Comfort and Joy Read online

  For the remainder of the Mass, they stand side by side and hand in hand. I watch them find their voices, and the sight of it fills my heart.

  Starting over.

  I’m seeing it. For all my dreams of complex new beginnings and convoluted endings, it can all be as easy as this: a boy singing hymns again.

  I’m sorry.

  I close my eyes at that. When I open them again, the mass is over. People are crowding together, shaking hands, and talking to one another. A ruddy-faced man turns to me, smiling. “How are you today?”

  “Fine. Peace be with you.” I can’t stop smiling. I feel almost giddy with happiness. I’d forgotten this feeling.

  We follow the crowd to the parking lot behind the church, where a group of carolers, dressed in old-fashioned Victorian garb, is singing. Volunteers are handing out Styrofoam cups full of hot cider and paper bags filled with hot nuts.

  We stand at the back of the crowd, listening to the beautiful voices.

  “I can’t see, Dad. Pick me up.”

  Daniel scoops Bobby into his arms.

  I move in close to Daniel. Although people are all around us, listening to the carolers, whispering among themselves, sipping hot cider, I can hear only Daniel’s quiet, even breathing.

  The beat of it matches my heart.

  And I think: This is it. My moment. If I’ve learned nothing else in the past few days, it’s that happiness must be fought for. I need to tell him how I feel tonight; tomorrow, this adventure of mine will end. At that, my heart starts hammering in my chest. A headache flares behind my eyes. I’ve always been afraid to reach for what I want.

  But not this time. I won’t let a panic attack stop me.

  I turn to him. “Daniel.”

  The carolers change songs. I recognize the music, but can’t quite place the song. Something is wrong. There’s a buzzing in my head. My vision is blurring.

  “Can you hear me?” I say, making my voice loud. When he doesn’t look at me, I dare to touch him. “DANIEL!” I am screaming his name suddenly, trying to grab him.

  “Joy?” Bobby is looking at me. “What’s wrong?”

  I can see how scared he is. And he can see how scared I am.

  “Something’s wrong,” I say. I’m moving away from them, but I don’t want to. I fight to get back; there are people everywhere. I think I see Stacey, standing in the crowd. She’s crying and saying something, but I can’t hear her. But that’s not possible. She has no idea where I am.

  Something is buzzing. I can hear people talking, yelling.

  Don’t leave us, Joy.

  It’s Bobby . . . and it’s not.

  I reach out, grab Daniel’s sleeve. “Help me.”

  “Dad, help her!”

  “Joy?” Daniel whispers my name; at least I think he does. I can’t hear anything over the buzzing in my ears.

  My chest hurts.

  The carolers change songs again. I hear their voices: “It came up-on a Mid-night Clear . . .”

  CLEAR.

  “. . . that glor-ious so-ng of old . . .”

  CLEAR.

  Bobby is reaching for me, screaming. “Joy, you promised. You promised . . .”

  CLEAR.

  Pain explodes in my chest, rattles my whole body, and the world goes black.

  Part Two

  “You see things and you say, ‘Why?’

  But I dream things that never were

  And say, ‘Why not?’”

  —George Bernard Shaw

  TEN

  The next time I open my eyes, all I see is light, bright white and buzzing.

  I am in bed, but it’s not my bed in Room 1A. The ceiling overhead is made up of white acoustical tiles with long tubes of fluorescent lighting.

  There are people all around me, too, dressed in orange, moving in and out and around me like dancers. I can see them talking to one another, but I can’t hear anything except that buzzing in my ears and the whoosh-thunk of a machine that sounds like waves breaking on the beach.

  On either side of me are machines that make noises. I see a black television screen with a green graph that moves across it in waves.

  I’m in a hospital.

  I must have collapsed in the park. Had a heart attack or something. I try to move, to angle up to sit so that I can see more of the room around me, but my arms and legs feel useless, heavy.

  “Bobby?” I whisper. My throat burns at the effort. I’m painfully thirsty. “Daniel?”

  “Hello, there, Joy. It’s nice to see you.”

  A man’s face swims in front of me. I struggle to focus. I can see him in pieces: snow white hair . . . tan skin . . . blue eyes . . . a diamond earring.

  It’s the man from the gas station.

  “Wh . . . t?” I want to ask “what are you doing here?” but my tongue isn’t working.

  He gives me an ice chip to soothe my fiery throat. “Don’t try to talk, Joy. You’ve been intubated. The soreness in your throat is normal. I’m Dr. Saunders. You gave us all quite a scare.”

  “Who? . . .” Are you? I don’t understand what’s happening and it scares me.

  “You just rest now.”

  The people in my room talk among themselves in whispered tones designed to keep me from hearing. Their faces are a sea of blurry circles; everyone is frowning at me and pointing. There is a lot of head-shaking going on. One by one, they leave.

  I can hear their footsteps walking away, and the opening and closing of a door.

  Then there are only the machines in here with me, making their noises—a click-buzz, a thunk-whoosh; a blip-blip-blip. And I am alone, unable to move, staring up at this unfamiliar ceiling.

  Poor Bobby. He must be terrified.

  I won’t leave you.

  And here I am, in the hospital.

  I want him here, beside my bed so that I can smile and tell him I’m fine.

  Behind me, the door opens again. Footsteps move haltingly toward me.

  It’s Bobby. Thank God.

  I feel a rush of sweet relief. He’s knows I didn’t leave him. I’m fine. Fine. In my head, the protestation is vibrant and clear, but the sound that issues from my cracked, dry lips is barely a whisper and even that useless sound tires me. Instead, I try to lift my hand to show how fine I am.

  “Joy?”

  It’s the wrong voice; not a boy’s. It takes forever for me to turn my head, and when I do, the pillow puffs up around my face, blocking the view from my left eye.

  I can see well enough, though.

  She looks smaller, somehow, like a pencil that’s been used down to the nub. Her eyes are swollen and red; there’s no mistaking the tear tracks on her cheeks.

  Stacey.

  I don’t understand. How is she here? How did she find me?

  “Wha . . . here?”

  She leans close, pushing the damp hair from my eyes. Her touch is quick, as if she’s not sure it will be welcomed. Almost before I feel it, she draws back. “I was so scared.”

  “How” did you “fin . . .” me?

  I can see her answering me, but there’s something wrong. I can’t hear over the buzzing in my ears. My head is pounding, too. I want to ask her where Bobby and Daniel are, but my voice is turning against me. All that comes out is, “Where?”

  “They airlifted you to Bakersfield. You’re home.”

  “Home?” The word comes out sounding cracked. I don’t understand. It’s Christmas “Eve?”

  “No, I’m sorry. I know how much you love the holidays.”

  What “Day?”

  “It’s the thirtieth. You’ve had a rough two weeks, but the doctors think you’re going to be okay now.”

  Her words scatter like BBs on a kitchen table; it’s impossible to grasp them all at once.

  “Daniel?”

  Stacey frowns. “Do you understand me, Joy? You were in a plane crash, remember? The firemen rescued you moments before it exploded. The doctors said you might have trouble with your memory.”

 
Rescued you. Firemen.

  But I walked away from the crash, left my tattered life behind in the wreckage and went on an adventure. If anyone rescued me, it was Bobby and Daniel. I want to shake my head in denial, but I can’t seem to move. “No.”

  “You were in a medically induced coma for almost ten days. Because of a head injury.”

  Head injury.

  It steals over me like a cold shadow, the meaning of her words. She’s saying I’ve been here, in this hospital bed, since the crash.

  I don’t understand. Why would she lie to me? Because I ran away, because I let her think I was dead?

  “Joy? What do you remember?”

  Daniel and Bobby . . .

  Walking away . . .

  Dancing by the fire at the beach . . .

  My heart starts pounding so fast I can’t breathe. Beside me, a machine starts beeping. “Lying,” I accuse in a whisper. At the word, and the effort behind it, my throat seems to catch fire.

  As if from a distance, I hear my sister calling for someone. Within moments there are people in my room.

  I see a needle.

  “Quit thrashing,” my sister says. “You’ll hurt yourself.”

  Please be lying.

  I feel myself fading to gray, closing my eyes. The terrible sound in my head goes still.

  Lying.

  I’m flying above the rainforest, looking down at the brightly lit tiara of a town. From a great and yawning distance, I see the black ribbon of a road. Moonlight gilds the center line and I follow it.

  This time, I know I’m dreaming. I can hear the buzz of the fluorescent lighting overhead and the thunk-whoosh sound of the stork-like machine beside my bed. There is also a kind of low-grade thrumming in my blood, a euphoria, that comes from an IV drip. I guess it’s camouflaging a serious pain, but it’s masking it so well I don’t care.

  From my place amid the silvery clouds, I see the Comfort Fishing Lodge, tucked down along the glassy gray lake. Moonlight glitters on the water.

  That’s where I want to be. I close my eyes and make it happen.

  When I open my eyes, I’m in the lobby, pressed against the wall. The room is still decorated. The lights of the tree are on; the mantel holds several lit candles amid the snowy town. The stereo is playing Bruce Springsteen’s version of “Santa Claus is Coming to Town.”

  I hear footsteps upstairs. This old place rattles and groans as someone races down the hall overhead, then clatters down the stairs.

  It is Bobby. He is at a full Christmas morning run.

  At the bottom of the stairs, he pivots left and rushes past me to Room 1A.

  He pulls the door open, yelling, “Joy!” and disappears inside.

  I picture him skidding to a stop beside the empty bed. The sorrow I feel at that overwhelms me, making it difficult to breathe again.

  Daniel comes down the stairs and stops beside me. I long to feel the warmth of him, but I can’t. I’m close enough to see the tiny sleep lines that mark his cheek, to hear the soft strains of his breath, and yet I feel as if I’m miles away. “Boyo? I thought you’d go straight to the tree.”

  Bobby steps back into the hall. He looks smaller somehow, younger. His shoulders are slumped, his mouth is shaking. I can see how hard he is trying not to cry. “She’s gone.”

  I try to go to him, but I can’t push away from the wall. My legs are like lead pipes.

  Bobby shuffles toward his father in that hangdog way of disappointed children everywhere. “She promised. It’s just like Mommy.”

  “I’m here,” I say, desperately trying to reach out for him. “Don’t say I’m not here.”

  Daniel pulls Bobby into his arms. I can tell that Bobby is crying, but it’s nearly silent, the way of a boy who has learned too early to cry and is trying to hide it.

  When Bobby draws back, his eyes are red and watery.

  “Remember what the doctor said?” Daniel asks, wiping his son’s tears with a gentle hand. “When you didn’t need your imaginary friend anymore, she’d leave.”

  “She wasn’t imaginary, Dad.” He shakes his head. “She wasn’t. You talked to her.”

  “The doctors told me to pretend.”

  I feel as if I’ve been struck.

  I was Bobby’s imaginary friend.

  Daniel never saw me.

  I scream, “It isn’t true,” but even as I say the words, I remember things. The times Daniel didn’t look at me or speak to me. When he did talk to me it was a pretense, at doctor’s orders, to make Bobby feel loved. Like the time we danced. Now I recall that Bobby pointed to where I was. She’s right there, Daddy. Dance with her.

  “I can be the one you talk to, Bobby,” Daniel says. His voice cracks. I can see in his eyes how confused he is by all of this, and how afraid.

  “You don’t believe me,” Bobby says stubbornly. He spins on his heel and marches over to the Christmas tree, then squats in front of it.

  At Bobby’s movement, I am released. I follow him, move when he does, where he does.

  When he kneels at the tree, I sit on the hearth, as I have done so many times before. To my left, the card table is still set up with Candyland. There are three men on the board.

  I’ll move for Joy, Dad.

  At that, another piece clicks into place. Whenever Bobby and I played with action figures, he wanted me to be Frodo, wearing the ring.

  The ring that made Frodo invisible.

  Bobby reaches underneath the tree and pulls out a small package. It is a crudely wrapped cylinder with ribbons on each end.

  We catch our breath at the same time, Bobby and I. It’s proof of my impossible journey, isn’t it?

  “Look, Dad. This is from Joy.”

  “Bobby . . .”

  “Open it.”

  Daniel takes the cylinder in his hands; it looks tiny and frail against his long, tanned fingers. He unwraps it carefully, extracts the list. As he reads it, he frowns. Then he looks at Bobby. “How did you do this?”

  “It’s Joy’s present to you. She told me what to write.”

  He glances down at the list again.

  I was here.

  I was.

  Surely Daniel will believe Bobby now.

  Daniel looks down at his son. “You did this by yourself,” he says quietly. “Please admit it.”

  “I couldn’t, Dad,” Bobby answers earnestly.

  In the silence that follows, Daniel looks around. “Is she here now?”

  “No. She disappeared in the park.”

  “SEE ME,” I say as loudly as I can.

  Daniel frowns. I can see that he’s bothered by this. He knows Bobby didn’t write that list on his own, but he doesn’t believe in me. How could he?

  “Please believe me,” Bobby whispers. “It wasn’t like Mommy. Or Mr. Patches. I swear it wasn’t.”

  Daniel stares at the list in his hand. The paper shivers a little, as if he’s shaking. Then he looks at his son. “You need me to believe in magic.”

  Bobby’s nod brings tears to his father’s eyes, and to mine. “Mommy would believe me.”

  “But . . .”

  “Whatever.” Bobby sighs. It is a terrible, harrowing sound; in it, I hear his defeat.

  At last, Daniel says, “Well, I’m Irish, and we’re a crazy lot.”

  Bobby draws in a sharp breath. It’s the sound of hope, this time. “Nana used to say a leprechaun lived in her cookie jar.”

  Daniel smiles at that. “My point exactly. I guess, boyo, for you I can try to believe, too. But you’ll have to show me how.”

  “Really?”

  “Really.”

  “How do I show you?”

  Daniel shrugs. “Tell me about her, I guess. Keep talking until I believe.”

  Bobby hurls himself into his father’s arms.

  I see the way Daniel holds his son, with a ferocity that is borne of desperate love. When Bobby draws back, they are both smiling.

  See me, I whisper, wanting it so much my chest hurts. Please.
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  “Can we open presents now?”

  “Aye.”

  Bobby runs to the tree and starts dispersing gifts. Most of them collect in a pile on the coffee table. On his last pass, he reaches deep under the tree and pulls out the orange Dr. Seuss book. It has a yellow ribbon stuck dead center. Carrying it carefully, he hands it to his dad, who is now seated on the sofa.

  “You’re giving me your favorite book, boyo?”

  “Nope.” Bobby sits down next to Daniel, then opens the book.

  “You want me to read to you?” Daniel asks, frowning. “How about . . .”

  “Be quiet. I gotta think.” He scrunches up his face, concentrating hard. One syllable at a time, he sounds out the words. “I . . . am . . . Sam. Sam . . . I . . . am . . .”

  “Bobby.”

  “Sshh, Daddy. ‘I . . . do . . . not . . . like . . . green . . . eggs . . . and . . . ham.’”

  I listen to Bobby’s sweet, stumbling voice, but it is Daniel to whom I look. At first he is sitting upright, in control, but as his son sounds out the words, I see Daniel’s control wash away. Everything about him softens—the look in his green eyes, the shelf of his broad shoulders, and the hard line of his spine.

  Love. Never have I seen it so clearly or longed for it more desperately.

  I’m part of this, I say to them. See me, too.

  When Bobby finishes the book, he looks up at his dad. “You’re cryin’. Did I do bad?”

  Daniel touches his son’s cheek. “Your mum would be so proud of you.”

  Tears sting my eyes, make everything blurry, and I’m glad. I need this moment to be out of focus.

  “Joy taught me every day.”

  Daniel stares down at his son for a long moment. “Did she now? Then I guess your Joy has a place here, doesn’t she?”

  “I miss her, Dad.”

  “I know, but you’ve got your old man, and he’s not going anywhere.”

  “You promise?”

  I can hear the fear in Bobby’s voice, and in the sound, I make sense of it all. That’s been Bobby’s fear all along. That he would be alone. It was the same fear that caused me to board the airplane bound for Hope.

  “I promise.”

  I lean forward. It is as much movement as I can make. “Believe in me,” I say desperately, willing them to see with their hearts. I focus all my mind on it, thinking over and over again: Believe.