by Holly Jacobs
There was something soothing about the garden. The leaves rustled. I’d never thought about it, but the sound of leaves changes. In the summer, there’s a soft brushing noise when they rub together in the breeze. Like a cotton shirt that brushes against the closet door as you take it out. But now, as we approached mid-September, the leaves weren’t as lush and soft as they had been. They were tired and changing colors. It was as if they sent all the vibrancy into that change, and afterward they were simply tired and dried out. The sound they made was louder, and I knew as the season progressed and they dried out more, they would become louder yet. Would I still be here to witness that change?
The harder question was, would Piper still be here?
The next day, I went over to Piper’s early. Fiona was still asleep, so I made myself at home. It was easier now. I didn’t feel like such an interloper.
I started to do some basic chores. I wasn’t sure where things went. If I couldn’t make an educated guess, then I piled them up on the table at the bottom of the stairs, hoping Fiona would take care of them.
She did. She took a pile of clean clothes upstairs, and then she came down with a huge box.
“Hey, we’re cleaning up, not getting out,” I teased.
She laughed. “This is going next door with you.”
“What is it?” I asked.
“I asked Mom about getting you copies of her newer books. She said that there are older ones in the chest, but it was full, so she started a box in the attic. She told me where to find it and . . .” She thrust the heavy box into my arms. “Here.”
I set it down and opened it. There was a copy of The Marshmallow Coat. The picture on the cover was of a girl with dark braids wearing a vibrant yellow coat that did look remarkably marshmallow-esque.
“Open it,” Fiona said.
I did. On the dedication page it read, “For Ned, Siobhan, and Fiona.” Underneath in her handwriting was a note.
Dear Siobhan,
I hope you’ve never been hungry or cold. I hope your life has been filled with laughter, warmth, and love. Know you’ll always have a home here.
Piper
I closed the book, put it back in the box, and shut the lid.
“Thank you, Fiona,” I managed shakily.
“Let’s take them over to your house and get Logan. We need to get to the food pantry early.”
Piper had saved and signed each of her books for me.
Emotions began to swirl, but I pushed them down. Maybe when Piper was better, I’d have time to pull out each emotion and analyze it, but for now I tucked them away. We went next door and found Logan sipping his coffee.
“Are you ready?” he asked, looking excited.
“Sure. Let me put these upstairs before we go.” I’d put them in my room and go through them later.
My room.
I realized that this room at the end of the hall did indeed feel like my room. Just as I felt at home at Piper and Ned’s.
One week.
I’d only been here a week, and yet so much had happened that it felt longer.
I went downstairs, and the three of us walked across the street, through the school parking lot, to the school room Amanda’s Pantry used every other week.
I patted my pocket and realized I’d forgotten my phone. Most days I’d run back and get it—I hated feeling unconnected. But since coming here, I’d been overwhelmed by connections. Giving myself a break from the phone didn’t seem like a bad idea.
I paused a moment and looked at the school. It looked like so many other schools. The windows of each classroom were decorated for the new school year. The top floor windows had construction paper letters that spelled out W E L C O M E F A L L.
I thought about all the years Piper had come here, not just for the food pantry, but also to read to the kindergarten class.
Logan reached out and squeezed my hand. “Are you okay?”
I smiled and nodded, though we both knew that was a lie. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to be honest; it was simply that I couldn’t be.
Logan and Fiona were old pros at setting up for the day. I followed their lead, though I suspected I was more in the way than helpful.
The first person through the door that day was a young mom and a young boy. I’d never been around enough kids to guess his age, but he was definitely a few years younger than Fiona.
“Hi, I’m Jerome,” said the gap-toothed boy clutching a manila envelope.
I grinned. “Hi, Jerome. I’m Siobhan.”
“D’you know Ms. Pip?” he asked.
I nodded. “I do.”
“Good.” He thrust an envelope at me. “Would ya give her these?”
“I will,” I promised.
“Good,” he said again. “She’s been sick, so me and the club wanted her to see our grades ’cause they’ll make her feel better. Mr. Kyle said we’re all rock stars, and I said, no, we’re all math stars.”
He walked over to Fiona, presumably to share his math-star status with her, and his mother smiled at me. “Ms. Pip found out that Jerome was having trouble with math, so she talked to one of the teachers, and he put together a math club. They meet once a week. There are fourteen kids in it now. They met all summer. Last week was their first test of the year, and . . .” She nodded at the stack of papers. “Every one of them got an A. They wanted to be sure Piper knew.”
“I’ll take them over to the hospital tonight,” I promised.
“Any news on a donor?” she asked.
Every time my phone rang, my heart leaped, thinking this was it, a message from my doctor. Every time it wasn’t.
I shook my head.
“We all got tested and joined the registry in her name.”
Logan reached under the table and took my hand. I nodded. “I’m sure she’s touched. And I know that she’s going to feel so much better after she sees the math tests.”
“You tell her we’re all praying for her,” Jerome’s mother said.
That set the tone for the day. A lot of the clients knew Logan and stopped to talk to him. That was always a relief because they didn’t ask me any uncomfortable questions.
Every time Fiona heard me introduce myself as a friend of the family, she looked disappointed.
The last visitor of the day was a beautiful teenaged girl. “Hey, Logan,” she called as Fiona rushed up to her and threw herself at the girl.
“Lovey,” Fiona cried.
The girl came up to the table, Fiona still hanging on her, and asked Logan, “How long are you back for?”
“The school year. I’m going to stay in town and finish the program.”
As he said the words, I could see that staying in town for the school year was going to be hard on him. He had a look in his eye, as if he were thinking about some faraway, exotic place. I knew just the word to describe his look . . . wanderlust.
“Nice,” the girl said.
“Lovey this is Siobhan. Siobhan, this is Lovey Ridley.”
She laughed. “No one calls me Lovey except my mom and everyone here. I stopped by today to send Ms. Pip something.”
“We’ve got a collection,” he said, pointing at the box we’d started for all the notes, tests, and the other small gifts.
Lovey pulled a newspaper out of her bag. “I wrote an essay last spring for a competition. It won. The prize was a savings bond for college. Well, the school newspaper reprinted it on the front page. It’s about Amanda’s Pantry and Ms. Pip. I thought it might make her smile.”
“I’m sure it will,” Logan assured her.
Lovey placed the paper in the box with the rest of the collection. “Tell her to get better soon. We miss her.”
“I will.” I promised.
I felt like I was perpetually on the verge of tears seeing how many people Piper had touched.
When Ned came to take Fiona to the hospital to see Piper, we sent the box of letters and gifts with them.
Logan and I cleaned up and then locked the door. We walked back across the
street. “Do you have some time?” he asked.
“Sure. Why?”
He opened up his car door. “Get in.”
I did, and he started driving.
“Where are we going?”
“Do you trust me?” he asked.
I’d only known the man a week, but I realized that I did indeed trust him. I nodded. He glanced from the road to me in time to see it.
“Good.”
We drove in silence to wherever he was taking me. That might have been awkward with some people, but it was comfortable with Logan. Before I knew it, he parked his car near the bay. “Let’s go.”
We walked between the bay and a huge hotel. There was a wall that separated the walkway and the water. Birds perched on it and an occasional fisherman.
Across the bay I could see the arch of the peninsula. The beach we had visited was on the lake side. The side I could see now was lined with trees. Pops of color accentuated the dark green leaves.
There was one lone sailboat on the water. I wondered how much longer it would be able to go out before it got too cold. Tonight finally felt like autumn. It wasn’t cold, but rather it was cool.
I reached up and realized my nose was cold.
Logan stopped suddenly and pointed at the wall. “Look.”
There was enough light from the streetlights to make out that each brick that made up the wall had someone’s name on it. Logan pointed to a specific one.
“It was a fundraiser,” he explained.
Piper George, simply ERIEsistible.
“The kids at the pantry raised money to buy it for her. The Eriesistible was a play on an old tourism campaign here. I thought you might like to see it.”
“Thank you.” I ran my finger over the chiseled stone and felt another small connection to her.
We walked along the bay, and Logan took my hand but didn’t say a word. As we walked, I realized that this was just what I needed. The sound of the water and the seagulls. The cold nose. Even holding hands, that nondemanding connection that reminded me that I wasn’t alone.
As we finished our walk, I realized something else. Logan understood me better in a week than Carey had understood me in eight years.
“Thank you,” I said as we pulled into the driveway. “I needed that.”
As if to emphasize my last thought, he nodded. “I thought you might.”
He took my hand again as we walked to the front door. “I’m going up to my room for a bit,” I said.
He smiled and nodded.
I went up to my room and saw the box of Piper’s books on the bed. I found my cell phone just where I’d left it. I had three messages. One was from my dad. One from Carey. And one from a number I didn’t recognize. I played that last one first.
I’m not sure how long I stood there holding my phone, but the next thing I knew, Logan was standing in the doorway and looking at me with concern. “Siobhan, are you okay.”
I nodded as I looked up at him. “I’m more than okay.”
I paused a moment, trying to let the news sink in. “I’m a match.”
Part Two: October
Chapter Six
Hearts expand as needs be. They never truly run out of room. And despite popular belief, they never break. They can bruise, but given time and attention they will heal.
—A Four Letter Word: Love, by Pip
When I was little, I was prone to night terrors. I never remembered what I’d dreamed about. To be honest, I don’t really remember having them. What I do remember is waking up, feeling hot, sweaty, and so scared. And every time, I’d also find my mother curled up next to me on the bed. She’d be stroking my hair and murmuring shh or it’s all right.
Eventually I outgrew those night terrors, but my dream life was an active one. I’d kept a dream journal for years simply because the act of writing my dreams down solidified them in my mind. I didn’t really analyze them or believe they would lead me to some greater truth, but I did believe that sometimes I worked things out in a dream, things I’d never have thought about in the light of day.
Sometimes the dreams made no sense. And sometimes they made all kinds of sense. The night after my surgery, I dreamed.
I dreamed about a dirty-looking little girl with red hair. She was me, and yet she wasn’t me at all. I saw her sitting at an empty table, and then I saw Piper sweep into the room. This was Piper from the Internet, all smiles and strength with long red hair. She pulled the grubby child onto her lap, sang a song to her, and rocked her.
Then my mom walked into the room and said, “Thank you.”
Piper looked up and said, “Take care of her.”
She handed me/the little girl to my mom, who walked away. But though I’d been the girl who my mother carried away, I was still in the room with Piper who sat at the table and cried as if her heart would break.
I reached for her, but I couldn’t touch her. I couldn’t help her. She faded right before my eyes. She tied a scarf over her head, covering her hair, and then she turned pale, thinned, and then turned into a misty gray figure, losing solidity as I watched. She handed me Fiona and said, “It’s your turn now. Take care of her.”
And then I was sitting on top of the hope chest, rocking Fiona who was suddenly an infant with red hair. I cried and said, “I don’t know how to do this.”
And then I woke up.
“Ban, wake up,” someone said.
I woke up and found myself wrapped in Logan’s arms.
“Shh,” he said as he stroked my hair in the same way my mother once had, but the feelings his touch evoked were not filled with childlike innocence at all.
“It’s all right. You’re not alone,” he murmured.
“I feel as if I am,” I admitted. “I feel as if I’m going to lose Piper when I’ve only just found her. I feel as if all the talks I’ve wanted to have with her will never happen. I feel as if all I’ll be able to do is see her through a glass wall or with a mask over my face.”
“You’re not going to lose her,” he said with more confidence than I felt. “Can I get you something? A drink?”
I shook my head. “My mother always did that. Not Piper, I mean my mom. She’d offered me a drink if I had a nightmare. I never wanted a drink; I just wanted her to hold me. I don’t think I’ve ever felt as safe and as loved as I did in her arms.”
Until now, I realized.
Here in the streetlight-lit room in Ned’s old house, being held by Logan, I felt safe. I knew I should pull away. I knew I should stand on my own two feet. I’d decided that after Carey had left. And yet, I found myself snuggling closer.
Logan leaned back against the headboard and said, “Close your eyes. If you don’t mind, I’ll just sit here with you for a few minutes.”
I should have minded, but I didn’t. “Thank you,” I said.
He smelled of soap. A kind of fresh, clean scent that reminded me of . . . though I realized the scents were dissimilar, I realized the smell reminded me of Piper’s garden. I felt slightly amused by the realization.
And then the next thing I knew, it was morning.
Logan was still propped against the headboard, and I was still curled into the crook of his arm with my head on his chest. I could hear his heartbeat and feel the rise and fall of his chest.
I knew I should move.
I might inadvertently be Logan’s roommate, but I didn’t know him well enough for this.
But knowing and doing are frequently two separate things. I hadn’t realized how much turmoil I was in until now . . . until I had spent a few hours in Logan’s arms. All my worries and cares faded, and I simply felt safe.
Calm.
So I didn’t move.
But even without moving, I felt an ache in my hip where they’d removed my bone marrow yesterday. It throbbed along to the beat of my pulse. It wasn’t an agonizing pain, but it was present.
It reminded me that part of me was even now flowing through Piper. Just as part of her had always flowed through me.
I thought again of mitochondrial DNA. T. P. E.’s DNA linked us both. We had always been connected, and now we were reconnected.
And maybe, if we were lucky, we’d have years to see those connections grow and strengthen.
“You’re thinking very loudly,” Logan murmured, his voice scratchy from sleep. “You okay?”
I sat up and disengaged myself from Logan. “Yes, I’m fine. I’m so sorry about last night. Between the stress and the pain pill—”
“And surgery,” he said.
“The surgery wasn’t that big a deal.” At least not compared to what Piper was going through. She’d gone through a course of heavy-duty chemotherapy. It was supposed to kill off her entire immune system, which would then be ready for the transplant. What the doctors had harvested from me would take over producing healthy white blood cells that would become her new immune system. If everything went right, she’d be cured.
But the chemo was grueling. Piper had mouth sores that were so bad that eating became a problem. And what she did manage to eat she couldn’t keep down.
Ned practically lived at the hospital. I’d taken Fiona in a few times, but we didn’t stay for long. Piper wasn’t in any condition for guests, not even her daughters.
Having seen what she was going through, my surgery seemed like a cakewalk.
Logan obviously didn’t agree. “Any time you have surgery it’s a big deal,” he lectured. “You were under anesthesia, and the surgery itself was invasive. I have today off until class tonight, so you are going to be waited on. Like it or not,” he added with a stern expression, indicating he knew I wouldn’t like it.
I snorted. “I don’t need to be waited on.”
Even though we’d been roommates for only a month, he’d become a friend. And I recognized the stubborn look in his eyes. It was a look that said he planned on winning this battle.
“Sometimes not really needing something but getting it anyway makes it even sweeter,” he said. “I thought we’d get you set up downstairs on the couch. And I’ll start a fire. It’s supposed to be really cool today. You can be a lady of leisure. And because it’s your day, I’ll even let you pick what shows we watch.”
