I Never Thought I'd See You Again: A Novelists Inc. Anthology

by Неизвестный

  They were young and stupid, true. But only my son had died. Her son hadn’t broken a bone. Lucky, they called him.

  Today, for the first time since Jake died, I went in the front entrance and walked right by the big guidance office windows. She wasn’t at her desk. For a moment I thought she had quit, her desk was so barren. But then I saw the simple quote she had printed and taped to her window. “1 Kings 3:16-28.” I smiled. So she did feel it. Good.

  “Did you want something?” Nancy’s voice was soft behind me. I fantasized that she had been in the ladies’ room crying, but when I turned her eyes showed no hint of redness.

  “No.” I turned away from her outstretched hand. I started to walk away.

  “Karen.” She stopped, started again. “How is Jake? Did he go to school today?”

  I kept walking. “That’s none of your business this year.”

  # #

  The high school principal called me to her office on Thursday. She wouldn’t say why on the phone. The ghost of the day the hospital had done the same thing danced up and down my spine. The walk seemed longer from my middle school office at the bottom of the hill to where the high school perched above us, throwing a shadow to remind students of where they were headed. If nothing went wrong.

  Sarah was not the best principal I’d ever worked with, but she was far from the worst. The grim look in her eyes forebode bad news when she said, without preamble, “I’m afraid Jake skipped school.”

  She said his name with a little blink. Good, she had trouble with it all, too, even if she didn’t want to admit it.

  “Skipped school?” That was not like Jake. Unless he was prodded into it by his best friend. But that was impossible.

  She nodded. It felt odd to be on the parent side of the equation, instead of the two of us on the same side, talking about a student and/or difficult parent. For a second, I understood why the parents of my special education children preferred that I talk to Sarah for them. She had a very special, very patient smile when she dealt with parents. I felt simultaneously as if I were an errant toddler and not very bright.

  I shook off the feeling. I was not a toddler and I was brighter than the principal.

  “I will handle it.” I stood up.

  “Karen. Wait.” Her voice was just short of drill sergeant sharp.

  The door opened and the court-appointed counselor stepped in. She was out of breath. She’d come in a hurry.

  I sat down again. I’d forgotten. This wasn’t just about me and Jake any longer. The world had a stake.

  I paid no attention as Sarah consulted with the counselor. Again, I felt like my special ed students and parents must, during our annual student planning meetings. They talked around me, without me, using terms I knew only from the point of view of a Special Education Director. Terms that felt alien from the point of view of a mother. Every so often they remembered to look at me and smile.

  But then something the counselor said caught my attention. I interrupted. “Chip?”

  The counselor nodded, and I knew she would note the interruption in her log to the doctors. “It was in the paperwork. We implanted a tracking chip in Ben before we overwrote his brain with Jake’s personality. Just in case something went wrong.”

  “I remember.” I didn’t, for the simple reason I hadn’t read the paperwork. Nothing had mattered except the stark fact that, if I didn’t sign in six places and initial in fifteen, Nancy would have custody of Jake while he was trapped in her son’s body. “So why didn’t you go find him?”

  “I’ve sent someone to fetch him. He isn’t very far.” She sounded reassured by this, as if a lesser physical distance was an indication of a less serious problem. “Did you notice anything different about this morning, at breakfast?”

  “You were there.” There watching, recording, counseling. “What do you think?”

  “I’m not his mother,” she replied patiently. She never seemed to get mad. I wondered if she were on some super Xanax-style drug that only allowed the gentler emotions through. If they could imprint Jake’s thought patterns and personality onto Nancy’s son, surely they could turn counselors into zombies of positivity and patience.

  Well trained by all my degrees and years of experience, I thought about this morning. Had there been something different? The counselor had stopped by at 7 a.m. sharp and observed our morning routine, checked in with Jake about his plans for the day, checked in with me about how I was doing. Made sure that I knew she’d take Jake to his weekly appointment with his psychiatrist.

  Jake had had pancakes for breakfast. Big round pancakes with strawberry eyes, a smiling blueberry mouth, and a whipped cream beard. I didn’t want the counselor doubting my ability to get him off to school properly. He’d eaten one eye and half of the smiling mouth and then pleaded being full as the reason he grabbed his lunch bag and backpack and headed for school ten minutes early.

  “He did seem in a hurry to leave this morning. I’ve never known him to be early, except …” That couldn’t be the reason, no reason to say the words out loud and have them become real.

  “Except for when?” the counselor pressed.

  I didn’t answer, but Sarah did. She smiled. A real smile. The indulgent smile of a principal who knows and likes a kid, despite some temporary embroilment in mischief. “Except for when Ben had a plan, right?” She turned to the counselor. “Ben always had a plan, and Jake usually went along.”

  “I am familiar with the personalities of both of the boys,” the counselor mirrored Sarah’s indulgent smile, even though reading about them wasn’t remotely like living with Jake when he was under the spell of one of his best friend’s plans.

  “That’s not possible is it?” I had a sudden need for reassurance from the counselor. “Jake couldn’t be in communication with …him …could he?”

  “Of course not,” the counselor said quickly. Before I could relax, she added, “That’s the reason I take his blood pressure and neuronic pattern readings every day. The doctors are monitoring him closely.”

  Monitoring him closely. How many times I had said the same thing to a parent, even though I knew that there was no monitoring close enough that I would catch every sign of trouble in time.

  I realized that I was the only one who would be able to see the signs, if the monitors missed something. “Let me talk to him.”

  She hesitated. “It would be better if he had a complete physical, just to make sure nothing is wrong.” She spoke the absurdity as if she didn’t recognize it.

  Everything about this situation was wrong. “He’s an eighteen-year-old boy who died and was brought back to life to live out his senior year in his best friend’s body. That’s enough to make anyone want to skip school.”

  Sarah wasn’t smiling any longer, though the counselor still had a lingering upturn of one corner of her mouth. Reading medical files wasn’t enough to truly understand what it meant to know two boys, and know that only one would ever have the chance to go to college, get married, have a good life. If he were lucky.

  I’d had a lot of practice being firm. I stood up. “Let me talk to him first. Maybe he just had a bad day.” And maybe he was talking to Ben, somehow. I needed to know for sure, and that wasn’t going to happen if the doctors got hold of him. For all I knew they’d cancel the experiment. That was unthinkable.

  # #

  They found him at the amusement park, riding the roller coaster. They brought him home, to let me talk to him. One tiny hollow victory for me. I wondered if he were subcutaneously miked as well as chipped. Probably. That had no doubt been in all that paperwork I hadn’t read. But it didn’t matter. Hiding my feelings had become second nature.

  He looked at me warily, but I’d had time to prepare. I’d made his favorite snack — a banana split with extra whipped cream and three cherries. I’d been crafty. I’d made two. I slid his over to him after he half perched on one of the stools butted up against the kitchen island.

  “I thought you didn’t eat ice c
ream anymore,” he challenged me.

  I lifted a spoonful of strawberry to my mouth and savored it before answering. “You’re back, Jake. You have a year. Do you want to lose it?”

  He shrugged. “I knew they chipped me. I didn’t care. I wanted to ride the roller coaster. What are they going to do? Fail me?”

  Straining to pay attention to the slightest clue that Jake was under the influence of his best friend, I reminded him, “But you ditched school. That has consequences.”

  He shrugged again. He didn’t eat his ice cream, just pushed it around with his spoon.

  Relentlessly, I pressed him, “Why did you ditch school?”

  “I felt like it.”

  “Even knowing you have a chip in you that tells them where you are at all times, so you know they’ll come get you?”

  “I wasn’t trying to hide what I did.”

  “You could get suspended.” Even the word sounded lame and bloodless. Suspended. Wasn’t he already suspended — in someone else’s body, for too little time?

  “For ditching once?” He scoffed.

  “You like wasting some of your precious year in detention then? Because that’s what you’re going to have to do.”

  “Maybe I’ll ditch detention, too.”

  That made me angry enough to push harder. Maybe I could shake the truth out of him. Was he somehow talking to Ben? “Sounds like you have a piece of your best friend’s brain, not just his body.”

  That made him angry. I was glad, until he did something so Jake it took my breath away. He locked his little fingers together, fighting his anger, just as I had taught him to do when he was a toddler. A kinesthetic reminder to get hold of yourself that I’d learned in a university seminar one semester.

  Without warning, the boy with Nancy’s son’s features, voice, body, became Jake to me. My son. Not hers. I squinted, trying to bring back Ben. Trying to bring back the distance. I realized I had linked my own little fingers together.

  I unlinked my fingers and took a deep breath. “You haven’t eaten your ice cream. You always loved banana splits.”

  He looked at it. With regret? “I know. But Ben is lactose intolerant.”

  Of course. Jake knew that. It meant nothing. I tried again. “Jake. They could pull the plug. Do you want that?”

  “No. Then Ben would have to go to jail.”

  “Forget about him. He’ll survive this year.” Maybe. But I couldn’t say that aloud. “You just have these precious days left. Do you really want to squander them like this?”

  “What is the purpose of getting a high school diploma?” he asked, mashing his cherries through the insubstantial whipped cream and into the now squishy ice cream. “It isn’t like I need math, or history, or French. Whoever thought that was a useful way for me to spend this year in Ben’s body is goofy.”

  Goofy. That was not the word I would have chosen. “Do you want to stop this, then? You can.” Just like he had started it with his eighteen year old ignorance of what, exactly, he was agreeing to do. But, for the first time, I agreed with a student who said he didn’t need math.

  His eyes flicked away from me. Hiding something? Something of Ben? “No. I want to be here for the year. I just wish I didn’t have such a lame goal. You finish high school to go to college, not to die.”

  “You finish high school to learn. You are owed that.”

  “Shouldn’t atonement actually, you know, atone?”

  “What would you consider a good atonement.” I knew they were listening. I hoped they were taking notes.

  “I don’t know. But being trapped in school when it isn’t going to mean anything is not it.”

  “So do you want to end it?”

  “No.” He was adamant. “Ben and I agreed to this. I’m going to see it through.”

  “Good. I’m glad.” Nothing but the truth. If Ben went to jail, Nancy would get to visit him.

  “No you’re not. I’m not an idiot. You don’t like being a lab rat any more than I do. You hate this. You hate me.”

  “I don’t hate you.” I was surprised to find it true. I’d thought I could survive this year because this stranger wasn’t really my son. But he was. There was no trace of Ben in his eyes when he stared at me, dared me to lie to him. I didn’t bother. I sat back, boneless. “What do you intend to do, then, for your year?”

  “Go to school, I guess. But don’t expect me to worry about my grades.”

  Grades. “If you could do anything, what would you do with your last year?” I held my breath. Whatever he said would tell me something about my son. Something I hadn’t had time to learn before, when we both held the illusion that he had his whole life in front of him.

  “I always wanted to see the pyramids.”

  I took his hand. Jake’s hand. “Then let’s do it.”

  “Really?” The boy looking at me was all Jake.

  “What’s the worst that can happen?” I meant it. Planes could crash, war could break out, but none of that mattered to us. We were living in a state of grace that could end at any minute. We literally had nothing left to lose. Why shouldn’t I advocate for my most important special needs student?

  # #

  The counselor was surprisingly easy to persuade to our side. She took notes, nodded as we made our points, and then went back to the doctors.

  Who argued, of course. They didn’t want their lab rats running free. The court had set the terms of Ben’s atonement sentence. Jake had to have a worthy goal. Finishing high school had been deemed worthy.

  A week stretched by, with me writing sick notes for Jake and dropping him off at the amusement park every morning. No one at school questioned me, they simply took the notes. Every day, the counselor gave us the new excuse why Jake had to be stuck in this pointless maze, took her measurements, and let us drive off as if everything was as it should be.

  “I want to talk to them. The doctors. I want to explain it. To make my case.” I said, at last, when the week was up.

  “They’re very busy. There’s nothing they can do.” Her gaze was gentle, her compassion genuine.

  I filed for an immediate leave of absence from work, and left the other students, the other parents, the other teachers to take care of themselves without me.

  Jake and I went to the amusement park together. “Ride with me,” he said, as he always did.

  “I’ll watch from here,” I answered as I always had. I watched, remembering the years of watching, the tightening of my nerves at every height and every drop. Roller coasters failed. People got hurt. It happened often enough that I never relaxed until he was down on the ground again, by my side.

  The counselor showed up next to me at some point. She said nothing, just watched with me for a while. Then she said, “They’ll talk to you. Can you come now?”

  I talked. They didn’t listen. There were more excuses — a judge would never sign off, they argued.

  “Let me try,” I said, implacable.

  They threw the final bitter spear straight at my heart. “Ben’s mother would never agree. The trip could put Ben’s body in jeopardy.”

  I closed my eyes, defeated.

  “Let me ask her,” Jake spoke up. “I’ll promise to keep him safe.”

  I could see he was as determined as I was.

  I did not want to let him talk to her. But what choice was there if she was the key to his temporary escape from the lab rat maze?

  # #

  The judge listened closely as Nancy testified to allow Jake/Ben to visit the pyramids. “Karen will keep him safe,” she avowed. “I have no doubt of it.”

  I wondered at her assurance. Jake had insisted on talking to her privately. What had he said to her? Again, I wondered if Ben were really driving this grand plan. She looked only at her son’s face as she testified. She smiled through tears.

  The judge was sympathetic about why Jake did not want to enslave himself to a school day full of lessons, which would never pay off for him. But, still, he wanted to weigh everyt
hing, as if there was no way I could know what was best for my own son. He called Jake up for testimony.

  Jake didn’t hold back. He told the judge what school had been like for him. The kids who were scared of him, Ben’s friends who resented Jake. Jake’s friends who threatened to kneecap Ben’s body, or worse. He told the judge what he’d never told me. Never told the counselor. But the doctors had known. They had heard the comments, the threats.

  At last, after the questions, the judge decided. No school, but no pyramids either. Maybe Disney. The Grand Canyon. Jake needed to be monitored. This was an experimental procedure. Much could go wrong.

  Much could go wrong. So true. I had wanted him to touch the pyramids. Dance on the River Styx. Cram as much into a year as anyone ever could. It was all he had. It was all I had.

  The counselor was placid. “It was a fair decision. Jake won’t have to go to school.”

  I wanted him out of the maze, far out. “Let’s try again for the pyramids.”

  She put her warm firm hand on my arm. “Do you really want to waste your time fighting?”

  “Fighting until his last breath is not a waste. It is a purpose.” A purpose I’d missed out on when he’d been taken from me so suddenly.

  She nodded. “Okay. Maybe. If the next few weeks go well.”

  She was using the same delaying tactic I had used with my students and parents, and even a few teachers. “Give it time,” I had said — a euphemism for “it isn’t bad enough for us to really fix it yet.”

  The kids who found the best support always had the implacable parents. The ones who relentlessly pursued every option and opportunity to make sure their child had the best education possible.

  “Two weeks. Then let’s try again.” I bought the tickets and applied for passports, trying to figure out how we could get through customs if they didn’t agree. Trying to figure out just how much of his precious year I should waste fighting before I took matters into my own hands.