Outside Your Window

The Room

On the third night Jacob didn't come out of his room, I got the courage to bring it up to Mom.

"People don't sleep for this long," I said.

She was cooking a casserole, the sixth one this week. We were running out of fridge space for the leftovers, but she kept making more. I would watch her from the corner of the kitchen, her posture curved and her newly greyed hair hanging over the food. I walked over and tugged at her sleeve, but she didn't respond. She was slathering butter on the top crust.

"Mom," I said. "Did you hear me?"

"He needs his strength," she said. "We can't be bothering him."

Before I could say anything, Dad walked in. His eyes were red and swollen, but he was smiling. He had three cans of Coke in his hands.

"I'm starving," he said. "I still have the taste of that horrible cafeteria food in my mouth."

"You would think hospitals had good food for how much money they make," Mom said.

"I know, right?" Dad said. He placed the Cokes on the counter.

Mom didn't want us to go near Jacob's room, but I was getting worried. I peered out from the kitchen. His room hung at the end of the hallway like an abandoned lighthouse, the only sign of life being the NY Yankees poster taped to his door. Near the ground, there was a small sliver of space to see if he had turned on his lights. It was still dark, as it had been for the last three days.

I turned back to Mom.

"Shouldn't we check on him?" I asked.

"I don't know why places like Wendys or Burger King don't put up little shops in hospital," Dad went on. "I mean, you have hundreds of people who are stuck there for days on end. That's consistent business."

"It's all politics," Mom said. "They sign these big contracts that are impossible to break."

"Right, right. That makes sense. Right."

Dad was standing next to Mom now, his face inches from the casserole. He took a long sniff.

"Ahhhhhhh," he said. "Smells great."

"Do you want some of the leftovers while this finishes in the oven?" she asked. "I think we still have some from yesterday. Wasn't the spinach and ricotta one good?"

"Very good. Very, very good," he said. "I couldn't stop eating it."

"Jacob's gonna' devour these when he gets the appetite," Mom said.

I turned back and took a step into the hallway. The distance between me and his room felt long and narrow, like a high wire. When I got away from the casserole smell, I hit a different smell. It reminded me of old gym socks. Even with Mom's array of candles and incents, I still smelled it. It cut through everything.

The last time I saw Jacob was on the drive home from his treatment. His face was a pale green and his eyes kept rolling back. Mom said I had to keep talking to him, to keep his focus. I told him about my friends from school and how they keep pranking the teacher by putting tacks on her chair. It wasn't true (I saw it on a TV show once), but I was running out of material. It didn't matter though. Jacob didn't even respond. All he did was cough. Pink drool was spilling onto his t-shirt.

"Danny," Mom said. "Why don't you heat up some of those leftovers. We're all craving that spinach and ricotta casserole."

"I can't stop thinking about it," Dad said. "I was dreaming about it last night."

I ignored them. I kept my focus on my brother's door. I didn't dream about the casserole like Dad; I kept having a different dream. My brother was running into my room and flicking my ear. It was a game we used to play. We would tip toe up to the other's door then wait for our moment. Then, the attacker ran in and got one or two good flicks before retreating.

In my dream though, Jacob would run in and flick me, but I wouldn't move. I just stood there. He would flick, and laugh, then flick some more. Sometimes, he would flick so hard my ear flew off.

"Earth to Danny," Dad said, snapping his fingers in my face. He was standing in front of me, blocking my view of Jacob's door. "Do you mind heating up four portions of the casserole in case Jacob wants some? We're going to eat that before this next casserole because we want to make sure Jacob's able to try it because, in my opinion, it was definitely one of your Mom's best."

I looked up at him and held my eye contact. I couldn't say what I was thinking, so I wanted Dad to feel it. Maybe, if I stared long enough, my feelings would translate.

But, Dad looked at me for only a moment, then away. In that brief connection though, I saw something I didn't want to see. It was like staring down the tunnel of the world's deepest well.

"Come on now," he said. He grabbed my shoulders and turned me around. His voice got heavier. "You're going to want to heat up each piece individually because if you do them all at once then you won't get even heat through the pieces and you'll probably have a couple that are too hot and others that are too cold and then Jacob won't get the full picture of how good these casseroles are."

Dad let go of my shoulders and walked ahead of me, but I stayed in the hallway a moment longer. I turned to look at my brother's door one last time. I fantasized about walking up to it and going inside. But, I was afraid Mom would yell at me.

Besides, I never liked going in there. He had a puke bucket next to his bed which always had pink splatters in it, and there were always clumps of hair on his pillows. Back before the last hospital visit, Mom would make me go in there and talk to him, but I always made up some excuse, like I had a cold and didn't want to get him sick. When I couldn't get out of it, I would stay in there for a few minutes and watch him try to breathe. I would tell him about some TV episode I saw, then run back to my room.

I looked up. I thought I was walking back to the kitchen, but I was moving toward the door. I didn't want to, but I kept moving, like my limbs were controlled by a puppeteer. I put my hand on the doorknob. I turned. The gym sock smell filled my head like helium.

Through the darkness, I could make out a sliver of my brother's face. The soft evening light fell on him. His eyes were open, staring at the ceiling. His arms were straight as rulers and his fingers curled like a blooming rose.

I walked to side of his bed. Red spit fell off his lips. He looked like a frowning clown.

I flicked his ear.

It was hard.

I walked out and closed the door behind me. As I walked back, I seemed to forget what the inside of his room looked like. With the door closed, it could be anything. Jacob could be doing jumping jacks, or reading comic books, or plotting his next ear flick attack.

When I walked into the kitchen, I heated up four plates of spinach and ricotta casserole. When they were done, I wrapped Jacob's plate in aluminum foil and put it in the oven to keep warm. Then, Mom, Dad, and I sat in the dining room and ate in silence.