The Redemption (4 page)

After a visit with Dr. Silverman, Josh always used to say to me, “You don’t have to talk if you don’t want to, Jonas. I’ll talk for you forever if you want.” But yesterday, out of nowhere, Josh tried to make me start talking just like everybody else does. “Maybe if you talk—just a little bit—Dad won’t make us go to Dr. Silverman’s anymore. Come on, Jonas, just make something up—I make stuff up every frickin’ time.”

At first, I was mad when Josh tried to get me to talk. But today, I think I understand how Josh feels. He’s not the one who needs the music, after all.

The more I think about it, the more I’m sure Josh is right—if I said something, anything at all, we wouldn’t have to go to Dr. Silverman’s anymore. But the thing Josh doesn’t understand, the thing no one understands, is that I can’t talk ever again. Because talking is against the rules. And there’s nothing I can do about that, whether I like it or not.

Miss Westbrook continues whispering with Mrs. Jefferson about what a big favor I’d be doing for her if I became her helper. I feel like my head’s gonna explode, I want to do it so bad. Finally, Mrs. Jefferson nods and says, “Well, I guess there’s no harm in giving it a shot.”

When we get home, Mrs. Jefferson talks to Daddy about what Miss Westbrook said, and, much to my shock, he says I can do it. “Josh doesn’t need Dr. Silverman anymore, anyway,” Daddy says. “And I suppose Jonas can take a couple weeks off to give this a try. But if it doesn’t work, Jonas will have to go back to Dr. Silverman—or, hell, maybe I’ll just send him back to the treatment center.”

When I hear Daddy say I can help Miss Westbrook, I feel like shouting, “Woohoo!” really loud (but, of course, I don’t). I’m so excited about getting to be with Miss Westbrook every day, I don’t even freak out that Daddy said that thing about the treatment center.

Later that night, Josh jumps on his bed like it’s a trampoline and laughs about how lucky he is and how stupid I am. “Mrs. Jefferson’s gonna take me for ice cream every afternoon while you’re sitting there with Miss Westbrook,” he says. “Sucker.”

I roll on my side away from Josh and smile, thinking about how pretty Miss Westbrook is and how her eyes sparkle when she smiles at me. Stupid Josh can laugh at me all he wants—I’ll take an hour with Miss Westbrook over a dumb ice cream cone any day of the week.

Jonas
 

The cop exits as I walk into Sarah’s hospital room. I’m shaking like a leaf. Will she even be able to look me in the eye? Or will she want nothing to do with me?

I stop just inside the door to her room, barely able to breathe. She looks impossibly small. She’s got a bandage around her head like she’s a Civil War soldier and another one around her neck. She’s wearing a hospital gown, but I’m sure she’s bandaged under there, too. Oh God, she’s pale—though, thankfully, not nearly as pale as she was on the floor of that bathroom. I never want to think about how she looked on the floor of that bathroom again. I bite my lip to suppress a sudden surge of emotion.

Her bracelet’s gone. They must have cut it off her. For a moment, the symbolism of her naked wrist threatens to make me lose it, but I stay strong. I’m a fucking beast now. I’m not weak like I used to be.

“Go Seahawks,” she says softly. Her voice is gravelly.

I’m confused.

“Interesting time to show your Seahawks pride.”

I look down. Oh yeah, my new T-shirt. This woman is bandaged and bruised and literally just escaped death, and she’s still got enough gas in the tank to kick my ass. God, I love her. I laugh and cry at the same time and lurch to her bedside. I hug her gingerly, not wanting to break her.

I’ve never been on the other side of a bloody floor before. Usually, a red-soaked floor simultaneously marks the end of one person’s life and my sanity. I don’t even know how I’m supposed to react if the story of a bloody floor doesn’t have the usual ending.

“I’m so sorry, Sarah,” I say, softly kissing her precious lips. “I’m so sorry, baby.”

“
I’m
sorry,” she mumbles into my lips.

I kiss her again. “You have nothing to be sorry for, you big dummy.”

“Jonas,” she says.

“I thought I’d lost you,” I say, kissing every inch of her face. “Oh my God, baby. I thought I’d lost you.”

“Jonas,” she says, almost inaudibly.

“This is all my fault. I’m so, so sorry. I fucked up so bad.”

“You saved my life,” she whispers.

I have no idea what the fuck she’s talking about.

“You saved my life,
” she says again. Her voice is the faintest of whispers.

What? I’m the one who let her go into that bathroom by herself. What the hell is she saying? I have a thousand questions—but before I can ask a single one, Sarah’s mom bursts into the room, sobbing and wailing and hijacking Sarah into a sudden whirlwind of rapid-fire Spanish and hysterical tears.

“In English, Mom,” Sarah whispers. “Jonas is here.”

I understand Spanish fairly well, actually, but Mrs. Cruz talks so fast, I can’t understand a word she says.

“Jonas,” Mrs. Cruz says, hugging me fiercely.

I’m so ashamed I allowed harm to come to Mrs. Cruz’s daughter, I can’t even look her in the eye.

“Sarah has told me so much about you, Jonas.” Mrs. Cruz touches my cheek. “Thank you so much for your donation. It was delivered this morning—ten times the biggest donation we’ve ever had. I tried calling Sarah to get your number to thank you, but she didn’t answer her phone—” Mrs. Cruz looks at Sarah and bursts into tears.

Sarah squints at me—this is the first she’s hearing about my donation to her mom’s charity.

Mrs. Cruz hunches over Sarah, bawling her eyes out. “
Qué pasó, mi hijita
?”

“English, Mom,” Sarah says softly. “Some guy attacked me with a knife in the bathroom at school.”

Mrs. Cruz lets out a pained sob. “Who? Why?”

“I didn’t know him. He just wanted what was in my purse. I gave the police a description of the guy—I’m sure they’ll catch him. Don’t worry.”

So, this is the version of events Sarah told the police? What on earth is going on inside that head of hers? I glare at Sarah and she looks away.

“I’m staying here with you all night,” Mrs. Cruz says. She pulls up a chair right next to Sarah’s bed and drapes herself over Sarah’s prostrate body. “Sarah,” she says, emotion overwhelming her. “
Mi hijita.
”

I want to be the one sitting next to Sarah, draping myself over her. But, clearly, a mother’s love trumps a boyfriend’s—especially when the boyfriend’s the one who fucked up and let harm come to his girlfriend in the first place.

“Is there anything you need?” I ask. “Mrs. Cruz? Can I get you something to eat? Anything to drink?”

Mrs. Cruz doesn’t respond. She’s got her head on Sarah’s stomach and she’s crying her eyes out.

Yeah, I know the fucking feeling.

I wake up in a chair in the corner of the hospital room. When did I fall asleep? I was having a crazy-ass dream—a dream about Miss Westbrook. What the hell? I haven’t thought about Miss Westbrook in probably fifteen years.

The room is silent except for the clicks and beeps of the medical equipment. Sarah’s fast asleep with her mom still draped over her. Kat’s asleep in a chair on the opposite side of the room. I didn’t see her arrive. A nurse is changing Sarah’s IV bag. I stare at Sarah’s heart monitor for several minutes, making sure her pulse is steady and strong, and then I close my eyes again.

My head jerks up. How long was I asleep? Fuck, these crazy-ass dreams won’t leave me alone. Am I losing my mind?

Sarah’s mom is awake, holding Sarah’s hand as she sleeps. Kat’s gone. I get up and tiptoe over to Sarah and softly kiss her lips. My heart is heavy—I’m surprised it can beat at all with fifty-pound rocks weighing it down.

“I’m sorry,” Sarah whispers when my lips leave hers.

I didn’t mean to wake her—but I’m relieved to hear her voice. “I’m the one who’s sorry.”

“You saved my life,” she whispers. She closes her eyes and a tear trickles down her cheek.

I don’t know why Sarah keeps saying that. I can only assume it’s the painkillers talking because what’s happened to Sarah is all my fucking fault.

Jonas
 

On the first day of me being Miss Westbrook’s after-school helper, she doesn’t talk to me all that much except to tell me what jobs she wants me to do. I clean the whiteboard, making sure to erase every little smudge, even off the corners. After that, I sharpen her pencils, making each one the exact same length, and then I staple thirty sets of worksheets, making sure to line up the staples in each and every corner in exactly the same spot.

Miss Westbrook says I’m doing a great job and that I “pay great attention to detail.” No one has ever said that to me before. I smile at her—just a teeny-tiny bit—and when I do, she smiles so big at me, I almost laugh. Almost.

The second day is the same as the first, except I pay even more “attention to detail,” hoping she’ll say something nice to me again. And she does.

“Jonas, you do excellent work,” she says. “Anyone can do a
good
job, but it’s the special few who care enough to do an
excellent
job. Thank you for caring so much about
excellence
.”

I feel all warm and gushy inside. She’s the prettiest lady I’ve ever seen and I like it when she’s nice to me.

On the third day, I know all my jobs so well, I finish them in half the time—so Miss Westbrook gives me even more jobs to do. And on this day, yippee, while I’m doing my extra work, Miss Westbrook starts talking to me. She shows me a teeny-tiny diamond ring on her finger—the diamond’s so small it’s like a grain of sand—and she tells me the ring is how you know she’s getting married. I’ve seen that ring on Miss Westbrook’s hand before, but I just thought she wore it to look pretty.

Miss Westbrook tells me her name’s going to be Mrs. Santorini in a few weeks and that the man she’s going to marry is in the Navy. She explains how people in the Navy are fighting to protect our country and our freedoms. She says we couldn’t do any of the stuff we get to do in America if people like Mr. Santorini didn’t fight for us. I listen carefully to everything she says. I like the sound of her soft voice. She smells good, too. I especially like her neck. She wears a little gold cross around it and I can’t stop looking at it—her neck, not the cross. But I pretend I’m looking at the cross just in case I’m not supposed to look at her neck so much.

On the fourth day, Miss Westbrook sits me down at one of the desks even before I get started with my work. “I have a little present for you,” she says. She puts a gigantic cookie on the desk in front of me. “I baked it for you last night.”

It’s a huge chocolate chip cookie with M&Ms in it—the biggest cookie I’ve ever seen—and the M&Ms are in the shape of a heart.

For some reason, I feel my bottom lip shaking when I look at that M&M heart.

Miss Westbrook doesn’t talk for a really long time. “Go ahead, Jonas,” she finally says. “Try it.”

I take a tiny bite. It’s the best cookie I’ve ever had.

“Jonas,” she says softly. “If you don’t want to talk, that’s fine. But sometimes I get kind of lonely in the classroom and I’d love a little conversation. Do you think maybe you could talk to me? You wouldn’t have to talk outside this classroom if you didn’t want to—and you wouldn’t have to talk when the other kids are here. But when it’s just the two of us here after school, maybe this could be our little cocoon—a cocoon built for two—a magical place where you’re allowed to talk, just to me.”

We’ve been learning about how caterpillars turn into butterflies for the last month—we’ve even got a whole bunch of chrysalises hanging in a big box and we’re waiting for them to hatch any day now. We’ve been learning that a caterpillar has a special kind of magic inside him right from the beginning, but he has to go inside a cocoon for his magic to work.

 Maybe talking to Miss Westbrook in our little cocoon-built-for-two could be another exception to the rule? Like how speaking to Mariela in Spanish didn’t break the rule, either? Maybe, even if I talk to Miss Westbrook inside our magical cocoon, my last
official
words in the
real
world would still be “I love you, Mommy.”

“Can I still call you Miss Westbrook after you get married?” I ask. They’re the first words I’ve spoken since way before I turned eight—since the day Mommy went away all that time ago. I forgot how my voice sounds. I don’t even sound like me anymore.

Miss Westbrook’s face looks really surprised. She clears her throat. “Of course, you can, Jonas. I’d love that.”

For the next week, I chat up a storm with my pretty Miss Westbrook every single day. I tell her about how much I hate seeing Dr. Silverman, except for the fact that he plays music that sometimes makes me feel better. I tell her about how Josh sometimes slaps his own face when I’m feeling sad, just to make me laugh, and that it always works. I tell her about a book on Greek mythology I just read and about how the Greek gods and goddesses are called the Twelve Olympians and they live on Mount Olympus. And, finally, on the tenth day of me being Miss Westbrook’s special helper, I tell her about how I’m going to climb the highest mountain in the whole world one day.

“Really?” she asks. “That’s exciting.”

“Yeah, Mount Everest,” I say, standing on a stool so I can reach the farthest corner of the whiteboard. “Because that’s the highest one. I’m going to climb to the tippy-top of it and reach my hands up in the air and touch my mommy in the clouds. And she’s going to reach down and pull me up and up and up, and then we’ll lie down together on one of the puffy clouds like it’s a hammock and I’ll rub her temples and take all her pain away like I always used to do.”

Miss Westbrook has been sitting at her desk while I’ve been erasing the whiteboard and talking nonstop, and when I look over at her, she’s crying. Without even thinking about it, I climb down from the stool, put the eraser down, walk over to her, and brush her tears off her cheeks with my fingertips. Miss Westbrook wipes her eyes and smiles at me. And then she does something that makes me want to curl up in her lap—she touches my cheek with the palm of her hand. That’s what Mommy and Mariela used to do all the time to me and it’s my favorite thing.