Helena Mary Cole

One day in mid-July, Jay breezed into the Old Hall’s kitchen around supper time and nodded at Aunt Fiona, who was standing behind the kitchen island with her arms folded across her chest. “Hey, Aunt Fi,” he said, and was about to breeze on through to the east hallway, when something about her expression made him stop. Aunt Fiona often looked worried, but today, there was something downright grim about the lines around her mouth and between her eyebrows.

She didn’t wait for Jay to say anything. “Well, James, I guess you might as well know that Alex is sick.”

Jay was confused. “I know. He’s had a bit of a cold lately.”

“He’s had a bad cold for the past couple of weeks, yes,” she said, “but now his cold has developed into pneumonia.”

“Are you serious?”

“Perfectly.”

“How did he get pneumonia?”

The corner of her mouth tightened. “I don’t understand the question. People get sick. It happens.”

“Yeah, all right,” Jay conceded the point. Frowning, he remembered that his mother’s baby brother Simon had died of pneumonia while still an infant, and so he asked, “He’s going to be all right, though, isn’t he?”

Aunt Fiona hugged her arms. “Oh, probably.”

“Probably? You mean he might not be?” It was the only thing Jay could conclude from her body language.

She relaxed a little when the kitchen timer went off behind her and she put on mitts to take a casserole dish out of the oven. “I’m sorry to be so full of doom, Jay. It is quite likely that Alex will be all right—I’m just worried sick about him in the meantime. Parker’s in a terrible state. I don’t handle it very well.” She set the casserole down, lifted the lid, and sighed.

The smell that filled the kitchen—chicken and melted cheese—made Jay’s stomach growl. He ignored his stomach for the moment. “Is he here? Sash, I mean?”

“No, he’s at the hospital in Homewood. They’re running some tests. He might be there well into the night.”

“Aw, man, that does suck.”

“Quite. Parker’s with him. The house is empty.”

“Well, then I guess there’s no point in my being here.” Jay turned his head and looked at the door he’d just come through without any enthusiasm whatsoever, trying to look forward to an evening spent at home.

“Actually, I was wondering if you’d like to eat a bit of supper with me and then we could go to the hospital together to see him. What do you think?”

Jay’s stomach growled again, as if on cue. He smiled at Aunt Fiona. “I guess that would be all right.”

Aunt Fiona was already getting plates out of the cupboard. “Well, sit down, then,” she said.

*

When they entered the hospital, Jay was trying very hard not to be seen with Aunt Fiona because she’d felt it necessary, for some incomprehensible reason, to pay this visit wearing a wide-rimmed black hat with a huge pink flower on it. The flower bounced a little every time she took and step, and Jay was sure it was going to roll right off the hat, go skittering across the floor and draw even more attention to itself than it already was. He kept a good four feet behind her and off to the side. But it was hard to pretend they weren’t together when she had to ask about Alex at the hospital information desk. Aunt Fiona did the talking and the girl behind the desk answered her questions while pointedly observing the pink flower. The girl tried to exchange a look with Jay but Jay looked away.

Aunt Fiona watched this failed exchange and patted her hat. “Do you like my hat?” She now looked at Jay expectantly, though also as if she knew what he would say.

The girl behind the desk became obsessed with her computer screen, smiling. But Jay stared at his aunt. “It’s horrible, Aunt Fi.”

She didn’t reply but her eyes twinkled as she headed for the corridor towards the lifts.

Jay caught up with her, indulging in a little private smirk. Great Aunt Fiona was a pretty serious person most of the time, which made it hard to remember she was Gran’s sister. This was the first time he’d ever seen a glimmer of Gran-ish-ness in her. Well, he knew he’d always kind of liked Aunt Fi deep down.

The hospital in Homewood wasn’t exactly big but it was still a bit of a maze, thanks to wings getting added here and there over the years. But Jay knew they’d found the right place when he spied Sandy sitting in a little waiting area with an open magazine in her lap and at least four other open magazines spread out on the table in front of her. Aunt Fiona walked right past the waiting area, clutching the little piece of paper she’d written the room number down on, but Jay stopped and said, “Sandy.”

Sandy looked up, her eyes pink and glistening, and then she did something that Jay never would have expected in a million years: she tossed the open magazine on top of the others, sprang to her feet, and threw her arms around his neck. “Jay! I’m so glad you’re here,” she said.

Jay put his arms around her in bewilderment. “Okay.”

She didn’t let go right away.

Aunt Fiona backtracked and came up behind Jay. “Ah—Miss Summerville. Ah,” she said as the hug continued for more than a few seconds.

“What’s the deal, Sandy, who died?” Jay finally complained.

Sandy pulled away from him abruptly, “Don’t you say that, Jay Belden.” There were tears leaking out of her eyes. “He’s pretty sick. He’s so sick, they’re admitting him to the hospital.”

“Oh,” Aunt Fiona sounded grave. “Parker didn’t tell me that. He must not have known last time I talked to him.”

Sandy shook her head. “He didn’t. We just found out. Mr. Hale is really worried.”
Jay didn’t say anything as he processed this new information.

“Where is Parker, then?” Aunt Fiona wanted to know.

Sandy sobbed. “He’s with Alex. You have to dress up in one of their gowns and everything before they’ll let you in.”

“Have you been in yet?”

She shook her head. “Mr. Hale thought I should wait until I calmed down a bit.”

“Exactly how many magazines are you reading at once?” Jay supplied, attempting to cover up his own worry.

“I don’t know. They’re all so stupid.” Sandy wiped her eyes with a tissue.

“It’s going to be all right, Sandy,” Aunt Fiona reached out and gave her shoulder a reassuring squeeze. “Alexander is young and strong and we have no reason to think this will end unhappily. I’m going to go find Parker and James is going to stay with you in the meantime.”

“I am?” Jay glanced at her sharply.

“Yes, you’re going to help her calm down and then the two of you can go in and see Alexander together.”

When she was gone, Jay and Sandy looked at each for a minute. When it became clear that Jay wasn’t going to say anything, Sandy sat back down and started cleaning up the magazines, still crying quietly.

Jay decided he’d better sit down next to her. He watched her tidy up for a few seconds before he said, “Sandy.”

“What is it?” she sniffed.

“Aunt Fiona’s right, Sandy. Sash is going to be fine.”

She didn’t say anything.

“My Uncle Simon died of pneumonia but he was just a baby when he got it, and that was back in the stone ages. Sash is practically thirteen. There’s no way he’s going to die of it.”

“How can you possibly know that?”

“Well, I don’t,” Jay’s voice faltered, “But I was talking to him not long ago and he was saying how glad he is he didn’t die in his accident and stuff like that. I’m pretty sure that helps a lot.”

“I guess you’re right.” But she continued to cry quietly.

Jay lost patience with her, “Come on, Sandy, don’t cry. I’m supposed to calm you down and I’m out of ideas.”

Sandy got annoyed in turn. “Don’t you find any of this upsetting?”

“I think this whole thing really sucks.”

“Aren’t you worried sick?”

“I’m trying not to be but you’re not helping.”

“Well, excuse me for having a heart,” she retorted.

“Hey, that’s not fair,” he shot right back.

“If anything ever happened to Alex, you have an army of sports buddies to replace him. Some of us aren’t that lucky.”

“Well, that’s rich coming from you, Sandy—I was just at your birthday party, and it was the biggest one I’ve ever been to in my life. Your house was packed with girls.”

Sandy scoffed. “Those girls were only there to make my mother happy, or to make their mothers, who are friends with my mother, happy. Portia Hatfield and Lacey McGovern and Danica Dearborn,” she muttered their names as if she were trying to spit them out.

Jay was still trying to figure out what he should say next when she went on, “D’you know, I only started spending time with Alex because Danica Dearborn and Michaela Huang were being all snobby about him because he’s in a wheelchair?”

He was about to make some sort of comment about how that sounded like something she would do, and an uneasy thought about the girl named Danica in the blue dress shot through his mind, but Sandy motored on, “I thought I was being so nice to Alex, so amazing, so generous, but in reality, I was such an idiot.”

“Okay… Why…” he stammered, trying to get a word in between her sniffles, “Why do you think you’re an idiot?”

“Haven’t you been listening to me?” She blew her nose quickly and quietly, and when she spoke again, her voice had shrunk down to almost nothing, “He’s the only real friend I’ve got.”

Jay didn’t reply. For some reason, what she’d just said made his throat tighten up and Aunt Fiona’s chicken casserole sink into the deepest part of his stomach. He thought randomly about the already dog-eared but still blank pages at the back of Alex’s new sketchbook, and about the way Alex favoured the ace of hearts up his sleeve whenever he cheated at cards, and about the way Alex’s face had looked that time when he’d scolded Jay for calling him brave. It occurred to Jay that he was experiencing something familiar but unpleasant—a strange something that he couldn’t put his finger on exactly. Until suddenly it hit him: this was the feeling he’d had when Mac had moved away. Only worse.

He looked at Sandy, who may or may not have still been crying—she wasn’t looking directly at him. But suddenly, even though he hadn’t said a word to her, she put down the tissue she’d been holding and looked at him. She looked scared and confused, and she immediately said, “What is it?”

“I’m sure nothing’s going to happen to Sash,” he began, and for some reason, she was listening to him with all her might. “But even if it did…” To Jay’s amazement, she was still drinking in every word and she was no longer crying, “We’d figure out how to get through it.” She continued to stare at him. “Okay?”

She nodded. “Okay.”

At that moment, Aunt Fiona came back, accompanied by Parker Hale, who was unlooping a face mask from over his ears to reveal a watered-down smile. Jay’s first instinct was to stand up but before he could, he had to let go of Sandy’s hand.

Which was weird because Jay could not remember taking Sandy’s hand. He didn’t think he’d been sitting there holding hands with Sandy Summerville in the Homewood general hospital’s second floor waiting room, but the fact remained that he let go of something remarkably like a hand before he could stand up and say hi to Mr Hale. The thought disturbed him a little but he pushed it out of his mind.

He didn’t think of it again for the whole rest of the evening, not when he and Sandy were putting on yellow hospital gowns and he was telling her how dorky she looked; he definitely didn’t think about it when he saw Alex on the hospital bed, looking too thin and pale, when he saw his friend wearing an oxygen mask and heard how strangely shallow Alex’s voice sounded; he didn’t think about it while they were driving home and Aunt Fiona was distracting him by telling him childhood stories about Gran.

He didn’t think about how he had held Sandy’s hand until after he’d turned out the lights in his bedroom at home, and he was staring through the darkness at the ceiling, listening to his brother Robbie’s deep little-kid-type breathing in the next bed.

And then he thought about it incessantly.

It was weird how he just couldn’t remember reaching out and taking her hand.

It was even weirder when he thought about how much he’d liked it.