“I’m just awestruck. Well done Danielle’s group!” I say over the noise.
The bell rings and they forget all about the slow clap as they stampede toward the door. I yell goodbye to them and start to straighten the desks into rows for tomorrow, nice and neat and orderly, unlike my insides. My eye catches on something hot pink in the back of the room and I make my way toward it, bend and pluck the post-it off the floor between my fingertips. I turn it over and read what’s clearly a child’s handwriting.
Shadow Daddy
And just like that, my own Ms. Pacman is swallowed whole by Jessica’s pain.
Chapter Forty-Seven
Jeff
Lesson 48: Excision is never easy. Excision from the heart can be deadly.
I hate removing hardware from the human body. Obviously, it comes with the job, just as implanting the hardware does, but there is always a greater risk the second time you open someone up. The tissue is more scarred. Vessels and nerves are at greater risk than the original surgery. And the incision is always bigger the second time around. The surgery I just performed, my last of the day, was no exception to this general rule.
All in all, the removal was not as clean as I’d have liked—far more difficult than I expected.
Much like my removal of Devon from my life. Except more difficult doesn’t cover it. Devon isn’t a screw that I can pull from my bone. She’s the marrow itself.
Of course, it might not hurt as much if I were to restrain myself from the contact I have with her mom and Tara; not to mention Mer, Kev, and Syd. I feel like every text and phone call between us is just covered in Devon even though the only one to come right out and mention her name is Sydney. She refuses to let it go. Even if Devon has told her a hundred times that it’s over.
Last Saturday she told me that Devon saw the sunflowers and cards I’d sent the teens at the ED ward and had immediately teared up and left for the bathroom. The goal was to make her smile, not cry. But Syd insists that these little breakdowns are steps in the right direction. I’m just unsure what the right direction is.
My own family isn’t much help, either. They do nothing to skirt around the fact that they’ve been in contact with her. My traitorous mother even sent out a care package, procured and put together by my sister. I, on the other hand, have been given no such care. In fact, one of the first things my mother said to me after we’d sealed and stamped the final check to the mortgage company, was “Go get her, you idiot.”
It’s so cold in Chicago, the moment I step outside the hospital doors, I can’t feel my face. Sirens squeal in the distance on their way toward where I just left, and I send a silent wish that everything turns out ok for whoever needs that awful sound. I bite off my glove and shake out my fingers as I hurry toward Lake Shore Drive. The closer I get to the water, the windier it gets, and when I pull my phone from my pocket, a few snowflakes float through the blueish light of my screen and make tiny wet dots on the glass. I swipe them away and dial Jenny.
“Hey,” she says. Sammy’s voice squeals in the background that she has Gin Rummy.
“What do you guys want to eat?” I ask her.
“Pizza is fine.”
Sammy claps in the background and starts a “Pizza” chant. I hear my mother join in and almost smile.
“We had pizza last night,” I remind her.
“Fan favorite,” Jenny says.
She tells Sammy to deal again. The kid is a card shark thanks to hours with Grams.
“Alright, be over in about an hour. I have somewhere to go first.”
Jenny is silent for a moment, perhaps debating whether or not to ask where I’m headed. A gust of wind steals my breath as I step onto the walking path along Lake Michigan and then Jenny’s soft voice fills my ear again.
“Love you, J.J.”
“Love you, too.”
I hear everyone in the background yell their love for me and then the line goes silent. All of that love and somehow my chest still aches with every frigid breath I take.
I keep my eyes focused on the white stone turrets of Northwestern University that try to reach up toward the glass skyscrapers along Michigan Ave. A modicum of warmth flows through me at the thought of Sydney’s upcoming visit next week. She’s going to knock the socks off of this admissions interviewer. The man she’s scheduled with doesn’t know what he’s in for. Her personal essay was so moving—vulnerable and inspiring—I could barely speak for an hour after reading it.
I head through the tree-lined commons area, passing the college students in their boots and mittens on their way to whatever party or bar is least likely to check IDs. I follow the signs for the path toward Feinberg School of Medicine and push through the heavy wooden doors beneath the arched entryway.
There’s a guest lecturer tonight, and I have an appointment to talk to her directly after her presentation. Which ended fiveminutes ago. I hurry toward the auditorium as students and doctors file past me, shrugging on coats and wrapping on scarves as they go. They are discussing the lecture, commenting on the power of positive thinking and on the studies that surprised them most. I get to the open doors just as the last student pushes out.
The woman who is in the center of the semicircular lecture hall surprises me with how young she is and I can hear Devon’s voice reprimanding me for being an ageist or sexist or both. She’s bent over her computer at the table in the center pit, adjusting the text on a slide about body image that is mirrored on the huge projection screen behind her. I clear my throat and start down the steps. She pauses what she’s doing and looks up at me, pushing her glasses up into her dark hair.
