Chapter 23

Andrew couldn’t stop smiling. The only damper was that he had to hold his bike up with his one hand, so he couldn’t hold Ryan’s hand as they walked. That was okay, though.

When they got to his house, Andrew could ditch the bike, but then he was carrying a lasagna and his bag, too. “Now I just made this,” his mom said, placing the lasagna pan, in a quilted holder, into Andrew’s arm. “It’s spinach lasagna. Meatless. But spinach has plenty of protein, don’t you worry about that! You boys want some bread to go with it? Here, let me cut you up some bread.”

Andrew saw the way his mother kept looking from him to Ryan and back. He tried to bite back on his smile. It was almost impossible. Ryan liked him, and they were going to have dinner together.

When they left the house, Ryan immediately took the lasagna pan from him. “I can carry it,” Andrew said.

“I want to,” said Ryan, and fit his free hand into Andrew’s.

All the way to Ryan’s house, Andrew could only think about how big Ryan’s hand was, how it gripped his firmly, like he wasn’t worried about anyone seeing. Who would see, really, unless Matt drove by? Andrew tried not to grip back too hard, in case Ryan needed to pull his hand away.

Ryan didn’t.

And Ryan held his hand like he meant it, like he never wanted to let it go. It made Andrew feel warm all over, and excited to get to Ryan’s house. He wanted to kiss Ryan’s big stupid face, or at least hug him for a while. Ryan’s huge bicep pressed up against his felt like it would give a really good hug.

By the time they got to Ryan’s house, Andrew’s face kind of hurt from all the smiling. Ryan let go of his hand so he could open the door, and Andrew gave the car in the driveway a look. He hoped it wasn’t the same creepy lady who had shown up the other day, when Ryan had almost fainted on him.

Then he heard her voice and knew it was.

“Ryan! I’m glad you’re back. Your mother’s been…” Mrs. Ross broke off and peered at Andrew. “Oh, hello.”

“What’s going on with Mom?” Ryan asked. He strode into the house, leaving Andrew standing awkwardly at the door. Dropping the lasagna on the counter, Ryan headed down the hall without waiting for Mrs. Ross.

“Oh–” Mrs. Ross hurried after him. “She seemed to be having some trouble breathing…”

Andrew felt his heart hammering. He dumped his bag near the coffee table and edged down the hall. He didn’t want to intrude, but he wanted to know if this was something serious.

“Did you check her oxygen tank?” Ryan asked.

Mrs. Ross’s hands fluttered around. Andrew wasn’t listening to her anymore.

Mrs. Sullivan was in a hospital bed, flanked by machines. It took Andrew a minute to focus on Mrs. Sullivan herself: she was so thin and frail, dwarfed by the colorful afghan on the bed and the machines and the tubes, that she seemed almost to fade into the sheets. Through the doorway Andrew watched Ryan check the tank, and change it out with another tank, and look at the machines and then he looked down at his mother and touched her face.

Ryan spoke so quietly Andrew couldn’t even hear him over Mrs. Ross’s fretting.

There was something so gentle and soft in the way Ryan talked to his mother that Andrew felt like a voyeur. When he bumped up against the wall he suddenly realized he had been backing away. He wanted to give Ryan some privacy, and he was about to turn and wait in the living room when Ryan looked up.

“Jacky,” he said softly. “Come meet my mom.”

Mrs. Ross was talking about how she had baked some cookies for him and had left a shepherd’s pie in the fridge for him to eat and how she’d be back tomorrow. Andrew walked around her and stepped into the room.

Inside, Andrew could see a bit more of Mrs. Sullivan’ personality. The walls were painted bright yellow, and lacy curtains hung over the windows. A braided rug covered most of the polished hardwood floor. Books were stacked everywhere, and scrapbooks, and photographs took up any empty space left. The room smelled like a hospital. Like what Andrew imagined Death smelled like.

“It’s okay,” Ryan whispered.

Andrew looked up at him. He hadn’t realized how much he’d been hanging back and avoiding looking at the person in the bed.

Touching him on the shoulder, since Andrew was coming around the bed and his left shoulder was the nearest, Ryan turned to his mother. “Mom, this is Jacky. The boy I told you about.”

Now Andrew had to look at Mrs. Sullivan. She had only a few wisps of hair poking out from under a brightly patterned scarf, and her eyes were warm and brown in her pale face. Andrew felt like she was smiling, though her face didn’t move.

“Hi, Jacky.” Her lips formed the words, but if there was a voice behind them, he couldn’t hear it.

“Nice to meet you,” Andrew said. He didn’t know what else to say. He didn’t know what Ryan had told her. By his choice of words, Andrew figured Ryan had told her how he felt, which made him feel warm all over again.

“Um, I’m just going to sit with her for a while, to make sure she’s breathing okay?” Ryan said. “If you want to go home, I don’t mind.”

“How about I heat up the lasagna?” Andrew said. He didn’t want to go home. Even though this all felt really weird, and he was already backing out of the room.

He found himself in the kitchen, looking through unfamiliar cabinets until he located plates, and glasses, and forks, and he figured out the oven and stuck the lasagna inside. It was still pretty warm, but he didn’t know how long Ryan might be. At least it wasn’t serious. He hated that the thought even entered his mind: it looked serious. It looked like Mrs. Sullivan had only days or weeks left. He gripped the edge of the counter and swallowed hard.

When Ryan left his mom, now sleeping again and breathing normally, he found Jacky staring out the window over the sink. He touched Jacky’s shoulder, and Jacky flinched against the counter.

“Sorry.” Jacky raked his hand through his hair. “Uh, the lasagna should be ready. I also warmed up the bread.”

“Okay,” Ryan said, and he slipped on some oven mitts to pull the glass pan out of the oven. Jacky was quiet as he sat down, and Ryan thought he knew why. “So, that’s my mom.”

Jacky cleared his throat. “I… didn’t expect… that she was so… sick.”

“Yeah.” Ryan slopped some of the pasta onto his plate, then served Jacky, who held his fork and didn’t start eating.

“Are you worried?” Jacky asked.

Ryan didn’t answer for a while. He just pushed food into his mouth. Mrs. Jennings was a better cook than most of the church ladies – of course, this was fresh, and not frozen.

“I mean, about after.”

Swallowing, Ryan almost just nodded. That wasn’t a fair answer. Maybe for one of the church ladies, or for Monica. But not for Jacky. “Yeah,” he said, and with that word he felt his face start to do that thing that meant he was going to cry.

He didn’t want to do this. Not today. Why had he agreed for Jacky to come over? He knew why. He had wanted Jacky to help keep Mrs. Ross from being so handsy. He had wanted his mom to meet Jacky, at least once. He had wanted to share this part of his life with someone who might understand. Jacky had lost a parent, too.

Still, he didn’t want to cry. So he set down his fork and put his knuckles in his eyes and willed the tears away.

He wasn’t ready to pull his fists away when he heard Jacky’s chair scrape back. His knuckles were wet. And he definitely wasn’t ready when Jacky threaded his arm into the space between his neck and his arms and wrapped around. It startled him enough to pull his hands away. Jacky couldn’t just put his arm around Ryan’s shoulders: it was the wrong direction, and Jacky’s didn’t have an arm on that side. Jacky pushed his way in, and it was so easy to wrap his arms around Jacky. The only problem was that now he had no way to push the tears back in, and they all came out in a gasping rush.

It felt good to let it out. He hadn’t, not in Dr. Burns’s office, not even when he was alone in his room. He held Jacky’s imperfect body against his and it made him know both that there were worse things than his mother dying, and that he could survive this.

He could survive this. So often his thoughts turned to stopping the pain, of letting his mother go and then letting himself go, but here was Jacky in his arms and he wanted this, this, and he gripped Jacky so tight that Jacky couldn’t stay standing up. He tried, but then Jacky was easing into his lap and curling his arm tight around Ryan’s neck, and that was one more reason to keep on going.