Page 107 of Finding Jack
“Hi. So I was thinking about your spaceship. What if you built a secret room with polished andesite?”
He’d been lying back against his pillows, but at this, he raised the back of his bed higher and studied me, a faint glint in his eye. “How do you know about andesite?”
“I’m smart like that. Want to show me how to do it?” And he did. When his mom returned an hour later, I smiled at him. “Thanks, dude. My nieces are going to be so impressed the next time I visit them.” I surrendered my seat to his mom and turned back at the doorway. “Hope I don’t see you next week, Tate.”
He grinned. “Hope I don’t see you either.”
But I stopped at the store on the way home and bought a Minecraft Lego set just in case. Ranée found me studying the pieces when she came home from a date with Paul.
“What are you doing?” she asked.
“Getting design ideas so I can help one of the kids at the hospital.” I picked up some dirt blocks and snapped them to a gray piece to study the effect. “Ironically, although I work for a software company, it turns out that I’m better at building imaginary stuff in analog.”
“You like volunteering, huh?”
“It puts things into perspective for sure. Like stuff at work is both less irritating, because I realize that problems I used to think were a big deal are definitely not a big deal, and more irritating, because I constantly want to choke people who are making it a big deal while I chant, ‘There are worse things, you idiot.’ So that’s been interesting.”
Ranée laughed. “I get it.”
“How was your date with Paul?”
“Fine.” She still wasn’t comfortable giving me details no matter how often I promised I didn’t care. “Speaking of dates…”
“Nothing to speak of,” I said. “Haven’t checked my app, don’t know when I’ll feel like it, and Jack hasn’t texted, and I don’t know if he will.”
“Here’s a new development. I’ve been keeping tabs on Jack through Sean, but Sean is moving out of Featherton.”
I set down my Legos. “He got the job?”
She grinned. “Yeah. He starts at the VA in two weeks. He wants to know if he can crash on the sofa until he finds an apartment.”
“That’s so great! Of course he can crash. Tell him congratulations for me.”
“I will. But now I won’t really have a Jack connection anymore.”
“It’s okay.” She’d passed on Sean’s reports about Jack, which amounted to “same old, same old” every time. “I’m sure if something big ever happens to Jack, Sean will let us know.” I’d miss getting a more personal account, but I still followed Jack’s Twitter feed as he posted his Photoshops, as funny and absurd as ever. Us falling apart hadn’t affected his sense of humor. Then again, there hadn’t been an “us” for long enough to think it should.
“I still think he’ll come around,” she said. “Maybe you should text him again?”
But I shook my head. It wasn’t pride that stopped me, or that it was his turn. It was something else I couldn’t explain. And even if I could understand and work through the feeling that held me back from texting again, I wouldn’t know what to say. I’d told him sorry the last time, but now after almost a month at the hospital, I could already sense how paltry that word was for the apology I owed him for not understanding. I wouldn’t know how to find the words that captured the realization that was growing in me with each shift I worked.
“I’m starting to get why he doesn’t have anything to say to me. It’s okay. And now if you’ll excuse me, I have to play with my Legos.”
The next Thursday, I brought the kit with me. I figured I’d challenge Tate to a build-off, see who could make the coolest thing while his mom got her dinner, him digitally, me with my Legos. But when I got to his door, it wasn’t his name there anymore. My heart sank, until I realized it meant he’d been able to go home, and then I smiled. That’s exactly what he and his mom had both wanted. What was a bunch of dumb Minecraft Legos compared to that?
I went to deposit them in the playroom for any of the other kids on the floor who wanted to play. Usually the ones in there were the siblings of patients, but they could surely use some novelty too. I passed the nursing station on the way and smiled at the charge nurse, Shelley.
“I see that Tate got to go home. When was he discharged?”
She hesitated and shook her head. “He was released to hospice.”
“Oh.”
The words didn’t register at first.
I checked the respite request list and stopped at the first room, a little five-year-old with an oxygen canula and a woolen beanie over her bald scalp. Her father thanked me and stepped out for some food. The little girl didn’t want to talk, so I sat beside her and watched an animated dinosaur movie.
Hospice.
