I'm both excited and anxious to get this chapter out to you. I wanted to post it on the weekend but I simply couldn't stop myself, because I really want to know what you guys think about this one. Personally, I like this installment a lot, which is a rare occurrence. The insecurity lingers nonetheless.
To sum it up for you, this chapter is set in 2008, and it's probably the most decisive turning point in the Halstead brother's relationship. Without further ado, let's get into this. Enjoy!
Chapter Ten
Leave Me Where I Lay, Ragged Pile of Bones, Forever Alone
St. Paul de Vence – Farther Than Light
The death of a mother was one of if not the most devastating loss a person had to endure in life.
While losing either parent was undeniably hard, it was usually the passing of the mom that hit the hardest and left a ripping heartache so excruciating that people felt like part of them perished along with her. It didn't matter if the relationship was strained whilst she was alive. It didn't matter if a person was closer to their father than their mother. Even for a daddy's girl or boy there was always something special, something untouchable and inseverable about the bond between a mother and her child. After all, she was the one who carried and nurtured them, especially in those earliest days of their existence. It all came down to this intimate connection. An intuitive attachment, developed in those crucial first months and years of a infant's life, that always remained a lurking shadow in the back of a person's mind. And it was this very instinct and tenderness that was the reason why people loved their moms unconditionally and mourned their losses on such a profound level, no matter how tainted by unpleasant memories and less than stellar circumstances their relationship might have been.
Losing a mother was so utterly poignant for other reasons too. In most settings she was the heart and soul of the family: a manager albeit without a fancy college degree. She was a multitasking coordinator of gatherings and events, a skilled entertainer and communicator, a mediator and a safety blanket. She was the one making everyone see rationale when the family was short of domestic bliss. She was the one bringing all the members of the clan to the table every night with a home-cooked dinner. She was the one who urged them to apologize to one another and hug it out when disagreement lingered. In other words: a mother was the driving motor ensuring that the family worked like a well-oiled machine, and she was also the kit holding it all together. But to her own flesh and blood she was so much more than that.
Provided there was a strong link between them, a mom was, is and always will be the one to stand behind her child. The one supporting them boundlessly, the one advocating for them no matter the troubles they might get themselves into. She was the one consoling and mending their first broken heart, offering advice and giving them the strength to face the next day. She was the one encouraging them to thrive in their scholastics without being pushy, allowing them to rise to challenges and pursue their aspirations in life in a positive and constructive manner. Sometimes the bond went so deep that a mother became a lifelong best friend, the most trusted confidant of her child. And this was ultimately, what made saying goodbye to her that much more difficult when the time came for her to part from the world.
With a mother's departure family structures compulsorily changed. Roles shifted as the remaining family members were forced to adjust to the new situation. With young children involved who were still heavily dependent on parental guidance, fathers had to step up. They had to shoulder the additional responsibilities of their missing counterpart. If they were unable to or unavailable, close relatives like grandparents, aunts and uncles, or maybe older siblings had to fill the void a deceased mother left behind. Ideally, those modifications to the dynamics brought the bereaved closer together. But there was always risk of disintegration, the risk of relationships fragmenting and family members drifting apart and this peril often increased the older potentially involved children were. It also hinged on how grand a role the mother had played in keeping the band together, on how cordial and harmonious the undercurrents had been before. If there had been cracks in the façade prior to her demise, it was all the likelier that a family fell apart over her loss.
One day after Sadhbh's funeral it was still too early to tell how exactly her death would affect the Halstead men, but the probable outcome already loomed ahead. To Jay it had been apparent long before his mom's heart had stopped beating, long before her lungs had sucked in their final sporadic breaths, and long before her brain had been too clouded by opioids to think straight. Glaringly telling had been his father's and brother's absence from the hospital, even more so their lack of coherence and support. To the young sergeant it was eye-opening that neither had attempted to reach out in the two months leading up to his mom's last day alive on earth. She deserved so much better than the dismissal she got from them. And while the youngest had tried to convince himself that he had only ever wanted them to reach out to her, he had secretly just as much wanted them to ask how he was faring in all of this. He could pretend all he wanted that he didn't care, but he ached so desperately to share his grief with the only two people who had just lost the same precious person he had.
But it was wishful thinking. No matter how badly he yearned for the three of them to be some semblance of a family, for them to be huddled together in the tiny living room – his father in the recliner while he and Will shared the worn couch – Jay had ended up alone in the nine by nine feet space regardless. Slouched in the armchair, right leg drawn up, his elbow propped up and his forehead nestled in the palm of his hand, the ranger stared at the same unoccupied spot on the shabby old loveseat where the covers were singed from what he could only assume to be cigarette burns.
The sight of them brought him back to that recent yet so distant memory from a week ago. When Jay had initially come home from the hospital that night after the doctors had called his mother's death, he'd been shocked by how run down he'd found the house. The entire place had been a disaster, the parlor by far in the worst state of neglect out of all the rooms. Three out of five bulbs in the old chandelier had been burnt-out, the throw pillows on the sofa soiled with grease and beer stains and the furniture had collected at least half an inch of dust. Month-old newspapers, magazines and mail had been scattered around, beer bottles and cigarette butts as well as all sorts of unidentifiable trash had littered every surface of the tiny family room. The most disgusting were the half empty takeout containers with God knew what kind of new species of life growing in them and the repellent smell – a mix of mold, stale alcohol, cold smoke and most revoltingly: bodily fluids – permeating the air.
Had his nose and stomach not been steeled by the horrible stenches he'd been subjected to in the hellhole of Afghanistan, the ranger would have bolted on his heel and retched right onto the stairs of the front porch.
For a second, he'd been positive that he had stepped into a twilight zone. But he knew this place by heart. He knew every creaking floorboard in the house, and he knew how the fifth step of the stairs was slightly steeper than the rest of them. He knew that in order to close the front door he had to lever it up just a tad. He knew never to lock the bathroom door, because the crooked metal easily got stuck, and he knew he needed to flick the switch in the family room a couple of times for it to turn on the light because there had been a slack joint for years that they had never cared to repair. He knew every lose spring in the couch and the exact spot where an old rusty nail poked out from under the coffee table because he had torn at least a dozen pants on it. Underneath all the junk those little defects and quirks were still there somewhere, so there was no doubt that this was the house he'd grown up in.
Nevertheless, the decrepitude pained him immensely. The Halstead residence, while it had never matched the sterility of a Mr. Clean commercial, had always been well kept, at least up until his mom had fallen ill. She'd always had a motto and she had drilled it into Will and Jay that, "it's important to keep order, but for a house to feel like a home it also needs to show signs of habitation." So, there had always been just the right amount of clutter. She had always accidently forgotten about one mug and a spoon when she'd done the dishes, just as she had forgotten to dust one corner of the bookshelf. Always a different one so that no-one could tell, but he had noticed anyway.
And then there had been the little back and forth with the shoes, the playful banter between Sadhbh and her youngest that had always been an open secret between the two. One of his mother's quirks had been to disrupt any sign of perfection and that had included the sneakers lined up at the front door. For as long as the brunette could remember she had always scattered one boot, just one, to keep the illusion of carelessness. She had always done it right before she went to bed, so that no one would notice. But one night, Jay had watched her do it, and it had sparked a jocular competition. As an early riser, the youngest Halstead had made it his first act of the day to put the shoes in a perfect orderly straight line, and he'd done the same every night before retreating to his room, knowing that the next morning he'd find one sneaker jumbled again.
They had repeated they spiel every single day for the entirety of his teenage years. It was their little thing. And even though Jay had believed himself to be inconspicuous about his shenanigans, he was certain that his mom had always had her suspicions that it was him. She'd said as much just a week before her passing, and he had admitted to it then, their reminiscing allowing them a rare, unburdened fit of laughter in a hopeless situation. He could still hear her soft silver giggle in his head, and he missed it so much that his heart constricted painfully. Missed it even more once he had seen the pure chaos of the house. She would have been devastated, had she seen the state their home was in.
It was that agonizing thought of what her reaction would have been that had spurred him into action that night despite his bone-deep fatigue. On autopilot he'd scrubbed the whole place down, room by room, never once stopping until there had been no evidence of filthiness left. He'd thrown out every piece of garbage, vacuumed every crumb of the floor and scoured the covers and carpets. He'd dusted and disinfected every surface, washed the spreads, blankets, pillowcases, even the curtains. He'd switched out the defect lightbulbs in the chandelier, fixed a leaking faucet in the bathroom and screwed a kitchen cabinet door on tight which had been off its hinges. He cleaned to near perfection, purposely leaving a coffee mug and a teaspoon on the kitchen counter and deliberately foregoing the far-right corner of the third shelf of the mantelpiece. He'd lined up the shoes in a neat line, fooling himself into believing that his mother would tug one boot out later that night.
By the time he'd finished, he'd been so enervated that he had collapsed in the armchair in the living room. But it hadn't been the exhaustion or the pain from hours of straining his still mending shoulder and knee way beyond what the doctors and therapists had advised that had caused him to break down then and there. It had been the sudden realization that no amount of cleaning would ever make this house feel like home again. There was something or more specifically someone missing. And that someone who held the power to fill this place with warmth and coziness and love was forever gone. His mom would never intentionally leave dirty dishes, dusty corners or a disarrayed shoe ever again because his mom was never coming home.
He'd sobbed himself into a restless, dreamless sleep that night, and to this day it remained the only time he'd allowed his grief to bubble to the surface and spill over like that aside from the meltdown in the hospital. Even now, a day after they had put the final nail in the proverbial coffin, or rather the literal lid on the urn, Jay couldn't bring himself to cry again. He wanted to be back in that headspace from a few days ago, that state of denial, but he couldn't escape that final image of his mom that constantly filled his mind: the spindle fingers hanging lax in his hand, her rail-thin and frail body, no more than a carcass, and the bluish tint to her otherwise sickly white skin.
In the dimly lit parlor Jay nearly choked on the horror of that Godawful memory. His eyes fell on the framed black and white photograph clutched in his hand, a picture he memorized by heart from looking at it a million times in the past four years while on deployment. It had been his anchor in those cold and lonely sleepless nights out in the mountains of Korengal. He'd carried the six by four with him up until the day of the fateful attack on the convoy, his much thumbed and tattered copy forever lost in the blast that had atrociously killed so many of his comrades. Maybe the way it had dissolved to ash had been a vicious omen of what was waiting for him at home.
Jay's throat had clogged upon seeing the original print among the family portraits on the bookshelf days before. Its sight surmounting him with an overwhelming sense of calm and security, almost like the comforting arms of his mom wrapping around him, holding him just like they did in this very photo, while her gentle voice whispered affectionate and soothing words to him. He'd desperately clung to the picture ever since, in frantic hope of keeping that phantom feeling alive and replacing the horrible images in his mind's eye. Alas, it didn't.
A muffled crash startled him from his thoughts. The young man leapt from the armchair and accidentally knocked the monochrome from his hand in the process. It fell to the floor with a clink. A fleeting glance at the item revealed a large crack in the glass of the frame, and Jay cursed himself for being so jumpy. He'd conceited himself that he had overcome his jitteriness after those first days back in Chicago, but the adrenaline constantly pumping through his blood for the past week had reawakened his anxiety – at least that was his flimsy excuse. In reality, the smallest noise caused him to flinch. Whether it was the hum of the refrigerator, the chortle of the mixer tab or a stray animal hunting for food in the neighbor's backyard. Unexpected sounds sent him in an immediate state of panic, and every precipitous movement jarred on his not quite healed wounds.
The ranger tried to calm his nerves and even his hiccupping breathing when more thumps came from above. A door creaked, followed by heavy trampling down the stairs along with intermitted clunking of something metal hitting against the wooden railing. Jay gingerly stood, hissing as his hip and knee complained about overexertion and skipped physical therapy sessions. With a stiff limp he shuffled over to the arch opening into the narrow hallway. There he found his older brother descending the final three steps, a hefty suitcase in one hand and a dress bag housing the suit he'd worn to the funeral slung over his shoulder. "Will?" he rasped, sounding as if he'd just swallowed a jar of rusty nails. He cleared his throat. "What are you doing?"
Strands of red curls fell onto the forehead of the other man as he whiplashed his head in Jay's direction, acknowledging his presence briefly before busying himself with his luggage. "What does it look like?" he asked passive-aggressively as he placed the case in the corner and hung the garment bag on the knob of the front door. "I'm going back to New York." He turned on his axis in search of his sneakers and grabbed the shoehorn off the hook on the wall. His left foot lifted to the second to last step as Will slipped into the boot with one swift motion.
Eyes wide and lips slightly parted, Jay gaped at him in shock. The bags were a dead giveaway that the ginger intended on leaving, but hearing the verbal confirmation prompted a surge of fear. "What?" Will might not have given him the warm reunion and brotherly consolation he had hoped for, but for as long as he was still in Chicago there was at least a sliver of hope in him that the siblings might help and support each other through their intense grief. "No," he said determinedly and shook his head in denial as if that could stop the older man. "You… why?" He was met with a wall of silence. An icy sensation washed over Jay. "Will, you just got here two days ago. You can't just leave again." As much as he tried to keep the plea out of his voice he failed miserably.
Planting his left foot back on the floor, Will straightened his back and faced the other with a mask mostly devoid of emotion. Merely a hint of annoyance breezed over his features as he rolled his eyes. "Three," he corrected smart-alecky, then, upon seeing Jay's confused expression, clarified matter-of-factly, "I got here three days ago." He slipped into his right shoe as he added, "and yes, I can, and I will." The ginger turned away, bent down and proceeded tying the laces.
Jay furrowed his brows and arched his upper lips in utter disbelief, staring at the mop of unruly hair. "Will, mom just died!" he exclaimed incredulously, his tone alone delivering the impact of the words spoken and for a millisecond the crouching man halted his movement as if their meaning only just now sunk in. "How can you leave for New York when you are needed here?" Jay accused in desperation, voice quivering with accrued emotion and on the verge of breaking. "We need you here, man," he continued shakily. The postpositive, "I need you here," was no more than a heartbroken whisper.
The older man flinched as he heard the despair in Jay's forlorn revelation. He gulped. His little brother didn't ever admit to needing someone, saw it as a weakness. It was a belief that they had both been inculcated with by their father throughout their childhood, especially since they had reached an age in the double digits. Thus, the younger of the two had always been too stubborn to give the old man the satisfaction and endorsement of exposing his weak points. He refused to make himself susceptible to the hurt that would inevitably follow. The only one who'd ever been privileged to see the soft, sensitive side of him had been their mom. Now, to hear the brunette divulge his vulnerability to his big brother, who had basically iced him out for the duration of his stay, nearly paralyzed him.
Will stood slowly, daring a sideways glimpse at his younger sibling despite his better judgement not to. The watery Maui blue seas staring back at him squeezed his insides uncomfortably. The drawn features, the trembling of his lower lip, the anguished gaze, they were all a painful mirror of his own unaddressed grief. It was too much.
Shaking his head, he averted his eyes then turned away from Jay completely. He exhaled a shuddering breath to compose himself. "I can't stay, Jay. I have to get back to school." The redhead's voice was strained, yet there was an underlying tone which almost resembled that of a parent telling a five-year-old that Santa and the Easter bunny didn't exist and were merely a figment of their imagination. Will was certain, if he would glance at his brother, he'd find the same perplexed disbelief morphing into frozen shock on his features as the meaning of the words truly sank in. He couldn't face that look, had to keep convincing himself that his reasoning was valid instead. He was a third-year medical student living in an exorbitantly expensive city. He couldn't afford to slack and risk losing the scholarship he'd worked so hard for. If he did, he'd have to pick extra jobs to pay for costly student fees on top of to rent and bills. And if he had to pick up additional work, he'd have less time to study. It was a vicious cycle that he didn't want to be drawn into. He'd come too far for that and he had worked his ass off to get there.
He shook his head, hoping to keep the emotions at bay. Reaching for the coatrack he grabbed his black leather jacket, slipped into the rubbery sleeves and adjusted the collar. A thin light grey scarf was thrown around his neck, the ends dangling unevenly in front of his torso. He had to leave, couldn't stand the oppressing atmosphere of this house any longer, was sure he'd break if he remained here one more hour, much less another day.
Refusing to let his brother turn away from him like this, Jay surged forward on impulse. Stiff and cramped muscles in his left leg were forgotten about as he stumbled the short distance of the hallway. He almost made it to Will, fingertips barely brushing the ginger's shoulder when his knee buckled, the tendons still too weak to bear his full weight. The tearing sensation was all too familiar by now, but the ranger couldn't care less at this point. He felt betrayed by his own body. Possessing enough self-preservation, he grappled for the railing for balance, preventing a potentially further damaging unceremonious fall. His palm was sweaty, and his grip threatened to slip, knuckles turning white as he curled his fingers even tighter around the smooth cherry wood.
Upon seeing his younger sibling crumple from the peripheral of his vision, the older Halstead acted instinctively. He grabbed the flailing man under one elbow and the armpit, none too gently hoisting him up against the baluster for support. Jay grimaced as the column pressed into his shoulder blade, the impact jarring healing bones and cartilage. Will slightly retracted the hand from under his brother's armpit and fisted the material of his sweater instead. He felt the tremor run through the body beneath him and as he looked up into the ranger's freckled face, he realized they hadn't been in such proximity since his arrival three nights ago. Thus, he hadn't noticed the lines of physical discomfort around his little brother's eyes and the permanent wince etched into his features until now. Or maybe he had seen and decided to ignore them. But now, mere inches away from Jay's face there was no way for him to dismiss the hollowed-out cheeks, the favoring of his left side and – had his brother always been so thin?
Something was amiss, but Will wasn't sure if he wanted to know. No, he was certain he didn't want to know, didn't want to have a reason that convinced him to stay in Chicago. He found himself asking nonetheless, though there was no honest concern in the spoken query. "What's wrong with you, man?"
The harsh tone seemed to rub Jay the wrong way and fury pumped a healthy dose of adrenaline into his blood, emboldening him with new energy. His body tensed and in a flash of anger he slapped the arms still holding him upright away with one hand while pushing against the older Halstead's chest with the other. Dumbfounded by the impromptu agility, Will stumbled backwards. Despite his obviously injured state, Jay was surprisingly strong. Though maybe it wasn't that surprising at all considering he was a trained soldier. "You have a nerve asking me that now, three days after you came home," the ranger growled as he forced himself to maintain a steady stance. The ginger had the audacity to look down abashed, feeling caught. But his younger brother had more to say. "Are you legitimately worried or are you just trying to ease your conscience?" he spat bitterly.
Will huffed weakly. "Oh, come on. Don't be an ass, Jay." There was a hint of scolding in there but mostly weariness mixed with shame. Deep down he knew his sibling to be right and he was embarrassed, though he wouldn't admit to that. "You're my brother. Of course, I worry about you." There was no hesitation in his statement, but it sounded like a lame excuse even to his own ears, and the med student wondered whom he was trying to convince: Jay or himself. In his mind there was no doubt that he cared about his baby brother, but asking him about his wellbeing now, in a poor half-assed way at that, was simply too little too late.
"Yeah?" Jay scoffed tiredly; the monosyllabic question was laced with sour resentment. "You have a funny way of showing it. You barely spoke five words to me since I picked you up from the airport. You talked more to dad." He chuckled dryly. "Hell, you probably talked more to him in the last days than your entire senior year." Will frowned, unsure where this was leading. "And yet," the ranger continued, shaking his head rapidly, "you couldn't even ask once how I am. You couldn't even spare me a single glance throughout the entire funeral." The younger Halstead choked on a sob, swallowed futilely past the lump in his throat. His anger suddenly whooshed out of him and he slumped his shoulders, already regretting that he had even opened his mouth. That he had made himself vulnerable like that. Nothing good ever came from it. Forcing himself to sober up a bit, he mumbled, "forget I said anything."
But Will didn't want to forget, instead let it spur on his own frustration. "Are you fucking serious, Jay?" he thundered disbelievingly. "Is that what this is about? You're jealous of dad because I spent more time by his side than yours during the ceremony?" Jay knitted his brows and shook his head in denial. "Do you think you're the only one grieving here?" The younger parted his lips to say something, but the med student cut him off before he had a chance to do so. "Because newsflash, Jay: you're not. I just lost my mom too. Dad just lost his wife, the love of his life. And unlike you," Will poked a finger at his younger brother, "we didn't get to say goodbye to her. We didn't have the luxury to sit next to her hospital bed every day for the past weeks." The ranger stared at him, baffled, but the redhead wasn't finished, the hardest blow yet to come. "So, don't be such a baby. You're an adult for God's sake. Just suck it up and stop being so selfish all the time. The world doesn't revolve around you."
His words felt like a slap to the face, and hadn't Jay already stood against the baluster, he would have staggered back from their brute invisible force. Will felt immediate regret as he saw the ranger blanch, his face twisting in an anguished expression that had absolutely nothing to do with physical maladies. His spiteful remark had undeniably hurt his little brother. What he had just said to him was uncalled for; it wasn't even true. Jay wasn't selfish, in fact he was anything but. There was nothing egocentric about putting his life at risk in a war against terrorism to protect his country and the people he loved. And there was nothing egoistic about asking for a little comfort from a family member after another beloved one had just died. Logically Will knew that. The redhead wanted to take his words back, wanted to apologize but Jay beat him to the punch.
Squaring his shoulders and schooling his face into a blank mask, he nodded subtly. "You're right," he said deafeningly quiet, no trace of emotion whatsoever. "I have no right to ask this. I'm sorry." The brunette stared down at his hands. They were shaking violently, so he crossed his arms in front of his chest and stuffed them under his armpits. Not before Will caught the trembling, though. Feeling like a horrible person for what he had said to his clearly struggling younger sibling, he blinked against the tears burning behind his eyes. He stepped forward, raised his hands to reach out and console the ranger, whose muscles were strained to a point of almost snapping. As his left hand was about to touch Jay's right biceps, the younger man flinched violently, his back pressing against the wooden column behind him.
Will recoiled as if burned and stared helplessly at his little brother. "Jay, I…" he began, but he really didn't know what to say. An apology was unquestionably in order, but it wouldn't even begin to ease the pain he had just inflicted. He dropped his hand to his side and shuffled his feet awkwardly as he mulled over how to proceed, chewing his bottom lip nervously. "I'm so-…" The sorry was swallowed by the honking of a car, the indication that his cab had arrived. The redhead closed his eyes, silently cursing the driver for terrible timing, and by doing so missed the way his younger brother nearly jumped out of his skin. When he opened them again, he tried to approach Jay, who looked like the slightest breeze might knock him over, once more.
But the brunette pulled back even more, tightened his protective arms around his midsection defensively. "Your cab is here," he stated superfluously, voice hoarse and thick with suppressed emotion and oh so small. The ranger yearned for the promised touch, but it would only increase the pain of Will leaving. So, he denied himself that tiny promise of an ounce of comfort, telling himself it was easier this way, and winced as another impatient prolonged toot sounded from the street. When the older Halstead still hesitated, he rasped in a near-whisper, "have a safe trip."
It set the redhead in motion. With slow timid movements he picked up the suitcase by the door and the garment bag from the knob, turning the brass as he did. He glanced at Jay apologetically, feeling like a Godawful being for leaving his baby brother behind like this, with the unresolved argument looming ominously over their heads. The "I'm sorry Jay," did nothing to alleviate his guilt. There was no vocabulary to describe how much he begrudged his earlier accusation, no words to illustrate the bitter regret he felt at this moment for his departure. "I'll call when I land." A promise that he intended on keeping but wouldn't abide by.
A third honk blared, intercepted with miniscule pauses that underlined the driver's annoyance over having to wait so long, and Will dragged his feet over the threshold and onto the porch. The soft klick as the door snapped shut reverberated stridently loud in Jay's ears and he swore it was more deafening than the explosion in Korengal Valley. He cringed, hunched his shoulders and untangled his arms. His hands fell onto his knees, bracing his upper body. From the corner of his eye he caught the glint of light reflecting off something on the floor in the parlor. The lamination breaking where the surface of the glass was cracked. He recognized the shattered frame holding the monochrome picture of his mom that was so dear to him. It was his undoing. His breath caught in his throat, a strangled sob escaped, and his eyes pricked with unshed tears.
Jay slid to the floor, his legs no longer capable of holding him upright, and he immediately curled into himself. More sobs followed the first, tumbling over one another as the moisture gathering in his eyes spilled over. He clutched his fists against the searing pain in his chest, his unbearable heartbreak no longer containable. The broken frame mocked him, fractured, just like their family, just like the relationship with his brother, the only relative whom he had believed to be comforted by. But just like everyone else, he had walked out on him, leaving him utterly bereft of any domestic love.
I don't ask often but because of how dear this chapter is to me, would you consider leaving a review? I'd be ecstatic!
I'm currently on the fence which chapter I'll post next. Depending on which one I will decide on it's either going to be 2008 or 2018. If I decide on the 2018 installment, it might take a bit longer until I update next because that one isn't finished yet. Stay tuned.
As always, stay safe and healthy!