Page 61 of When He Saved Me
I still kept my weekly gigs at Ivory but scaled them back to once a week so I could spend more time with Jamie. Carmen was helping out with rent since, let’s face it, I barely lived there anyway, so financially, I was a little more comfortable. When Jamie wasn’t grading papers, he and Annie found something to binge-watch on TV while I wrote.
I’d become more intentional with my writing, trying to determine whether I had something to say that anyone else would actually want to read. Over the years, my writing had been something I’d done for myself. All that time spent crafting sentences and paragraphs, lines and stanzas, had never been done with the intention that it would ever, ever be for anyone else’s eyes. It had been a tool for processing my shitty excuse for an existence, something to help me bide my time as I moved through my life little more than a ghost of a human in a shell of a body.
But now…now I thought I might want to publish something. And that was terrifying. I labored over every word and turn of phrase, sometimes crippled with indecision, and I worried that perhaps trying to make a go at this might suck the enjoyment out of it for much the same reason I’d balked at the idea of making music my career.
But every so often, I got absolutely lost in the worlds I created on paper, and the words flowed on and on for hours until I looked up to realize I was alone on the couch with the TV off and a single lamp on next to me, not having noticed that Jamie and Annie had gone to bed.
In those moments, I thought I might actually be able to make a go at this.
Jamie must have noticed how much more time I spent with my pen pressed to paper, but he never said a word, just sat alongside me grading papers, his foot resting on my knee as I scratched out line after line.
Annie occasionally shot a knowing look in my direction, and I sometimes thought I might detect pride reflected there. I so badly wanted that to be the case. What would it be like to have someone actually be proud of something I’d done? The moment I gave it too much thought, I became crippled with the weight of the pressure, so I tried to push those thoughts aside. Most of the time, I was successful.
At the beginning of March, Annie developed a bit of a cough. As it was the height of cold and flu season, we’d been careful not to take her out except to her appointments, but Jamie feared he’d brought some germs home from school. He took a day off from his teaching assignment so we could take her to the doctor.
The doctor listened to her lungs and then immediately ordered us to take her to the hospital for suspected pneumonia. Upon arrival, she was admitted and taken for an x-ray, where it was confirmed that she had pneumonia in both lungs.
Jamie was a wreck. He blamed himself and was terrified of what this could mean for his mom. She’d come so far in her treatments only to be set back with this complication.
She insisted he return to school the following day, saying he needed to keep up with his student teaching. He was so close to graduation, and she refused to be the reason he didn’t graduate on time. He’d only relented when I promised to take some time off from The Daily Grind so I could stay with her during the day.
Jamie and I arrived at the hospital together first thing in the morning. He insisted on seeing her before heading to school for the day, so we took two cars. After visiting with her for a few moments and placing a gentle kiss on her forehead, he left reluctantly, assuring her he’d be back after school.
The worried look in his eyes as he turned at the door before leaving nearly broke me. I’d held him most of the night, neither of us sleeping much in the midst of our worry. As a result, he had deep circles under his eyes and his skin was pale. I tried to give him a reassuring smile before he turned to go, but I was fairly certain he saw right through it. He nodded once and then was gone.
“He didn’t sleep last night, did he?” Annie asked, her words stilted as she struggled to breathe. She had a nasal cannula in place to help with her oxygen and an IV in her arm to help fight the infection causing the pneumonia, and my eyes traveled along the length of several other wires traveling from underneath her gown to machines next to the bed, monitoring who knew what.
I forced my eyes back up, attempting to fix a smile on my face that I knew likely didn’t reach my eyes. I wanted to lie, to reassure her so she wouldn’t worry, but I knew she’d see right through the bullshit, so I didn’t bother, opting for honesty instead. “No. Neither one of us slept well.”
“He needs rest so he can focus on his student teaching.”
I raised an eyebrow. “Would you be able to rest if it was him lying here in this bed and not you?”
“Pfft. We’re not talking about me.” She chuckled, but it turned into a cough. I started to panic when she continued to cough, but she finally got it under control and laid back, a bead of sweat on her brow from her exertions. I reached for the large cup and straw next to her and held it to her lips so she could take a drink.
“I’m okay, sweet boy. Sit.” I set the oversized water cup on the tray beside her and did as she asked. I crossed my feet at my ankles and rubbed my sweaty palms up and down the legs of my jeans. Then I recrossed my ankles the other way. I didn’t know what to say or how to act. I’d never been in a hospital before we’d brought her in last night. I felt anxious, like I should be doing something or like I was in the way. I didn’t know. I felt uncomfortable in my skin, like there was a vibration just underneath the surface, and I thought I was going to lose my mind.
“Finn?”
My eyes snapped to hers. “Yeah?”
“I asked how your writing was going.”
“You did?”
“Yeah, honey. I asked twice.” There was sympathy in her eyes. I guessed she knew how uncomfortable I was. I certainly wasn’t doing a good job of hiding it.
“I’m sorry. Um, it’s fine, I guess.”
“Just fine? What genre are you working on? Did you decide on poetry or one of your short stories?”
I felt heat rise up my neck, through my cheeks, all the way to my ears, and my eyes dropped to my lap.
“Erotica?” she asked. My eyes shot up, my eyebrows nearly meeting my hairline, and my mouth open in shock. “What?! No, why would you think—”
Her eyes twinkled in merriment. “It was the only thing I could think of that might make you blush like that.”
I relaxed a bit. “Oh, um. No, it’s nothing like that.”
