by Ann M. Noser
pull the bedsheets over my head to block out the piercing morning light. My head feels dull and heavy. With a sigh, I roll out from under the covers.
I’m alone.
That didn’t happen.
I drag myself into the shower, then wander down the hall. As I pass the guest room, I notice rumpled bedsheets, but Jake is nowhere to be seen. I continue toward the kitchen. My parents sit there, eating breakfast.
“From the look of you, I would suggest some toast.” Mom pours me a small glass of orange juice.
“Thanks.” I stifle a yawn and drop into a kitchen chair.
“Do you want any coffee?” Mom smiles. “Or do you still think it’s disgusting?”
I shudder. “I still think it’s gross. But thanks for asking.”
“Well, maybe someday you’ll change your mind.” Mom stands by the kitchen counter tapping her mug with her perfectly manicured nails as she waits for my toast.
“You’ve changed so much this last semester, we’re having trouble keeping up with you.” Dad shakes his newspaper and turns the page.
“I’m different? How?”
“Of course, you’re different. For one thing, you have a real live boyfriend.” Mom slides a plate of dry toast in front of me. “You two were real cute together last night. And you got so jealous when Susan sang with him.”
My hands shake under the table. “Oh…really?” Actually Jake is dead and not my boyfriend, but I don’t want to burst her bubble. I take a deep breath, reach for the toast, and nibble on a corner.
“I do hope you’re being careful about things,” Mom murmurs.
I gape at her, suddenly unable to swallow. How does she know Jake was in my room last night?
“I mean… I hope you’re being safe…” Mom meets my horrified gaze.
I cough, choking on crumbs.
“Cheryl, please!” Dad splutters a mouthful of coffee. “I realize you women have to talk about these things nowadays, but not in front of me, and not at the breakfast table.”
“Sorry, dear.” Mom pats his back as he regains his composure. She winks at me from over his head.
I need to get out of the kitchen fast. I stand up to leave.
“Aren’t you going to finish your toast?” Mom asks.
“I’m not hungry anymore.” Actually, I feel rather sick. “Um…do you know where Jake is? I haven’t seen him yet this morning.” I want to make this point very clear.
Mom walks to the sink and glances out the window into the backyard. “He must not mind the cold weather. He took his coffee out to the bench about an hour ago. He’s been sitting there ever since. You should ask him if he’s ready to go skiing.”
“Skiing?”
“Of course, dear. We discussed it last night. We’re going downhill skiing today as a family. You need to hurry up and change.” My mom straightens her immaculate outfit.
“Downhill skiing? Me? You must be kidding.”
“You said you would go last night,” my father says, apparently relieved at the change of subject.
“Yeah, last night I think I said a lot of things,” I mumble.
“What’s that?” asks my mother.
“Uh, nothing.” I gulp the rest of my juice. “But about skiing. I can’t go. I don’t want to break my legs.”
My father chuckles. “That hardly ever happens.”
“But it does happen,” I assure him. “Don’t you remember the last time I went downhill skiing with you? It was awful. I fell down getting on the chairlift. I fell down getting off the chairlift. Then I fell all the way down the hill, over and over again. My pants were so tight I froze to death. I worried about tearing them every time I fell.”
“Then wear something more comfortable this time,” Mom suggests.
I shake my head. “Sorry, Mom, I’m not going.”
She shrugs. “Well, that’s too bad. I think Jake would have liked to go.”
“You’re right. He probably would.” I rinse my plate and set it in the dishwasher. “I better go check on him.”
I pull on a warm jacket and set out.
Jake doesn’t move as I approach. He sits abnormally quiet and still. In his hands he holds two packages. He already opened my Christmas present for him.
“Very funny.” Jake nods at the five-pack of wife beaters with the words “Redneck Xmas” printed on them. He hands me my gift without meeting my gaze.
“I can’t believe you opened your gift without me.” I sit down next to him on the bench and rip open my present to reveal a pink tie-dyed wife beater.
“I found it on the Internet.” His breath hangs in a white cloud.
“How did you order it? Oh, that’s right, one of your girlfriends must have gotten it for you.”
“You paid for it, of course, since you are my sole source of income.” He sighs. “Remember, though, it’s supposed to be the thought that counts.”
“Don’t worry. I like it, despite what I said about wife beaters.”
Jake clears his throat. “And none of them were really my girlfriends.”
“What?” I ask, startled.
“I just thought you should know.” He stares at me until I break off eye contact. “Honestly, Emma, when I wasn’t with you, I was usually off by myself, just mulling things over. I’m so angry with myself―I’ve messed everything up.”
“My mother doesn’t think so. She thinks you’re great. She wants you to go downhill skiing with her today. But if you do, you’ll have to go without me. I’m not coordinated enough for that type of life-threatening activity.”
“Don’t be so angry with your mom.”
“Why? What did she do now?”
“No, I mean about before, when you were a kid. When she made you believe that girl was just your imagination. She didn’t know. She was just trying to be a good mom. It’s not always easy to know what to do.”
“I told her that imaginary friends shouldn’t be so scary, but she wouldn’t listen.”
“Poor Emma.” Jake puts his arm around me and doesn’t say anything for a while. “What exactly do you remember from last night?” he finally asks.
“What are you talking about?” I feign ignorance.
“After the party.” He tries to catch my eye. “Don’t you remember?”
“What’s there to remember?” I avoid his gaze.
Jake’s shoulders slump in disappointment. “Um…nothing, I guess.”
Desperate to change the subject, I choose a heartless topic. “Are you thinking about your family? It must be hard to be here instead of there today.”
“Yes. I miss my sister Laura very much.”
I want to take his hand, but stop myself. I can’t. I just can’t.
“Remember when I said I’d tell you when I needed your help?” he asks.
I nod, with a painful lump in my throat. I don’t know how to deal with these feelings.
“Well, I need your help now. I’ve got something to tell you about my sister, and I don’t know how much you’re going to like me afterward.”
“I wouldn’t worry about that.” I make a weak joke. “I don’t like you very much now.”
He doesn’t respond with his usual retort. Instead, he looks hurt. “Then you are mad at me. I figured you would be.”
“No, I’m not mad, Jake.”
He pauses, then carefully speaks his next words. “You’re sure?”
“Jake, I’m not mad.” I just can’t talk about it. “Tell me about your sister.”
“Laura…” He can barely say her name without choking. “My sister is four years younger than me. She was always this tiny little thing. I killed every spider, threatened every school bully, and ran off any boy who wasn’t good enough for her. I always had to take care of her because she was too little to fend for herself.”
Jake pauses. There’s so much pain in his face I almost touch it, but again I stop myself.
“Laura got sick her first year in high school. First she had strep throat. She got treated for
it, but she didn’t get better. Our parents took her back to the doctor again, wondering if she had mono. Instead, they found something wrong with her kidneys.”
Jake sighs. “Laura’s been on so many medications―one to make her pee, one to reduce inflammation, and more antibiotics because they thought the strep throat had started the whole problem in the first place. Laura had to eat a special diet to make things easier for her kidneys. She had to get dialysis. But nothing helped. They placed her on a waiting list for a kidney transplant.”
A single tear falls on his cheek. “I was a perfect match. I passed every blood test, urine sample, and CAT scan they threw at me. Surgery was scheduled for last summer, just after school let out. We planned to recover together at home, watching an endless parade of movies and never moving off the couch.”
Jake looks like he’s going to vomit. I felt sick myself, wondering what he will say next.
“I followed all their directions to the letter. I completely stopped partying until the night my best friend graduated from college. I don’t even remember what happened. I just fell into the darkness and came back up on the bridge to find you standing there.”
I finally take his trembling hand, wishing I could think of the right thing to say.
“This is what I’ve been avoiding ever since that river spit me back out. Because of my stupidity, I not only killed myself, I ruined my sister’s chances of a better life. I might as well have killed her myself.”
His words shock me. “Jake, you can’t think that.”
“Please take me home. I have to know if Laura is all right. I have to know if she’s even alive.”
“It’s Christmas Eve, Jake. This is probably not the best time to be doing this.”
“What if this is the only time I have?”
I hope I don’t end up regretting this. “Okay, Jake, I’ll take you home.”
We say goodbye to my surprised parents and speed off.
ou should call this car the ‘Silver Bullet’,” Jake teases as I back out of the driveway. “Sort of an appropriate name, you being a witch and all.”
I roll my eyes.
Jake grows quiet as we leave town. “So…you’re sure you’re not mad at me?”
“Why would I be mad at you?” I focus on the road and the scenery. The fresh snowfall sticks to the bare, gray trees like a black-and-white photo. “You were going to give your kidney to your sister.”
“If you’re not mad, they why can’t you talk about―”
I interrupt him, desperate to keep the conversation focused on his sister. “I’m not happy you told the entire campus I’m against organ donation, but otherwise, I’m okay with you. Why did you do that, anyway?”
“I wasn’t ready to tell you the truth,” he confesses.
“But you told everybody else.”
“No, I didn’t. Not really. To them it was something I was going to do, not something I had failed to do. And besides, telling them was different than telling you.”
“Why?”
“I didn’t want you to know how badly I’d screwed up.” Jake stares out his side window. “Except for that one night, I hadn’t had a single drink all semester. I wanted to be the best candidate for organ donation those surgeons had ever seen. Laura deserved a better life than having to go in for dialysis all the time. I never thought going out that one time would make a difference, as long as it wasn’t too close to surgery.”
“Jake, you didn’t know what would happen.”
“But what if Laura’s worse now? The doctors said that would happen if she didn’t get a kidney soon. Some people wait a really long time or never find a good match.” He pauses. “I don’t even know what happened the night I died.”
“What do you remember? And please stop beating yourself up. It’s not like you did this on purpose. I know it’s the worst possible thing that could have happened, but you have to remain calm, or I won’t let you see Laura. You’ll only scare her this way.”
“Yeah, okay, you’re right.” Jake visibly makes an effort to relax as he sinks into the heated leather seat.
“Tell me what you remember.”
“It’s going to sound strange to you, but it seemed like the water called my name that night. And I remember falling, but slowly―more like floating instead of falling. Then a sharp pain in my head before everything faded to black.”
Jake shifts in his seat. “After that, I vaguely remember a dark, crowded room, but maybe that was just a dream. Then, all of a sudden, I was swimming again. I swept up against a bridge support and somehow climbed up. That’s when I saw you for the first time.”
I don’t know what to say. I might have freed Jake from his watery grave, but I can’t save him from the horrible reality of what his death has done to those he loves.
As we near Jake’s home in Onalaska, I spot road signs for the Great River Bluffs State Park, Lake Onalaska, and the mighty Mississippi River.
“There’s way too much water around here,” I mutter.
“Yeah. It’s great in the summertime. There’s so much to do.”
“I don’t like it. And did you realize that the Chippewa River drains into the Mississippi? It followed us all the way from Hudson to here.”
“Don’t forget I’m on loan here.” Jake gives me a sad smile. “Quit trying to escape the inevitable.”
My eyes sting with unshed tears as I turn away. Must change the subject. Now. Before I start to cry.
“So…” I clear my throat. “What’s our story? We can’t just show up at your house on Christmas Eve without some valid excuse.”
“Here’s our reason.” Jake pulls a small box from his coat pocket. “You might as well use your own name. It won’t matter. We’ll say that you attended my college, except you studied abroad in England last semester.”
“Okay, I can do that.”
“Say that you used to live around the corner from me off campus. You hadn’t heard what happened until you got back.” Jake holds up the dainty box. “Pretend this is something I asked you to get for Laura for Christmas. Please tell her I gave you the money before you left, so she doesn’t think she owes you anything.”
Jake fingers the bow on the box. “I hope you don’t mind that you actually paid for this.” He flushes, and I stare at his profile.
“No, I don’t mind, but shouldn’t I know what it is?”
“Right! It’s a light blue broach with the image of a woman upon it. You got it when you went to Italy for a weekend.”
The miserable look on his face makes my heart ache.
“That sounds nice.” I want to say more, but something holds me back.
“It is nice, but you wouldn’t believe the shipping charge.” Jake shrugs.
“And who are you going to be?”
“I’m going to be your boyfriend. You begged me to come along because you didn’t want to do this by yourself, especially on Christmas Eve. And, just for today, you should call me ‘Sam’.”
With every passing mile, I grow more uneasy. Jake keeps changing the radio station. The constant flipping of channels agitates me, but I don’t stop him.
“This is it,” Jake announces as we drive past a large frozen pond. We pull into a curved driveway lined with majestic oaks. Through the tall trees, I spot a red two-story colonial house with white trim and a porch. A snow-covered wooden swing sways in the breeze.
After I park, Jake presses the small box into my hands. Then we exit the car and head for the front door.
Jake walks like an old man up to the steps. He rings the bell. Dogs bark inside. A minute later, a teenager answers. Her features instantly remind me of Jake. She smiles in welcome, then sputters as two dogs burst forth from behind her, almost knocking her down. A black lab and a golden retriever encircle us.
As I praise and pet them, the golden retriever backs up and begins to whine. The dog stares at Jake and pants, its breath forming clouds in the crisp, cold air. The lab shoves aside the golden retriever to reach my hands.
<
br /> Jake scratches the black lab behind the ears and reaches out a hand to his golden retriever, making her whine even more. All of a sudden, she darts off behind the house with the lab following behind.
“Sorry about that,” the teenager apologizes. “Frisky and Nani always act starved for attention. How can I help you?”
“Yes, of course,” I stammer. “I hope you don’t mind us coming here and interrupting your holiday. You’re Laura, right?”
She nods.
“My name is Emma and this is…Sam…my boyfriend.” I swallow hard. “I’m here as a favor to Jake. We were friends at school.”
Laura’s face pales, and she steps back.
I press ahead. “I studied abroad last semester in England. Jake gave me money to buy you a special Christmas present. I hadn’t heard what happened until I got back home. I hope you don’t mind the intrusion, but I felt you should have it in time for Christmas.” I hope my babbling sounds convincing.
Laura takes a hesitant breath. “Why don’t you both come inside?”
Before we leave the porch, both dogs return, the black lab leading the way. The golden approaches uncertainly. In her grayed muzzle, she carries a worn tennis ball, so well used it is no longer green.
She drops it at Jake’s feet. Automatically, he picks it up and throws it across the yard. The old dog tears off after it with determination.
Laura watches the dog in surprise. “That’s so odd. Nani hasn’t wanted to play ball ever since my brother died. Everyone’s tried to play with her, but she just refuses.”
I turn to Jake and think hard. “Sam likes dogs…a lot.”
He nods as Nani comes back ready to play some more.
“Could we talk outside?” Laura asks. “I don’t want to ruin her fun. I’m so happy to see her playing ball again. Do you mind?” She grabs a coat and boots.
The brown leather jacket she throws on hangs loosely on her small frame. I guess from the familiar gaze Jake gives the jacket that it is his. We all sit down on the front steps to watch the golden retriever frolic with the snow-encrusted ball.
“I’ve never heard the name Nani before, but I like it,” I say.
“It means beautiful in Hawaiian,” Jake and Laura answer in unison.
