The Wish Collector
Page 34

And for the first time in many, many years, someone else’s woes outshone his own.
Maybe he could still be useful to the world after all. And he didn’t have to wait to stumble upon a drug deal gone wrong in a dark alley. Maybe he could be Angelina.
He smiled, feeling the skin stretch over the damaged side of his face, reminding him of his limitations. Still, there was a lightness to his heart, and the day grew even brighter.
**********
Translucent marigold rays streamed from behind the silver-plated clouds, bringing light and warmth to the day that had begun in shades of sallow gray. Jeannie wished it could penetrate the pewter sorrow that surrounded her heart.
She glanced up at the hospital room window where Matthew lay sleeping, her precious boy who wouldn’t be long for this world. She had no idea how she would survive without him.
She sat heavily on the wooden bench, warmed by the sunshine, and stared blankly out at the path where patients exercised, some holding the arm of a nurse, others being pushed in a wheelchair. Everyone was taking advantage of the break in gloomy weather to take a stroll outdoors.
A man approached the bench and she saw him in her peripheral vision, though she didn’t turn in his direction. She caught the image of bandages on his face and a black, athletic jacket with a collar that was turned upward, shielding his neck and chin.
He walked crouched over as though he were old, but something about the size and breadth of his body didn’t fit his movements. If she had to describe his body type, and even though she hadn’t looked at him full on, she’d go with . . . strapping. Odd, though she moved the strange feeling aside as he sat down on the edge of the bench, hunching over, his elbows on his knees, as he watched the other patients amble by on broken limbs, and sickly bodies.
She was curious but she wasn’t afraid. She was out in the open, a dozen other people strolling directly in front of her, and frankly, she didn’t have any more fear to offer the world.
Her greatest terror was losing her baby boy, and the imminence of that hung heavily over her like a boulder attached by a thread. And when the crushing came, it would flatten her.
“Your son is sick?”
Jeannie turned toward the man then, surprised at his words. He was looking out at the path in front of them and she could only see his profile, heavily bandaged in white gauze.
He wore a baseball cap so she couldn’t tell anything about whether his injury extended to his head, or only involved his face. And she couldn’t see his hair that might have given a clue about his age, though his voice was young and deep and smooth.
“I’m sorry. Do I know you?”
The man paused. “I’ve heard you talk about your son. Matthew, right? He’s very sick?”
Jeannie frowned. This man must be a patient here. He must have overheard Matthew’s diagnosis, maybe seen them walking in the halls. She knew a lot about the other patients too, simply because she spent so much time at the hospital.
She’d never seen this man, though perhaps he’d recently had his surgery and when he’d been in the same room as her before, he’d looked very different.
Jeannie sighed. Everyone here had a story, obviously his held trauma too. “Cancer. He’s very sick.”
There was another pause, and then the man said, “I’m sorry. I thought I heard you say he needs surgery.”
Jeannie glanced at him. He was definitely a patient here then. Lord knew she’d been talking and crying and practically begging the doctors to help her find a way to get Matthew into the study that was performing a surgery on kids with his disease.
They’d already been having huge successes, even in advanced cases, and Matthew was a great candidate, but insurance didn’t cover the experimental treatment, and she didn’t have anywhere near the money to afford it.
The doctors were sympathetic to her case, and they cared deeply about Matthew, she knew they did, but other than listen to her cry, there wasn’t much else they could do.
Jeannie didn’t have any family who could help her, Matthew’s father had taken off the moment he found out about his existence, and she was all her son had in the world.
And I’m failing him.
She told the man all this, a tear slipping down her cheek. She wasn’t sure why she opened up to the stranger who had obviously been wounded so badly, other than that she didn’t seem to be able to help herself—the words just tumbled out of her as though they’d been dammed up and finally allowed to flow freely.
And there was also the fact that his voice held an empathy that only those who had felt pain themselves seemed to carry. She’d never recognized it before, but she’d know it now, she’d hear it in others for the rest of her days. Anguish did that, she supposed, honed your senses to hear and see and feel the unspoken sorrow in others.
“I’m sorry,” she said, shaking her head. “You probably weren’t looking for all that.”
He let out a breath and she sensed there was a smile with it, if he could manage one with whatever was happening with his face under all the gauze. “I’m sure you weren’t looking for all that either. Sometimes life just . . . bowls you over.”
She smiled and it surprised her. It felt unpracticed, as though she hadn’t smiled in a very long time. But it felt good too, as if she should try to do it more often.
She wanted to be strong for Matthew. She wanted him to see that she’d be okay when he was gone. Whether she believed it or not, she knew it would bring him peace. Her tiny caretaker, the boy who’d taken on the role of man of the house as if he was born to protect.
God, he would have grown up to be an amazing man. A leader. A force of good in the world. She felt it deep inside, not just as a proud mother, but as a woman who had made too many bad choices when it came to men and finally learned how to spot a good one because he had been placed right into her arms.
“I’m already thinking about him in past tense.” Another tear slipped down her cheek. “I need to stop that,” she whispered. “The truth is, he’s what set me on the right path. Before him, I was heading for, well, nothing good, let’s put it that way.”
Jeannie made a small, embarrassed sound, but the man remained silent. It was a comfortable silence, and she lingered in it for a moment, picturing her life before Matthew, and thanking God for him and the change in direction her unplanned pregnancy had caused her to make.
“You wished for the ability to get this surgery for him.”
She frowned. He must mean in general. There was no way he could know of her desperate attempt to take advantage of a local legend she’d heard about once as a kid. “Yes, yes, I wish for it every day. He won’t be a candidate at all if he gets any worse.”
“I’d like to grant your wish.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out an envelope and handed it to her.
She took it, staring down at it in confusion. “What is this?”
“Stay on that path you’re on,” the man said, standing. “Make sure your son stays on the right path too. Help him grow into a good man.”
Jeannie could see then that she’d been right about the size of him. He was tall and broad and yes, strapping. And yet, he’d first appeared to walk as though he was old and sick.
He turned to her for a brief moment and her eyes widened. He turned away quickly, but before he had, sunlight had flashed on his bandage wrapped face and it’d appeared that underneath the gauze, he was wearing a skeleton mask, the fakeness of it obvious in the stark black and white contrast.
Jeannie was momentarily shaken, taken off guard. She glanced at the envelope she was now clutching tightly in her grasp, tearing it open. Inside was a cashier’s check made out to her in the amount of fifty thousand dollars.
She stood, looking around frantically for the stranger who’d just granted her greatest wish, the stranger who may have very well given her son a death reprieve.
Patients strolled and hobbled all around her, but the man was nowhere. He’d disappeared.
Jeannie let out a joyful sob, and ran toward the hospital, toward her boy.
**********
“You sound happy, Jonah.”
Jonah smiled, sitting in the chair in the corner of his bedroom and toeing his shoes off. Am I?