One Summer (6 page)

“Might be.”

“Well, without dashing your hopes, it probably is.”

“Have others in my condition had a remission?”

The doctor looked taken aback. “No, not to my knowledge.”

“That’s all I needed to know.”

The doctor looked confused. “Needed to know about what?”

“I know I was dying, but now I’m not.”

“How can you be so sure?”

“Sometimes you just know.”

“Jack, I have to tell you that what’s happening to you is medically impossible.”

“Medicine is not everything.”

The doctor looked him over and saw the new muscle, the fuller face, and the eyes that burned with a rigid intensity.

“Why do you think this is happening to you, Jack?” he finally asked.

“You’re a doctor; you wouldn’t understand.”

“I’m also a human being, and I’d very much like to know.”

Jack reached in his drawer and pulled out a photo. He passed it to the doctor.

It was a photo of Lizzie and the kids.

“Because of them,” said Jack.

“But I thought your wife passed away.”

Jack shook his head. “Doesn’t matter.”

“What?”

“When you love someone, you love them forever.”

Two days later, Jack was in his room eating a full meal. He’d put on three more pounds. The doctor walked in and perched on the edge of the bed.

“Okay, I officially believe in miracles. Your blood work came back negative. No trace of the disease. It’s like something came along and chased it away. Never seen anything like it. There’s no way to explain it medically.”

Jack swallowed a mouthful of mashed potatoes and smiled. “I’m glad you finally came around.”

He saw his kids that night on the computer. He believed he actually made Jackie understand that he was getting better. At least his son’s last words had been, “Daddy’s boo-boo’s gone.”

Cory had blurted out, “When are you coming to see me?”

“I hope soon, big guy. I’ll let you know. I’ve still got a ways to go. But I’m getting there.”

Mikki’s reaction surprised him, and not in a good way.

“Is this some kind of trick?” she asked.

Jack slowly sat up in his chair as he stared at her. “Trick?”

“When we left you, Dad, you were dying. That’s what hospice is for. You said good-bye to all of us. You made me go live with Gramps and
her
!”

“Honey, it’s no trick. I’m getting better.”

She suddenly dissolved into tears. “Well then, will you be coming to take us home? Because I hate it here.”

“I’m doing my best, sweetie. With a little more time I think—”

But Mikki hit a key and the computer screen went black.

Jack slowly sat back. He never heard the squeak of the gurney as the woman across the hall made her final journey from this place.

Day turned to night, and Jack hadn’t moved. No food, no liquids, no words spoken to anyone who came to see him.

Finally, at around two a.m., he stirred. He rose from his bed and walked up and down the hall before persuading a nurse to scavenge in the kitchen for some food. He ate and watched his reflection in the window.

I’m coming, Mikki. Dad’s coming for you.

A week later he weighed over one-sixty and was walking the halls for an hour at a time. Like an infant, he was relearning how to use his arms and legs. He would flex his fingers and toes, curl and uncurl his arms, bend his legs. The nursing staff watched him carefully, unaccustomed to this sort of thing. Families of other hospice patients observed him curiously. At first Jack was afraid they would be devastated by his progress when their loved ones still lay dying. At least he thought that, until one woman approached him. She was in her sixties and was here every day. Jack knew that her husband had terminal
cancer. He’d passed by the man’s door and seen the shriveled body under the sheets. He was waiting to die, like everyone else here.

Everyone except me.

She slipped her arm through his and said, “God bless you.”

He looked at her questioningly.

“You give us all hope.”

Jack felt slightly panicked. “I don’t know why this is happening to me,” he said frankly. “But it’s an awfully long shot.”

“That’s not what I meant. I know my husband is going to die. But you still give us all hope, honey.”

Jack went back to his room and stared at himself in the mirror. He looked more like himself now. The jawline was firming, the hair fuller. He walked slowly to the window and looked outside at a landscape that was still more in the grips of winter than spring, though that season was not too far off. He’d spent several winters apart from his family while he carried a rifle for his country. Lying in his quarters outside of Baghdad or Kabul he had closed his eyes and visualized Christmas with his family. The laughter of Mikki and Cory as they opened presents on Christmas morning.

And then there was the memory of Lizzie’s smile as she looked at the small gifts that Jack had bought her before he was deployed for the first time. It had been the summer, so he had gotten her sunblock, a bikini, and a book on grilling. She’d later sent him a photo by e-mail of her wearing the bikini while cooking hot dogs on the Hibachi with mounds of snow behind her. That image had carried him through one hellish battle after another. His wife. Her smile. Wanting so badly to come back to her. That all seemed so long ago, and in some important ways it was.

He went to his nightstand and pulled out the bundle of letters. Each had a number on the envelope. He selected the envelope with the number one on it and slid the paper out. The letter was dated December eighteenth and represented the first one he’d written to Lizzie. He gazed down at the handwriting that was his but that also wasn’t because the disease had made him so weak. Sometimes while writing he’d had to put down the pen because he just couldn’t hold it any longer. But still it was readable. It said what he had wanted to say. It was the accomplishment of a man who was doing this as his final act in life.

He put the letter back in the envelope and replaced the packet in the drawer. He slipped the photo from the pocket of his robe and looked at it. From the depths of the color print, his family smiled back at him. He thought of all the others in this place who would never leave it alive. He had been spared.

Why me?

Jack had no ready answer. But he did know one thing. He was not going to waste a second chance at living.

A few days later, Jack Armstrong was discharged from hospice and sent to a rehab facility. He rode over in a shuttle van. The driver was an older guy with a soft felt cap and a trim white beard. Jack was his only passenger.

As they drove along, Jack stared out in childlike wonder at things he never thought he would experience again. Seeing a bird in flight. A mailman delivering letters and packages. A kid running for the school bus. He promised himself he would never again take anything for granted.

As they pulled up in front of the rehab building, the man said, “Never brought anybody from that place to this place.”

“I guess not,” said Jack. He held his small duffel. Inside were a few clothes, a pair of tennis shoes, and the letters he’d written to Lizzie. When he got to his room, he looked around at the simple furnishings and single window that had a view of the interior outdoor courtyard, which was covered in snow. Jack sat on the bed after putting his few belongings away.

He looked up when a familiar person walked into the room.

“Sammy? What are you doing here?”

Sammy Duvall was dressed in gray sweats and had on a checkered bandanna. “Why the hell do you think I’m here? To get your sorry butt in shape. Look at you; you’ve obviously been dogging it. And they told me you were getting better. You look like crap.”

“I don’t understand. You didn’t come by the hospice. And I left you phone messages.”

The mirth left Sammy’s eyes, and he sat down next to Jack on the bed. “I let you down.”

“What are you talking about? You’ve done everything for me.”

“No, I haven’t. I told you at the cemetery that I’d always be there for you, but I wasn’t.” He paused. Jack had never seen Sammy nervous before. That emotion just never squared with a man like him. Nothing rattled Sammy Duvall.

Sammy’s voice trembled as he said, “I should’ve come to visit you. But… seeing you in that place, just waiting to…”

Jack put a hand on the older man’s shoulder. “It’s okay, Sammy. I understand.”

Sammy wiped his eyes and said, “Anyway, I’m here now. And you’re probably gonna wish I wasn’t.”

“Why?”

“I’m your drill instructor.”

“What?”

“Worked a deal with the folks here.”

“How’d you do that?”

“Told ’em you were a special case. And you need special treatment. And if you’re okay with it, so are they.”

“I’m definitely okay with it. That was one reason I called you. To have you help me get back in shape.”

“Famous last words, boy, because I’m gonna kick your butt.”

The weeks went by swiftly. And with pain. Much pain.

The sweat streaming off him during one particularly arduous workout, Jack told Sammy, “I can’t do one more damn push-up. I can’t!”

“Can’t or won’t? ’Cause that’s all the difference in the world, son.”

Jack did one more push-up and then another and then a third, until he could no longer feel his arms. Jack had gone on to pump thousands of pounds of weights, run on the treadmill until he couldn’t stand the stink of his own sweat, perform more push-ups until his arms nearly fell off, jump rope until his knees failed.

He cursed at Sammy, who laughed at him and goaded him into doing more, and more.

“You call yourself an army ranger? Sam Jr. can work harder than you, and he’s a big, fat baby.”

And Sammy didn’t just instruct. He got down on the floor and did the exercises with Jack. “If an old man like me can do this, you sure as hell can,” was his usual taunt.

On and on it went. Sammy screaming in his face and Jack gnashing his teeth, furrowing his brow, and doing one more pull-up, one more push-up, one more mile on the treadmill, one more set of curls, a hundred more pounds on the squat bar. But the thing was, Jack was growing stronger with every rep.

He talked to his kids every day. They knew he was in rehab. They knew he was getting stronger.

On one joint Skype session, Jack showed Cory and Jackie his muscles.

“You’re ripped, Dad,” said Cory.

“Whipped,” crowed Jackie.

Later that night he saw Mikki. She hadn’t agreed to do a Skype session with him in a while, but repeated phone calls from him and finally Sammy had convinced her.

“You look great, Dad,” she said slowly. “You really do.”

“You look thin,” he replied.

“Yeah, well, Grandma is watching her weight, which means we all eat like birds.”

“Cheeseburger’s on me.”

“When?” she said quickly.

“Sooner than you think, sweetie. I know I probably should have come out to see you before now. And I miss you more than anything. But… but I want to do this right. When I was in the army and we’d go on patrol, I always analyzed everything that might come up. Some of the other guys liked to wing it. Just turn on the fly. And sometimes in combat you have to do that. But being prepared for everything because you’ve done your homework is the best way to survive, Mikki. I hope you understand. I want to do this right. For all of you.”

“I get it, Dad.” She added playfully, “And Skype will get you ready for when I go to college and you really miss me.”

Finally, the day came on a surprisingly warm spring morning. Jack’s bag was packed and he was sitting on his bed when Sammy came into the room. “It’s time.”

“I know it is,” said Sammy.

“I couldn’t have done this without you.”

“Sure you could, but it wouldn’t have been nearly as much fun.”

While his discharge papers were being finalized, Jack sat in a chair outside the rehab office. The months had been a blur. He drew a long, measured breath, trying to collect his
thoughts. He looked out the window, where winter had passed and spring had arrived. Crocuses were pushing through the earth and trees were starting to bud out.
The world is waking up from a long winter’s nap, and so am I.
He opened his duffel and pulled out an envelope with the number two on it. He slid out the letter.