Unprotected (3 page)

“Eh—” Amanda tipped her hand side to side to show him it was a “so so” day.

“I’m going home this afternoon,” Jake smiled a weary smile. “If I had a nickel for every time I checked out of the hospital thinking it was my last, I’d have at least a quarter by now.”

“Good for you,” Amanda said. “But I’m sure it’s real because you won’t be back.”

“I dig your optimism. My mom would have to give you a hug just for saying it.” Jake stood next to her at the railing, leaned forward, and ran his fingers through his hair. His hair was dark brown, coarse, and wavy—most likely because it was growing back after chemo. “So what’s next for you?”

Amanda knew that he was asking what she was going to do with herself now that her mom had stopped treatment and was officially dying. Amanda didn’t have a clue how to answer. She had learned not to plan too far in advance because life revolved around how her mom was feeling from moment to moment. Her focus had gone from college applications, to softball, to graduation, to the state tournament. As her high school career had ended, her adult life abruptly began with the knowledge that she needed to prepare for her mother’s death.

“There’s actually not much for me to do. My mom wrote her will a long time ago, which was a joke because I’m the only heir, and there’s nothing to get. My mom’s family had a house fire when she was in high school, and they lost everything, so she’s never been big into having ‘stuff’ because it’s just something to lose someday. She knows what she wants for her funeral, she’s arranged her own cremation, which is just sick if you ask me, and the doctor said this morning that she’s ready to go to hospice as she asked for instead of going home to die. I don’t think there’s much I have to do until after.”

Jake just nodded in reply. Amanda didn’t know if talking about death bothered him. He seemed quiet.

“So I guess other than registering for classes during one weekend in July, I’ll be here all summer.” Amanda’s stomach felt hollow at the thought of spending the summer at the hospital. “I suppose I should get a job,” she thought out loud.

A woman with short brown hair like Jake’s came out to the balcony holding a bunch of helium filled balloons that included a mylar Bozo the clown balloon. She was barely five feet tall so she was nearly covered up by the balloons. She had permanent, deep laugh lines around her eyes and a wide, toothy smile. She was deeply tanned already, and she looked like a bundle of energy. Reaching up to grab Jake’s face, she gave him a kiss on each cheek.

“I was looking for you, Jacob,” she said, wiping her lipstick off each cheek with a dab of spit on her thumb. “Once you get the nurse to take out that line, you’re okay’d to go home.” She turned to Amanda. “Is this your friend from last night?”

Amanda’s mouth dropped open at the question, and she couldn’t believe that he told his mother about her already.

“Mom, this is Amanda”

“Nice to meet you, sweetie,” she said, dropping the balloons with their clown paperweight and shaking Amanda’s hand with both of hers. “I’m Trix Mann.” Then she turned to Jake. “Have you invited her to supper?” Trix still hadn’t let go of Amanda’s hands.

“I was getting to it, mom …”

“Well, hurry up and invite her. I’m making pork tenderloin and it’s a big one.” She squeezed Amanda’s hands before she let them go, grabbed the balloons and started for the door. “I’ll get your bag and meet you at the car. See you tonight, Amanda. It was nice meeting you.”

Amanda raised her eyebrows and grinned at Jake.

“I guess you heard that you’re invited for dinner,” Jake said, sheepish and pleased at the same time. “My mom has always made a big welcome home dinner every time I get out of the hospital, which is actually sad that we have to have a coming home from the hospital tradition.”

“Your mom doesn’t even know me, and neither do you, really, for that matter. Why would you invite me for dinner?” Amanda knew that sounded bitchy, but her skeptical, dark side had kicked in and spoke up before she could stop it.

“If you want to know the truth, my mom tends to fall over all of my friends.” He rubbed his palms along the wooden railing. “Her biggest fear when I got sick was that I would lose friends and miss out on things. She has to help me along by inviting people over, and then she set up this amazing room in our basement with a big screen TV, DVD player, pool table, full bar, pinball … you name it. She wanted to make sure that people would want to spend time with me even if I couldn’t really go places.” He suddenly jumped. “Yeow! Sliver. Jeez don’t let my mom see that either. She’s got a thing with blood. You know … leukemia …”

Amanda knew what he meant about the blood. “Anyway, your mom seems so great,” she said.

“She is. I have to let her do all this stuff even though I’m twenty-years old because it helps her cope.” He squinted at his palm and pulled the sliver out quickly, rubbing away the dot of blood that appeared.

Spending an evening with her and Jake sounded wonderful, but Amanda couldn’t imagine how she could get out of having dinner with her mom on a Saturday night. “I’d really love to have your mom’s dinner, but I can’t leave my mom alone here.” She sighed.

“I can’t imagine that your mom wants you to hang out in a depressing hospital with her when you could have a nice dinner out. She’s your mom. You know she’ll tell you to go.”

Amanda looked down and pushed away the tears that threatened. If you grew up with a real mom who was capable of thinking about someone other than herself, then you would assume that all moms were that way. It was too humiliating to try to explain that her mom would want nothing more than to see her daughter sit in a depressing hospital on a Saturday night to keep her company. Amanda had begun to see that it wasn’t out of selfishness as much as a true inability to think about anyone other than herself. Amanda barely held it against her anymore, but the thought of losing a nice evening with Jake and his family brought her mother’s attitude suddenly into sharp focus. Guilt, anger, and frustration merged, and she had to clench her jaw hard to keep from crying. Long ago Amanda had stopped allowing herself that kind of emotion, and today with this stranger she was surprised that tears were threatening. Amanda hadn’t cried since she was ten years old.

Amanda just shook her head at Jake, unable to speak. She felt that somehow he understood that her silence was about more than her mom being sick, but about a loneliness that started well before the first diagnosis.

“How about this, have dinner with your mom but just tell her you’re feeling a little sick so you’re not going to eat much. Then you can beg off around 7:30 or 8:00 and we’ll wait to eat until then.” He smiled at her, satisfied he had solved the problem.

“You can’t hold your dinner for me, and I’m not going to lie to her, and I just …”

“Quit being a martyr. You need to get away from this place, and she’ll have nurses here all night to help her if she needs it. It’s not your job to babysit her.” He crossed his arms and stared hard at her. “Okay?”

Amanda shook her head and looked down at her shoes. “It’s not that I have to babysit her. Other than school, I’ve just never had anywhere else to go. Our trailer is just a place to take a shower because I can’t stand being there. It’s just not home. This hospital is the closest …” Her throat felt tight again.

“Amanda, calling this place home is so sad I can hardly stand it,” Jake said, standing up and wrapping his arms around her in a gesture way more intimate than their eighteen-hour friendship allowed, but he felt so nice she didn’t mind. He smelled like hospital soap, but in a good way. She laughed and let herself relax a little.

“I know,” she said, with a big shuddery sigh. But she was also smiling.

“You’re coming.”

* * *

Amanda stood outside the door, trying to figure out what to say. Jake and his mother lived in a split-level house with a tuck-under garage that was probably built in 1972. It looked like it could be any house on any street in any town. There were little wire flags all over the yard indicating the lawn had just been sprayed with fertilizer. Amanda wondered if he played football in this yard and rode his bike on this sidewalk and played basketball in this driveway. It was hard not to resent how normal he was. There was the issue of his cancer, so it wasn’t quite fair to call his childhood “normal.” It was just that he had all the things Amanda had craved.

Before she could knock, Jake opened the door.

“Was I supposed to sense your presence or was it in your plans to knock eventually?”

Once again Amanda didn’t know what to say.

“Don’t look all awkward. Just come in and relax.” Jake stepped aside and motioned her into the entryway. He took her sweatshirt while she tried to take in the surroundings. Upstairs the dining room and living area were furnished with comfortable but nice furniture. She could smell dinner cooking and hear kitchen sounds coming from upstairs toward the back of the house.

“Hi, sweetie,” Trix yelled down. “Show her the basement, Jacob.” He rolled his eyes at Amanda.

“I will, Mom. I was planning on it.”

“Hi, Mrs. Mann,” Amanda said softly.

Trix came out of the kitchen wiping her hands on a dishtowel. “Oh, good lord, sweetie. Call me Trix. I’m so glad you’re here! Did you find the place okay?”

The town was not that big, and she had lived there all her life, so of course she knew how to find their house. “I drove right to it,” she said. “I used to have soccer games down the street at Miller Park.”

“Of course you did, sweetie. Jake told me you’re an athlete.” She smiled and threw her towel over her shoulder. “Make yourself at home. We’ll eat in about twenty minutes.”

Jake gave her the grand tour. The basement was fixed up to be an adolescent boy’s paradise. A flat-screen TV took up one whole wall, surrounded by gadgets and machines including a DVD player, Nintendo X Box, and Internet service through the TV. There was pool, foos ball, and an actual pinball machine with Elvis on it. In one corner there was a bar with a working soda machine, and Jake pointed out that there was a tap for a keg that they filled only on special occasions. Beer lights, sports posters, and girl calendars covered the walls. Jake said it was a little weird to think of his mom decorating the room with girls in bikinis.

Jake’s bedroom was downstairs and also looked like a teenage boy’s room. He had a double bed with a plain navy comforter, a desk with a computer, and two dressers covered with ribbons, team photos, and trophies from Punt Pass and Kick competitions and baseball tournaments. Amanda looked at all the photos with him in his baseball and basketball uniforms. She didn’t see any pictures that looked like they were from high school.

“That’s me in all my seventh-grade glory,” Jake said. “My mom and step-dad had just gotten married when I was in middle school, so me and Mike bonded over football. He’s the assistant coach in that picture, which he did to try to get close to me I’m sure.” Amanda smiled at the rows of boys in huge helmets all with tough looking scowls on their faces.

“Was it weird that he wanted to be such good friends?” Amanda asked.

“Oh, I didn’t care. I was glad he was trying to get to know me.” Jake shrugged and sat on the edge of the bed. “I never had a dad before, and Mike’s a great guy. I couldn’t have picked a better guy for my mom to marry. My dad left when I was a baby, and my mom never dated before Mike. I wanted her to have somebody because I could tell she was lonely, so it was a big relief when Mike came around. Being the baby of the family I could tell early on that if anyone was going to stick around with Mom it would be me.”

“Were you picturing yourself as an adult sleeping in the basement of your mom’s house, parking your car in the driveway, going off to work with a lunchbox …” Amanda laughed and realized it was partially true.

“I probably should say it bothered me, but it didn’t. Mom and I have always been really close, so it wasn’t horrible to think I’d just live my life here. I was a late bloomer, so it seemed like girls never really liked me anyway. It seemed like an easy out to just say that I had to take care of my mom, and that’s why I never got married.”

“You sure wrote yourself off early!” Amanda was leaning against a dresser because she wasn’t going to sit on his bed.

“Even before I got sick, I was shy with girls. After I got sick it pretty much sealed my fate for homecoming and the prom. I missed at least half of my junior and senior years in high school, and people were so freaked around me anyway that it was just easier to avoid the whole thing. After I didn’t go to the junior prom, my mom sort of panicked and re-designed the whole basement. She asked me at least once a week if I wanted to invite a girl over to watch a movie, but I always said no. She’s practically foaming at the mouth now that you’re here.”

Amanda blushed and turned around to look at the trophies so he wouldn’t see her face. She had no idea how to feel about his invitation—if it was a date, or were they just hanging out as friends, or what. She walked away and asked if dinner was ready.

He jumped up too. “It must be. Come on up.” She followed him upstairs where he finished the house tour. The kitchen was big and open, separated from the living area by a large counter-breakfast bar. There were two bedrooms upstairs in addition to the master bedroom, which were designated for Jake’s older sisters even though neither of them had lived in the house for years.

Upstairs Amanda noticed the balloons were the centerpiece at the table, which was set for two.

“I have to ask about Bozo the balloon,” Amanda said. “Is he another tradition?”

“It’s a running joke,” Trix said with a smile. “Usually Jacob’s sisters are here for his coming home dinner, but both of them are busy this weekend and since he was only in for a couple of days they felt fine about missing it.” She brought a beautiful platter with sliced pork tenderloin, surrounded by new potatoes and asparagus. “Jacob has never liked clowns, ever since he saw that awful movie,
Poltergeist
, with that little blonde girl who goes into the TV, and the boy who gets strangled by the clown. Jessie used to watch Bozo in the mornings before school and Jacob hated it. I swear she did it just to bother him. They’re only two years apart and they fought like cats. Anyway, the first time Jacob came home from the hospital, Jessie decorated his room with clown pictures and clown dolls. It was kind of her way of saying that he wasn’t too sick to pick on.”