by Nikki Rae
***
We're silent as Jonah takes out the needle and places a bandage over the bend in my arm.
A daughter.
I don't know why this fact about Jonah surprises me. Maybe it's because it never occurred to me that he could have a kid. Maybe because the fact that someone has a child implies that they've been with someone else in order to create that child.
“She would be seventeen now,” he says, setting the bag on the nightstand next to the picture. He places two fingers on the frame before turning to me.
“Would be?” I ask.
He smiles weakly. “I'm not allowed to see her.”
I stare at my knees, fiddling with the hem of my skirt. “Oh,” I say. “I'm sorry.”
Jonah shrugs when I look back up at him. “My ex-wife thought it was ‘inappropriate.’”
“Inappropriate?” I ask, unable to hide the shock from my voice. “What does that even mean?”
He swallows hard. He doesn't want to talk about it.
“I'm sorry,” I say. “It's none of my business.”
Jonah takes my hand and helps me up. He doesn't let go as we walk back to my bedroom and I like how cold yet calming it is, having a hand to hold. Maybe that's all he wants too.
“I was turned by accident,” he finally says as he unmakes my bed and I climb in. I don't bother arguing with going back to sleep. I'm exhausted and I haven't even done anything. I’ve never been tired multiple days in a row with a headache. Usually it was just a day from hell with a migraine and that would end in a nosebleed and then I’d be fine. Somewhere in the back of my head, there's a little red flag raising, the small sound of some kind of alarm, but they're both too far away for me to focus on. Jonah is right here, right now. He isn't the future, he isn't what happens next or after.
“I was a donor,” he says quietly, sitting down next to my legs. “The person feeding from me went too far and they had no other choice.”
“They made you...”
He cuts me off, “Yeah.”
Neither of us says the word.
Jonah clears his throat. “Anyway,” he says. “Myra has fibromyalgia. It affects her lungs and eventually she won't be able to breathe on her own.” He takes a deep breath. “She’s on a waiting list for a lung transplant, but even then if she gets it before it’s too late, there’s a high risk that she won’t survive surgery or that down the road, her body will reject them.”
I notice that his hand curls into the blanket underneath him. I place my hand on top. He stares at me at this contact, his expression softening.
“I came home and told my wife what happened, how I could cure Myra with this...” he gestures to his body and that's enough of an explanation. “She told me that if I left and never contacted them again, she wouldn’t tell anyone my secret.”
I give his hand a light squeeze.
“She wanted nothing to do with it,” he says. “Or me.”
***
My parents were proud of me when I graduated high school. I would be the first person in our family to go to college, as long as the financial aid and loans I applied for went through. I was accepted to three really good schools, all with great marine biology programs. All I had to do was wait as everything fell into place.
Then the nosebleeds started, I was denied financial aid (apparently owning a trailer was proof that we had enough money to send me to college) and the only loans I was approved for wouldn’t even cover the cost of books. I decided that I would stay home a year and save my money so I could go the following semester. Then Dad broke his back, so most of my checks went to Mom and him so we could continue living in the trailer and not in a shelter. Then, well…the diagnosis happened. There was no money and no point. Instead of saving for college, I saved for Mom and Dad, but I wasn’t making enough.
Until MyTrueMatch and Jonah.
“I don’t understand why you have to leave now, Casey,” Mom said when I told her I was going to Boston. We sat at the kitchen table eating spaghetti and meatballs that had come out of a can. “I didn’t even know you were still planning on going to school.”
I took a sip of water. I had already prepared exactly what I would say, formulating what my parents’ responses would be for weeks. “I know,” I say. “But Boston University only has tours so often and I want to go before I blow through all my savings.”
Mom sighed, Dad coughed from the living room. “How long will you be gone?”
I understood that without me she was alone in trying to support the family, but I was a little hurt that she was annoyed I was leaving. If I was actually looking at schools and not making her money, I would have been a lot more hurt.
“Two weeks, give or take.”
Mom took that in. “What do you mean give or take?” she asked. “A tour is only for a weekend at most.”
I was prepared for this too. “I might check out other schools while I’m there,” I said. “I have enough money to support myself, maybe even take a mini vacation.” I smiled, but added on quickly. “And I’ve already set aside enough money for the bills for the month.”
Mom seemed to relax a little at that, her hand loosening around her fork. “I’m sorry, sweetie,” she said. “I’m just stressed.”
“I know,” I said.
“If you get the chance to take a vacation while you’re out there, you take it. For me, okay?”
“Okay, Mom,” I said, laughing.
Mom caught my eye and smiled. “We’re so proud of you, Casey.”
I smiled too, but it was forced. “Thanks Mom,” I said, but the words were hollow, echoing through my chest and out of my mouth as the spot behind my eye ached.
***
When he doesn’t say anything else, I say, “I’m so sorry, Jonah.”
A small smile plays in the corner of his lip, but it never fully forms. “It’s hard sometimes, you know?” He stares at my arm. “All of these things changed all at once in my life. I had to completely rebuild everything.”
He finally glances at me. “How long ago did that happen?” I ask.
“Eight years,” he says simply. “But it feels like last week.” I watch as he takes in a deep breath and slowly pushes it out. “The hardest part is that I could help her,” he says. “I could save her…and I won’t even get the chance.”
Jonah’s expression turns blank, like he’s thought about this many times but never actually said it out loud. He sits down next to me on the bed, leaning his back against the headboard. “She always wanted fish,” he says quietly. “From seven years old.”
I suddenly feel really bad for Jonah. Is this why he allows me to stay? Why he has seahorses? So he can take care of some living thing without being afraid it will be taken away?
“I liked fish from a young age too,” I offer in a whisper. “I first went to the aquarium when I turned six. Then it was tradition to go on my birthday every year after that.”
His hand finds mine on top of the comforter. “Are the aquariums really big where you lived?”
I nod. “Huge.”
Jonah smiles a little, settling into the mattress next to me. “Tell me about them?” he asks.
And I do. Our hands don’t come apart.
***
Mom and Dad drove me to the airport when I left California. The sun was so bright that day that I had to break out my sunglasses for the first time all winter. Dad sat with the passenger’s seat leaned back so his spine was comfortable, and he was wearing sunglasses too. When I got out of the car with my suitcase and opened his door so I could hug him, I realized he wasn’t wearing them because of the sun.
“You have fun and be safe,” he said into my ear. “And don’t come back until you’ve decided on a really good school.” His voice was tight and when I tried to move away, his hug became even tighter. “Don’t worry about the money, okay? We’ll figure something out.”
I nodded, too afraid that if I spoke I’d start crying as well. For more than one reason.
Mom gent
ly closed the door between us and repeated the same things into my ear as we hugged goodbye, only adding, “Come back as soon as you can.”
I stood inside the lobby and watched through the window as the old rusty car pulled away. It took me a long time to look down at my ticket to figure out where my gate was. It took me longer to move from that spot in front of the window.
***
I went back to the same aquarium the year I turned eighteen, only that time, I was alone. Mom had to work a double and Dad had just had surgery so they couldn’t come. I thought about staying home and just watching TV with Dad, but something pulled at me, deep in my gut, guiding me past the jellyfish and reptile exhibits through the tunnel of sharks, and straight to where I remembered the octopus being. Every year I knew there was a possibility that it wasn’t the same animal. The one I saw when I was six was probably replaced every few years, but I still referred to it as “Dolly”, knowing with absolute certainty that they had recycled the name at least three or four times.
But when I got to the wall that housed the small tank, I couldn’t find Dolly. There was bright pink coral in the white sand, there was dark green and brown seaweed swaying back and forth gently with the current of the filter. Under the tank, the plaque had a picture of the octopus next to the same information I had read from the time I was able, but next to that, where there was usually a separate plaque that read “Dolly”, there was a new tag:
Reserved.
We are currently awaiting our newest underwater friend
A picture of a seahorse was taped to the outside of the tag, possibly hinting at the “new arrival”. It did nothing to comfort me. Dolly was gone. Not only that, but she had been replaced.
***
We spend most of the day talking. Jonah only leaves to make lunch and dinner, insisting we eat upstairs. I think he likes having me in his room, even if it’s not in the “sexy” way I was expecting. I like it too. Together, we talk about aquariums, fish, and what our favorites are. I don’t tell him about Dolly, too embarrassed at my childlike hope in believing she would always be there. As the light fades from bright to orange to dark, I think Jonah starts to feel better, smiling whenever I speak.
Unaware, we both fall asleep, our hands intertwined between us.
And I dream. I am deep-sea diving and swimming through a coral reef. There are brightly colored fish and seahorses gathered in various areas, but every time I get close enough to touch one, they skitter away, afraid of my presence or the shadow I cast onto the ocean floor. For a second, I worry about air. How long I can hold my breath before I run out of oxygen, but there's a tube up my nose, helping me breathe.
It's warm where I am. So warm that I don't mind the fish swimming away from me. I'm content closing my eyes, just staying where I am, letting the waves of light wash over me.
A jolt to my chest props my eyes open. I can still see the seahorses, one with its tail curled onto a piece of coral. But then the image around it blurs and blackens. I realize I can't breathe, that I'm drowning. I cough and a burst of bubbles leaves my mouth before the water is sucked into my lungs, before everything starts shaking.
Why is everything moving so fast? Where are the fish? Where are the seahorses?
And Jonah...where is Jonah?
***
Although I refused to go back to the doctor, I couldn’t help looking up symptoms of my diagnosis. Most websites said basically the same thing: that everyone was different and no two tumors grew the same way. There were only two stages, and neither was better to have than the other. Some people would experience nothing but slight nausea once in a while and some would have extreme symptoms. Like grinding headaches and nosebleeds.
However, not many varied on the life expectancy issue. Once diagnosed, patients with an advanced stage of Oligodendroglioma that could not be removed had even less time than the doctor had given me.
But I couldn’t help my fingers typing against the keys. I couldn’t stop looking for something that wasn’t bad news. More symptoms popped up like the first daisies of spring: hearing and vision loss, weakness in limbs, memory loss or black outs, seizures in rare cases. It seemed that the more I searched, the less hope I found. I still began each night looking up the incredibly long and unpronounceable name. Sometimes I would only search a few seconds, sometimes I would search up until my and Jonah’s late night chats, using the research as fuel to convince me further that going to meet a complete stranger who would pay me for sex and blood was a good idea.
He’d ask how my day was and I’d say something like, “Fine. Uneventful.” All the while, fear blossomed behind my skull. Not because of my growing feelings for Jonah, but because of what was growing inside of me.
***
I wake up and Jonah is standing above me, hands on either side of my face. There's a ringing in my ears and my arms and legs are tingling, like they've just fallen asleep.
“Casey,” he says. His voice is loud and my head is humming. “Can you hear me?”
My mouth is so dry. I can't talk right now, but I nod.
Jonah stares into my eyes for a long time before he helps me sit up. The room tilts and folds in on itself, windows collapsing, floor breaking apart until eventually, all I see is one big mass of white. His hands on my shoulders keeps me steady and everything comes back into focus. Jonah hands me a glass of water and I try to grab it, but my fingers won't grip firmly enough. Tears sting my eyes and fear eats at my stomach. Panic gets stuck in my throat.
“It's okay,” he says, his voice back to its normal volume and soft calmness. “Let me.”
My arms drop to the blankets and he feeds me the water. It's enough to clear my throat of whatever was blocking my speech. “What happened?” I ask, my voice hoarse.
The tingling is still in my head, traveling around my eyelids and down my cheeks, threatening to turn everything white once more. My tongue feels thick, and when I talk, my words sound heavy. I try to sit all the way up, but I can't. My body is heavy too.
"I think you just had a seizure," he says, sounding as surprised as I am.
I blink a few times.
“Does that happen a lot?” Jonah asks. It's hard to ignore the fact that he hasn't looked away from me this entire time.
I try to speak again but my throat is too dry. Jonah grabs the glass of water from the nightstand and I try to take it from him, but again, my fingers just won't latch on. My wrists hurt, my elbows ache. I feel like I ran a marathon and passed out from dehydration.
“It's okay,” he repeats.
I watch as he moves closer and I part my lips as he tips the glass for me to drink. I gulp it down and wait for him to move away. He doesn’t.
“It's never happened before,” I say.
We're quiet for a long time. My legs stop feeling so heavy and I shift them under the covers. Something wet is underneath me, around me.
Crap.
Jonah must see it on my face...or worse, he can smell it. He looks at me knowingly, waiting for me to say something.
I pissed the bed and we've been sitting here for at least ten minutes.
Tears sting my eyes, threatening to fall. I don't know what I was expecting. Of course things would get worse. Of course they would get worse in the most embarrassing and mortifying of ways.
“I—I'm so sorry,” I say. At least, that's what I mean to say. Only a few sounds actually come out as I cover my face with my hands.
Jonah is quick to take them away. “It's alright,” he says when I'm looking at him.
He smiles a little, friendly. How can he be so nice to me when I'm basically using him? Using him so I don't have to make my parents go through stuff like this. Using him because I want someone to know, someone to care without treating me like I'm a walking death sentence.
He holds onto my hand on top of the blanket and brushes some hair from my sweaty face. “Really,” he says.
I shake my head. None of this is okay. Not my situation or our situation or why I'm doing this. I s
hould be in a hospital with my mom and dad. I should be on chemo and meds. They should have a chance to adjust to the idea of losing me before I'm gone.
“Can you stand up?” he asks.
I try moving my legs, but once I have them bent, they immediately straighten again, like the hinge of a door swung open.
I shake my head but say, “I can do it, just give me a minute.”
Jonah waits. I can't stand. Without saying anything else, he uncovers me. I’m too afraid to look at what I've done so I stare at him; he also doesn't look, only watching me. “Put your arms around my neck,” he says. “I'll carry you.”
When I hesitate, he straightens his posture slightly. “Remember what we talked about?” he asks. “You have to let me take care of you, okay?”
He smiles, but he doesn't wait for an answer. I wrap my arms around his neck and he slips his arms under my legs.
My breath catches and my cheeks flare up, no doubt turning bright red. Before I can apologize again, Jonah is lifting me up, and I carefully tuck my head under his chin, testing out how it feels. If this were a different situation, I would maybe like this, enjoy whatever contact I could get from him. But under the circumstances, this is just plain awful.
“There's nothing to be embarrassed about,” Jonah says as he sits me down on the closed toilet seat.
I snort and it sends a painful vibration through my sinuses. I wince before looking back at him. “Right,” I say.
Jonah turns on the water in the tub and plugs the drain. “You do realize the first night you were here you vomited and passed out, right?” I imagine he would say something like this with harshness in his tone, but he smiles. He’s trying to joke.
I let out a small laugh, unable to look him directly in the eye. “Okay, you've got me there,” I say. “But this probably tops that.”
