Heart the Lover (50)

Sam and I look at each other. Yash shuts his eyes on us. Jamie comes in to check his vitals.



I leave the room before Sam can question me. I return to the alcove and sit with my back to everything. I take my phone out of my bag to check the time. The home screen is plastered with texts and missed calls from Silas, Jack, Harry, and the family group chat. My heart begins to race.

Jack has gotten a date for the brain stem surgery.

I scroll reluctantly through all the messages. Wednesday. This coming Wednesday. They want us in Houston by tomorrow night to begin pre-op testing on Monday morning. Jack’s texts are ecstatic, all caps, with happy dancing emojis. The percentages, the numbers, mean nothing to him. All I can think about are the cold numbers and the risks—cognitive damage, paralysis, death—and all he can see is his life returned to him.

Silas’ follow-up texts are logistical. He’s gotten the three of us on a flight out of Portland tomorrow afternoon and a room with two queens at the hotel attached to the hospital, and has arranged for his favorite sub to take over all his classes for the week and for Harry to stay with his best friend Eli’s family. Then Harry has written to say he has nothing going on in school the next few days and he wants to come with us and use his savings to pay for it. Silas writes that he has got Harry on our flight, too. Jack writes with more emojis that Harry is coming too. Harry has coped with Jack’s illness by pretending it isn’t happening. The first two surgeries were close by, in Boston, but he wouldn’t come to the hospital. Now he’s coming to Houston. The tears start as I write them back. I want to call Silas and talk to all of them, but I’m crying too hard and it would scare them.

‘Jordan.’ Sam sits in the little chair next mine. ‘Are you okay?’

I hold up the phone. ‘My son got a date for a big surgery.’

‘That’s good.’ Yash has told him about Jack. ‘When?’

‘Wednesday. In Houston.’ I wipe my face with the heels of my palms. ‘Sorry. I can’t seem to stop.’ It feels a lot like being in Ray Hart’s classroom, every awful terrifying thing flooding my system at once. ‘Did Yash tell you?’

‘No. He’s not speaking to anyone. What happened?’

‘I’m not sure he’s going to talk to me again. I hope he’ll talk to you.’

He nods. He reminds me of Silas then, the way he doesn’t ask more. ‘I’m going to get us some soup.’

He comes back in fifteen minutes with tomato soup, a grilled cheese sandwich, and a cup of tea. I’ve mostly stopped crying.

The food tastes good. He’s gotten himself a grilled cheese, too.

‘I really dreaded seeing you, Sam.’

He nods. ‘I had some apprehension, too. Jordan, this is way too late, but I’m sorry. I truly am. I behaved badly.’



‘I’m sorry, too. I wasn’t very honest with you. Or anyone, really.’

‘I knew. I probably knew before either of you knew. I think some perverse part of me wanted to see how it all played out.’

Down the hall Yash’s mother is asking where Sam is. He doesn’t get up.

‘I can still see you on the ground,’ he says. ‘At that party. I didn’t mean to push you.’

‘I know that.’

‘I can still see the way you were looking at me. When I think of my boys going off to college and behaving like that . . .’ He shakes his head and crushes the sandwich wrapper into a small ball.

‘Are you still religious?’

‘No. Yash never told you?’

‘We didn’t speak of you. I know nothing about your life.’

He nods, taking this in. ‘After Ivan died I had a crisis of faith. Existential. Explosive. It blew up my marriage, estranged me from my parents and siblings, my community. Yash was basically the only one left, he was right there for me. He carried me through it. He had his own grief about Ivan and his own struggles, and he carried me on his back for two years. I wanted to die and he wouldn’t let me.’ He leans closer to me. ‘I don’t know the whole story, but since the moment he met you, I know he would have done anything for you.’

‘Except that one time when I really needed him to be there.’

‘You probably won’t believe me, but when he arrived at my door that night, I told him he was making a mistake. I knew how much he loved you. Because he’d risked our friendship for you. But he’s complicated. I can’t say I fully understand him even now. He chose to spend his life alone. It’s not something that just happened to him.’

Yash’s mom is calling our names. She finds us in the alcove. ‘It’s rounds,’ she says sharply. A little glimmer of the anger Yash described.

Sam stands. I don’t.

‘You’re not coming?’

‘I think it’s better if I don’t.’

‘All right. Don’t leave, okay? When’s your flight?’

‘At nine.’

He looks at his watch. ‘Stay till seven thirty. Whatever exchange you had with him, don’t go early. Give him some time and have one more talk with him. Say goodbye. Goodbyes are important.’

He walks back down to Yash’s room. I think that’s the longest conversation Sam and I have ever had.