All We Can Do Is Wait

by Richard Lawson

  “Of course I want to hear your voice. It’s just funny! I dunno.”

  “Well, I’m not gonna stop. Voice mails are my thing.”

  “I thought moving to New York was your thing. I thought theater was your thing.”

  “I can have multiple things.”

  Jason laughed, a juvenile, embarrassing, knee-jerk response to the word “thing.” Kyle seemed to catch what Jason was laughing about and raised an eyebrow.

  “Only one thing on your mind, huh . . .”

  Jason blushed again. This was flirting, huh? Here Jason was, on a beach, with a boy, and they were flirting. He watched a cocker spaniel go running into the water and he wanted to chase after it, to tell it the good news. But he also wanted to stay right where he was.

  “Well, fine then. Leave me voice mails. I promise I’ll get around to listening to them eventually.”

  Kyle nodded his head. “Good,” he said. “Good.” He turned to Jason, looked him in the eye. “You wanna kiss again?”

  Jason nodded, and they did.

  Kyle did indeed keep leaving voice mails. One from a party in Provincetown that Jason had been scared to go to. He left another while driving home to Bourne to see his mom. Another from the freezer at work, whispering. Another from his car just after sneaking out of Jason’s bedroom, a particularly sexy message that Jason listened to a lot on nights when he and Kyle couldn’t be together.

  It was a little tradition they established over their short time together, half joking, half sincere. Jason relished getting them, and sometimes thought about leaving one for Kyle, but felt weird about it, like he wouldn’t know what to say, that he wouldn’t be cute and clever like Kyle was. So it remained one-sided, like so much in Jason’s life, people giving him stuff and Jason just gobbling it down and giving nothing in return.

  So it was fitting, then, in some tragic way, that the last time Kyle ever spoke to Jason was over voice mail. That Sunday night, the night he died. They hadn’t spoken for two days—unprecedented since they’d first kissed—and with the summer over, essentially, the next day, Jason had fallen into a consuming gloom, convinced that he and Kyle were done forever, that they’d never be together again.

  Jason’s parents were off to the end-of-summer dinner-dance at the club, and Alexa was at work. There was a big party that some of the Grey’s employees, the twins, Dave and Courtney, were having, and earlier Kyle had tried to persuade Jason to come. But Jason said he wanted the two of them to spend the night alone together.

  “We’ll have the place to ourselves . . . a whole house! With, like, beds,” Jason said, trying to sound coy and enticing.

  But Kyle kicked at Jason from the other side of the backseat of his car, where they’d just hooked up, as they often did. “What’s wrong with this?” he said, gesturing to the barely functioning car. “Come onnn. It’ll be fun. I want to end the summer with a bang!”

  “But we could!” Jason joked.

  Kyle rolled his eyes, leaned across the car, and kissed Jason, softly. “Pleeeease.”

  Jason said he’d think about it. But then it was Kyle’s birthday, real or made-up, and the disaster in Provincetown happened, and the fight, and all of a sudden it was Sunday and there were no plans either way.

  Kyle hadn’t called or texted, and Jason felt too stubborn to contact Kyle. So, once Jason’s parents were off to their dinner, and Alexa went to work, Jason—feeling reckless and sorry for himself, like he hadn’t since before the summer—dug into his parents’ liquor cabinet, finding a mostly full bottle of vodka and going to sit out on the porch, smoking a joint and wallowing in his misery. He scrolled through Kyle’s photos on Instagram, always so fascinated by the ones from before they’d gotten together, the life Kyle had lived before Jason, both mysterious and plain.

  He kept drinking until he passed out, maybe around nine, he wasn’t sure. All Jason knew was that he was awoken around midnight by his phone ringing, his sister on the other end, screaming and crying. Jason, groggy and still drunk, tried to comprehend what she was saying.

  “Alexa, Alexa, slow down, what are you saying? Alexa?”

  “Kyle!” she said. “Kyle! He was in a car accident! He crashed his car!”

  Jason felt sick, like he was going to throw up. “Is—is he O.K.?”

  He heard his sister break down into sobs, and he knew then that Kyle wasn’t O.K. But he needed to hear his sister say it. He needed someone to say it, if it was real.

  “He’s dead, Jason. He’s dead. Kyle’s dead. Oh my God. Oh my God.”

  Jason threw up, vomit splattering on the porch as he dropped the phone. He couldn’t remember if he screamed or cried or anything. All Jason saw when he tried to remember the finer details of that night was a wall of blackness descending, separating his life before and the life after.

  It was only hours later, when Alexa and their parents were home, Jason sitting numb on the couch while his sister wailed and Linda and Theo tried to comfort her, that Jason felt his phone buzz, a little reminder that he had a message. He looked at it, his eyes bleary and unfocused. It was a message from Kyle. From the night before. From 9:07 P.M. Hands shaking, Jason pressed “Play” and put the phone to his ear.

  “Hey, babe. I’m leaving work, wanted to talk to you all day. I’ve been thinking about it, and maybe you’re right. Maybe there’s time. Maybe all that stuff can wait. I know why you’re not picking up, but maybe you’ll listen to this after I leave it, so here’s me telling you that I’m just gonna drive over there and wait like a creep outside your house for a few minutes. If you want to come outside and talk or make out or yell at me some more or just sit next to me and not say anything, I’d really like that. I’d like that a lot. But I gotta hang up now because I’m driving. So, see you in like fifteen minutes. I hope.”

  Kyle had driven to the house that night. To make up with Jason, to fix things, to set things right so they could figure out the future together. But Jason had been passed out drunk. He didn’t hear his phone, and Kyle had waited and waited outside. He was right there. All Jason had to do was run outside, tell Kyle he was sorry, and they could have gone to the party together. Or stayed in and talked and had sex, like the rest of the once-perfect summer.

  But when Jason didn’t come outside, didn’t call back or text or do anything, Kyle went to the party alone, upset probably. He drank more than he normally did, making the careless, fatal decision to drive himself home. Or, even worse, maybe he was headed back to Jason’s. To try one more time. And then he died. Because Jason was asleep on the fucking porch. Because Jason couldn’t keep his shit together for a few hours, because he’d fallen right back into his stupid, destructive old self the minute he felt Kyle pulling away from him. Because Jason was too stubborn to apologize in time. Because he was too cowardly to just tell Nate Carlsson, “Yeah, I’m gay, and this is my boyfriend.” Because Jason had done everything wrong, the whole time he and Kyle were together. He knew that now. That this was all his fault.

  He should have known that Kyle would call. He should have called Kyle. He should have driven to Grey’s and, who cared what his sister saw, apologized to Kyle and told him he loved him and everything would be O.K. Kyle would be alive, if Jason had just had two or three fewer drinks, hadn’t gotten stoned, hadn’t been so consumed with his own sadness and self-loathing that he’d forgotten there was another person, someone else on the other end of the line, waiting for him to say something too.

  Jason had listened to that message probably hundreds of times in the last year. Torturing himself, agonizing over it. Sometimes he let himself slip into fantasies about what could have been, about the life he’d have now if he’d only heard his phone, run outside, grabbed Kyle and never let go. But most days he just buried himself deeper. He drank more, scored pills, stumbled in a haze through school, disconnected, speaking to no one, feeling empty and worthless.

  And of course he had
let Alexa grieve for her friend alone, not knowing that Jason was ruined inside too, that he wanted to scream and cry at his funeral, cling to Kyle’s mother, Sheila, and beg her to forgive him. But he couldn’t do that, because then people would know, and he would have to hear himself say it. That he failed Kyle. That he let him die when all he had to do was stay present, to keep being the person Kyle loved for a little while longer. It was the last night of summer. They’d almost made it. But Jason had, at the very end, managed to destroy everything.

  • • •

  “Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God.” Alexa kept saying it, over and over again. She had her hands on her head, her eyes wild and frantic.

  Jason wasn’t sure what to say next. He’d let it all pour out, telling Alexa everything, about him and Kyle, about how they’d been in love, or at least they’d said they were and it had felt that way. That he was supposed to see Kyle that night. That the accident was his fault. That he got drunk. That he could have saved Kyle, but he failed. He was out of words, so he stood there dumbly while Alexa reeled.

  Finally, she ran her hands over her face and stared her brother in the eyes. “How could you not tell me? How could you do that to me, Jason?”

  “I wanted to tell you . . .” Jason started, but Alexa cut him off.

  “No you didn’t. That’s a lie. You had a year. You had more than a year. How could you do this? Oh my God, Jason. Oh my God. I’m such a fucking idiot. You must think I’m so stupid.”

  “I don’t think you’re stupid, Alexa.”

  “Yes you do! And so did he. Oh my God, Kyle.”

  “He didn’t think you were stupid!”

  “No, you were right. I didn’t know him at all. I had no idea who he was. That whole time! That whole time, you two were sneaking off and . . . So who was I? Just a cover? So Kyle could come over for dinner and you guys could get stoned on the beach and be so in love together? Jesus Christ, Jason. This is so much worse. This is so much worse than anything I could have imagined. Here I am this whole year, this whole miserable year, thinking that I’m too sad, that I’m too needy, that I pushed you away because I was asking for too much. And the whole time, the real truth is . . . it wasn’t about me at all. It’s never really about me, is it? It’s always you. Somehow, it’s always you.”

  Jason had never heard his sister talk like this. All Jason wanted then was to make Alexa feel better. He wanted to say the right thing. But he had no idea what that was. It all felt so much bigger than anything he knew how to handle.

  Alexa turned away from Jason and paced across the room, trying to collect herself. But then she spun around, angry about something new. She strode back toward Jason. “I asked you.”

  “What?”

  “That summer. I asked you if you were seeing someone. I know I did. And you just straight-up lied to me. Kyle lied to me too. God. Do you realize how cruel that was? Do you know how lonely and tricked and just . . . tossed aside this makes me feel?”

  “We would have told you, at some point . . .”

  “Ha! At some point. Well, thank God that point has finally arrived, now that Kyle’s been dead for a year and Mom and Dad are probably about to join him.”

  “Jesus, Alexa.”

  “No. You don’t get to do that, act like I’m overreacting. Not about this.”

  Jason just stood there, feeling utterly stuck. The more his sister said it out loud, the more he realized how mean it had been, to lie to Alexa like that for so long. But he couldn’t fix the lies, and he couldn’t take back what he’d admitted to her today, tarnishing her memory of Kyle in the process. He should have told her back then, but he should not have told her now. No matter which way he turned, Jason was met with his own fuck-ups, yet again.

  “And now you’re disappearing,” Alexa said, shaking her head, looking at her brother, eyes wide with shock. “You’re getting that druggy look. Do you know you haven’t even said ‘sorry’ yet? Did it even occur to you to apologize to me? Or do I not deserve that, am I just some nobody to you?”

  “I’m sorry!” Jason yelled, immediately feeling stupid for hoping that saying it might fix things. “I’m sorry,” he repeated, more sincerely, more pleadingly.

  Alexa shook her head again. “I can’t believe you’re telling me this now. Today. This is surreal.” She threw up her hands in disbelief and walked to the other end of the room, collapsing into a chair, putting her head down, to cool off or cry. Jason watched after her, feeling like he might cry himself. Talking about Kyle like this, the definitiveness of his death, of his absence, made Jason ache all the more acutely. He turned and looked at Morgan, who was teary too.

  “I’m sorry,” she said in a small voice. “This was my fault. I shouldn’t have said anything.”

  “No.” Jason sighed. “It’s my fault. It’s always been my fault.”

  Morgan wasn’t listening. “I shouldn’t even be here. I should have gone home. I just made things worse for you, and I shouldn’t even be here.” She looked over to the exit, clearly planning an escape of sorts.

  “Of course you should be here,” Jason said. “You’re here for your dad.”

  Morgan’s eyes darted to Jason, some strange mix of sadness and panic in them. “I was,” she said, her face suddenly crumpling. “But . . . not anymore.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “He’s dead. My dad died this morning. Before any of you even got here.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  Morgan

  WHEN MORGAN’S MOTHER got sick, as Morgan’s dad called it, he did his best to shield Morgan from the worst of it, the late-night fights, the days and weeks she’d disappear without word, the lying and the bargaining and the manipulation. Of course, it was impossible to protect Morgan from all of it: She saw her mother fade away, replaced by some hungry, barely human thing, saw her father lose his grip on her, the change in his bearing, from hope to tired resignation to a determined drive to keep his daughter as apart from the ugliness as he could.

  When her mother had finally left—disappeared, really—a strange sense of peace had descended on the little house in Dorchester. Beneath all the fear, and sadness, and utter disbelief at how quickly Morgan’s mother had crumbled and blown away, there was a feeling that things could, at least, get better for Morgan and her father, that they’d lost a big fight, and would hurt for a long time, but were still alive, able now to try to pick up and move on as best as they could.

  And life hadn’t been all that bad, somehow. Morgan’s father, a retired Boston police officer, had old friends from the force who checked in on Morgan like doting uncles and aunts, occasionally filling the house with laughter and happiness, a warmth it hadn’t known in a long time. Morgan liked to think that her dad and his friends, and what she’d experienced with her mother, made her tough. She saw Dorchester changing, hordes of young people with college degrees moving into her neighborhood, fancy restaurants and stores opening up on corner after corner, so she clung to her scrappy, native Boston roots, wore her hardness with pride. She always felt on the defensive, but she got through most of her days, and indeed even a couple of years, without breaking down or otherwise losing it. Her father, often distant but amiable in a beery fog, stumbled on in his way too, the two of them a weather-beaten little team, pressing on as they slowly healed.

  But then, that spring, her father started getting tired, all the time, and had a pain radiating throughout his lower back, one that went from bad to debilitating. Morgan finally convinced her stubborn, doctor-phobic father to get some tests done, and when the results came in and the office told him they’d like to discuss them in person, Morgan insisted on coming with him.

  The office, way out in Wellesley by the side of Route 9, was drab and menacing in its attempts to be soothing. Smooth wooden chairs with stiff cushioning, soft-colored paintings of seashores and birch trees hanging forlornly on the walls. Right up until they were brou
ght into the doctor’s little office—Dr. Koskinen telling them to please have a seat, the calm in her voice edged with something hard, like she was bracing the room for a difficult conversation—Morgan had convinced herself that everything was going to be fine. But then she knew. It was bad news.

  And indeed it was.

  “This here is where you’ve been feeling the most pain, Mr. Boyce,” Dr. Koskinen said, turning the monitor to face Morgan and her dad. She pointed at a dark mass, looking like one of those ink tests for crazy people. “That is your pancreas,” Dr. Koskinen said. “Which I’m afraid is very bad place to get cancer.”

  “What does ‘very bad’ mean?” Morgan’s father asked, giving a nervous glance toward his daughter.

  “Well, in certain cases we would begin chemotherapy immediately. But I’m afraid that because we found this so late—the cancer is in stage four—there isn’t much we can do.”

  Morgan’s throat felt tight. She felt irrationally angry at the doctor, her pointy glasses and her snaggletooth, her tight bun and measured way of talking. She wanted to slap her.

  “I see. So, what are we talking about here? Months? Years?” Morgan’s dad asked.

  “That’s hard to say,” Dr. Koskinen said, turning the monitor away from Morgan and her father. “Sometimes in cases like this a patient can go a year. Sometimes only a few months. It depends on many factors, including, well, luck.”

  He nodded, but said nothing. So, the doctor pressed on.

  “The best course of action in these situations is usually some kind of in-patient palliative care. Among other things, we find it takes a great deal of the burden of daily care off the family,” the doctor said, looking sadly in Morgan’s direction.

  “You mean like a hospice,” Morgan’s dad said, his tone hollow and faraway.

  “Yes, like a hospice. There are many options in the city. Your policy from the BPD will cover a great deal of the cost, I’d imagine. I’d be happy to discuss any and all options with you and, of course, with your daughter,” the doctor said, once again zeroing in on Morgan, who felt small and utterly overwhelmed, like she’d just noticed a tidal wave coming and didn’t have time to flee.