To Life, and Then Some
Gary Moshimer
Their favorite spot was the lake, where they lay with the water lapping up to their ankles, the songs of the frogs, fish jumping, distant oars of a fisherman. Right now their fingers were interlocked, their toes playing under the water. Jayce’s mind was on her leukemia— chemo started tomorrow. Tom was to be with her. Now he said a prayer, but he was not religious and he worried about this. He kissed her now while he could; the chemo would kill her white cells so kissing and the exchange of saliva was out.
They strolled back to Jayce’s house. Her mother was on the porch. She didn’t care for Tom, especially now that Jayce was sick. She saw him as a source of infection and lack of judgement. She wore a nightgown already at six o’clock in the evening, and the smell of smoke was on her. Tom greeted her formally, shook her thin hand. She was a cancer survivor, and was bony. She said that her daughter had a big day tomorrow and didn’t invite him in.
Goodnight, Jayce said to him. Sleep tight. She wondered where that saying came from. She was a girl who wondered about things. Tom said, Same to you. Don’t let the bedbugs bite! Jayce squealed.
Her mother lit a cigarette. For Chrissakes, she said, blowing smoke. We have no bedbugs! Just beat it! Tom stepped from the porch to the walk and then the sidewalk. He had a short walk to his lakeside house. His mother was sitting on the porch. How’s Jayce?
She’s okay. She’s strong.
Well, dinner’s ready. Are you hungry?
Not really. I’m worried.
You should eat. They have new treatments now.
Tom picked at a chicken breast that was on the table. He wished that he was the one who was sick. He walked out and sat on the beach until the sun was going down and the surface of the water shone. He had read that she would be in a long course of therapy, and that she would need a bone marrow transplant. They would have to find a donor, which wasn’t so easy. He watched the fish jump after bugs. How long do fish live? And do they get diseases? Tom felt in the dark about many things. He wondered if Jayce loved him like he loved her. It was a mystery to be solved. And could he do it?
~ ~ ~
It’s Jayce with a long ‘e’ , Jayce tells the nurse.
My brother’s name is Casey, says the nurse.
Jayce wants to tell her that is hardly the same thing, but she thinks better of it, since this is the nurse who’ll take care of her. The nurse’s name is Kelly. She tells Jayce that a doctor will come and insert a line into Jayce’s upper chest to better infuse the chemo. Jayce is scared by this. She looks at her pale legs and arms, like a ghost. She wishes Tom was there to hold her hand. Instead there is her mother, loud-mouthing it up about the lack of smoking areas in the hospital. She wants to disappear into the wallpaper and hide from her mother, from all this. She wishes for a different life with Tom. She hopes he’ll come in today. Instead there’s her mother’s chatter. When a bushy haired doctor comes in to insert a line she scurries out, and Jayce laughs. The doctor has the bluest eyes she’s ever seen. He could be a movie star. He puts on a mask and gloves and a sterile blue paper gown. He numbs her upper chest and cuts and slides the catheter in. He sutures it in place. Even through the door she can hear a woman screaming, probably getting a bone marrow aspiration. Jayce had cried through hers when they did it two days ago.
Jayce’s mother is back. She’d gone outside to smoke and reeks of it. When she sees Jayce’s line she says, Sweet Jesus. Her husband, Jayce’s father, had died a slow death from cancer and had had one of those lines. It’s just for getting medicine, Jayce told her.
Well, I don’t like it.
Mom, they know what they’re doing. They do it all the time.
Just then her mother breaks into a crying fit. Jayce can’t believe it, This hard hearted woman did not even cry for father. Jayce takes her hand, squeezes it. I’ll come through this, she says.
Kelly is back with the chemo in the bottle. Another nurse comes in to read the name and confirm.
Kelly pushes anti-nausea medicine through the catheter. Then she hangs the bottle of clear fluid and punches some numbers on the IV machine.She hands Jayce a blue plastic puke bag, just in case.
Her mother says she is leaving. She doesn’t need a gown yet until Jayce’s white cells are killed off to a certain number,so she gives her a tiny hug, just a small part of herself, the smoke filling jayce’s lungs.
~ ~ ~
Tom’s father gave him a ride to the hospital. Tom took the elevator to the seventh floor, found Jayce’s room. He asked the nurse if he could go in, and she said just wash your hands. He ended up lying in the bed with her, watching stupid movies. At one they laughed so hard they cried and Kelly came in, alarmed. We’re just watching Bolt, Jayce said. Tom said it was good to see her laugh and she said you might as well have a sense of humor about it. At one point she threw up and Tom held her head. It’s just like the Boone’s Farm we stole, she said. Tom agreed. Holding her then by her narrow shoulders, he thought of the fragility of life. He was trying to think deep thoughts lately, to be aware of his inner workings and how he related to life. He found a tear in the corner of his eye.
He ate her dinner, a no name meat, mashed potatoes and carrots. Some pudding. Not bad. She just couldn’t eat. She sipped ginger ale. Tom watched the fluid in the bottle go down. Jayce went to sleep and Tom called his father to go home. He could get his license soon, and then he could go places. He could take Jayce out if he wanted. He couldn’t picture a world without her. Well, of course she would be alright. Modern medicine and all. But he had known a kid in school that died of some kind of cancer.
Dad, he said now, can we get ice cream? His father was surprised, but Tom wanted to be little again. Back when there were no cares, where he was insulated. They stopped at Tastee-Freeze and Tom got a large soft serve and they sat at a table outside. They didn’t speak; they never had spoken much, but had a kind of truth through silence. There was strength there, and Tom felt safe. But right now he wanted to tell him about Jayce, about the way her eyes flashed and her hair shone in sunlight and the little lag step when she walked. He wanted to tell him they were still virgins despite their hunger and fear that time was slipping away. He asked him now how did he know that his mother was the one and he said there was a certain feeling. He didn’t really know. Tom said he had that feeling with Jayce and his father said, You are still young. He lit a Marlboro. Tom wanted him to stop smoking, but he had done it since he was fourteen. He could have damage already.
When they got home Tom went and sat by the lake, He waded in. He looked up and saw the moon. He thought it was dumb to make a wish but he did it anyway.
~ ~ ~
In the morning they hang another bottle. Jayce still can’t eat. Her mother shows up at noon, complaining about some security guard giving her a hard time about parking. She smells of smoke again. They watch the news. There’s been another school shooting. Her mother says, The world is going to shit. When Jayce was in school a man had entered her school but was stopped before he could shoot.
A doctor comes in. He is tall and stooped. He explains what is going to happen. Jayce will get chemo until her white cells are wiped out, then will go home on a pill that will keep her from making more. Then they will look for a donor for a stem cell transplant. That could take a while. In the meantime she must be very careful, wearing a mask if she goes out. After he leaves her mother grumbles something about the cost and says she needs a cigarette. She doesn’t come back. Jayce sometimes hates her mother, thinks her mother is blaming her for burdening her her whole life. She sips more ginger ale and waits for Tom. Hopefully he will come. She needs him, his face, his smell. Everything about him.
Tom finally comes late in the afternoon. They talk of the beauty of the day, of the birds in the sill, of the meaning of life. He has brought a book of Dylan Thomas poems, and he reads to her. Do not go gentle into that good night. He sits on the bed with her. He brushes her long black hair which she will soon lose. He eats her dinner. He looks into her deep dark eyes where her world is contained. When he leaves he kisses her head,
~ ~ ~
Days passed much the same, but one day when Tom got there she was crying with clumps of her hair on the pillow. He thought she was prepared for this, but who really could be prepared for your hair falling out? She was putting it in a bag for the birds or for wigs. She asked Kelly for scissors and Tom cut the rest, a tear in his eye. He thought of all the kids here who had lost their hair, how hard that must be. He used the clippers to shave the rest, then rubbed lotion on her scalp. The skin was like marble. He kissed her head as she sniffled. This is only temporary, he told her. He held her in his arms, looking at the bags of hair and thinking who would wear it. They would shimmer in the light, the sunbeams trapped and spreading.
~ ~ ~
Jayce gets thirteen days of chemo, then she can go home. Her mother has returned from the hospital pharmacy, complaining of the cost of the pill to keep the cancer at bay. But she has her husband’s life insurance. He was good for something, she tells Jayce. But Jayce has fond memories of her father, playing with her on the floor, giving her piggyback rides, swinging her in the park. When he died she stayed in her room for days.
When they go outside a warm rain falls on her shaved head, and it is one of the greatest sensations of her life. Her mother lights up, cupping her hands in the rain. She continues smoking in the car, and Jayce tells her not to. Disgusted, her mother throws the cigarette out the window. She says, You don’t get the final say on everything now, just because you’re sick. What a bitch, Jayce thinks. She laughs to herself. She wishes her father were here, he would put her in her place.
At home in her room she looks at herself in the mirror. Her head is pale, like the moon. She is tired, so tired. She falls asleep and dreams she is riding a white horse through a field. Someone is throwing spears at her. One hits her and she falls off the horse. She’s bleeding on the ground when a faceless man picks her up and carries her to a soft bed. He uses a needle and thread on her wound and he says, You are free to fight. When she wakes up she feels a pain in her shoulder where the wound was. She is startled by her mother, who brings her pill. Her mother says, This baby costs five hundred a month, but through a special help program I can get it for thirty. Jayce takes it with the milk her mother has brought. Her mother seems tender towards her suddenly. Jayce doesn’t remember her being tender with her father. He had hung on for quite a while in his hospital bed in the living room. Jayce remembers bringing him ice cream which he couldn’t eat.
She has to go back frequently at first, so Tom’s father, who is on disability, drives them. He drives slowly and carefully with both hands on the wheel, with his precious cargo. Jayce gets blood drawn from her line to check on things. She has to wear a mask. Tom’s father eats in the cafeteria and says it’s really good. Tom isn’t hungry; he stays with her. He’s told to wash his hands really thoroughly. He washes for two minutes before holding Jayce’s hand.
The farther out she gets from chemo the less she has to go into the clinic. Eventually it’s just a nurse coming to her house. The nurse (Jayce’s mom calls her Barbie) tries to teach her mother to flush the line, but she’ll have none of it. She remembers her husband. For crying out loud, Mother, I’ll do it myself. And she does.
~ ~ ~
Her mother made Tom wear a mask, even though he wasn’t sick. He came over and sat with Jayce and read her more Thomas. That dude was fucked up, she said. I can’t make head nor tails out of that. She laughed. Tom put an arm around her there on the sofa. Then they walked outside so she could feel the rain on her head again.Her hair was growing back, with a reddish tint. Her mother was smoking on the porch and she said, Be careful.
Of what, Mother?
Of everything.
Her mother was driving her crazy, Tom could see. He thought about moving her in with him. He proposed this to them and her mother said that might be good. She was strange, this woman. Then Jayce could get rides. His father took them out for long drives now, stopping for ice cream, watching the geese on the lake. Geese mate for life, he said, watching them in the rearview. Tom thought that sounded good. Jayce was quiet, probably not thinking that far ahead.
Along the way they came upon a house fire, a woman and her two kids watching from the street. The little girl clutched her bear. Fire fighters came and went, Black smoke billowed. Tom’s father drove slowly, shaking his head. Tom added house fires to his list of terrors, at the top diseases.
Later they sat watching the lake, the surface like glass. Jayce started to cough. It was quiet but then gained force, and Tom worried.
~ ~ ~
Something is happening. Jayce has come down with pneumonia. It quickly progresses and she ends up on a breathing machine. .She requires a lot of oxygen. They put her in a coma so her body won’t use as much. Tom and her mother sit bedside, not talking, looking at Jayce’s stillness, watching her chest rise and fall, following the oxygen readings on the monitor.
Out of nowhere Jayce’s mother, Lillian, says, I wasn’t always a bitch, you know. It was seeing the slow death of my husband. The world’s not fair. And now this. Fucking life screws you over, don’t you think? Tom agrees with her, holding Jayce’s cold little hand.
Inside her head Jayce is on that white horse again, this time not being attacked, just feeling the wind through her long hair. She can hear everything Tom and her mother are saying.
~ ~ ~
In four weeks Jayce was home again, still a little short of breath. Lillian made dinner for Tom and his parents. She seemed to have softened up after this last ordeal. Tom and Jayce sit by the lake a lot, passing time, counting clouds, looking for animals in them. Tom told her he loved her and she said, Ditto, and laughed. He wasn’t sure how to take this.
~ ~ ~
A year goes by just like that. They get the call that there’s a stem cell donor, a man in Germany. It will take another month to set things up. It’s the last of the life insurance. Out on the lake in the rowboat, Tom and Jayce celebrate with a stolen bottle of Boone’s Farm. This time they don’t get sick. But they do get drunk. We have to see if it takes, she says. Maybe we should wait for this. Naw, he says, and they laugh. Cheers! To life, and then some! Tom kisses her forehead, caresses her white neck. Tom says, I can’t wait to kiss your mouth.
The cells arrive by plane and are rushed to the clinic. They are on ice, so they are sent through a warmer before running into Jayce’s central line. They will live in her and start making new white cells, hopefully. They say her breath will smell like creamed corn; that’s the preservative. That night her breath fills her house.
It’s said that she may take on some characteristics of her donor. Her donor is a motorcycle mechanic. One night she calls Tom and tells him to come over. When he gets there he finds her sitting on the living room floor surrounded by motorcycle parts. She says, Now, Tommy boy, let me show you what I can do.
Gary Moshimer
Their favorite spot was the lake, where they lay with the water lapping up to their ankles, the songs of the frogs, fish jumping, distant oars of a fisherman. Right now their fingers were interlocked, their toes playing under the water. Jayce’s mind was on her leukemia— chemo started tomorrow. Tom was to be with her. Now he said a prayer, but he was not religious and he worried about this. He kissed her now while he could; the chemo would kill her white cells so kissing and the exchange of saliva was out.
They strolled back to Jayce’s house. Her mother was on the porch. She didn’t care for Tom, especially now that Jayce was sick. She saw him as a source of infection and lack of judgement. She wore a nightgown already at six o’clock in the evening, and the smell of smoke was on her. Tom greeted her formally, shook her thin hand. She was a cancer survivor, and was bony. She said that her daughter had a big day tomorrow and didn’t invite him in.
Goodnight, Jayce said to him. Sleep tight. She wondered where that saying came from. She was a girl who wondered about things. Tom said, Same to you. Don’t let the bedbugs bite! Jayce squealed.
Her mother lit a cigarette. For Chrissakes, she said, blowing smoke. We have no bedbugs! Just beat it! Tom stepped from the porch to the walk and then the sidewalk. He had a short walk to his lakeside house. His mother was sitting on the porch. How’s Jayce?
She’s okay. She’s strong.
Well, dinner’s ready. Are you hungry?
Not really. I’m worried.
You should eat. They have new treatments now.
Tom picked at a chicken breast that was on the table. He wished that he was the one who was sick. He walked out and sat on the beach until the sun was going down and the surface of the water shone. He had read that she would be in a long course of therapy, and that she would need a bone marrow transplant. They would have to find a donor, which wasn’t so easy. He watched the fish jump after bugs. How long do fish live? And do they get diseases? Tom felt in the dark about many things. He wondered if Jayce loved him like he loved her. It was a mystery to be solved. And could he do it?
~ ~ ~
It’s Jayce with a long ‘e’ , Jayce tells the nurse.
My brother’s name is Casey, says the nurse.
Jayce wants to tell her that is hardly the same thing, but she thinks better of it, since this is the nurse who’ll take care of her. The nurse’s name is Kelly. She tells Jayce that a doctor will come and insert a line into Jayce’s upper chest to better infuse the chemo. Jayce is scared by this. She looks at her pale legs and arms, like a ghost. She wishes Tom was there to hold her hand. Instead there is her mother, loud-mouthing it up about the lack of smoking areas in the hospital. She wants to disappear into the wallpaper and hide from her mother, from all this. She wishes for a different life with Tom. She hopes he’ll come in today. Instead there’s her mother’s chatter. When a bushy haired doctor comes in to insert a line she scurries out, and Jayce laughs. The doctor has the bluest eyes she’s ever seen. He could be a movie star. He puts on a mask and gloves and a sterile blue paper gown. He numbs her upper chest and cuts and slides the catheter in. He sutures it in place. Even through the door she can hear a woman screaming, probably getting a bone marrow aspiration. Jayce had cried through hers when they did it two days ago.
Jayce’s mother is back. She’d gone outside to smoke and reeks of it. When she sees Jayce’s line she says, Sweet Jesus. Her husband, Jayce’s father, had died a slow death from cancer and had had one of those lines. It’s just for getting medicine, Jayce told her.
Well, I don’t like it.
Mom, they know what they’re doing. They do it all the time.
Just then her mother breaks into a crying fit. Jayce can’t believe it, This hard hearted woman did not even cry for father. Jayce takes her hand, squeezes it. I’ll come through this, she says.
Kelly is back with the chemo in the bottle. Another nurse comes in to read the name and confirm.
Kelly pushes anti-nausea medicine through the catheter. Then she hangs the bottle of clear fluid and punches some numbers on the IV machine.She hands Jayce a blue plastic puke bag, just in case.
Her mother says she is leaving. She doesn’t need a gown yet until Jayce’s white cells are killed off to a certain number,so she gives her a tiny hug, just a small part of herself, the smoke filling jayce’s lungs.
~ ~ ~
Tom’s father gave him a ride to the hospital. Tom took the elevator to the seventh floor, found Jayce’s room. He asked the nurse if he could go in, and she said just wash your hands. He ended up lying in the bed with her, watching stupid movies. At one they laughed so hard they cried and Kelly came in, alarmed. We’re just watching Bolt, Jayce said. Tom said it was good to see her laugh and she said you might as well have a sense of humor about it. At one point she threw up and Tom held her head. It’s just like the Boone’s Farm we stole, she said. Tom agreed. Holding her then by her narrow shoulders, he thought of the fragility of life. He was trying to think deep thoughts lately, to be aware of his inner workings and how he related to life. He found a tear in the corner of his eye.
He ate her dinner, a no name meat, mashed potatoes and carrots. Some pudding. Not bad. She just couldn’t eat. She sipped ginger ale. Tom watched the fluid in the bottle go down. Jayce went to sleep and Tom called his father to go home. He could get his license soon, and then he could go places. He could take Jayce out if he wanted. He couldn’t picture a world without her. Well, of course she would be alright. Modern medicine and all. But he had known a kid in school that died of some kind of cancer.
Dad, he said now, can we get ice cream? His father was surprised, but Tom wanted to be little again. Back when there were no cares, where he was insulated. They stopped at Tastee-Freeze and Tom got a large soft serve and they sat at a table outside. They didn’t speak; they never had spoken much, but had a kind of truth through silence. There was strength there, and Tom felt safe. But right now he wanted to tell him about Jayce, about the way her eyes flashed and her hair shone in sunlight and the little lag step when she walked. He wanted to tell him they were still virgins despite their hunger and fear that time was slipping away. He asked him now how did he know that his mother was the one and he said there was a certain feeling. He didn’t really know. Tom said he had that feeling with Jayce and his father said, You are still young. He lit a Marlboro. Tom wanted him to stop smoking, but he had done it since he was fourteen. He could have damage already.
When they got home Tom went and sat by the lake, He waded in. He looked up and saw the moon. He thought it was dumb to make a wish but he did it anyway.
~ ~ ~
In the morning they hang another bottle. Jayce still can’t eat. Her mother shows up at noon, complaining about some security guard giving her a hard time about parking. She smells of smoke again. They watch the news. There’s been another school shooting. Her mother says, The world is going to shit. When Jayce was in school a man had entered her school but was stopped before he could shoot.
A doctor comes in. He is tall and stooped. He explains what is going to happen. Jayce will get chemo until her white cells are wiped out, then will go home on a pill that will keep her from making more. Then they will look for a donor for a stem cell transplant. That could take a while. In the meantime she must be very careful, wearing a mask if she goes out. After he leaves her mother grumbles something about the cost and says she needs a cigarette. She doesn’t come back. Jayce sometimes hates her mother, thinks her mother is blaming her for burdening her her whole life. She sips more ginger ale and waits for Tom. Hopefully he will come. She needs him, his face, his smell. Everything about him.
Tom finally comes late in the afternoon. They talk of the beauty of the day, of the birds in the sill, of the meaning of life. He has brought a book of Dylan Thomas poems, and he reads to her. Do not go gentle into that good night. He sits on the bed with her. He brushes her long black hair which she will soon lose. He eats her dinner. He looks into her deep dark eyes where her world is contained. When he leaves he kisses her head,
~ ~ ~
Days passed much the same, but one day when Tom got there she was crying with clumps of her hair on the pillow. He thought she was prepared for this, but who really could be prepared for your hair falling out? She was putting it in a bag for the birds or for wigs. She asked Kelly for scissors and Tom cut the rest, a tear in his eye. He thought of all the kids here who had lost their hair, how hard that must be. He used the clippers to shave the rest, then rubbed lotion on her scalp. The skin was like marble. He kissed her head as she sniffled. This is only temporary, he told her. He held her in his arms, looking at the bags of hair and thinking who would wear it. They would shimmer in the light, the sunbeams trapped and spreading.
~ ~ ~
Jayce gets thirteen days of chemo, then she can go home. Her mother has returned from the hospital pharmacy, complaining of the cost of the pill to keep the cancer at bay. But she has her husband’s life insurance. He was good for something, she tells Jayce. But Jayce has fond memories of her father, playing with her on the floor, giving her piggyback rides, swinging her in the park. When he died she stayed in her room for days.
When they go outside a warm rain falls on her shaved head, and it is one of the greatest sensations of her life. Her mother lights up, cupping her hands in the rain. She continues smoking in the car, and Jayce tells her not to. Disgusted, her mother throws the cigarette out the window. She says, You don’t get the final say on everything now, just because you’re sick. What a bitch, Jayce thinks. She laughs to herself. She wishes her father were here, he would put her in her place.
At home in her room she looks at herself in the mirror. Her head is pale, like the moon. She is tired, so tired. She falls asleep and dreams she is riding a white horse through a field. Someone is throwing spears at her. One hits her and she falls off the horse. She’s bleeding on the ground when a faceless man picks her up and carries her to a soft bed. He uses a needle and thread on her wound and he says, You are free to fight. When she wakes up she feels a pain in her shoulder where the wound was. She is startled by her mother, who brings her pill. Her mother says, This baby costs five hundred a month, but through a special help program I can get it for thirty. Jayce takes it with the milk her mother has brought. Her mother seems tender towards her suddenly. Jayce doesn’t remember her being tender with her father. He had hung on for quite a while in his hospital bed in the living room. Jayce remembers bringing him ice cream which he couldn’t eat.
She has to go back frequently at first, so Tom’s father, who is on disability, drives them. He drives slowly and carefully with both hands on the wheel, with his precious cargo. Jayce gets blood drawn from her line to check on things. She has to wear a mask. Tom’s father eats in the cafeteria and says it’s really good. Tom isn’t hungry; he stays with her. He’s told to wash his hands really thoroughly. He washes for two minutes before holding Jayce’s hand.
The farther out she gets from chemo the less she has to go into the clinic. Eventually it’s just a nurse coming to her house. The nurse (Jayce’s mom calls her Barbie) tries to teach her mother to flush the line, but she’ll have none of it. She remembers her husband. For crying out loud, Mother, I’ll do it myself. And she does.
~ ~ ~
Her mother made Tom wear a mask, even though he wasn’t sick. He came over and sat with Jayce and read her more Thomas. That dude was fucked up, she said. I can’t make head nor tails out of that. She laughed. Tom put an arm around her there on the sofa. Then they walked outside so she could feel the rain on her head again.Her hair was growing back, with a reddish tint. Her mother was smoking on the porch and she said, Be careful.
Of what, Mother?
Of everything.
Her mother was driving her crazy, Tom could see. He thought about moving her in with him. He proposed this to them and her mother said that might be good. She was strange, this woman. Then Jayce could get rides. His father took them out for long drives now, stopping for ice cream, watching the geese on the lake. Geese mate for life, he said, watching them in the rearview. Tom thought that sounded good. Jayce was quiet, probably not thinking that far ahead.
Along the way they came upon a house fire, a woman and her two kids watching from the street. The little girl clutched her bear. Fire fighters came and went, Black smoke billowed. Tom’s father drove slowly, shaking his head. Tom added house fires to his list of terrors, at the top diseases.
Later they sat watching the lake, the surface like glass. Jayce started to cough. It was quiet but then gained force, and Tom worried.
~ ~ ~
Something is happening. Jayce has come down with pneumonia. It quickly progresses and she ends up on a breathing machine. .She requires a lot of oxygen. They put her in a coma so her body won’t use as much. Tom and her mother sit bedside, not talking, looking at Jayce’s stillness, watching her chest rise and fall, following the oxygen readings on the monitor.
Out of nowhere Jayce’s mother, Lillian, says, I wasn’t always a bitch, you know. It was seeing the slow death of my husband. The world’s not fair. And now this. Fucking life screws you over, don’t you think? Tom agrees with her, holding Jayce’s cold little hand.
Inside her head Jayce is on that white horse again, this time not being attacked, just feeling the wind through her long hair. She can hear everything Tom and her mother are saying.
~ ~ ~
In four weeks Jayce was home again, still a little short of breath. Lillian made dinner for Tom and his parents. She seemed to have softened up after this last ordeal. Tom and Jayce sit by the lake a lot, passing time, counting clouds, looking for animals in them. Tom told her he loved her and she said, Ditto, and laughed. He wasn’t sure how to take this.
~ ~ ~
A year goes by just like that. They get the call that there’s a stem cell donor, a man in Germany. It will take another month to set things up. It’s the last of the life insurance. Out on the lake in the rowboat, Tom and Jayce celebrate with a stolen bottle of Boone’s Farm. This time they don’t get sick. But they do get drunk. We have to see if it takes, she says. Maybe we should wait for this. Naw, he says, and they laugh. Cheers! To life, and then some! Tom kisses her forehead, caresses her white neck. Tom says, I can’t wait to kiss your mouth.
The cells arrive by plane and are rushed to the clinic. They are on ice, so they are sent through a warmer before running into Jayce’s central line. They will live in her and start making new white cells, hopefully. They say her breath will smell like creamed corn; that’s the preservative. That night her breath fills her house.
It’s said that she may take on some characteristics of her donor. Her donor is a motorcycle mechanic. One night she calls Tom and tells him to come over. When he gets there he finds her sitting on the living room floor surrounded by motorcycle parts. She says, Now, Tommy boy, let me show you what I can do.
