How to Save a Life (7 page)

I sit down beside her bed. “You know, I met a man named Jamie recently, and his daughter died several years ago. He seems really okay now. I think he misses her terribly, and I think losing her probably changed him forever. But he’s still living his life, and he seems happy enough. I guess what I’m trying to say is that your parents will come out of their grief one day. They’ll never forget you, but they’ll be able to continue living.”

Her eyes fill with tears. “I hope so. I’m going to miss them a lot, you know? Them and Trish.”

“I’ve always believed that once we go to heaven, we get to look down at the people on earth we love.”

She nods. “I believe that too.”

“So maybe you won’t have to miss them at all, because you’ll always be with them.”

A tear rolls down her right cheek as she nods again. “Yeah.”

I change the subject before she can get any sadder. “So about this Original Scin. Do you have a crush on one of the guys, or what?”

She brightens. “Dylan Hendrix. He’s seventeen, and he has the best brown eyes you’ve ever seen in your life. He’s really close to his mom and his older sisters. I just think he seems like an awesome guy.”

“You sound like me obsessing over Donnie Wahlberg in 1989,” I say with a smile.

Her forehead creases. “Isn’t he on some reality show?”

I laugh. “Yes. But a really long time ago, when I was your age, he was in a band called the New Kids on the Block. I was obsessed. I knew everything about him.”

“Did you ever get to meet him?”

I shake my head. It isn’t high on my list of regrets, all things considered, but it occurs to me how absolutely thrilled I would have been when I was a young teenager to get a meet and greet with the New Kids. An idea begins forming in my head. “Okay, kiddo, I’ve got to head over to Logan’s room. You haven’t seen Frankie today, have you?”

She averts her eyes and turns a little pink. “Why would I know where Frankie is?”

Ah
, I think.
So maybe the crush is mutual after all
. “No reason,” I say with a shrug. “I just stopped by his room and didn’t see him.”

“Sometimes when the nurses aren’t looking, he goes down to the gift shop in the lobby and pretends to be a salesperson,” she says with a small smile. “He gives the people who are nice to him the employee discount.”

I laugh. “That sounds like Frankie.”

“Yeah,” Katelyn mumbles, looking away again. “He’s pretty cool.”

“
H
OW ARE YOU feeling?” Logan asks when I enter his room a few minutes later.

“Hey, that’s supposed to be my question for you.”

“Yeah, but now the roles are reversed,” Logan points out. “I’m the old pro at this tree thing. You’re new at it.”

“True,” I concede. “But I still reserve the right to worry about you. I’m still the grown-up, and you’re still the kid.”

He smiles. “Deal. But you shouldn’t worry too much, because I’m doing fine.”

I sit down beside his bed. “Listen, I was wondering something. Since you’ve been living the same day over and over again, did you always see me?”

He hesitates and nods. “Always.”

“And was I always the same?”

He nods. “Sure. Our conversations change, based on the time of day I saw you and what I asked you, but one of the things about repeating days is that the people you talk to are always consistent. Same mood, same everything, unless you do something to drastically change things.”

“That makes sense.” I mull over this for a second. “So did we have interactions that I’ll never remember?”

He nods. “Yeah. The person who isn’t repeating only remembers the very last day.”

“So nothing you do or say really makes a difference, since it all gets erased the next morning anyhow.”

He cocks his head to the side. “I guess the easy answer is yes. I mean, have you ever seen
Groundhog Day
? You could wreck a car and wind up in jail, and you’d still wake up the next morning in your own bed, like nothing ever happened, as long as you also squeeze in a visit to the tree. But I don’t know. I like to think that there’s a little part of people that hangs on to the moments, even if they can’t remember them.”

“What do you mean?”

He shrugs. “Like you and me. We’re super close, right?”

“Right.”

“But haven’t you ever wondered why that is? Why you feel so invested in me? I think it’s because we’ve had so much extra time together, you know? I’m the one who’s been repeating the longest, and you’re the one I spend the most time with.”

“I am?”

He smiles. “Maybe it’s weird, but you’re like my best friend.”

I look away before he can see my tears. “I couldn’t ask for a better friend than you, Logan.”

“Want to head down to the tree?”

I nod.

As we make our way down to the lobby, avoiding Sheila and the other nurses, he chatters about Katelyn and Frankie, and how he’s been watching them flirt with each other for dozens of todays. “But they’re both too dumb to actually admit they like each other,” he concludes.

I laugh as the elevator doors slide open on the first floor. “That’s called being a teenager.”

“I rest my case,” he says.

I think about what Katelyn said earlier about how her Make-A-Wish wish would have been to meet Original Scin. “Hey, random question, but going back to what you said earlier about how I could crash my car and I’d still wake up at home totally fine: Does the same go for, say, emptying my bank account? Like if I took all my money out today, or rang up a huge credit card bill, would everything be back to normal tomorrow?”

“Sure.”

“And if one of you guys got exposed to germs because of your compromised immunity, you’d be fine again on the next today, right? Like an infection wouldn’t carry over?”

“Right,” Logan says. “Remember? It’s why it’s totally fine for us to come down to the lobby and touch the tree every day, even though we’re encountering all sorts of germs.”

“That makes sense.”

“Why do you ask?”

“I’ll tell you tomorrow. Or, er, the next today.”

We approach the tree, and we both ask it for one day more. As we turn to go, we see Jamie emerging from the elevator and striding toward us. His eyes light up when he sees me. “Jill! How did the balloons go over with your patient?”

I smile. “She loved them as only a teenager could. Meaning she pretended to hate them. How was your party?”

“Fantastic. The kids loved it.”

“That was a really kind thing for you to do,” I reply.

Logan nudges me, and I look down.

“Oh,” I say. “Jamie, this is my friend Logan. We were just visiting the tree. It’s Logan’s favorite place in the hospital.”

“Really?” Jamie beams at Logan. “You know, my daughter was just a few years younger than you when she asked me to plant this tree. I still water it and take care of it.”

“Your daughter was Caroline?” Logan asks.

Jamie looks startled. “Yes. But how did you know her name?”

Logan frowns. “Oh. Uh, I think I must have seen it on a sign or something somewhere.”

“Oh. Right. Of course. The plaque on the wall.” Jamie looks a bit spooked, but he seems to accept the explanation. “Well, I think she’d be really thrilled that you like it, Logan. She always used to say that every living thing has some magic in it. She believed in things like that: fairy dust and spells and second chances.” He glances at me and holds my gaze for a moment.

“I do too,” Logan says.

Jamie smiles at him and then turns back to me. “I like to believe that my daughter’s still here in a way, watching over me.”

“Oh, she is,” Logan says immediately.

Jamie laughs. “I like your confidence, Logan.”

He shrugs. “It’s not confidence. It’s just true.”

“Well,” Jamie says, looking back at me.

“Well,” I say. I can feel my cheeks getting warm.

Logan slips his hand into mine and squeezes. “You ready to go back upstairs before they miss us, Jill?”

“Right. Sure.” I tear my gaze away from Jamie and smile at Logan. “Let’s go. Nice to see you again, Jamie.”

“Likewise,” he says. I can feel his eyes on me the whole way to the elevator. I turn back once, and our eyes lock again. He smiles, and then he turns away. I exhale heavily as the elevator doors slide closed.

“Jill and Jamie sitting in a tree,” Logan sing-songs. “K-I-S-S-I-N-G.”

“Logan!” I say as my cheeks heat up. “What are you talking about?”

“Oh, just the way you looooove him,” he says, giggling like the ten-year-old he is.

“I barely know him!”

He shrugs. “Yet.”

L
ATE THAT AFTERNOON, after spending some more time with Logan, I poke my head into Frankie’s room. He’s sitting up in bed, reading.

“Hey, quick question for you,” I say.

He looks up. “Shoot.”

“If you had the chance to make Katelyn super happy, even if it meant she’d be all swoony over another guy for a few hours, would you want to do it?”

He squints at me. “You’re assuming I like Katelyn?”

“Look, you and I are both living in this strange parallel universe where we’re repeating the same day over and over again. Don’t you think we could be honest with each other, at the very least? Life is weird enough right now without either of us lying.”

He laughs. “Fine. So I have some feelings for Katelyn. And yeah. If there’s something that would make her really, really happy, even if it involves another guy, I think we should do it.”

“Spoken like a true gentleman,” I say. “And like someone who really loves her.”

His cheeks turn red as he shrugs. “Let’s not go crazy here. But anyways, what did you have in mind?”

I smile. “Stay tuned, and you’ll find out.”

Next, I head out to intercept Merel. I wait on the bench until he comes out of Atlanta Memorial and settles down beside me, tears already flowing down his face.

“Sir?” I ask. “Are you all right?”

He looks up at me without recognition, and I have to remind myself that on this today, we haven’t met yet.

“I—I just lost my wife,” he says as he begins to cry harder.

“I’m so sorry,” I say, putting a hand on his shoulder. When he doesn’t pull away, I scoot closer and put an arm around him. “You loved her very much. I can tell.”

He nods. “We were married for seventy years. I just don’t know how I’ll ever live without her.”

“But you will. You will. I promise. You have to keep going.”

He turns to look at me. “But how? She was my everything. We never had children; only each other. I don’t know who I am without her.”

“You’re a kind man who loved deeply. And you’ll always keep her memory alive.”

He draws a ragged breath and smiles slightly. “You sound wise beyond your years, young lady. Have you experienced great love too?”

“No,” I say, but I’m thinking of Jamie and all the things that could unfold between us if only I had more time. “No, I haven’t.”

“You will, dear. You will.”

“It’s too late for me.”

“It’s never too late,” he says. “True love only takes a moment. And then your heart belongs to someone else forever.”

His words echo in my head as I help him up from the bench and persuade him to head into the ER, where his heart gives out once again. But as I walk to my car afterward, I wonder if I’ve really done the right thing by saving him.

“Jill?”

I turn around, startled to hear my name in the parking garage.

“Jamie?” He’s striding toward me, smiling, and it’s only then that I realize that I should have predicted seeing him here, based on the timing of the last couple of days. I was so lost in thought about Merel that I hadn’t even considered it.

“Fancy meeting you here.”

“What are the odds?” I ask.

“Three times in one day.” He takes a deep breath. “Which makes me think it’s a sign that I’m supposed to ask you out.”

I can feel the blood draining from my face. “What?”

“Dinner. You know, a situation where two people sit across from each other and eat food while talking and getting to know each other?”

“I know what dinner is,” I say with a smile. “I’m just surprised you’re asking.”

He shrugs. “I know. It’s forward. I should probably awkwardly flirt with you a few more times, then ask for your number, then send you some clever texts, and then finally ask you to dinner. But if there’s one thing that losing my daughter taught me, it’s that life is short, and you might as well seize the moments when you can.”