“Will I miss her?” he asks.
I sigh, releasing some of the sadness from my body. Sometimes I forget that Jackson was only three when Marissa had her accident. At that time, he was so confused about why she wasn’t living with us anymore. But as time moved on, he got used to our new normal, and I worry that being so young, he doesn’t remember her like I do. “I don't know, buddy. I think so, at times. This is new for both of us so we can figure it out together. Maybe when you’re older and we talk about her more you’ll miss her. But…” I pause. “It’s okay if you forget sometimes, or if you need to ask me questions, if you want to know anything about her or what happened, you know you can talk to me, right?”
He nods, his nod turning into another yawn.
I pull the blankets up over his legs. “But for now, it’s bedtime. Want me to stay here while you fall asleep?”
I ask the same question every night, hoping that he will want me to stay but not wanting to baby him any longer than he needs. Jackson was a terrible sleeper as a baby. My sister and I would have to sleep in shifts, the one who was awake would sit in the recliner scrolling social media while he slept on our chest because that’s the only way he would sleep for nearly a year.
It got better as he got older, but we’d always lay with him until he fell asleep, then ninja roll out of bed to sneak out of the room. It got worse again once Marissa had her accident, he had nightmares and would wake up scared or confused. I can’t recall how many times I slept on the floor next to him, or squeezed into his twin size bed, waking up the next morning with a stiff neck and sore hips. Once he turned four, he’d tell me he’d be finealone. I haven’t laid with him while he’s fallen asleep for the last six months.
He nods, rolling over so his back faces me. “Rub my back?”
I roll onto my side, reaching a hand over to rub the space between his shoulder blades in a slow, methodical pattern. Within minutes I hear his breathing even out, and I slow my movements until I feel my eyelids grow heavy. I pause my actions, keeping my hand splayed on his back as I let myself drift off to sleep.
~
I jolt awake, eyes flying open noticing the thick darkness in Jackson’s room. I wiggle my arm out from underneath his body, pulling his blankets up and making sure Clark is within reach before slowly climbing out of bed and sneaking out of the room.
Lainey and Jenna offered to stay and finish cleaning up, but in my most polite, please-leave-before-I-lose-my-shit voice, I asked them to leave. I need the mess to keep myself busy, to keep my mind from wandering down dark back alleys once I’m alone. They saw themselves out when I went to lay with Jackson, so when I close the bedroom door, I’m startled when I hear movement coming from the kitchen.
If there is one person who tends not to listen to me, it’s Jim, so it shouldn’t surprise me to find him standing at the kitchen sink. The sleeves of his dress shirt are pushed up past his elbows, corded forearms rinsing the last of the dishes under the faucet. He leans a baking sheet against a stack of others that are air drying, before reaching for a clean towel. I stay silent, standing in the center of the living room as I watch him start to dry each dish, slowly, so quietly as to not wake anyone. It isn’t until heturns to lay a clean dish on the island behind him that he notices my presence.
“You didn’t have to do this,” I tell him, gesturing to the pile of clean, stacked dishes as I move forward.
“I didn’t know where any of them went, and I didn’t want to risk waking you guys up if I was banging around, trying to find their spot.”
“It’s okay to leave them, really. It’ll give me something to occupy my mind.”
He finishes wiping his hands, meticulously folding the towel in half before hanging it on the handle of the oven. “Well, everything is clean anyways. I’ll leave it to you to put them away if you won’t let me.”
I move forward until I reach the couch, propping my butt against the back and crossing my arms. Jim comes around the island, reaching for his suit coat and draping it over a forearm. He pulls his keys from his pants pockets, jingling them in his hands.
“How’s Jackson?”
I shrug my shoulders. “He’s confused, I think. He knows she’s gone, but his life has been so different for almost two years. He probably doesn’t really get how different it will be going forward.”
He nods. “I think he’s doing great for being just a kid.”
“Marissa was a good mom.”
“I’m sure she was, but so are you. Don’t discount all you’ve done for him.”
I purse my lips together, nodding once. I don’t think I can physically say anything else without losing it, and I refuse to lose it. My body can’t take another break down.
He looks at the set of keys in his hand, letting the coil slip over his ring finger. He flips the keys around, grasping them in his palm before releasing, swinging them around his fingers tograsp them again. Both of us focus on the movement of his keys, unmoving.
“Did I ever tell you my mom passed from cancer?”
My stomach lurches. All this time, all of the conversations we’ve had, I realize now he doesn’t talk about his mom as much. He’s talked about his brothers; I know their names and where they live and the bull headed things they did as kids. I know about the family company, but I’ve been too caught up in my own drama to notice otherwise. “Oh my gosh, I’m so sorry, Jim. I’m sorry I—”
He puts a hand up to stop me. “That’s not why I brought this up.”
He’s quiet for a few minutes, digging the teeth of his keys into his palm, his eyes focused on the white indentations they leave in his skin.
“I was twenty-eight. I was two years into my residency when I got the call that she had cancer. It’s stupid. She had Hodgkin’s Lymphoma, and in the world of cancers it’s considered one of the more curable ones, but by the time she got the diagnosis it was already the end stage.” He chuckles. “I hated the medical world at that time. She was 49. A nearly fifty-year-old woman goes to the doctor to tell them she’s tired and itchy, and what do you think they said?”
I know all too well how quickly someone can be passed over in the medical world. I see it from both sides. Diagnosing is hard. Someone comes in with vague symptoms, and there isn’t a one-size-fits-all test to diagnose. And insurance likely wouldn’t pay for it if the doctor ordered every test possible. “She was brushed off.”
