by Claire Adams
I don’t remember the exact conversation, but I remember that it culminated in me promising that, in the scenario that Danna gets worse and I, for some reason, am in charge of the hiring and firing of any temporary or permanent healthcare and/or rehabilitation staff, that I would make sure her healthcare worker was a handsome man with a sensual accent.
I do remember that knowing English wasn’t a job requirement so long as he was willing to give Danna sponge baths multiple times a day until she got bored of him, at which time, I’d hire someone new to replace him.
Where the name Paolo itself came from, I haven’t the slightest recollection.
So when I tell Danna that it might be time we hire a Paolo, I’m putting the words in a way that’s likely to be a little easier to hear, but it’s not going to change the weight of what those words really mean.
Danna’s still young and she’s still got a lot of time ahead of her. If she keeps doing what she’s doing, though, she’s going to run herself into the ground.
“We’ve got to do something,” I tell her. “I wanted you to move in so we could keep a better eye on each other. I didn’t do it so you’d overextend yourself day in and day out—”
“I’m sick,” she says, resigned. “It happens.”
“I think we both need a little help here to make sure that you’re not putting your health and well-being at risk,” I tell her.
“You can’t take away my freedom, Damian,” she says. “I won’t allow it, and you’d never let it go on for any significant amount of time anyway, so why bother wasting the time, money, and effort.”
“I’m not trying to take away your freedom,” I tell her. “I’m trying to look out for my sister, that’s all.”
Her eyes are growing heavy, but that doesn’t really seem like the reason Danna’s telling me she’d like to be alone, to have a chance to close her eyes and rest.
Even if it’s only temporary, we are going to have to figure out some kind of help for Danna after she gets out of the hospital, and I’m going to have to try to figure out a way to be there more.
I have to work, and even if I tried to take another break, Danna wouldn’t allow it. She’s the one that got me to take the role in Flashing Lights. I didn’t even want to do the movie.
No matter what I do here, Danna’s not going to like it. I’m sorry about that, but that’s out of my control. There just aren’t enough options.
On the set today, they’re doing scenes with some of the extended cast, so I’ve got the day off. I was hoping to get some kind of repose after everything with Ed, but I’m never going to be able to relax until Danna’s back home.
That tells me something I should have known for a long time, and that new knowledge has me pulling the phone from my pocket and dialing the number.
“Hello?” Emma answers.
“Hey, Em,” I say. “Listen, there’s something I think we should talk about and as much as I’d like to do this in person, I’m not sure how practical that’s going to be right now.”
“Well, this doesn’t sound good,” she says.
“Danna’s not doing so well right now, and that made me realize that I’m really not in a position right now where I’m ready for a relationship,” I tell her.
“Well,” she says, “we’re just dating. If you need some space or some time, that’s fine. I don’t think that we need to call everything off completely, though. We’re still finding out where this goes.”
“I know,” I tell her, “and I’m really sorry, but I do think that’s going to be the best thing for both of us right now.”
“Well, I’m not going to sit here and argue with you about it,” she says. “If you want us to stop seeing each other outside of work, we’ll stop seeing each other outside of work. One thing, though.”
“What’s that?” I ask.
“Are you okay?” she asks. “Your voice is really shaky.”
“I’m fine,” I tell her, and even I notice the quiver in my tone this time around. “Have I really been talking like that this whole time?” I ask.
“Mostly after the phrase ‘Hey, Em,’” she answers.
“I’m just feeling totally overwhelmed right now and I need to be here for my sister. I’m kind of all she’s got right now, and I need to be able to work and still have time to take care of her when I need to.”
“I’m not arguing with you,” she says. “I’ve got a spotless record: I’ve never tried to keep someone in a relationship against their will. I’m asking if you’re okay because you don’t sound like you are.”
“I’m not,” I tell her.
Honesty every once in a while clears the palate, you know.
“Where are you?” she asks. “I’ll come and keep you company.”
“I don’t think that’s the best idea,” I tell her. “Why don’t we just talk tomorrow when we’re in the chair?”
“Because I don’t know if you’re going to be okay tomorrow when we’re in the chair and I do know that you’re not okay right now,” she says. “I’m not saying I want to come in there and get relationship juice all over you, but we can still be friends, right?”
“Yeah,” I answer.
“Well, don’t friends help each other out when one of them is having a hard time?” she asks.
“Well, yeah,” I answer.
“Then let me know where you are so I can come and help you through it,” she says.
Nobody’s said anything like that to me in a very long time, not with that level of altruism, anyway.
“Danna’s sleeping right now,” he says.
“Then just give me the name of the hospital and I’ll meet you wherever you want me to meet you,” she says.
“Why are you doing this?” I ask.
“What do you mean?” she returns.
“I kind of just broke up with you there and you still want to come down to the hospital because I’m having a rough time,” I tell her.
“Yeah,” she says, “so?”
“That’s crazy,” I tell her.
“Not when your friend is having a hard time,” she says.
“I can’t leave the hospital,” I tell her.
“I know,” she says. “Just tell me where to meet you and I’ll come there. You can be as close or as far away as you need to be.”
I don’t know what to tell her. I don’t know what to say.
“Thanks,” I finally mutter, and I tell her where to meet me.
While Danna’s sleeping, there’s no reason I can’t spend a little time talking to Emma.
Before her diagnosis, Danna was in school, training to be a ballet dancer. She was really quite something.
I never really understood the ballet, but Danna loved it. Every time we talked, that’s what she wanted to talk about. I think that’s why it’s so much harder to see her stuck in a bed or struggling to get around the house.
It’s not always like that, though.
With relapsing remitting MS, Danna actually spends most of her life symptom-free, at least to the largest degree, but even with her long bouts of healthiness, Danna had to give up her dream.
Since Jamie, I’ve dated a bit here and there. I even tried being the Hollywood swinger type for a little while, but Danna always needed me more than I needed to be with someone.
A little time passes and I spot Emma walking toward our designated meeting place, so I set off to meet her.
“What’s going on?” she asks when we’re within conversational distance. “Is everything all right?”
“Yeah,” I tell her. “Danna’s going to be fine.”
One of the things about Danna is that she loved Jamie. The feeling was mutual. In fact, I’m not entirely sure that Jamie liked me more than she liked my sister.
That was all well and good, but now that Jamie’s gone, as far as Danna’s concerned, nobody will ever measure up.
It took me years before I realized what was really going on.
After Jamie died, Danna didn’t grieve. Because
of my own sorrow, I hadn’t allowed her to grieve.
It wasn’t a conscious decision, it was just the way things played out, and so Danna took the role of pillar while I was allowed to let loose with my emotions whenever and however I saw fit.
I think, more than anything, Danna talks down every woman that comes around because she is afraid of getting attached to someone new only to end up losing them as well, whether to death or to a breakup or whatever the case may be. She never got to grieve and so she’s had to stifle that sadness, she had to channel the hurt. It had to go somewhere.
Anyway, there are a lot of reasons I don’t think right now would be the best time for Danna and Emma to meet.
“I’m glad to hear that,” Emma says. “You sound a little better than you did on the phone,” she continues. “Are you doing better?”
“Yeah,” I tell her. “I don’t know.”
“I don’t suppose you’re going to tell me what happened, are you?” she asks.
“It is what it is,” I tell her. “I just wish there was something I could do.”
“Maybe there is,” Emma says. “You’re a rich and well-known, if not well-respected, actor. This is what we do, isn’t it? When we want to see something change, we find a cause and we get behind it.”
“Yeah, the problem with that is that a few million here or there isn’t going to change anything,” I tell her. “Look, I know how this whole thing is going to go. I’ve been through this with her before, and I don’t really think we’re going to make all of it feel better or that we’re going to make me magically stop caring.”
“I know,” she says. “I just know that sometimes it can help me feel better when I talk about what’s going on with me. It doesn’t necessarily solve the problem. It doesn’t have to. Some problems aren’t just going to go away by talking them out. All that you can do when there’s nothing else that you can do is to try to get through it without running yourself down mentally, emotionally, or physically.”
I tell her, “I really don’t want to talk about it.”
“Then let’s talk about something else,” Emma says.
“What did you have in mind?” I ask.
“It doesn’t matter,” Emma says. “What do you want to talk about?”
“Right now,” I tell her, “I don’t know what there is to say. I mean, Danna’s sick and she’s not going to get any better in a permanent kind of way. There’s no reason to think she won’t live a happy and full life, but times like this make me just wonder how she can wake up in the morning and decide that life is still worth living.”
“She’s still got a smile on her face after everything, huh?” Emma asks.
“Oh no,” I tell her. “Danna’s one of the most cynical people I’ve ever known. She always has been in one way or another. That’s the comforting thing, really.”
“How so?” Emma asks.
“It hasn’t changed,” I tell her. “She was cynical before her diagnosis and she’s cynical now. I guess the things that make me feel more hopeful aren’t the occasional improvements or the long stretches when she’s symptomless, they’re the things that just haven’t changed.”
“She’s still your sister,” Emma says.
I haven’t shared too much about Emma with Danna, nor have I shared that much about Danna with Emma. In my life, there are two separate and distinct worlds. In one world, I am me, Damian Jones, actor, extraordinarily handsome gentleman, etc. In the other, though, I’m Danna’s twin, and in that world, nothing is more important.
“I know she’s still my sister,” I tell Emma. “I’m just sick of losing so many little pieces of her. This thing, it just chips away at a person, bit by bit, until even when symptoms aren’t relapsing, life and the drive to continue living it just starts to make a little less sense.”
“Have you ever wondered why this happened to her and not to you?” Emma asks.
I’m not entirely sure what to say to that.
“Listen,” I tell Emma, “I told you that I didn’t want to talk about any of this. Now that we have, is there any way we can just let the whole thing drop?”
“I guess so,” Emma says. “It’s a shame, though. It’s a real, real shame.”
I sigh and ask, “What’s that?”
“You almost sounded like you were on the verge of saying something that was going to make you feel better,” she says. “I haven’t the slightest idea what it might have been, but I saw that little gleam in your eye. Come on, out with it.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I tell her.
“I think you do,” she says. “I don’t know if you were going to answer my question or if you were going to tell me the rules to seven card stud, but whatever came into your mind right then—that was important.”
“That’s the thing,” I tell her. “I wasn’t thinking anything that I wasn’t saying. I don’t know what you want to hear.”
“What happened to your parents?” she asks.
“You’ve seen the magazines and the talk shows,” I tell her. “You must have heard the story at some point, if nothing else, at least on the set.”
“We don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to,” she says.
“I really don’t want to,” I tell her.
“That’s all right,” she says. “So, why’d you break up with me?”
“Can we maybe do this another time?” I ask.
“Well, we’re here. We may as well talk about something,” she says. “We may as well work out any issues remaining between us before they overtake and kill the friendship I hope we still have.”
“We’re still friends,” I tell her. “The problem isn’t you. The problem isn’t even Danna or me,” I continue. “The problem is that I only have so much capacity for some things before I get filled up. The problem is that I feel guilty about starting a torrid love affair while my sister’s lying in a hospital bed, okay?”
“She wants you to be happy, doesn’t she?” Emma asks.
“Yeah,” I answer. “I guess.”
“Then what’s the problem?” Emma asks.
“The problem is that I don’t know how to be with anyone while I’m still taking care of her,” I blurt, and as soon as the words are out of my mouth, I know I’ve crossed a personal line.
“That’s some heavy shit,” Emma says.
“Tell me about it,” I respond.
Emma starts again, “Are there any new medications coming out, or—”
“There’s always supposed to be something on the horizon,” I tell her. “They’re always so close to an answer, if not a full-fledged cure, at least that’s what they keep saying, but it never happens. Either the drug ends up not working or it kills the test subjects. Either way, empty words float heavy on the wind.”
“Yeah,” Emma says. “That they do.”
“Listen,” I tell her, “I’ve got to get back in there, but I am glad that you stopped by.”
“Of course,” Emma says. “Anytime. We’re still friends, right?”
We’re still friends, right?
How am I supposed to answer that question?
In a lot of ways, I really don’t know Emma all that well. We’ve been kind of forced into close proximity and so we’ve gotten to know each other at an increased pace, but at the same time, right now, I’m not sure that I’m in a position to make long-term predictions about where this could go and where it will go.
“You know,” I tell her, “no. Emma, I don’t want to be your friend. I want us to be together in a real way, but that just can’t happen with everything else that’s going on. It’s not fair and it’s not simple, but it is reality.”
Emma’s bottom lip rises for a moment and then retreats back into its normal position.
“Really?” she asks. “You’re going to give up on having your own relationships because you think your sister will think you’ve deserted her? Shit, that was a mouthful. It doesn’t matter; look,” she says, “if you’re not happy, how is it
that you think you could really hope to make someone else happy?”
“Actually,” I tell her, “it’s really not that hard to do. People get behind self-sacrifice pretty easily. I’ve always wondered where we got the idea that in order to make another person happy, we also need to be happy—not just that moment or that day, but in our lives, in our careers, with our family and friends. A great deal of my life has been spent feeling miserable,” I tell her. “That’s never stopped me from making Danna smile.”
“Okay,” Emma says, “but if she smiles when you’re ‘feeling miserable,’ who’s to say that she wouldn’t smile more if you were happy.”
“I don’t know,” I tell her. “It’s complicated.”
“Well, there’s a cop out if I’ve ever heard one,” Emma scoffs.
“What do you want me to do?” I ask.
“I want you to quit thinking that you have to give everything up to be there for your sister,” she says. “You can be there for her and still live your own life.”
“I should get back in there and see how she’s doing,” I tell her.
“All right,” she says. “I’m not going to hold a gun to your head and say ‘have a relationship with me.’ If us being a thing isn’t going to work out for you, that’s that. I just don’t want to you to think that in order to be there for your sister you have to live the rest of your life in a hole. So, why don’t you think about where you see the two of us on the spectrum between stranger and lover and you let me know. Until then,” she says, “I really do hope that your sister gets to feeling better real soon.”
“Thanks,” I tell her. “I appreciate that.”
The conversation ends and we haven’t really settled anything.
There’s a lot to think about, but I don’t know if anything’s going to be able to change reality enough for me to have what I want to have with Emma.
I head back up to Danna’s room and just watch her sleep for a little while.
My life has gotten so small over the last 10 years or so. It almost collapsed when Jamie died, and when Danna was diagnosed, well, by that time, I’d already started to go numb.
Being with Emma, it kind of feels like putting your hands under hot water after you’ve just been in freezing weather for a couple of hours. It’s the surprising sensation of feeling something after being anesthetized for so long. Right now, it just hurts. Maybe in time, after I’ve gotten used to the warmth, it’ll start to feel like something else, but right now, it just hurts.
