Дэвид Балдаччи - One Summer

“How can you be so sure?”

“Sometimes you just know.”

“Jack, I have to tell you that what’s happening to you is medically impossible.”

“Medicine is not everything.”

The doctor looked him over and saw the new muscle, the fuller face, and the eyes that burned with a rigid intensity.

“Why do you think this is happening to you, Jack?” he finally asked.

“You’re a doctor; you wouldn’t understand.”

“I’m also a human being, and I’d very much like to know.”

Jack reached in his drawer and pulled out a photo. He passed it to the doctor.

It was a photo of Lizzie and the kids.

“Because of them,” said Jack.

“But I thought your wife passed away.”

Jack shook his head. “Doesn’t matter.”

“What?”

“When you love someone, you love them forever.”

Two days later, Jack was in his room eating a full meal. He’d put on three more pounds. The doctor walked in and perched on the edge of the bed.

“Okay, I officially believe in miracles. Your blood work came back negative. No trace of the disease. It’s like something came along and chased it away. Never seen anything like it. There’s no way to explain it medically.”

Jack swallowed a mouthful of mashed potatoes and smiled. “I’m glad you finally came around.”

He saw his kids that night on the computer. He believed he actually made Jackie understand that he was getting better. At least his son’s last words had been, “Daddy’s boo-boo’s gone.”

Cory had blurted out, “When are you coming to see me?”

“I hope soon, big guy. I’ll let you know. I’ve still got a ways to go. But I’m getting there.”

Mikki’s reaction surprised him, and not in a good way.

“Is this some kind of trick?” she asked.

Jack slowly sat up in his chair as he stared at her. “Trick?”

“When we left you, Dad, you were dying. That’s what hospice is for. You said good-bye to all of us. You made me go live with Gramps and her !”

“Honey, it’s no trick. I’m getting better.”

She suddenly dissolved into tears. “Well then, will you be coming to take us home? Because I hate it here.”

“I’m doing my best, sweetie. With a little more time I think—”

But Mikki hit a key and the computer screen went black.

Jack slowly sat back. He never heard the squeak of the gurney as the woman across the hall made her final journey from this place.

Day turned to night, and Jack hadn’t moved. No food, no liquids, no words spoken to anyone who came to see him.

Finally, at around two a.m., he stirred. He rose from his bed and walked up and down the hall before persuading a nurse to scavenge in the kitchen for some food. He ate and watched his reflection in the window.

I’m coming, Mikki. Dad’s coming for you.

A week later he weighed over one-sixty and was walking the halls for an hour at a time. Like an infant, he was relearning how to use his arms and legs. He would flex his fingers and toes, curl and uncurl his arms, bend his legs. The nursing staff watched him carefully, unaccustomed to this sort of thing. Families of other hospice patients observed him curiously. At first Jack was afraid they would be devastated by his progress when their loved ones still lay dying. At least he thought that, until one woman approached him. She was in her sixties and was here every day. Jack knew that her husband had terminal cancer. He’d passed by the man’s door and seen the shriveled body under the sheets. He was waiting to die, like everyone else here.

Everyone except me.

She slipped her arm through his and said, “God bless you.”

He looked at her questioningly.

“You give us all hope.”

Jack felt slightly panicked. “I don’t know why this is happening to me,” he said frankly. “But it’s an awfully long shot.”

“That’s not what I meant. I know my husband is going to die. But you still give us all hope, honey.”

Jack went back to his room and stared at himself in the mirror. He looked more like himself now. The jawline was firming, the hair fuller. He walked slowly to the window and looked outside at a landscape that was still more in the grips of winter than spring, though that season was not too far off. He’d spent several winters apart from his family while he carried a rifle for his country. Lying in his quarters outside of Baghdad or Kabul he had closed his eyes and visualized Christmas with his family. The laughter of Mikki and Cory as they opened presents on Christmas morning.

And then there was the memory of Lizzie’s smile as she looked at the small gifts that Jack had bought her before he was deployed for the first time. It had been the summer, so he had gotten her sunblock, a bikini, and a book on grilling. She’d later sent him a photo by e-mail of her wearing the bikini while cooking hot dogs on the Hibachi with mounds of snow behind her. That image had carried him through one hellish battle after another. His wife. Her smile. Wanting so badly to come back to her. That all seemed so long ago, and in some important ways it was.

He went to his nightstand and pulled out the bundle of letters. Each had a number on the envelope. He selected the envelope with the number one on it and slid the paper out. The letter was dated December eighteenth and represented the first one he’d written to Lizzie. He gazed down at the handwriting that was his but that also wasn’t because the disease had made him so weak. Sometimes while writing he’d had to put down the pen because he just couldn’t hold it any longer. But still it was readable. It said what he had wanted to say. It was the accomplishment of a man who was doing this as his final act in life.

Dear Lizzie,

There are things I want to say to you that I just don’t have the breath for anymore. That’s why I’ve decided to write you these letters. I want you to have them after I’m gone. They’re not meant to be sad, just my chance to talk to you one more time. When I was healthy you made me happier than any person has a right to be. When I was half a world away, I knew that I was looking at the same sky you were, thinking of the same things you were, wanting to be with you and looking forward to when I could be. You gave me three beautiful children, which is a greater gift than I deserved. I tell you this, though you already know it, because sometimes people don’t talk about these things enough. I want you to know that if I could’ve stayed with you I would have. I fought as hard as I could. I will never understand why I had to be taken from you so soon, but I have accepted it. Yet I want you to know that there is nothing more important to me than you. I loved you from the moment I saw you. And the happiest day of my life was when you agreed to share your life with mine. I promised that I would always be there for you. And my love for you is so strong that even though I won’t be there physically, I will be there in every other way. I will watch over you. I will be there if you need to talk. I will never stop loving you. Not even death is powerful enough to overcome my feelings for you. My love for you, Lizzie, is stronger than anything.

Love,

He put the letter back in the envelope and replaced the packet in the drawer. He slipped the photo from the pocket of his robe and looked at it. From the depths of the color print, his family smiled back at him. He thought of all the others in this place who would never leave it alive. He had been spared.

Why me?

Jack had no ready answer. But he did know one thing. He was not going to waste a second chance at living.

A few days later, Jack Armstrong was discharged from hospice and sent to a rehab facility. He rode over in a shuttle van. The driver was an older guy with a soft felt cap and a trim white beard. Jack was his only passenger.