Page 106 of Finding Jack
“I know, I promise. I just need to send a text and then I’ll put the phone away.”
“Sounds good. Let me know if you need anything,” she said with a short wave as she continued through the double doors leading to the patient rooms.
I stared at my screen, unsure what to say. I hadn’t texted Jack since the apology I sent after my disastrous trip up there. That had been a month ago, but I’d put my free time to good use, applying to the hospital’s volunteer program and finishing their orientation and training.
Hi,I started, then paused, trying to figure out what to say.I blamed everything on you. I’ve realized I have some growing to do. Just wanted you to know I’m trying.Then I attached the picture so he could see my volunteer badge.
It didn’t explain everything I wanted to tell him, but I wasn’t sure there was anything to say, really. Not when it came down to it. Even if I gained the insight and emotional capacity of Mother Theresa, we might as well be worlds apart as ten hours apart in terms of trying to keep a relationship alive long-distance. But I owed it to him to show him that I’d heard what he said on our last, awful morning together. He’d gotten through.
I turned off the phone, took a deep breath, and pushed through the double doors to do what I could for a dozen kids fighting a battle I could never understand.
All the training in the world couldn’t have prepared me for the next three hours. I sat with four different kids while their mom or dad stepped out for a quick dinner. They ranged in age from three to ten, three girls and one boy. Two of the girls, the youngest one and an eight-year-old, didn’t want any interaction. I quietly sat and watched TV with them until their parents returned. A four-year-old girl wanted me to work the same twenty-piece unicorn puzzle with her over and over but didn’t want to talk. We just put the pieces together then she’d dump them out and say, “Again,” and we’d start over.
The ten-year-old was a boy, and he was playing a video game when I stepped into his room. I smiled at his mom. “Hi. Sharon said you requested respite?”
She stood and stretched. “Yeah, thanks. This is Tate. I’m going to go get some dinner.” Her eyes flicked down to my name badge. “Emily is here to hang out with you until I get back, Tate. Why don’t you tell her about all the stuff you’re building?”
He was a skinny blond kid, pale like most of the kids on the ward, with big brown eyes. He flicked me a glance. “Do you like Minecraft?”
“I don’t know anything about it,” I said, settling into his mother’s chair as she slipped out of the room. “Would it be super annoying if I asked you to explain it to me?”
He heaved a tired sigh. “I guess I can do that.”
For the next forty minutes he explained all kinds of things like redstone and polished granite. I wasn’t much of a gamer, but I didn’t have to pretend to be interested. This wasn’t as much about shooting or winning stuff as it was about building. He’d made the world’s most imaginative superhero lair with cheerful digital cubes of stone, grass, and wood.
When his mom came back, she thanked me again as I left, but I said, “No, thankyou,” and I meant it.
I turned my phone on as I left the hospital. When I saw a text alert from Jack, my fingers froze. I’d forgotten how it felt to see his name on my screen. It was like the moment when I opened one of my favorite books for a re-read and settled into the sweet comfort of the familiar opening lines.
Hey, Em.
It was as good as, “Mr. and Mrs. Dursley of number four, Privet Drive, were proud to say that they were perfectly normal, thank you very much,” as far as happiness endorphins went.
You’re amazing. But it is HARD. Don’t put yourself through that. You don’t have to prove anything to me.
It felt like there should be more, but that was it. I don’t know what else I wanted there to be. He didn’t sound mad at me. I already knew I’d re-read the part where he called me amazing so many times it would imprint on my eyeballs. But the rest of it…
What was there for him to say, really? I could volunteer every night of the week, but it would change nothing about the fundamentals of our situation.
I tapped out the only reply I could.I think I’m doing this for me.
Tate was the only kid still on the floor when I went back the next week. Volunteers had to commit to a three-hour shift at the same time every week for six months, and I could only do Thursdays, so the coordinator had told us to expect to see a new crop of faces on every visit. Mostly that was a good thing. It usually meant that the kid had been released to go home because they’d stabilized enough or completed a round of treatment.
As much as I wanted to see Tate’s new creation, it made me sad that he hadn’t been released yet. I poked my head in, and his mom gave me a tired smile. “Perfect. I’ll grab some dinner, if that’s okay.”
“That’s great,” I assured her. “You build any cool new worlds, Tate?”
“I’m making a spaceship out of grass. Want to see?” And I pulled up a chair while he walked me through it.
This time when his mom came back, I turned on my phone long enough to order an ebook about Minecraft basics before I stopped by the next room. I really hoped Tate wouldn’t still be there the next week, but if he was, I wanted to be prepared.
I read it, just to be safe. Tate wasn’t the only kid who liked Minecraft, I’d noticed. It might give me something to talk about with other patients too. But when I saw his name on the card outside his door again the following week, my heart sank. We weren’t supposed to ask about their diagnosis. If the parent or child wanted us to know, they’d tell us. Our job was just to provide a break, and often a big part of the break was not talking about why we were all in a hospital room together.
“Hi, Tate,” I said, stepping into the room.
“Hi, Emily,” he said. He was the first kid to know my name when I walked in, and it made me happy that he remembered but sad that he’d been here long enough to learn it.
“Dinner,” his mom said like she didn’t have the energy to speak a full sentence. I watched her slip out, her shoulders down before I forced a smile on my face and turned back to my patient.
