One Sweet Day Read online

  I took a seat near her bed. “So, was all this drama worth getting out of being questioned? You have an IV shoved in your arm. That couldn’t be worse than Logan boring you to death.”

  “He’s not boring, he’s crude. And yeah, it was worth the drama. There’s someone here I needed to visit and my fa— Timothy never would have let me come here unless there was a medical reason. Plus, I got to learn something today, too.”

  “How to freak out a hundred med students?” I joked.

  Everly relaxed into her pillows and stared curiously. “You’re willing to lie for me.”

  “My motives were not exactly pure. I wanted to earn some brownie points with you so you’ll be nicer to me and not give me the run around. If I fail third year and that infant Logan passes, I will never live it down.”

  “So you want to be my favorite,” she decided.

  “I want to graduate med school so I can move out of my parent’s house and begin my life. Whatever happens in the process is just cherries on top.”

  She pointed at me. “How dare you use life-dooming words in my presence?”

  “I have only doomed cherries.” I nodded to her hair. “You’re a peach.”

  Everly shoved her tray until it was angled in my direction. “I detest eating as much as you despise the word just. Help me get rid of this cake, and I’ll help you pass third year.”

  “Fine.” I sighed. “I’ll eat this gross-ass cake so you don’t have to, but no more run around in class, deal?”

  She replied, “I’m fairly certain they don’t use real asses in it… although one can never be too sure when dealing with ladies wearing hair nets.”

  “Everly,” I warned, smiling despite myself.

  She turned a little shy. “You eat my food, and I’ll answer your questions.”

  “Swear?” I challenged.

  “With both pinkies.”

  I took the plate of cake off her tray and ate slowly as she stared at the television. I watched her expressions as she became distracted by the show, glancing around the room every now and then to avoid getting caught.

  When I found her patient board, I tried not to read it, but my eyes couldn’t help but to rest on her name.

  Everly Anne Brighton

  As I glanced to her I was already caught. “Your last name is Brighton?”

  Everly stared intently at me. “You’ll find that very few things in life happen by coincidence.”

  ***

  The following day I found a small stack of books on my desk. On top of the pile was an edition of Peter Pan, worn and weathered. A piece of paper was tucked inside the cover. James Barrie’s words were bolded at the top.

  Just always be waiting for me.

  And underneath, she had written:

  Not every “just” leads to doom. What if the doom is already pending and you’re just caught in the middle? The truth, Callum, is that the word “just” only loses all its goodness when you stop looking at it as such. Justice, fair, evenhanded, unbiased, good, moral. This is the Family of Just. But like any family that starts out wholesome, there is room for a shift. All it takes is one person to stop believing in the foundation. Then that family is only on the outskirts of what remains, until no one addresses it as a whole any longer, because they don’t remember it as a whole, just the broken bits that fell away. Just the crumbles of what was once so sturdy.

  Just.

  You can make anything whole again.

  Just.

  You just have to nurse it back to health.

  I WAS ONCE PART OF THIS WORLD

  2.

  CHATTER GREETED ME as I opened the door to room 221. Everyone was talking to someone except for Everly, who sat quietly all alone at her desk in front of the class.

  Everyone shut up when Brighton entered the room. He wrote notes on the dry-erase board behind Everly and then called on Logan, who had his hand raised.

  “Are we allowed to do tests? Like blood work and stuff like that?”

  Brighton replied, “Can you do them in five minutes?” And the rest of the class found this mockery humorous.

  But I only stared at her quietness.

  Logan tried again. “Could we split up the time over a few days?”

  “If you’d like to waste it, sure.” He didn’t wait for Logan to try another approach. “Now, today, you will be split into the groups you see on the board. Everyone on your group must agree on the diagnosis and formulate a treatment by semester’s end. You will be graded half for the diagnosis and half based on your patient log. You will elect one person from your group to speak with the patient from here on out. You’ll have ten minutes after today, since it’s collective. Spend them well.”

  I scanned the board. Fuckin’ Logan was in my group. Small blessing: he wasn’t elected to ask her the last round of questions after I convinced this cute Italian girl named Cecily to agree with me about an eating disorder, even though that’s not at all what I believed was Everly’s condition. Nonetheless, they bought it, and I was elected to ask questions. We made a list, and I decided then that Logan was an even bigger asshole than I’d originally pegged him for. He, of course, wanted me to ask her questions that had very little to do with forming a diagnosis and everything to do with a weak attempt to embarrass me.

  The ten seconds it took to reach Everly felt as if time stretched on forever. She crossed and uncrossed her legs, pulled the sleeves of her sweater around her fingers, looked anywhere but at me. My palm was turned upward when I sat, the list buried in my coat pocket.

  “May I?” Nervously she rested her hand in mine. “Everly Anne, your fingers rival popsicles.” I stared at our hands. Yin and yang. My long fingers to her short. My skin smooth against the scars of her old wounds. My study-bitten nails to her carefully filed ones.

  I clasped her hand between both of mine in an effort to warm her up. The scars lined her skin, and it was impossible to not notice the top portion of her left pinkie was amputated.

  Everly cleared her throat. “You know I’m just… so tasty. I can’t help myself sometimes.”

  In some ways, I was better prepared for today’s differential, and in others, I was completely lost. I knew I had a log of questions I was supposed to ask, in addition to the list my group had compiled. Lines I should have filled in carefully with meticulous notes, but the “just” stared me in the face every day I sat in class and watched Logan and the others lead one torturous round of meaningless questions after the next. So I just had blank spaces and voids where they had generic answers. But I also had Everly’s hand and interest, and, at that exact moment, I couldn’t decipher which was more important or telling.

  “Is there anyone who would refute that?”

  She rolled her eyes. “As if I’d share.”

  “No one worthy? Or are you just too young and your Pop won’t let you date yet?”

  “I’m an adult. Nineteen whole years under my belt.” She scanned the desk for my laptop, but it was only us. “But no.” She looked up at me. “There’s no one worthy, either. Not yet.”

  It was a gift from the Just God that Timothy Brighton wasn’t grading based on overheard differential questions that weren’t on his log. “Just what exactly would make a person qualified to taste you?”

  “Well,” she began, “he’d have to be okay with cold hands, for one.”

  I shrugged. “Seems easy enough to fix.” My hands held hers firmer.

  “And not care about my cannibalism habits. He’d have to be a sharer.”

  “Is that why you were too full to eat your cake in the hospital? Snuck too many finger appetizers beforehand?”

  “No, I stopped chewing off body parts when I was a child. One doctor—he was a really wonderful man but doesn’t practice any more—used to make me wear oven mitts on my hands. Apparently I found my fingers to be particularly scrumptious. That bothered… some of the other doctors. Their treatment for that was a little more severe.”

  I leaned closer, my fingers inching further
up Everly’s arm to her wrist, under the cuff of her sweater. “Any other parts of you taste good?” So much for Logan’s plan to humiliate—Everly’s eyes deepened as she looked at me, unbothered, ultra-touched by my willingness to play a game and drop the interview-style probing bullshit she despised.

  Half of me wanted to look over my shoulder and make sure Brighton wasn’t listening. The other half wanted to shout my questions across the room so Logan could hear me ask them and Everly answer without a single bit of hassle, let alone hesitation.

  “My lips,” she answered. “I used to bite my lips a lot.”

  I stared at her as she looked up, tracing over her face until I reached Everly’s mouth. One of my hands slipped from hers, which allowed my index finger the freedom to touch the faint scar under her lower lip.

  “Time,” Brighton called out.

  But I couldn’t leave right away. I stared at her for a moment longer; my hand gave a squeeze to hers. “You feel much warmer now.”

  “I’ll have to take your word for it, I guess,” she admitted quietly.

  “You can’t feel the warmth of my hands?” I asked.

  “I feel your warmth just fine.” She closed her eyes for a moment. “I guess I can see how that word gets under your skin.”

  “No,” I told her, “you’re right about it. What you wrote for me is right.”

  “But it’s not the truth.”

  “Then why did you tell it to me?”

  She looked down. “You have to go back to your seat.”

  Brighton stared sternly. I rose from my spot, but she quietly called my name. “Do you know where the old train line is?”

  I nodded.

  “You can find a lot of answers on old trains,” she said. “History leads to stories, and stories lead to wonderment. Wonderment is the Christmas of life.”

  As Everly sat with the other four groups, I pulled up New York’s old train line on my laptop. From back when everything was needful and crafted. Back when women crossed their legs and had gentlemen suitors. Back when steel was magic, lightning-fast, and the only way.

  And once again, I had seen this place before. My family had been the sturdy foundation that rode trains and traveled towns. Fallen in love on shooting stars and gulped dreams. I was once a part of this world built on hope, faith, and creation.

  But one day… it all just fell apart.

  I WAS NEVER THAT MUCH OF A CHILD

  3.

  MRS. ROSSINBURG apologized as soon as I got out of my car.

  Across the street, my father Andrew was being restrained and questioned by two cops. One of them I recognized as Officer Stroud. He was a rookie with a really cool badge when I’d first met him. Today he was twenty pounds too heavy and cuffing a man whom he’d once let weep on his shoulder.

  “I didn’t call them,” she regretfully stated. “Patty two houses down saw him banging on my door and got scared. I tried to tell them he wasn’t bothering me, but they won’t listen.”

  “Don’t worry about it,” I assured. “I’m glad you called me.”

  I crossed the street in a weak attempt to keep my frustration under lock. “That’s my father,” I announced. “I’ll take care of him if that’s all right.”

  Officer Stroud left my father with his partner and pulled me aside. “This is the fourth complaint about Andrew this month. People like their peace and quiet in the morning, son.”

  “I know. I’m sorry. It won’t happen again. He’s just… having a rough time. It’ll pass. Always does.”

  “Look,” Stroud said with a sigh, “I’m sorry about what happened to your mother, Callum. She was a great lady, and the doc has every right to be upset about it, but I can’t keep letting him off the hook. NYPD is under serious scrutiny right now, and even the littlest indiscretions are making us look incompetent. Next time, I’ll be forced to lock him up.” He exhaled hard again. “Not to sound callous, but it’s been over ten years. That’s a long time to grieve.”

  Suddenly I didn’t feel so friendly toward Officer Stroud. “Can I just take him inside our house? He’ll probably just pass out. I have class in thirty minutes, and I’ll get locked out if I’m not on time.” And miss Everly.

  “This time I’ll let you, but remember what I said.” He instructed his partner to uncuff Andrew. “So, how many more years until I can call you doctor, anyhow?”

  “I’m almost done with third year, and then it’s just fourth and passing boards.”

  He slapped my shoulder. “You’ll do fine. Your father was one of the best.”

  Was….

  I shook my head at him and realized that I had been wrong. Officer Stroud was still so very green. “Andrew never lost his brilliance,” I said. “He only lost her.”

  ***

  Getting him into bed was a bit like fighting with a child, but at least he was a happy child. Vodka meant he was taking the edge off; whiskey meant he was looking for the end. A bottle of half-empty clear liquid sat on his desk next to stacks of papers and books. He was always trying to figure it out: how he could have saved her.

  “Come on, Pop. Get under the covers. I have class soon.” He hung on my shoulder, weighing me down as he slumped into bed.

  His hand tugged the front of my shirt as he begged, “Put on Frank. I wanna hear him.”

  “Okay, I will. Just lie down.” I turned on “The Way You Look Tonight,” and he threatened to get out of bed.

  “‘That’s Life,’” he demanded.

  “Yeah, this is life, Pop. This is what my life flunking out of med school looks like.”

  “No,” he groaned. “The song. Play ‘That’s Life.’ I wanna hear Frank.”

  I flipped through his collection until I found the right one. My father sang along, laughing in between the lines, until he tried to get out of bed again. Half of me longed to hate him, but as he clung on to me and confessed, “I just wanted to see her. She keeps visiting me in my dreams,” I just couldn’t muster hatred toward a dying man.

  I smoothed his hair like he was a small child. “Mom doesn’t live next door, Pop. You have to stop bothering Mrs. Rossinburg, or they’ll take you to jail for trespassing and disturbing the peace.”

  “No, no. The girl. The little girl. She keeps coming to see me in my dreams. Julep told me to go find her. Is she still alive? I need to do this for your mother.”

  “What girl?”

  “The girl, the girl. The little Georgia girl. Little Peach from Georgia.”

  “I don’t know a girl named Peach. Lie down, Pop. Please. Before I call the cops myself and ask them to take you away. You and your imaginary friend from Georgia.”

  In mumbling drunken Italian, he told me—in short—the cops could go fuck themselves.

  “I agree with the sentiment, Pop, but the truth still remains. Lie down.” He let me tuck him in, and I waited until his eyes closed before I slipped off his shoes and quietly left the room.

  At the bottom of the staircase, my stepmother, Marta, waited.

  “I didn’t know if he was alone,” she said, glancing awkwardly toward his door. “Is he all right?”

  “He’s passed out. Where the hell were you?”

  “I had to grocery shop. He seemed fine when I left.”

  “He’s been fine for ten years. Being fine isn’t his problem.” I didn’t wait for her response. I scooped up my bag next to the door where I’d left it and twisted the knob. “Stroud said next time he’s getting locked up.”

  “What did Andrew do?” she asked, clutching the cross around her neck.

  “He was at Mrs. Rossinburg’s house, again.”

  “Why does he go there? Even drunk… why would he ever bother Mrs. Rossinburg?”

  I stared at her so she’d finally understand she’d never truly be “Mrs. Trovatto.”

  “The letters on Mrs. Rossinburg’s mailbox are chipping off… When he’s drunk, he thinks that’s where Julep Rossi lives.”

  ***

  I couldn’t even look at Everly when I r
eached her desk. Matter of fact, I couldn’t speak to her, either. I just rested my forehead against the butt of my hand and breathed through indignation.

  “Having trouble with words again?”

  I glanced up to see her shy smile.

  “I feel like ten people shoved into one body sometimes.”

  “Hope you don’t think that’s going to change after they give you that big fancy degree.”

  I sat up straight. “Becoming a doctor has been the easiest part my life.”

  “So you’re a runaway.”

  I shook my head, laughing slightly. “There’s a difference between moving forward and running away. I’m moving forward.”

  “Ginger chew?” she offered with a smile so damn sweet, the ire began to recede.

  “It sure as hell couldn’t hurt, Everly Anne.”

  She handed me a candy and then asked, “So, what does hurt?”

  Our eyes locked, and this was where the second star fell. “I was thirteen, and it was Christmas Eve. All of my friends had green and red lighting up their houses, but I had blue and red. They told me my mom just stopped breathing. Cancer killed her on Christmas Eve. And now you fully understand my fight with just.”

  Everly didn’t say she was sorry. It was the only time someone skipped that part. It was then I knew she was selfless. Every time someone told me they were sorry about my mom dying I’d felt like asking them, “But why?” One time I did ask—and you can bet their answer: they just were.

  Something I learned from my mom’s death was that apologies were only meant to help the other person feel less awkward, because really—fuckin’ really—what do you say to a kid who’s just watched his mother die slowly in pain and without dignity over the span of five years? She’s better off with God? That only works if you believe in such fairy tales, and I was never that much of a child.

  Everly sat silent and composed. Her eyes listened, and her ears absorbed. She was like a journal entry, comfortable and leading. I knew whatever I wrote down would stay with her. So I chose to be the black to her white, selfish and greedy. I took the time that was meant to be all about her and used it for myself. Her quietness didn’t seem to mind.