Page 57 of When He Saved Me
Jamie and me.
I handed her phone back, but not before sending the photos to myself.
Jamie looked at his watch, noting the time. “I better get going,” he said as he dumped his coffee into a travel mug and grabbed the lunch he’d packed the night before out of the fridge. Annie gave him a hug, and then I walked him to the garage door. I leaned in for a lingering kiss, then pulled back, saying, “Knock ‘em dead.” He grinned, gave me one more quick kiss, and then he was off.
* * *
Annie’s appointmentwasn’t until ten a.m., so I decided to treat her to breakfast at a little café just a few blocks from her oncologist’s office. Her appetite had been hit or miss lately, but I knew this place had a good selection of lighter fare if she wasn’t feeling up for anything heavy, and they generally weren’t super busy, so there was less chance for her to come into contact with germs.
After being seated, we both pored over the menu for a moment, but in truth, I was frantically searching for something to say. This woman was coming to mean so much to me, yet I’d spent so much of my life avoiding conversation with pretty much everyone that I was awkward with it. I didn’t know how to talk to her without Jamie as a buffer.
Our server arrived, giving me a few more moments to pull myself together. After placing our orders, we were left in silence with no menus to act as buffers. “So, Jamie was pretty excited this morning,” I blurted, unable to think of anything else to say.Lame.Way to state the obvious.
Thankfully, she didn’t seem to notice my awkwardness. Or at least she was kind enough to roll with it. A smile tugged at her lips as she said, “He’s wanted to be a teacher for as long as I can remember.”
“Yeah? I guess we never really talked about it. He told me he was studying to be a teacher, and it made sense for his personality, so I never really questioned it.”
“Well, yeah, he’s a natural caretaker. Always has been. But even when he was little, I’d take him up to school while I worked in my classroom, and he’d set up his own little pretend class in the back of the room. He could entertain himself for hours playing school.”
I smiled at the thought of little Jamie pretending to teach an imaginary class of students. God, I bet that was adorable. Our server arrived with mugs and a carafe of coffee, which he poured out for us and then left us to ourselves once again.
“When he got older,” she continued, “he taught swim lessons, tutored other kids, and was a camp counselor. In high school, he even babysat the neighbors’ kids from time to time, when he wasn’t busy with his other activities.” I sipped my coffee as I listened to her talk and marveled at the fondness she held for Jamie. It warmed me to see the kind of love and pride she so clearly had for her son. That was how it should be. “He was always good with kids. Patient. Kind. He takes the time to really listen when they speak. He genuinely cares what they have to say, and they can feel it. Kids always know when you’re faking it.”
That was such a perfect description of who Jamie was at his core. In all the years I’d spent pushing people away, I’d learned that it was rare for someone to look past my prickly exterior and take the time to actually seeme. It made it easy to push people away, to put my head down and go about unnoticed. It was the way I liked it. But Jamie was different. He’d looked just a little deeper, waited a little longer, and had seen something in me that was worth knowing.
His students would be so lucky to have him.
“Jamie’s unlike anyone I’ve ever known,” I managed past the lump that had formed in my throat. Her eyes, which had already gone soft as she spoke of him, glistened as she looked at me. “What about you?” she asked. “What dreams did you have for yourself as a child?”
I snorted in response, all sentimentality dissipating at the thought of my regimented childhood. Dreams were not something ever discussed. Ambition. Protocol. Expectation. Those were the tenets held above all else. Never anything so lofty as dreams. “It never occurred to me to have dreams of my own. I just did whatever my parents asked of me. My father wanted me to be a lawyer, to join his practice someday.”
She raised her penciled-in eyebrows in question. She’d changed her clothes after Jamie left this morning, looking a little more put together, though she was still sporting that bright-pink head scarf. I couldn’t help but think that she was beautiful. “And now? What dreams do you have for yourself now?”
Stunned, I realized I didn’t know. My mind went utterly blank. In the last three and a half years, I hadn’t looked any further into the future than about a month, and that was simply to make sure I was paying the bills. The first time I’d thought about anything beyond the present had been last night while Jamie was selecting his outfit, and that had been a glimmer of a thought, never fully formed.
“I don’t know,” I finally admitted. “In my heart, I think I always knew I didn’t want to be a lawyer, but I never really figured out what Ididwant, and then after my parents kicked me out, I found myself without any choices in the matter.”
She put her hand on the table, palm up, and I stared at it for a moment before tentatively placing my hand in hers. Her hand was so thin and small, but I loved the feel of her cool, soft skin against mine. It felt even better when she gave it a small squeeze. “So, what would you do if you could do anything you wanted?”
I shook my head. “I truly don’t know. I have no clue.”
“Okay. So what interests do you have? What about music?”
“I love playing the piano, but I don’t know… Those gigs are like a stress relief for me. I’m afraid that if they’re my only source of income, it will suck the joy out of it.”
“Okay. That’s fair. What do you do for enjoyment?”
“I write, I guess.” The moment the words left my lips, I regretted it.
Annie, however, lit up like a sparkler on the Fourth of July. “What sorts of things do you write?”
I pulled my hand away and shifted uncomfortably in my seat. My eyes scanned the room, hoping our server would arrive with our food, anything to deflect from the question. My writing was deeply personal. It was how I processed all the shit life had handed me. No one, not Carmen or even Jamie, had ever seen my writing.
“It’s okay, sweet boy,” she said softly, her voice comforting me in a way no one else’s ever had. “You don’t have to share it with me. Sharing something you’ve created opens yourself up to a unique kind of vulnerability. It’s like giving away pieces of your soul for someone else’s scrutiny, knowing that those pieces might never be given back in quite the same way.”
My eyes locked on hers, my heart hammering in my chest. That’s exactly how it felt. How could she know?
Our server arrived at that moment, efficiently delivering plates of food, but I couldn’t take my eyes off Annie’s. The server asked if we needed anything else, and our eye contact was broken as Annie mumbled a response that I didn’t bother to listen to.
