Second Kiss (11 page)

“Is it okay if I come back tomorrow morning?”

Jess nodded and his face relaxed. “You better come back tomorrow.”

Later that night, I sat snuggled up on the couch in front of the fireplace while my cousins exchanged gifts. But my attention wasn’t on my cousins or even the gift that my cousin Becky-who had chosen my name for the gift exchange-had placed in my lap. I was watching Dad, who sat on the oversized recliner in the back of the room. He had a cup of eggnog in one hand, and he gestured with the other while explaining to my uncle Jack the ins and outs of hardware. Dad worked in an accounting office, but his true love was tools and anything that had to do with tools. Uncle Jack-the artist of the family-seemed disinterested, but he kindly allowed Dad to prattle on about his favorite hobby. I watched the corners of Dad’s eyes. I was fascinated by them. When he smiled, a dozen tiny little lines formed at their outer corners. But the fascinating part was that even when he wasn’t smiling-like when he was concentrating on his explanation of the different kinds of wrenches-the lines were still there. I realized that Dad smiled so much that he had permanent little lines embossed in his skin.

Mom interrupted my thoughts. “Gemma, honey, aren’t you going to open Becky’s gift?” She was looking at me with sad eyes, knowing that I wasn’t enjoying this Christmas evening with the family as much as I normally did. I nodded and carefully unrapped the paper on the present. Inside was a tiny little cardboard box filled with rolls of Life Savers. Any other year I would have thanked Becky for her gift, secretly wondering if it was a last-minute re-gift when they remembered they hadn’t gotten me anything. But tonight it was exactly what I needed.

I glanced around the room at Bridget and my cousins, completely absorbed in their gift opening. I overheard my mom telling someone about Caris. I thought about Jess and his mom in the hospital. It seemed like they were in a different world. It was like I had fallen asleep after breakfast and the whole thing was just a bad dream. I felt a twinge of guilt for being so comfort able and warm and surrounded by so many people that loved me when Jess was all alone, on a cot, waiting for his mother to wake up. Why did I get such a great dad when Jess got such a terrible one? Why was his mother in the hospital when mine was two feet away from me filling everyone’s cups with eggnog and apple cider? My life seemed so simple compared to Jess’s. In church they always said that life was a test. If that was true, then why was Jess’s test so much harder than mine when we were both just trying to get to heaven?

I knocked on Carts’s door at eight o’clock the next morning. An unfamiliar nurse opened the door a crack. She was stern. “We don’t allow visitors in the ICU,” she whispered and then looked behind me. “Are you alone?”

Before I could explain that my mother was parking the car, I heard Jess’s voice deep inside the room. “It’s okay, she’s family.”

The nurse hesitantly let me inside the room. Jess was standing next to Caris’s bed; his arms folded tight, his eyes narrow.

I stepped to his side and whispered, “Hi.” It sounded like a stupid thing to say in this place.

Jess took a deep breath and nodded at me. I didn’t blame him for not saying hi back. It seemed as inappropriate as saying “good morning.” I walked toward him but stopped when he jumped. “Nurse!” he spoke directly. “The numbers on this monitor are all over the place. Is that bad?”

The nurse, who had been standing by the door writing something on a clipboard, ran to the monitor almost as immediately as he had spoken. “Everything’s fine. This is actually a good sign. It means that she is starting to breathe on her own. She may wake up soon, and it will be best if there are as few people as possible in the room when she does.” She looked at me when she spoke.

Jess was watching his mother so intently that I wasn’t sure he even heard what the nurse had said.

“I’ll wait out in the hall,” I said.

Jess glanced at me for a moment then whipped his head back to look at the monitor, where his attention stayed until I exited the room.

Four long hours-and a terrible lunch in the hospital cafeteria-later, Mom and I were finally allowed in Caris’s new room on the second floor of the hospital. Caris was awake and sitting up in her bed, but she resembled a corpse with its eyes opened. She looked older and younger at the same time. Older because her hair was matted to the back of her head and large circles appeared under her eyes where the bandages weren’t covering; younger because she seemed so small and fragile-so vulnerable. Caris was born in Ireland, which explained the tint of red in Jess’s brown hair, but lived in Franklin most of her life. For the most part she had the usual American accent, but for some reason today there was a hint of Irish in her voice.

“Hi, ladies.” Her voice was hoarse, and I could barely make out what she said. She almost lifted a finger to wave at us but then seemed to change her mind at the last minute. “Thank you for coming.”

My mom placed her hand on Caris’s bandaged hand. “How are you feeling?” She had a way of making the most common question sound truly heartfelt and sincere.

“Blessed.”

Caris’s answer was short, but it took me back. Blessed? Her? She just spent Christmas day unconscious and wired to a hospital bed because her ex-husband beat her with a dining room chair, and she felt blessed?

She continued slowly, “I can’t say I wasn’t disappointed that I missed Christmas, but I trust that you drank some eggnog for me.” Caris was particularly spry considering her condition, and I wondered how much painkiller was being pumped into her veins right now. I exchanged a glance with Jess, who was sitting on a sofa against the far wall, that told me he was wondering the same thing. I let Mom and Caris continue their conversation as I slowly inched my way toward the sofa. I sat down carefully next to Jess. I was worried that if I got too close to him he would crack down the middle.

His first words surprised me. “Sorry about this morning.” I jerked my head to look at him. What did he possibly have to be sorry about? “I didn’t have a chance to say much to you.” I didn’t think it would be necessary to remind him that he had said nothing to me. “I really appreciate you coming, though. Even though you were just out in the hall, it meant a lot to me.”

I nodded but said nothing. I thought he’d appreciate the silence. We sat quietly on the sofa for another twenty minutes while our moms talked. Eventually I heard Caris ask my mom, “Could you take Jess home for me? He needs to get some sleep before he ends up in the bed next to me.”

“Of course,” Mom replied, “but he’ll be alone at your house. Why don’t we take him to our home or to your mother’s house with the girls?”

Caris shook her head. “Mom can’t take on another one. She called a minute ago and said that the girls were already more than she can handle. She just got hip surgery, you know. I told her that Jess would be more of a help than a hinder but-,” she looked at Jess sadly and opted not to finish the sentence. “He’d have to sleep on the couch there anyway. It would do him some good to sleep in a nice comfortable bed.”

Jess entered the conversation, “Mom, let me stay here with you. This cot is fine for me.” He leaned forward and patted the edge of a cot that looked big enough for a small child to fit on it.

Caris shook her head. “No it’s not, Jess. You need sleep and a good meal. Besides, the doctor says I’m stable. You can come back and see me tomorrow.”

“But Mom-“

“Not another word, Jess. I maybe all battered and bruised up, but I’m still your mother, and I want you to go with Suz and Gemma.”

She sounded like she was talking through a straw, but Jess still recoiled into the couch. Then she added, “How about you and Gemma head out to the car. There’s something I need to talk to Suzanne about.”

Jess and I walked sluggishly out of the hospital room like two kids that had just been punished. But as the door closed behind me, I could hear Caris starting to cry.

I was setting plates on the table when Jess shyly walked into our kitchen. His hair was wet, and he was wearing a set of my dad’s sweats. I was amazed at how well they fit him.

My mom looked up from grating the cheese. “Jess, are you sure there’s not a spare key to your house under a mat or rock somewhere?”

“No, my mom never hides keys outside. She’s always home.”

We had been driving up our lane when it donned on Jess that he didn’t have the key to his house. He had left so quickly to catch up with the ambulance that he didn’t even think about it. And of course the cops didn’t either.

“Well, Rob’s clothes are just going to have to work until we find another solution.”

It was three o’clock in the afternoon, an awkward time for either lunch or dinner. But Mom and I had only picked at the stale pizza we ordered at the hospital-and I had no idea when Jess ate last-so we were practically starving. Dad and Bridget, who had already eaten, sat at the table with us to hear about Caris’s con dition. It only took about five minutes for Jess to explain everything about his mom, and then the conversation-to Jess’s reliefturned to lighter subjects like Christmas presents and New Year’s Eve plans. It was strange having Jess over for dinner. As often as he came to our house, he had never come in for dinner or even hung out with the rest of my family much before. It was strange mixing the two universes-the family universe and the Jess universe-but it was oddly comfortable at the same time. Jess and Dad gabbed most of the time about baseball while Mom and Bridget planned the post-Christmas shopping spree. After the dishes were all done, Mom told me to move some clothes and things I needed over the next few days into Bridget’s room so that Jess could have mine. I knew he felt uncomfortable about the arrangement, but I loved the idea of having him stay with us for a while.

Jess sat at the desk in my room while I threw three days’ worth of clothes into a pile on my bed. He was especially quiet tonight, but I had plenty of things to tell him to fill the silence.

“Do you know Mike Hodgins?” I didn’t wait for him to answer. “He’s a senior, and he has a big crush on Bridget.”

Jess nodded as he opened one of the drawers of my desk.

“Well, the night before Christmas Eve, the doorbell rang and it was Mike Hodgins and his two best friends-Hal Butters and some Ian guy.” I laughed at the memory. “You wouldn’t believe it, but they were all dressed up as elves! Hal and Ian in velvet green suits and Mike as Santa Claus!”

Jess looked up at me for a moment and then continued digging through the paraphernalia that was stashed in the drawers.

“So they sang Christmas carols in front of my parents and me and everything! Then handed her a whole bunch of presents and left!”

“They just left?” Jess asked as he reached into the back of the middle drawer.

“Yes! But then Bridget followed them outside and talked to them for a while on the driveway.”

“Does Bridget like Mike?”

“I think so.” I shrugged as I held up two shirts that I was trying to decide between. “But it was seriously so funny. You would have laughed so hard.”

“What’s this?” Jess sat up straight in the chair as he retrieved a brown paper bag from the back of the drawer.

I gasped as I stepped toward him. “I can’t believe I forgot!” I grabbed the bag from him. “This is your Christmas present!”

“Then why did you take it from me?” Jess held his empty hands out in front of me.

“Because I worked hard on it, and I want to be able to give it to you.” I took the wrapped gift out of the brown bag and delicately placed it in his hands. “Merry Christmas.”

“What? No elves? No song and dance?” Jess chided as he ruthlessly tore off the wrapping paper and dropped it on the ground beside his chair.

He ripped off the lid of the box with as much force but paused instantly when he saw what was inside. His eyebrows squeezed together, and he tilted his head as if trying to figure out what it was.

“Thanks,” he said as enthusiastically as he could.

I let out a frustrated puff of air and took the gift out of the box. “It’s a scrap book. See?” I opened the cover and began showing him the pages inside. “It’s just a bunch of pictures, movie tickets, arcade tokens, and stuff that I’ve kept over the years. See this one?” I pointed to a page about halfway through that had an old crumpled up receipt taped next to a picture of Jess and I arm and arm. “This is a receipt from that creepy witch doctor we met in town a couple summers ago.”

Jess opened his mouth as he tried to recall what I was talking about. “Oh yea!” He let out a raspy laugh. “I bought a bottle of old gun powder from her because she said it would give me bigger muscles by just rubbing it on my skin.”

I nodded, excited that he remembered. “Yeah, I kept the receipt.”

Jess continued to flip through the book, obviously amazed with all the memories it was bringing to his mind. “Our comic strip!” he announced when he got to one of the back pages. It was a five-frame comic strip that we had made up together one rainy summer day when I was ten. It was stupid really, and not funny at all, but it brought back memories of that day. We had been at the lake when it started raining. By the time we ran to my house we were drenched, so we made hot soup and grilled cheese sandwiches and sat around playing monopoly for hours. When we couldn’t play monopoly for another second, we made up this comic strip-that at the time we were sure was going to make us famous someday.

“Wait a minute,” Jess said, tapping his finger against his upper lip. “This isn’t the original comic strip. It wasn’t even on paper. Wasn’t it written…” He paused and looked around my room as if trying to grasp the memory.

“On my closet wall?” I completed his thought.

He beamed, having remembered it now that I said it. “Is it still there?”

“Yeah, I just copied it down a week ago.”

His eyes widened with curiosity. “Can I see it?”

I led him into my tiny box-like, walk-in closet. I pushed a few of my old church dresses apart and crawled between them until I was against the wall. “It’s hard to see it in the dark,” I explained as I turned and sat against the wall just next to the drawing. “I had to use a flashlight when I copied it down.”