Just Breathe

by Cammie McGovern

  “No,” she said, and I touched hers, too. “Wait—what’s going on?”

  Look at him, I said, which she did. Talk to each other. You’ve been sitting here for hours, and neither one of you cares about what you’re reading on your screens.

  “I hate this hospital,” Hannah said. “It’s like they can’t do anything right.”

  Ashwin nodded with his nervous, I can’t believe I’m talking to her expression. They’ve been friends for four years, and he’s always had a crush on her. “Except keep David alive. I mean there’s that.”

  “Right.” She rolled her eyes and smiled. “There’s that. But their coffee and their internet, not so much.”

  They both look at the wheel-spinning frozen state of their screens and then back up. “Hey, can I ask you a question?” Ashwin said.

  I almost took my hand off his screen, but I knew if I did, the conversation would end.

  “Okay.”

  “Why are you here more than Sharon these days? I mean—it’s nice of you. I just wondered if Sharon was okay.”

  “It’s been really emotional for her. She’s already been here so much over the last eight weeks. She thought he was going to be better by now. I don’t know—it’s hard for her to see him in this state. It freaks her out a little bit.”

  Ashwin looked at her. “It doesn’t freak you out?”

  “No. I don’t know why not. My brother was in the hospital for a while when he broke his femur. Maybe I’m used to it.”

  “Was the coffee bad then, too?”

  “I was only eight, but . . . yeah, I’m sure it was.”

  It was a nice conversation, but I took my hands away from their screens so they could both relax back into their mindless scrolling.

  Now, I go to Ronnie, Jamie’s mom, seated at the nurses’ station, and put my hand on her monitor. She looks up. Not at me, of course, but to the right of me.

  I need to see Jamie, I say.

  “What’s going on?” she asks the other nurse, seated behind her. “Are we having a server problem?”

  I don’t touch the other computer because I don’t want them to start talking to each other. I want to try to get through to her by myself. Tell Jamie to come see me.

  She looks up. She hears something, I think.

  I’ll wake up if she comes. I will. I promise.

  How can I promise this? If I could wake myself up, I’d do it now and start breathing on my own. I’d sit up in bed and type Jamie a note. I can’t control my body, and I shouldn’t promise this. But I can’t think of anything else.

  I know my parents have started some kind of lawsuit where they’re blaming Jamie for what happened, and I need her to know it’s not her fault. She didn’t make me sicker; she made me better.

  Ronnie hasn’t moved since I started talking. It feels like this is as close as I’ve gotten to communicating with someone in this state.

  “Nancy?” Ronnie says. “Do you hear something?”

  “No,” she says.

  Yes! I say. It’s me, David. Don’t be scared. I need to see Jamie.

  “That’s strange. I thought I heard something.”

  I’m so happy to hear her say this, I do something I haven’t done before. My feet leave the ground. I float a little. She’s different from the others! She can feel my presence, which means maybe Jamie will be able to feel it, too!

  It’s me, David! Tell Jamie I need to see her!

  Just as I say this, though, I feel a prickle in the back of my neck. Something is happening. I’m not just floating, I’m being pulled away.

  I try to hold on, and I can’t. I’m traveling without elevators back to the ICU. I try to stop myself, but it doesn’t work. I can’t put my feet on the ground or touch anything.

  I don’t understand.

  And then I’m back in the ICU, and I’m terrified. My body isn’t here anymore. I’m not in the corner where I left myself a few minutes ago.

  What’s happened? Have I died? Have days slipped by the way they did in the beginning without me realizing it? In the corner, I hear nurses whispering. The beeping of machines seems louder suddenly. How can I be dead and hear so much? That’s when I hear someone say my name.

  “Is David in pre-op already?” a nurse asks. I don’t know her name because I haven’t been able to ask, but she’s one of my favorites. She does little things when no one is looking—opens my hands across my chest in the morning. At night, she tucks them under the blanket.

  “They just took him over. They’re sterilizing and prepping. We’re still waiting for the go-ahead.”

  “Did they schedule an OR?”

  “I think so, yes. The request is in.”

  “And they’re shaving before they get the approval?”

  “Yes. They have to. No time to spare.”

  It sounds like I’m going into surgery, but what could they be doing? My chest is already intubated; my airways are open. Did my heart stop?

  Then I look over—at the empty bed across the ICU. The boy who was here a few hours ago is gone. I don’t see him anywhere. After our one conversation, I looked for him a few times but could never find him. I know his body was still here when I left a little while ago.

  I look around for other spirits—anyone who can tell me what’s happened here in the last hour. There’s one older man who’s hardly visible anymore, singing to himself. When I try to get his attention, he disappears.

  I go out in the hall. In the chairs where I first found my mother sitting, a family is huddled—two parents, with their arms around two younger girls. This must be the boy’s family.

  I sit down near them. I think about Damiel, the angel in Wings of Desire. I reach out and touch their shoulders and heads. They’re warm. It feels like I’m touching their spirits within. Bodies connect in myriad ways; in sex and touch and blushes and goose bumps, but this is how spirits speak to one another: in light and silence. We sit side by side and be with each other.

  I’m so, so sorry, I say. I touch his father’s shoulder. I’m sorry you were angry with each other, but he’s not angry anymore. It’s over now.

  His father sits up and blows his nose. They look at each other, all of them red-faced with wet cheeks. They laugh for a moment, at their red faces and their tears. I feel the laugh in whatever I have instead of bones. It makes me shiver.

  I remember the last question the boy asked me: What happens if you leave your body alone too long?

  I didn’t know, of course, but I took a guess.

  “I keep thinking, where is he?” the mom says. “Where did he go?”

  “I don’t know,” the dad says, shaking his head. He has a British accent, which is a surprise. I feel like I know them, but I don’t, of course. “His body’s in surgery. They’re fetching his organs right now, I expect.”

  I feel a prickle on my neck. The same feeling that carried me in a whoosh back down here. The pieces of his story and my own fall together.

  He’s donating organs, and I’m in pre-op now, getting sterilized and shaved.

  I don’t know why, in all this empty time, this possibility hasn’t occurred to me. I’m getting my lungs.

  I race back to my own body. On my way, I pass Eileen sitting in the hallway with Ashwin, of all people.

  “They’re deciding all this today? Isn’t he still too weak for this surgery?”

  “He is really weak, but he already passed their brain-function tests, so the main thing they care about is whether he has any infection. If he has any temperature or sign of infection, they won’t do the surgery and they’ll give the lungs to someone else.”

  I feel a prickle in my neck at this: my brain function is fine. I just can’t have an infection.

  “What about the pseudomonas bacteria? I thought testing positive for that meant he’d have a harder time getting new lungs.”

  I’m touched. I can’t believe Ashwin knows this stuff. It means he’s quietly been going home and researching the updates I’ve mentioned. I thought my school
friends weren’t interested or couldn’t deal with what I was facing, but no.

  “Yeah, I guess they changed that rule. It turns out the best thing you can do to move up the transplant list is look like you’re going to die if you don’t get a transplant. That’s what the doctor said. The other stuff, they can treat. If you die, they can’t do much.”

  Ashwin nods. He looks around awkwardly, the way he always does when he’s alone with a girl. Even Eileen makes him nervous.

  “Plus, it helps that some lungs are being donated and they’re a blood-type match.”

  “Where did they come from?” Ashwin asks her.

  “We’re not supposed to know, but we’re pretty sure they’re from a kid who came into the ICU a few nights ago after a car wreck. His parents have been keeping him on machines because they wanted to donate organs. Which is nice and sort of weird, because we’re not supposed to know, so we don’t say anything even when we’re all passing each other in the hallway.”

  Eventually, I find my body. I’m in a pre-op room, lying naked on a gurney, covered loosely by a blue hospital sheet. Two nurses stand on either side of me. A portable ventilator is next to the gurney, doing its job, moving my chest up and down. One nurse is shaving my chest; the other is washing it. I don’t have much chest hair, but there’s enough that she clears what she gets into a silver bowl next to me.

  They lift one arm and then the other. “Here,” one nurse says, pointing to a spot she missed.

  “Thanks,” says the other.

  A door opens behind them, and my parents come in with Eileen, everyone wearing face masks. They look like a trio of surgeons, searching for someone who will let them operate.

  My mom says, “We’re all going to be right here, David, the whole time. We’re not going anywhere.”

  I can tell my parents have both been crying, even though they’re trying not to let it show. They’ve got big phony smiles behind their masks and bloodshot eyes. They look terrible and fragile, but there’s also something different about the way they’re standing. Dad has one arm around Eileen and a hand on Mom’s back. They’re leaning on each other.

  I’ve never seen this before. It’s nice.

  They all move closer to the bed together. Mom takes my hand, and Eileen touches my arm. Dad says, “We know how strong you are, son. We know you can get through this.”

  I’ve never heard Dad call me “son” before. I wonder if they’ve been told my odds of surviving surgery are bad enough that they need to come in now and say goodbye without letting on what they’re doing.

  Tears spring to my eyes. I know I’m going to die at some point soon, I just don’t want it to happen in the next few hours.

  Mom drops the act first. “You’re our beautiful boy!” she says, and starts to cry. “You’ve got to get through this! You’ve got to be okay!”

  I stay in the operating room as they cut open my chest and lift up my rib cage a few inches. I can’t get over the way they work in unison, without talking about what they’re doing. I also can’t get over how little I feel, watching my body get cranked open and dug into. I peek under the hood of my rib cage at what might be my heart, or maybe a lung, I can’t tell. I feel so distanced from the whole matter that I don’t even think of it as myself on the table.

  I’m free to drift away, out to the waiting room where my family is gathered and too many of my friends to even count them all. It’s nice to see everyone here, not arguing or competing—just waiting, together.

  I drift over their heads and see that from above, a light pulses off each person. Their auras touch each other. It’s as if their spirits are reaching out to comfort one another, the way I did earlier with my donor’s family. It’s a relief to see. It makes me think they’ll survive even if I don’t.

  I leave the hospital because, at last, it feels safe to do so. My body is in a state of suspended animation. I can’t crash now if I’m already being kept alive by machines.

  I move without thinking about where I’m going. I’ve been stuck inside for so long that when I breathe in the fresh air I’m reminded of the best thing about being in this state: My lungs work fine! I’m not alive exactly—I haven’t eaten anything, and I haven’t been hungry—but I’ve been breathing this whole time, better than I ever did before, and I didn’t realize it until now!

  I pass the Denny’s I went to with Jamie and then, a few minutes later, the movie theater where we came by car, which makes me think I’m not traveling geographically but through a different dimension of memories and time.

  I look through the windows of the restaurant, but I don’t see Jamie or myself for that matter. I find the bus stop where I sat down and Jamie joined me with the sweater, but we’re not there, either.

  It makes me mad. If I’m traveling through my own memories, why can’t I see her again? Why can’t I watch us laughing and eating at Denny’s? Why can’t I spend the next two hours reliving our last night at Starlight? I remember it all so well now: the dance, then the kiss. If I could, I’d go back and watch us dancing again. I’d follow us outside and watch us kiss, too—like our bodies understood what our brains hadn’t allowed ourselves to think. We weren’t just friends.

  If I could go back anywhere in time, I’d relive that whole night over and over, even though I know how it ends.

  It’s not here, though.

  I float forever and can’t find that night. It seems so unfair that I can finally move freely but not go where I want. Just as I think this, though, I’m caught by surprise. I’m standing outside Desert Paradise apartments. This isn’t a memory, because I’ve never been here before.

  I move through the parking lot, toward the entrance, where the paint is peeling and whatever garden was once planted has long ago gone to weeds. I never asked Jamie too many questions about living here because I didn’t want her to feel self-conscious. It looks terrible from the road, with piles of garbage and old furniture left in a trash area to rot. Up close, though, it isn’t quite so bad. A few apartments have potted plants out front or decorations taped on the door. Signs of life. Of real people behind them.

  I don’t know which apartment is Jamie’s. It might take me hours of window peeking to find her, but I’m close enough now that my heart is beating.

  I’ll stay all night and look in every window if I have to.

  Unfortunately, almost all the apartments have window shades down or curtains drawn. It’s impossible to see inside. The only thing I can do is stand close to the window and use my other senses. At one door, I close my eyes and smell—curry, cinnamon. At another, I listen closely. At one, I think I might hear her voice. I hold my breath and wait, then realize it’s someone watching television.

  I get a little frantic. Every sound and smell is almost Jamie and then it’s not. I can’t get this close and then not see her after all this time waiting.

  As I move around the horseshoe of apartments, I hear a thread of familiar music. I move toward a faint glow two windows down so I can hear it better. At first, I think it’s a woman singing, and then I smile. I know who it is. It’s not a woman, it’s Fred Astaire: a thin, agile man, with a surprisingly high voice. “Heaven. I’m in heaven. And my heart beats so that I can hardly speak.”

  He’s singing “Cheek to Cheek.” I float over to the window, where the curtains are sheer enough for me to see Jamie inside, watching Fred sing and dance with Ginger Rogers.

  “And I seem to find the happiness I seek, when we’re out together dancing cheek to cheek.”

  I’m not sure how it happens, but it feels like my heart moves ahead and carries me inside. Suddenly, I’m standing in the tiny living room, alone with Jamie. It smells musty and a little like BO. I’m so happy to be near her, but even I can see—she hasn’t showered in a while.

  For a long time, I stare at her. I don’t know what to do.

  I sit down beside her, a few inches away. She can’t see me, of course, and I’m scared to touch her. I don’t know what effect it will have. It might feel sca
ry—like a chill, or goose bumps.

  Instead, I lean away and watch for a while. Ginger is wearing a dress made of feathers that move on their own, like the auras I saw earlier around the people in the waiting room. I watch Fred and Ginger dance, their magical and mysterious synchronicity. Then I turn and look at Jamie. She looks heartbroken, sitting on the sofa, with tears rolling down her cheeks, one after another. In all our time together, I’ve never seen her cry.

  Supposedly, those dress feathers drove Fred crazy, I say. They went up his nose in rehearsal and made him sneeze. They got in a big fight over the feathers, and Ginger put her foot down. She said the feathers stay or I go.

  I know Jamie can’t hear me, but it seems like she senses something. She’s not crying anymore. And there’s a tiny smile in one corner of her mouth.

  Sitting beside her after all this time, I want to tell her that at last I’ve figured out why I love Wings of Desire so much. I love it because it’s about living in two worlds: the visible and the invisible. The visible is everything we can see and touch; the invisible is what we experience with our hearts. I’ve been living in this invisible world for months, hovering between life and death. She knows this world; she’s lived here, too.

  I think about Damiel, the angel in the movie, entering the world he’s only been observing all his life. How he has to fall into it. Experience pain. Taste blood. I try to imagine what this has been like for Jamie—watching my body get loaded into an ambulance and then coming back here to wait for news alone. I think about the lawyer’s questions to my parents.

  I don’t want you to blame yourself, Jamie, I say. None of this was your fault. I’m the one who made all this happen.

  I move over to the TV screen and touch it with my hand to see if it has the same effect as touching a computer. I don’t want to scare her, but I want her to feel me. I want her eyes to drift off the screen the way her mother’s eyes did earlier today. I want her to know that I’m here—but the hand trick doesn’t work. The movie keeps playing through its silly final dance number on the canal boats in Venice. I move around the room while I wait for it to finish.