A Dog Called Jack

by Ivy Pembroke

  “I don’t think they let dogs in hospitals,” said Pari. “Hospitals are stupid.”

  “Jack’s going to wonder what happened, though.”

  “We’ll be sure to let Jack know,” said Pen, giving Teddy a small smile. “As soon as we get home.”

  “How long did they say it would be before we heard something?” asked Anna.

  “Somewhere else you need to be?” countered Emilia, with some amount of bite.

  Anna looked at her. “No. I already said I want to be here. I was just wondering.”

  “I don’t know,” Sam said. “They didn’t say.”

  Emilia said, “Well, if we’re going to be here for a while, I guess I’ll go in search of some tea.”

  Sam watched her walk away. He also felt the stiffness of Diya and Darsh, who both looked at Sai as if he might follow.

  But it was Anna who followed, standing and saying, “I’ll help her get tea for everyone. We’ll be right back.”

  Everyone in the room watched them walk away.

  Max said, “They’ll need more than four hands for all the tea. I’ll help, too,” and then made his escape.

  Sam looked at the knot of people left in the room. Diya looked as if she would have happily made her own escape, too, if she could have worked out a graceful way to do it and if it wouldn’t have forced her into fetching tea with Anna.

  Marcel said abruptly, “You know, there’s nothing wrong with my daughter. She is a sweet and good kid. Which is exactly what I think about your son. It’s why I’m the only one not all tied up in knots about all of this.” Then he got up and left, too, leaving Diya and Darsh sitting stunned in his wake.

  Pari said, “He’s right, though. Emilia’s cool. She’s always super nice to me.”

  Diya looked at Pari. “When did you ever talk to Emilia?”

  “Oh, please, she and Sai spent all summer together. Emilia basically watched me all summer. She was always nice, to all of us. I don’t get what the big deal is, but I like her.”

  Sam didn’t know if it would help the situation or not but felt compelled to keep the room from lapsing into awkward silence. “She’s very good at the drums.”

  Pen added, “I know that I started all of this, so you probably don’t care what I think, but they seem like two kids who just like each other and make each other happy, and that’s rare enough in this world.”

  “That’s what Max thinks, too,” said Arthur, sounding exhausted but also firm.

  Diya looked at Arthur. “You knew Sai and Emilia were dating, too?”

  Arthur lifted knowing eyebrows in Sai’s direction. “They used to use our back garden to get back and forth between the houses.”

  Sai looked a little chagrined at that.

  “And Max would tell you that finding people you want to spend time with is hard enough. When you find them, you hold on to them. Isn’t that why we’re all here?” Arthur stood.

  “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to go and find my husband and say nice things to his face instead of behind his back.”

  * * *

  “Emilia!” Anna called, chasing her down the hallway. Damn, why was she so fast? It made Anna feel extra-old when Emilia finally stopped and Anna caught up and Emilia wasn’t even breathing hard.

  “What?” asked Emilia sulkily. “Now I can’t even go and get tea?”

  “No, you can . . . I wanted to talk to you.”

  “About what now, Mum?” demanded Emilia. “I think it is crystal clear to me what a huge disappointment I am to you—”

  “Huge disappointment?” echoed Anna, bewildered. “What do you mean?”

  “—and how I don’t like the right things, including the right boy, and how basically you wish you had any other daughter but—”

  “That is not true, Emilia,” Anna said fiercely, and grabbed hold of Emilia’s shoulders to force her to face her. “Look at me. That is not true. Do you hear me? I think you’re amazing. I think you’re so amazing that you’re terrifying. You are anything but a disappointment. You are more precious than anything I ever expected to be put in charge of, and I’m making such a huge mess of it, oh, my God.”

  Emilia stared at her, mouth open, looking so shocked that Anna’s heart ached. How, how, had she ended up with a daughter shocked to see how beloved she was? How had Anna done this so wrong?

  “I am going to be better,” Anna vowed.

  “Better at what?” asked Emilia, sounding confused.

  “Better at being your mum. Better at showing you how much you’re loved. Because I love you, so very much. Your happiness is the most important thing in the universe to me.” Anna thought of Marcel’s accusation and said, “If I’m hard on you, it’s because . . . because I want so badly to make sure you don’t make my mistakes. I want so badly to make sure that you—”

  “Your mistakes, Mum?” interrupted Emilia, sounding anguished. “But how can they be mistakes? I would be happy to make every mistake to be like you. Dad loves you so much, and we live on this fabulous street, and I’d love to be a mum someday and . . . You realize that I don’t see your life as being a failure? You realize that it shouldn’t be a huge tragedy to you to see you in me?”

  Anna, for a moment, could manage nothing. She felt as if she’d been looking through a kaleidoscope all this time, and things had suddenly tumbled into a new configuration. She put her hands on Emilia’s cheeks and looked into Emilia’s blue eyes and yes, saw her own, looking back at her. All along, Anna had wanted to save Emilia from Anna’s mistakes, but, Anna realized abruptly, what she really needed to do was save herself from the mistakes her own mother had made.

  So Anna licked her lips and said, “I need you to know this. Are you listening?”

  Emilia nodded, a short little jerk, looking tearfully transfixed.

  Anna said, “You’re the most important person in my life. It’s you. Everything I do is for you. Everything I’ve done wrong has been for you. And I’m sorry for all of it. But please try not to forget that there’s nothing you could do that would make me turn my back on you. Nothing. I will always be your mum. And I will always be here.” And oh, what Anna would have given for her mum to have said that to her; to have felt like there was a support system in place just to protect her, just to fall back on, instead of feeling cast out so alone, so flailing, so lost, that she had almost ruined everything good in her life in her fierceness to try to keep it.

  Anna, she thought, had to learn the lesson she hadn’t yet learned, which was to trust the people she loved.

  Emilia nodded again and said in a small voice, “Me, too, Mum. Me, too. Always.”

  Anna pulled Emilia into a hug, and Emilia buried her face into Anna’s neck, the way she had when she had been small, her cheeks wet with tears, and Anna smoothed her hand over Emilia’s familiar blond hair, so dear and so loved, and wondered when she had stopped giving comfort like this, vowed to do it from now on, for the rest of their lives.

  She looked over Emilia’s head, at where Marcel had paused in the corridor.

  And she smiled at him.

  * * *

  “Hey,” said Arthur, to Max’s still back, where he was standing looking out a hospital window.

  Max glanced over his shoulder and said merely, “Hi,” before looking back out the window.

  Arthur remarked, “You got lost on your way to the tea, I see,” and leaned up against the window so he could see Max’s face.

  Max said lightly, “This place is a maze.”

  “Mmm,” said Arthur noncommittally. “Max—”

  “I’ve already apologized, you know,” said Max. “I can’t keep apologizing hoping that the fiftieth time is the time when it will be enough for you—”

  “Do I make you do that?”

  Max sighed. “No. But I don’t know what else to say—”

  “This is me apologizing to you right now, if you would stop talking long enough to listen.”

  Max did stop talking. He regarded Arthur curiously. He said, “A
pologizing for what?”

  “You’re right. And you’ve been saying this to me for a long time and I didn’t hear you. Not properly. And I’m sorry for that.”

  Max didn’t say anything. He furrowed his eyebrows together and studied Arthur.

  So Arthur kept talking. “I let you do all of the emotional heavy lifting—”

  Max started to protest. “No, you don’t—”

  Arthur talked right over him. “Yes, I do. I always have. And I thought that’s okay because you’re better with emotions and I’ll run the numbers side of things and we’ll work out okay. But we’ve had a lot of emotions over the past few months and not nearly enough numbers and we’re out of balance and you’re drowning and you tried to tell me and I didn’t hear you. So I’m sorry.”

  “Arthur,” said Max, but then didn’t say anything else, as if he didn’t know what else there was to say.

  Arthur inched a step closer, because he thought it would be allowed now, and it was true that Max didn’t flinch away. He said, “I am going to pull more of my emotional weight in the next few weeks. And I’m going to start right now. Do you remember when we first started dating?”

  “Of course I remember. We aren’t that old, darling; it isn’t that ancient history.”

  “On our one-week anniversary, you proposed marriage. Do you remember that? Our one-week anniversary.”

  Max smiled a bit. “I was being . . . exuberant. I liked to watch your ears blush at how appallingly charming you found me.”

  “I know. I was horrified. And also, yes, of course, charmed, because you were right, from the very beginning, that I was always going to be charmed by you. You were right, all along. You knew, right away, and it’s always taken me longer, and at every turn you’ve always asked me to take a leap of faith, to trust you to catch me if I fall, and I always have. I know you think I’m cautious, but I’m not, with you. You’ve always pulled me much faster than I ordinarily want to go, and I’m fine with that, but this is me, here, asking you to take the leap of faith for me. Jump with me, and trust that I will catch you if we fall. I promise that I will. I’m paying attention now. I promise.”

  Max looked at him, his eyes flickering over the features of his face, and Arthur held his breath.

  And then Max tangled his hands into Arthur’s hair and kissed him hard enough that probably it shouldn’t have happened in a hospital corridor.

  Which made it, of course, the best kiss of Arthur’s life.

  * * *

  Emilia and Anna and Marcel returned to the waiting room, decidedly without cups of tea and looking teary-eyed. Max and Arthur also returned without cups of tea but holding hands with each other.

  Sam remarked, so relieved at the release of some of the tension, “I’ve never seen so many people go to fetch tea and not come back with tea.”

  Which made everyone laugh a little and dispelled even more of the tension.

  Diya said, a little shyly—and that in and of itself was astonishing—“So, Emilia. Sai was telling us how you play the drums.”

  Emilia looked surprised and then looked at Sai and gave him the most brilliant smile. “Yes. I do.”

  “She’s really good, too, Mum,” said Sai, smiling besottedly at Emilia.

  “Ah, young love,” said Max jovially, and pressed a kiss into the top of Arthur’s head that Arthur didn’t even roll his eyes at.

  Sam smiled at them and said, “Should I apologize? I feel like I should.”

  Max shook his head a little. “You thought I was telling him, and honestly I should have. I should have warned you that it was still a secret. I’m getting very bad at lying to him. I really must improve in future.”

  Arthur did roll his eyes at that. “You’re a cock.”

  “There are children present,” said Max.

  “Given all of the détente,” remarked Sam, “perhaps we should address the last outstanding matter of disagreement.”

  Which caused everyone to look over at Pen.

  Pen looked as if she were trying to shrink in on herself where she was sitting in the chair. She said, “I am so, so sorry. So sorry. It started out just because . . . I didn’t know any of you lot. And I sat at home, every day, and watched all of these goings-on about your life, and didn’t know any of you, and was curious, and wanted to know more, and was too cowardly to take the step that Sam did to get to know all of you. So I suppose I . . . made you all into characters, like this was all a story instead of your real life, and in that way I managed to be able to detach from the knowledge of what I was doing to all of you, but I know it was wrong, and I don’t know what to do except to say that I am so, so, so sorry and I’ll never do it again.” Pen looked at each of them in turn, eyes wide and cajoling. “Now that I know all of you, I . . . feel so lucky to share a street with such wonderful people, and I can’t believe I ever treated any of you as if you were just characters, when you’re all so much more than that, so wonderful and complex and lovely, and I’m so honored to know you, and I hope you want to continue to know me.”

  Silence fell over the waiting room, which was broken only by a doctor coming through the door, and looking surprised at the number of people there.

  “Well, then,” he said. “I didn’t expect an entire committee.”

  “How’s Mr. Hammersley?” asked Teddy anxiously.

  The doctor smiled at him kindly. “He’s quite all right. Had a bit of a scare just there with his heart, but he’s come through it. Of course, he’ll have to adopt a more healthy diet and better careful exercise and take it easy, but . . . he’s quite all right. He’ll be home in plenty of time for Christmas. Now. Are you the family?” The doctor looked from Teddy to Sam.

  Before Sam could say anything, Anna said, “Yes,” and glanced at Pen, and smiled.

  Diya also looked at Pen before looking back at the doctor and saying, “We’re all the family.”

  * * *

  Bill woke in a hospital room, which had always been a great fear of his. He looked up at the ceiling over his head, dull and white, and thought, This is it. The beginning of the end. There was nothing left to look forward to. It had caught up with him at last, old age, and uselessness, and he would fade away, alone and forgotten, pathetic, in a home somewhere.

  Bill was ashamed of the fact that tears gathered at the corners of his eyes, made the ceiling over his head shimmer in a watery fashion.

  The doctor was talking to him. Something about his heart, and it being merely a scare—a good one, but just a scare, with no reason to think that he didn’t have many years ahead of him, provided he made a few small “lifestyle changes.”

  Bill didn’t pay attention to the doctor. Making “lifestyle changes” required more energy than it was worth. It was easy to think there was a point to a “lifestyle change” when you were as young as this doctor was.

  The doctor said something that sounded like, “Now I’ll go make the report to your family. Are you up for them to visit?” Bill tore his gaze away from the ceiling, sure he’d heard incorrectly. “My family?”

  “Ah, you’d like to see them, wouldn’t you?” The doctor smiled at him.

  Bill made some noise that he couldn’t tell meant yes or no. Really it meant what family?

  And then Teddy came running through the door, followed by the Indian girl, followed by Teddy’s dad, and by Max and his husband, and by the constantly running girl, and the Polish bloke and his wife, and the Polish teenager hand-in-hand with the Indian teenager, and the Indian couple taking up the rear. There were so many people crowded into the room that they basically didn’t fit.

  Bill gaped at all of them.

  Teddy came up and picked up his hand and squeezed it and said, “I’m so glad you’re feeling better, Mr. Hammersley.”

  “Oh,” said the little Indian girl frankly, “you’re covered in tubes, aren’t you?”

  “Pari!” scolded her mother, sounding horrified.

  “We heard you’re going to be absolutely fine,” said Sam, and sm
iled at him, as if . . . as if he actually cared. As if it actually mattered to him.

  “But we did hear you have to adopt a healthier diet. Don’t worry, I have many ideas about that,” said the black woman, and Bill imagined being given green drinks. It sounded horrible. It sounded not at all like anything he would ever want. All this fuss. All these people.

  Bill looked around at all of them and found himself thinking that he could accept the green drinks, he could accept this terrible crowd all around him at all times. It . . . might not be that bad.

  He said, in amazement, “What are all of you doing here?”

  “Max was very persuasive at convincing the doctor we all had to be allowed in here,” said Max’s husband. “We all know about Max’s power of persuasion.”

  Max winked at Bill.

  That wasn’t the question Bill had been asking. He tried again. “No, I mean . . . what are all of you doing here?”

  Sam said gently, “Why wouldn’t we be here?”

  “We’re here because we’re your family,” said Teddy.

  Bill looked at all of them and felt ridiculously emotional again. It had to be the medication they’d given him.

  Sam said, “Don’t worry about Jack. We’ll all take care of him until you can come home.”

  “We’ll see if we can smuggle him into the hospital,” Teddy stage-whispered.

  Everyone laughed.

  Except Bill, who just kept staring at all of them. “I thought you were all quarreling.”

  “Not anymore,” said Anna. “We’ve all made up.”

  “We all had really good conversations,” added Diya.

  “And we’re having a baby,” said Max, which made Arthur smile and look at him.

  “Having a baby?” echoed Bill. “How does that work?”

  “Someone else has it for us,” said Max. “We don’t have the right parts.”

  “I didn’t think the world had changed that much,” remarked Bill, and everyone laughed again.

  “So it’s all settled,” Sam said. “The only thing left to do is get you back home.”

  “And fix you and Miss Quinn,” said Teddy, and then announced to the room at large, “Dad and Miss Quinn had a fight.”