my hair and apply makeup. I’m ashamed to admit to myself that I’m dressing with Jamie in mind.

  The bench across the street where I’ve met Merel is empty as I hurry into Atlanta Children’s. I pass by the beautiful tree, get into the elevator alone, and push the button for the eighth floor. The doors are just sliding closed when I hear a male voice call, “Hold the elevator!” as a hand appears in the narrowing gap.

  I quickly push the button to open the doors, and a second later, Jamie appears, surrounded by a huge cluster of Mylar balloons.

  “Hey!” I say too brightly, and I’m suddenly flustered. I remind myself that he doesn’t know me yet.

  “Thanks so much for holding the doors,” he says, shooting me a smile as he navigates the balloons onto the elevator and punches the button for floor nine, the cardiology floor. “I’m running late, and you just saved me from getting yelled at by a dozen kids.”

  “A dozen kids?” I ask in confusion, glancing at the balloons. I’d thought he only came to the hospital to water the tree.

  “I volunteer on the cardiology floor,” he says. “It’s the birthday of one of the kids today, and I’m throwing a little party on the non-ICU side of the floor.”

  “Wow,” I say. And then something occurs to me. “Shoot! I was supposed to bring balloons today for one of my kids!”

  He looks at me inquisitively.

  “I’m a nurse on the pediatric oncology floor. One of my patients is having her last round of chemo today. I meant to bring balloons.”

  “It’s your lucky day, then!” He separates three of the balloons he’s holding and hands them to me.

  “I couldn’t possibly take your balloons!”

  He smiles. “Like the kids will notice that there are three missing. Did you not notice that I’ve brought approximately half a million balloons with me today? I nearly floated away outside.”

  I laugh. “Are you sure?”

  “Are you kidding me? You just told me it’s for a kid’s last day of chemo.”

  “Well, thank you,” I say as the elevator dings and the doors slide open on my floor.

  “Hey,” Jamie says as I begin to step off. “Any chance you’d want to come up and help me hand out cake in a few minutes?”

  I open my mouth to reply, but he holds up a hand.

  “Sorry, that was dumb. You’re on your way to work. What am I thinking? Like you have time for a party.”

  I smile. “I would love to. Honestly. But I have several kids I need to see before taking off today.”

  “I totally understand,” Jamie says quickly. He holds my gaze for a second until some of the balloons float between us, obstructing our view. “Hey, I hope I see you around sometime, though.”

  “Me too,” I say as the doors begin to slide closed.

  “Wait!” Jamie sticks a hand into the gap between the doors again to open them.

  We stand there for a second staring at each other as the elevator opens again with a ding.

  “I’m Jamie, by the way,” he says, reaching a hand out.

  I shake it. “Jill.”

  “That’s a really pretty name,” he says. He continues to smile at me as I withdraw my hand and the doors slide closed. I turn around in a daze to find Sheila staring at me with a knowing expression from behind the nursing station.

  “I have just two questions for you,” she says. “One, why aren’t you dressed for work? Two, when are you going to get a piece of that?”

  The gray-haired, grandmotherly woman in the waiting area harrumphs, and I give Sheila a look and hurry over to the nursing station.

  “Seriously, Sheila? In front of the patients’ families?”

  She bats her eyes innocently. “What? Are you telling me you don’t think she knows about the birds and the bees?” She nods toward the woman, who has returned to reading her AARP magazine.

  “And besides, the guy in the elevator? I just met him.”

  “Don’t tell me you’re above a little stranger sex.”

  “Sheila, everyone should be above a little stranger sex.”

  She shrugs. “Suit yourself. So why aren’t you dressed for work?”

  “Oh.” I force a sunny smile at her. “I have that appointment with Dr. Frost today. Remember? I was hoping you wouldn’t mind if I take the day off.”

  Her forehead creases. “Oh, honey, you’re worried, aren’t you? But I’m sure everything’s going to be fine. He’s going to tell you your headaches are just due to stress. Or maybe sexual frustration. Yes, I can almost guarantee that his advice to you is going to be that you should go out and get laid.”

  “Right. I’m sure that’s exactly what he’ll say.”

  She steps out from behind the nursing station and gives me a hug. “Look, I joke around because I’m worried about you. But you really are going to be okay today. You know that, right?”

  I nod into her shoulder. “Can you cover for me today?”

  “You got it. But make sure you stop by Logan’s room. That kid sure loves you.”

  “The feeling is mutual,” I say. “But first, I have a balloon delivery for Megan.”

  “BALLOONS?” THE RIGHT corner of Megan’s mouth twitches as she stares at me from her hospital bed. “I mean, really? Balloons? Like balloons are going to make chemo any better?”

  I smile at her. It’s exactly what she said two todays ago.

  “They’re just to celebrate your last treatment, Megan,” I tell her.

  She glares at me and crosses her arms. “You know I’m not a little kid.”

  “I know. You’re a full-fledged woman. Which makes me an elderly spinster.”

  She giggles. “You’re only sort of elderly.”

  I give her a look as I tie the balloons to her bed rail. “I’m going to take that as a compliment.”

  I head out of her room and duck my head into Frankie’s room first—he’s not there—and then Katelyn’s. She’s sitting up in bed, scrolling through something on her iPad. When she sees me, she hurriedly puts the tablet down.

  “Hey, Jill!” she says brightly. “How’s your third today going?”

  I smile. “It’s weird, isn’t it?”

  She shrugs. “I can’t say it’s normal. But you get used to it, you know?”

  “What were you looking at?” I nod toward her iPad.

  “Oh.” She turns red. “Nothing important.”

  I raise an eyebrow and wait for her to go on. Finally, she mumbles, “Fine. I was reading something about original sin on People.com.”

  I stare at her. “Original sin like Adam and Eve eating the forbidden apple?”

  She laughs. “No, silly! The band! Original Scin. Scin like short for scintillating. S-C-I-N.”

  I continue to look at her blankly.

  She rolls her eyes. “They’re, like, a huge boy band? Like the new One Direction? They sing that song ‘Should’ve Loved You That Way.’ ”

  “Oh.” I rack my brain. “I think I’ve heard that song. So you like them?”

  “I love them. My Make-A-Wish wish was going to be to meet them. But according to the tree, I’ll be gone in twelve days. There won’t be time. And it’s not like I can call the Make-A-Wish people and say, ‘Hey, a tree told me I’d be dead in less than two weeks, so can you hurry it up?’ ”

  “Twelve days?”
I repeat softly.

  She nods.

  “Are you worried about your parents?” I’ve met them. Anne and Jay. They seem nice. I can’t even imagine what it would be like to lose a child the way they’re about to.

  “Yeah,” she says softly. “It sucks, because they’re really busy with my little sister, Trish. They don’t come every day anymore. They think I’ll be getting out soon. So I call them every today, but I don’t get to see them, and it kind of makes me sad.”

  I swallow the lump in my throat. “I’m sorry, Katelyn.”

  She shrugs. “It’s okay. It’s just life, you know? You take people for granted until they’re not here anymore. I think my mom and dad just assume I’m going to be fine, that I’m going to be around for a while. It’s easier to believe that, you know? But I think if they really thought about it, if they really stopped and looked at me, they’d see I’m fading. It’s just easier to be blind sometimes. And that’s okay. I don’t blame them for that.” She pauses. “I just think that after I’m gone, they’re really going to regret not coming to see me more often, you know? But there isn’t anything I can do about it. It just makes me feel bad for them.”

  I sit down beside her bed. “You know, I met a man named Jamie recently, and his daughter died several years ago. He seems really okay now. I think he misses her terribly, and I think losing her probably changed him forever. But he’s still living his life, and he seems happy enough. I guess what I’m trying to say is that your parents will come out of their grief one day. They’ll never forget you, but they’ll be able to continue living.”

  Her eyes fill with tears. “I hope so. I’m going to miss them a lot, you know? Them and Trish.”

  “I’ve always believed that once we go to heaven, we get to look down at the people on earth we love.”

  She nods. “I believe that too.”

  “So maybe you won’t have to miss them at all, because you’ll always be with them.”

  A tear rolls down her right cheek as she nods again. “Yeah.”

  I change the subject before she can get any sadder. “So about this Original Scin. Do you have a crush on one of the guys, or what?”

  She brightens. “Dylan Hendrix. He’s seventeen, and he has the best brown eyes you’ve ever seen in your life. He’s really close to his mom and his older sisters. I just think he seems like an awesome guy.”

  “You sound like me obsessing over Donnie Wahlberg in 1989,” I say with a smile.

  Her forehead creases. “Isn’t he on some reality show?”

  I laugh. “Yes. But a really long time ago, when I was your age, he was in a band called the New Kids on the Block. I was obsessed. I knew everything about him.”

  “Did you ever get to meet him?”

  I shake my head. It isn’t high on my list of regrets, all things considered, but it occurs to me how absolutely thrilled I would have been when I was a young teenager to get a meet and greet with the New Kids. An idea begins forming in my head. “Okay, kiddo, I’ve got to head over to Logan’s room. You haven’t seen Frankie today, have you?”

  She averts her eyes and turns a little pink. “Why would I know where Frankie is?”

  Ah, I think. So maybe the crush is mutual after all. “No reason,” I say with a shrug. “I just stopped by his room and didn’t see him.”

  “Sometimes when the nurses aren’t looking, he goes down to the gift shop in the lobby and pretends to be a salesperson,” she says with a small smile. “He gives the people who are nice to him the employee discount.”

  I laugh. “That sounds like Frankie.”

  “Yeah,” Katelyn mumbles, looking away again. “He’s pretty cool.”

  “HOW ARE YOU feeling?” Logan asks when I enter his room a few minutes later.

  “Hey, that’s supposed to be my question for you.”

  “Yeah, but now the roles are reversed,” Logan points out. “I’m the old pro at this tree thing. You’re new at it.”

  “True,” I concede. “But I still reserve the right to worry about you. I’m still the grown-up, and you’re still the kid.”

  He smiles. “Deal. But you shouldn’t worry too much, because I’m doing fine.”

  I sit down beside his bed. “Listen, I was wondering something. Since you’ve been living the same day over and over again, did you always see me?”

  He hesitates and nods. “Always.”

  “And was I always the same?”

  He nods. “Sure. Our conversations change, based on the time of day I saw you and what I asked you, but one of the things about repeating days is that the people you talk to are always consistent. Same mood, same everything, unless you do something to drastically change things.”

  “That makes sense.” I mull over this for a second. “So did we have interactions that I’ll never remember?”

  He nods. “Yeah. The person who isn’t repeating only remembers the very last day.”

  “So nothing you do or say really makes a difference, since it all gets erased the next morning anyhow.”

  He cocks his head to the side. “I guess the easy answer is yes. I mean, have you ever seen Groundhog Day? You could wreck a car and wind up in jail, and you’d still wake up the next morning in your own bed, like nothing ever happened, as long as you also squeeze in a visit to the tree. But I don’t know. I like to think that there’s a little part of people that hangs on to the moments, even if they can’t remember them.”

  “What do you mean?”

  He shrugs. “Like you and me. We’re super close, right?”

  “Right.”

  “But haven’t you ever wondered why that is? Why you feel so invested in me? I think it’s because we’ve had so much extra time together, you know? I’m the one who’s been repeating the longest, and you’re the one I spend the most time with.”

  “I am?”

  He smiles. “Maybe it’s weird, but you’re like my best friend.”

  I look away before he can see my tears. “I couldn’t ask for a better friend than you, Logan.”

  “Want to head down to the tree?”

  I nod.

  As we make our way down to the lobby, avoiding Sheila and the other nurses, he chatters about Katelyn and Frankie, and how he’s been watching them flirt with each other for dozens of todays. “But they’re both too dumb to actually admit they like each other,” he concludes.

  I laugh as the elevator doors slide open on the first floor. “That’s called being a teenager.”

  “I rest my case,” he says.

  I think about what Katelyn said earlier about how her Make-A-Wish wish would have been to meet Original Scin. “Hey, random question, but going back to what you said earlier about how I could crash my car and I’d still wake up at home totally fine: Does the same go for, say, emptying my bank account? Like if I took all my money out today, or rang up a huge credit card bill, would everything be back to normal tomorrow?”

  “Sure.”

  “And if one of you guys got exposed to germs because of your compromised immunity, you’d be fine again on the next today, right? Like an infection wouldn’t carry over?”

  “Right,” Logan says. “Remember? It’s why it’s totally fine for us to come down to the lobby and touch the tree every day, even though we’re encountering all sorts of germs.”

  “That makes sense.”

  “Why do you ask?”

  “I’ll tell you tomorrow. Or, er, the next today.”

  We approach the tree, and we both ask it for one day more. As we turn to go, we see Jamie emerging from the elevator and striding toward us. His eyes light up when he sees me. “Jill! How did the balloons go over with your patient?”

  I smile. “She loved them as only a teenager could. Meaning she pretended to hate them. How was your party?”

  “Fantastic. The kids loved it.”

&
nbsp; “That was a really kind thing for you to do,” I reply.

  Logan nudges me, and I look down.

  “Oh,” I say. “Jamie, this is my friend Logan. We were just visiting the tree. It’s Logan’s favorite place in the hospital.”

  “Really?” Jamie beams at Logan. “You know, my daughter was just a few years younger than you when she asked me to plant this tree. I still water it and take care of it.”

  “Your daughter was Caroline?” Logan asks.

  Jamie looks startled. “Yes. But how did you know her name?”

  Logan frowns. “Oh. Uh, I think I must have seen it on a sign or something somewhere.”

  “Oh. Right. Of course. The plaque on the wall.” Jamie looks a bit spooked, but he seems to accept the explanation. “Well, I think she’d be really thrilled that you like it, Logan. She always used to say that every living thing has some magic in it. She believed in things like that: fairy dust and spells and second chances.” He glances at me and holds my gaze for a moment.

  “I do too,” Logan says.

  Jamie smiles at him and then turns back to me. “I like to believe that my daughter’s still here in a way, watching over me.”

  “Oh, she is,” Logan says immediately.

  Jamie laughs. “I like your confidence, Logan.”

  He shrugs. “It’s not confidence. It’s just true.”

  “Well,” Jamie says, looking back at me.

  “Well,” I say. I can feel my cheeks getting warm.

  Logan slips his hand into mine and squeezes. “You ready to go back upstairs before they miss us, Jill?”

  “Right. Sure.” I tear my gaze away from Jamie and smile at Logan. “Let’s go. Nice to see you again, Jamie.”

  “Likewise,” he says. I can feel his eyes on me the whole way to the elevator. I turn back once, and our eyes lock again. He smiles, and then he turns away. I exhale heavily as the elevator doors slide closed.

  “Jill and Jamie sitting in a tree,” Logan sing-songs. “K-I-S-S-I-N-G.”

  “Logan!” I say as my cheeks heat up. “What are you talking about?”