HEAL YOU | JENLISA

NINETEEN

JENNIE

* * *

I’M NUMB DURING THE HOUR-LONG TRIP TO THE HOSPITAL, barely noticing when Lisa stops at the parking garage beneath her apartment building to swap her motorcycle for a black Audi SUV. It has that new-car smell, which I find nauseating, but I like that she cares about my safety. I don’t own a car, so I really appreciate that she’s driving me. I would have arranged an Uber otherwise—was in the process of doing it when she asked me what in the world I was doing.

So this is what it’s like to have a boyfriend who isn’t gone all the time. When this numbness is gone, I’m sure I’ll have feelings about this.

For now, I need facts, information. I don’t cry, I don’t grieve, I will hold this ice in place until I know more.

I’d ask Priscilla—she always knows everything—but according to the text messages I missed while Lisa and I were fooling around, she jumped on a red-eye to California and will be unavailable until morning.

At the hospital, the front desk gives us visitor badges and complicated directions to my dad’s room. I’m on the verge of panic as I struggle to remember all the turns, but Lisa takes my hand and shows me the way, like she’s been here before. Maybe she has.

The hallways are bright and busy. It could be daytime. Sickness doesn’t keep normal hours.

When we reach my dad’s room, I release Lisa’s hand and take a moment to gather myself. I shut my eyes and automatically reach for the appropriate persona. My posture changes. I change.

I knock once to announce my presence and open the door to step inside while Lisa hangs behind. It’s a big double room, but the second bed is empty. There’s a blue curtain around the occupied half of the room, and I pull it aside. My dad’s asleep in the bed, connected to various tubes and wires, and seated next to him, holding his hand, is my mom. Her face is unnaturally pale, but as always, she’s impeccably dressed in a black cashmere sweater with decorative gold and pearl beading and black slacks.

“Ma,” I say, careful not to be too loud. “How is he?”

She covers her mouth and shakes her head.

Swallowing, I approach the bed slowly. My dad has always been on the tall, sturdy side, but he looks small now. Thin. Fragile. His hair wasn’t this gray before. I didn’t notice all these sunspots on his face before. His vitality dimmed them into irrelevance. When I saw him a few months ago, I couldn’t understand why my mom bothered him so relentlessly about applying sunscreen. It’s like he’s aged ten years since then. He doesn’t look like the man who used to buy me candy while he was away and hide it in the trunk of his car so I’d find it when I went to bring his luggage into the house, a ritual solely between the two of us, kept secret from my mom, who would have disapproved.

I reach out to rest my hand on top of my dad’s free one. He’s cool to the touch and unresponsive, and I glance at the screen next to him where the numbers and lines move, reassuring myself that he’s alive.

“Pa, it’s me, Jennie. I came to see you,” I say.

His eyes drift open, and he blinks sleepily at the room for a while before focusing on me. I expect to see recognition light up his eyes. I expect him to smile, just a small one, and say my name.

But his eyes don’t light up. He doesn’t smile. When he speaks, the words seem to take a massive effort and come out slurred and garbled. I can’t make sense of them. I’m not even sure what language he’s trying to speak.

“What was that?” I ask, urging him to repeat himself.

His eyelids droop shut, and his forehead creases as more garbled sounds fall painstakingly from his lips. Eventually, his face relaxes, and his breathing evens out. He’s gone back to sleep.