Phoenix Rising (14 page)

B: Oh, listen who's talking
!

J: Yeah, you
!

B: No, you
!

J: No, you're the one who's talking
.

B: Then who just said, ‘No, you're the one who's talking'
?

J: You
!

They sounded like a comedy act. Sometimes they don't like each other at all; they're just a habit
.

My stomach is urpy. I should eat something but it might come right back up. In a while Mom and Dad are taking me to see Dr. Yee. Just a checkup, then we'll do some shopping
.

I would like to tell them about Bloomfield (and my beautiful dress!) but only if they'll promise not to tell Jessie. I'd prefer to tell her myself. Perhaps via skywriting during the graduation ceremony
.…

20

I went to the hospital the last time with Helen.

That's what really happened. I did not stay home.

I almost didn't go. I had a science test the next day but I didn't feel like studying. Besides, Helen needed cheering up. She'd been feeling pretty low.

We thought it was a cold. Or the flu or something.

We weren't blind. Our eyes were closed.

It was no big deal, just another hospital run. The transfusions made Helen feel better. Everybody noticed, and nobody mentioned, that she was going days earlier than scheduled.

Dad carried Helen out to the car. Usually she put up a fuss when he babied her. This time she didn't say a word, just wrapped her arms around his neck.

When we got to the hospital, nurses took her to her room. I wandered off and bought a
Cosmopolitan
. It was full of sappy articles that would make Helen laugh, like: “Kiss Your Flabby Fanny Good-bye!”

When I got back, Helen wasn't in her room. Mom and Dad were gone. I couldn't find a nurse. Dr. Yee was being paged. I started running down the hall. Dad found me. He said, “Hurry, Jessie.”

Everything speeded up. Dad pushed me through a door. It was Helen's new room. There were no other patients. The room was so quiet. I'd expected confusion. There was only one nurse, and Dr. Yee, and Mom. Helen was in the bed, unconscious.

Dr. Yee touched her arm. Helen murmured something. It sounded like, “Oh, shit.”

Dr. Yee said: “Helen, we're ordering blood.”

Helen opened her eyes and said, “Save it for someone who needs it.”

Doctors floated in and out. So did Helen. She was having trouble breathing. They gave her a shot and turned her on her side. Mom and Dad stroked her hair. Helen whispered something. It was “Jessie” or “Help me.”

Then my sister hemorrhaged internally and died.

The nurse was crying. Mom and Dad were crying. Helen was lying there. I ran out of the hospital and got in the car, and when my parents found me, I said, “Don't talk.” All the way home I thought: HelenHelenHelen, as if her name could protect me.

We got to the house—I burst past Lucas. He's shouting, “What's wrong? What's the matter?”

I ran up to our bedroom and locked the door. Then I cried and cried and cried and cried, until my head throbbed and my jaw ached and my eyes were bloody and raw. Then I stopped and I thought, My heart has died. God can't hurt me anymore.

But the heart is as tough as an iris bulb. The flowers are blooming and Sara Rose is like a bird, calling outside my bedroom window, “Jess-sie-ee! Jess-sie-ee! Can you come out and play?”

Not today, I say. Maybe sometime soon.

21

June 9

I don't feel good. I am sick of this feeling. I am missing the last days of school
.

Yesterday I went for a while, but I had to come home. I felt crummy
.

I get so mad at myself. Why can't I transcend my body? Millions of people all over the world are suffering more than me, yet they keep on plugging away every day
.

Helen Castle, Queen of the Complainers, says: Woe is me
!

Bloomfield called awhile ago. His voice is like ginger ale. The minute I hear him, I start to feel better. Probably 'cause I'm laughing so much
.

Mom just brought me some toast and tea so I'll have something to throw up. Usually I love this kind of tea, but today it smells like socks and closets
.

Outside, an orange dragonfly embroiders the summer day. If I ever have a daughter I will name her Summer. Or Autumn or Spring
.

I will not name her Winter. Or Gidget or Bambi or Bernice
.

I want to go get my blue dress today
.

Oh shit, I am going to throw up
.

22

It's Friday afternoon. I should be in school. I wish I was. That's the weird part. I kind of miss seeing everybody.

Even Dr. Shubert. She called today to see how I'm doing.

“What're you up to these days, Jessie?”

“About five foot eight,” I said.

I told her that I still can't leave the house.

Dad's at work, Mom's gone to the store. My school work is done. I'm bored with TV. There's nothing on but soap operas and they can't hold a bubble to real life.

Bloomfield is coming by tonight. He says we'll either play Yahtzee or bicker, whichever I'd prefer. I told him not to bother, but I'm glad he's coming over. Bambi never comes by anymore. (If I'd known this would work, I would've flipped out sooner.)

Lucas says he's taking me to Foothill Park tomorrow if he has to lock me in the trunk of his car.

Great, I say, then I won't have to watch you drive.

I'm not going to worry about tomorrow right now.

It's almost three o'clock. Way down the block, I see Mrs. Jensen heading for the bus stop. Sara Rose will be by soon, as she is every day, inviting me to come out and play. She doesn't know the meaning of the word discouragement. Or of lots of other words, for that matter.

Although it's only March, the air is warm. The windows are open and the curtains are stirring. Lucas is playing his acoustic guitar. It's a song I've never heard before.

He stops and restarts it, and after awhile I realize it's something being born. It's not like the tunes Lucas usually writes, with their fast, brash riffs and their bluesy chords. This melody draws me out of my bedroom and down the hall to his door.

He's sitting on the bed, bent over his guitar, his face tilted up as if he's listening to the sky. Suddenly I know what has drawn me to the song.

“It's Helen,” I say.

Lucas looks at me and nods. Then he is lost inside the music.

I listen to his gift describe our sister: dark and light and sweet and warm; funny and loving and bright and wise; a daughter, a sister, a child, a woman; a sorceress in a medieval forest teeming with the creatures who inhabited her poems; sprites and phoenixes and jewel-eyed mermaids and unicorns nursing their young.

I see Helen, at Foothill Park, running across the bright green hills that ripen into golden waves as she passes across them like summer.

I see Helen smiling, on the beach with Bloomfield, in love with him forever.

I see my sister, and I feel her with us, in the heart of Lucas's art.

He pauses, frowning, then begins the song again, creating, discovering, remembering.

Outside, Sara Rose is calling.

I lean out my window. She smiles up at me, bright as her scarlet sweater.

“Jessie, can you come out and play?” she says.

And this time Jessie says yes.

23

June 12

I've had the best idea for a story! I'm so excited! I got the idea from that paper I did for Ms. Tormey, the one about the phoenix and the concept of rebirth. It's about this girl who thinks she's dead but she's not; she's really in a coma, in this other world
.

It sounds so sappy when I put it like that. I better quit blabbing and write it. But if I say so myself, it's going really well
.

And if you don't believe me, take my word for it
!

Feeling better today. Jessie made me lunch and she made me laugh. She's so pretty when she smiles. I told her that. As usual, she felt obliged to make a face, but I think she might've heard me, for once
.

I invited her to come with me tomorrow when I pick up my blue dress. I didn't get around to mentioning Bloomfield yet. Why wreck her terrific mood
?

I'm supposed to see Dr. Yee next week but am feeling much improved
.

Am trying to be a nicer person lately; not teasing my brother even though it's such fun; or getting mad at Jessie (grrrrr) when she slobs up our room. And letting Mom and Dad know how much I love them
.

And brushing after every meal, as Bloomfield would add
.

I'm trying to live each day as though it were my last. Not because of the Big C, but because you never know, really. Today is all we have. And even though I feel lousy sometimes, I still love life with ALL MY HEART
.

Wellllll, maybe not every single second. But usually
.

I want to show that love in my writing. But I can never quite say what I mean. Maybe life's too big to fit on paper. Or maybe my pencil's too short
.

I'd like to be able to make readers laugh and cry; to reach across the page and say, Hey, we're alive! I want to show the courage of fathers and mothers who bring forth babies who brave the maze of childhood; learning to crawl, standing up, oops, falling, starting over, getting up, going on, finding love, losing hope, enduring pain and disappointment; believing that happiness is just around the corner, if we don't give up, if we keep moving forward
—

There is so much I want to say
.

About the Author

Cynthia D. Grant has published twelve young adult fiction novels since 1980. In 1991 she won the first PEN/Norma Klein Award, for “an emerging voice among American writers of children's fiction.” Over the years, Grant has received numerous other distinctions. Unfortunately, her Massachusetts upbringing prohibits her from showing off. She lives in the mountains outside Cloverdale, California, and has one husband, Eric Neel; two sons, Morgan Heatley-Grant and Forest Neel-Grant; two cats, Kelsey, an orange tom, and Billie, a barn cat–barracuda mix; and Mike the Wonder Dog, who packs two-hundred-plus pounds of personality into a seven-pound body.

All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Copyright © 1989 by Cynthia D. Grant

Cover design by Liz Connor

ISBN: 978-1-5040-1358-1

This edition published in 2015 by Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.

345 Hudson Street

New York, NY 10014

www.openroadmedia.com

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