How to Save a Life

by Kristin Harmel

  When we reach my car, Jamie leans in to kiss me, but I pull back.

  “I’m dying,” I remind him.

  He doesn’t move. “That doesn’t make me like you any less.”

  “But I won’t always be here. I don’t want to hurt you.”

  He touches my cheek. “If you take away all the reasons why this supposedly won’t work, do you want to kiss me?”

  I hesitate. “Yes,” I whisper.

  “Good. Because I want to kiss you too.”

  He leans in, and as his lips touch mine, something happens, something magical. And all at once, it doesn’t matter that I’m dying and that the world feels like it’s been turned upside down. There’s only Jamie and me, a boy and a girl, standing on a street corner, falling in love.

  I SPEND THE next morning at work going through the motions and thinking about what Jamie said about love. By eleven forty-five, I find myself wandering out to the bench where I know I’ll find Merel.

  He asks me the time, as I know he will, and then he tells me his wife is in surgery.

  “You love her very deeply, don’t you?” I ask him.

  He looks surprised. “Well, of course I do. I knew from the day I met her that she was the one, and she’s been the one every day since. It feels like our souls were meant to be together.”

  “You’re lucky,” I tell him.

  “I know I am. I thank God for that every day.” He pauses. “Have you ever been in love, young lady?”

  I think instantly of Jamie. “Maybe. How would I know?”

  “You just know. Now sometimes, it’s not so obvious because you’re not necessarily looking for love. But when it’s nighttime and all is quiet, do you find that person still living in your heart?”

  “Yes,” I whisper, although I suspect the question was rhetorical.

  “Then it’s love. It’s love if you can’t imagine living without a person.”

  “What if you’re dying? Isn’t it irresponsible to let someone fall in love with you, knowing you won’t be here much longer?”

  Merel studies me carefully, and I have the feeling he somehow understands exactly what I’m saying. “I think that true love takes its course, no matter what. You can’t stop it.”

  “Not even by steering clear of someone?”

  “If you’ve met, it’s already in motion. I think things will unfold the way they’re supposed to. You just have to trust in the outcome.”

  We sit in silence for a moment. “What about you?” I finally ask. “If your wife doesn’t make it today, what happens to you?”

  He looks down for a long time. “I also trust things to take their course. But truth be told, I don’t want to live without her. Not after all this time. If she’s already begun her journey to somewhere else, I want to be on that journey with her.”

  I take a deep breath. “If it came down to it, if you were dying, would you want someone to save your life?”

  “If Ernestine is already gone? No.”

  I stare at him for a minute, and he stares back, his gaze even. I realize for the first time that perhaps I’ve been doing the wrong thing. Perhaps letting Merel die peacefully, letting him join his wife, is exactly what I’m supposed to do. It goes against my nursing training, but the tree has taught me that sometimes, you have to listen to your heart instead of your brain. I make a vow to do a better job of doing just that.

  That evening, I steer clear of the bench until long after Merel’s heart has stopped beating. Then, slowly, I make my way out to him. To other passersby, it must have appeared as if he was sleeping, which is why no one has stopped to check on him. But as I gently lift his wrist to search for a pulse, and then place my index and middle fingers on the carotid artery on his neck, there’s no doubt. He’s gone. And on his lips is a tiny smile, which I imagine is because he knew he was going to be with Ernestine again.

  IT’S FOUR TODAYS later that Katelyn and Frankie come into Logan’s room when I’m visiting with him in the late morning. “We have something to talk to the two of you about,” Frankie says, shifting his weight from foot to foot as he glances at Katelyn.

  She squeezes his hand and looks first at me and then at Logan. “It’s time for us to go,” she says.

  My heart drops. “Go?” I ask.

  But Logan is nodding, like he was expecting the news. “Did the tree tell you?”

  Katelyn nods. “Yes. But we knew it was coming.”

  “I don’t understand,” I say, trying not to sound as panicked as I feel. “Both of you? The tree wants both of you to go at the same time?”

  “Remember,” Logan says softly, “the tree’s all about helping you to finish the things that will make your life feel more complete.”

  “But—” I say helplessly.

  “We made peace a long time ago with the fact that we had to leave our families,” Frankie says. “And we both plan to spend the rest of our lives making sure they know how much we love them.”

  “But the thing we both worried we’d never have a chance to do was to fall in love,” Katelyn says.

  “And to be loved in return,” Frankie says, glancing at Katelyn.

  “And we found it,” she concludes.

  “But the tree doesn’t let you keep living forever. It’s about putting a period on the sentence, not about extending the paragraph,” Frankie says.

  “So how did the tree tell you?” I’m still trying to wrap my head around all of this, including the mechanics of it.

  “When we went down last night to ask it for one day more, we both heard it whispering,” Katelyn says. “It was saying, ‘You know love. You’ve found it. Now, you must let go.’ ”

  “It said we had one more today,” Frankie says. “It’s time to begin saying our good-byes. We were lucky to get this extra time, you know? And when you find what you’ve been looking for, there’s a sort of peace that settles over you.”

  “We’re ready,” Katelyn says.

  Logan reaches over and squeezes my hand. “So what this means is that for the remainder of our todays, we’re supposed to avoid Katelyn and Frankie, and they’re supposed to avoid us. Today is their last repetition. They’ll still be here in our world, but they won’t be active players in it. We won’t see them again until we stop repeating today too.”

  I can feel my eyes filling with tears. I’m not ready. “Isn’t there any way to ask for more time?”

  All three kids shake their heads. “The tree knows, Jill,” Logan says. “It gives you exactly as much time as you need.”

  Katelyn steps forward and hugs me tightly. “Thanks for everything. We weren’t sure at first about you joining us, but I’m so glad you did. It was awesome to keep repeating today with you.”

  Frankie hugs me next, as Katelyn goes to hug Logan and whisper something in his ear. “Jill, thanks for everything you did for us,” Frankie says. “Especially that day in Miami.”

  “I’m going to miss the two of you so much,” I say through my tears.

  “Don’t worry. You’ll see us again soon.” Frankie pulls away, gives Logan a hug good-bye, and then steps back to Katelyn’s side and takes her hand.

  I’m crying too hard to reply, and after a moment, Katelyn lets go of Frankie’s hand and gives me one more hug. “It’s really going to be okay,” she whispers. “I promise. Just keep listening to your heart.”

  They walk out of the room, turning around to wave once. I turn back to Logan and am surprised to see him smiling.

  “They’re going to be okay,” he says. “It’s proof that the tree works.”

  “You’re not going to leave me too, are you, Logan?” I ask him. Maybe it’s silly, but I’ve come to rely on him most of all.

  “I’m not going anywhere. You and I are in this together.”

  But that afternoon, as Logan and I head back upstairs from visiting the tre
e, my heart feels heavy. I’ve grown to love all three kids, and life without two of them just won’t be the same.

  AS I SUSPECTED, the next day feels strange and empty without Frankie and Katelyn. As Logan warned, I have to be conscious not to drop by their hospital rooms, because interacting with them when I’m not supposed to could throw off the balance of things.

  As I head down in the morning to ask the tree for one more day, I spot Jamie across the lobby, but I avoid him, because I’m already feeling heartbroken about Frankie and Katelyn; I can’t handle my feelings for him too.

  “Please tell me you got laid last night,” Sheila says as I reemerge onto the eighth floor and head toward the nursing station. I sigh as the teary grandmother in the corner looks up, as usual, with a sour expression on her face.

  “Why?” I ask this morning, joining Sheila at the desk.

  “What?”

  “Why do you hope I got laid last night?” I’m short-tempered and taking it out on her, but being asked this almost every repetition of today is starting to wear on me.

  “Well, because you’re lonely,” she says, lowering her voice.

  “Sleeping with someone random isn’t going to help that. In fact, I think it would make it worse.”

  She stares at me. “But it would be a chance to be close to someone.”

  “No, it wouldn’t. It would be a physical thing, and my hormones would go all crazy and give me weird attachment issues, but it wouldn’t really mean anything.”

  I’m surprised to see Sheila’s eyes fill with tears. “Well, it would be nice to be wanted, okay? You can’t tell me it wouldn’t.”

  “Sheila? Is everything okay?”

  And then, right in front of me, her whole façade crumbles, and she begins to cry. “I can’t . . . I don’t know . . . How could he . . . ?” Sheila’s voice trails off into hiccupping sobs.

  “Sheila, what’s wrong?” I pull her into a hug until her tears slow.

  “Darrell left me last week,” she finally manages.

  “What?”

  “We’ve been married thirteen years, Jill. And he just wakes up and decides he’s done?”

  “Sheila! Why didn’t you tell me?”

  She sniffles. “Because I’ve been sitting here giving you love advice for years. I figured you’d think I was a fraud.”

  I refrain from mentioning that the “love advice” she’s referring to has really just been a constant stream of questions about when I’m getting laid, which hasn’t exactly been helpful. “Sheila, just because your marriage has hit a bump in the road doesn’t make you a fraud for giving me advice, okay? But what happened?”

  “I have no idea.” She sniffles some more and then adds, “He said I don’t let him in anymore, okay? But I don’t know what he’s talking about. I’m an open book.”

  “So are you talking divorce?”

  “Not yet.” She wipes her eyes. “He just said he needs a break. That he wants me to think about things. But he’s walking out, isn’t he? He’s walking out because he doesn’t want me anymore.”

  “I doubt that’s the case.”

  She sighs. “Look at me. I’ve put on thirty pounds in the last decade. I’ve got gray hair that wasn’t there before. I’m old and stubborn. No wonder he doesn’t want to be with me.”

  I sigh. The pain in her eyes is so raw that it’s hurting me. It’s then that I realize I can do something about this, though. I can pay Darrell a visit today and demand to know the truth, and neither he nor Sheila will remember any of it when they wake up in the morning. “I’m going to fix this for you, okay, Sheila?”

  She snorts. “Fix it? How?”

  “I don’t know yet. But trust me. We’re going to get to the bottom of this.” It gives me one more thing to do before I go.

  10

  ON THE WAY out of the hospital a few minutes later, I’m so caught up in thinking about Sheila and Darrell that I forget my own lack of a love life for a moment—until I collide with Jamie beside the tree.

  “Oh, geez, I’m so sorry!” he says, grabbing my arm to steady me. “Are you okay?”

  I meet his green eyes for a moment and then look away. “Totally my fault,” I say.

  “No, I’m sure it was mine. I get distracted sometimes.”

  I feel like telling him that I know that about him, that this isn’t the first time we’ve run into each other, but he’s still holding my arm, and the heat of his skin against mine is making me a little dizzy. He seems to notice that we’re still touching at the same moment, and he pulls quickly away.

  “Sorry,” he says, looking flustered. “Have we met before?”

  “Um, no.” I hate lying, but the real explanation would be a thousand times more complicated.

  “But I’m sure we have.” His forehead creases. “Jill, right?”

  I stare at him. “Right. But how did you know that?”

  “I—I don’t know.”

  I force a smile, but my heart is racing. There’s a part of him that remembers me. What does this mean?

  “Well.” He just stares at me for another moment, until things begin to feel awkward between us. “I hope we meet again, Jill.”

  “So do I, Jamie.”

  “You do know me.”

  “Yes. But I think maybe it’s best for you if I stay away in the future.” I hurry away before he can say another word.

  In my car, I turn the engine on and sit there for a minute without moving. So Logan was right about the cumulative nature of relationships. Jamie knows me, even though each new today is technically a day on which we haven’t yet met. But does that also mean that there’s a piece of him that cares for me and that will be hurt when I’m gone? I can’t do that to someone who has already lost a child. Sure, I want to fall in love, but not at the expense of someone else’s well-being. It’s just not fair.

  After a while, I back out of my spot and leave the garage, heading toward Rijs, the Dutch restaurant where Sheila’s husband, Darrell, has worked as a bartender for as long as I’ve known her. It takes me fifteen minutes to get there and another five to find a parking spot. I walk in just past eleven and find him standing behind the bar stocking glasses.

  He squints at me. “Jill?” he asks, like he can’t quite believe it.

  “Hey, Darrell.” I sit down at the bar.

  “We’re not open for another fifteen minutes,” he says.

  “I know. I was hoping to catch you before you had any customers.”

  His jaw twitches. “You want something to drink?”

  “I’m okay.”

  He pours me a glass of water anyhow and joins me on the outer side of the bar. “What is it?” he asks as he sits down on a bar stool. “Sheila’s okay, isn’t she?”

  “She’s heartbroken, Darrell,” I say. There’s no reason to beat around the bush; he won’t remember any of this when he wakes up.

  “I didn’t mean to hurt her. You have to know that. I just—I couldn’t deal anymore.”

  “Deal with what?”

  “Jill, I’m really not sure it’s my place to be discussing this with you.”

  “Look, Sheila doesn’t know I’m here. And I don’t ever intend to tell her. But I want to help fix this. If there’s any part of you that wants to get back together with her, you have to tell me the truth so I can do something about it.”

  He gives me a strange look and then taps his fingers on the bar a few times. “Of course I want to get back together with her.”

  “Then what’s the problem? Because she wants that too, as far as I can tell.”

  He looks at me suspiciously for a moment before sighing heavily. He appears to deflate. “Look, it’s just that she’s always picking at me. I mean, you know Sheila. She’s always up in everyone’s business. But with me, it’s different. This might sound lame to you, but it’s like I h
aven’t been able to do anything right in the last five years. She second-guesses everything. I make a bologna sandwich and cut it into quarters, and she tells me I should have cut it in half. I make the bed, and she tells me the pillows are in the wrong order. I try to make love to her, and she tells me I’m going too fast or too slow, and that’s before we even get started. So lately, I haven’t even bothered. There are a million other examples like that.”

  “So you left her? Because she criticizes you sometimes?”

  “No. I moved out for the time being to get my bearings because I honestly can’t remember the last time I did something right in her book. That’s not an exaggeration. She doesn’t have a single nice word to say to me, and the only conclusion I can logically draw at this point is that she just doesn’t love me anymore.”

  “That’s not true,” I say immediately. “Not at all. Sheila just broke down crying at work because you’d left.”

  He raises his eyebrows. “Sheila? My Sheila? She actually cried?”

  “Yes. Believe me, you got through to her.”

  He shakes his head. “You know, I’d like to believe that. But I know her. She’s just going to slip right back into all her old patterns if I come back.”

  “But what if she doesn’t? What if she can change?”

  “People don’t change, Jill.”

  “Maybe that’s true. But they can change their behavior. And what we’re talking about here is the way Sheila is acting, not the way she’s feeling.”

  He considers this for a long time. “I’d be willing to try again. I love her, Jill, I do. I just don’t know that things can be any different.”

  “I understand,” I tell him. “But I’m going to fix this. You’ll see. It will all be okay.”

  I give him a hug and leave, feeling like a bit of a traitor to Sheila for talking to Darrell behind her back but hoping that on the next today, I can use what I learned to help.

  I SPEND THE next morning with Logan, playing Scrabble and talking about Sheila.