The lone working telephone at Crossroads Youth Camp was a relic of the fifties — a dusty old rotary whose rusted gears groaned in protest at the slightest movement of its half-jammed dial. Over the years Jack had attended church youth group retreats here — which was to say, his whole life, ever since he was old enough to take a turn reading a verse from a dog-eared children's Bible — he'd never seen the phone do anything more than take up space on the cluttered front desk and set off Graem's sneezing fits. So when he was called into the camp office on Monday morning to find the secretary of the youth ministry cradling the faded black receiver, her brows knitted together and the lines on her forehead sharper than Jack had ever seen them, he knew this wasn't just a routine scolding.
On paper, the youth retreat seemed like it would be something Jack would enjoy: a week-long stay in a cabin on a lake, where he could build fires, go kayaking, and practice whittling with his Swiss Army knife. But in reality, youth group retreats were mostly spent memorizing Bible verses and being lectured on chastity. Jack usually lost his swimming privileges by the first afternoon — whether for neglecting to join in the morning hymn, sneaking off to the girls' side of the camp where the best climbing trees were, or saying something "blasphemous" in Bible study. Sure, the Sunday school teachers claimed everything was open to interpretation, but somehow their interpretation was always right, and Jack's was always wrong.
He'd been sure he wouldn't have to go to the retreat this year, because Mom didn't believe in God anymore. She'd tried to hide it from him at first, but he'd noticed — she was skipping Sunday services even on the days she didn't need her cane, and she'd stopped giving him money for the collection plate. He'd confronted her, worried about her health, her memory, but he'd never expected her to say that she simply didn't want to donate to the church anymore. That had raised more questions than it answered, until she finally admitted that she had decided she didn't believe in God. She wouldn't go into details ("faith is personal, Jack; we all have our own journey"), and he still wondered if she wouldn't tell him because it was his fault.
He'd assumed that would be the end of his going to church, but on the following Sunday he got a sharp earful from his father when he was found putting on his swim trunks at eight-thirty instead of his Sunday suit. Church was a family tradition, Dad had said, and showing your face every week was a matter of respect.
The same applied to the youth group retreat — doubly so because it cost money. And triply so because it was money his dad had already paid. Even when Jack came down with chicken pox shortly before the week of the retreat, his dad had insisted that he get better in time to get on the bus to Crossroads Camp with the other kids. And so he had.
Now, clutching the receiver of that dusty black rotary phone with Graem by his side doing the same, Jack had a sinking feeling that he never should have come here. He should have stayed home with his mother. Then they could have gotten through this — whatever this was — together.
"Boys." His dad's baritone, barely recognizable through the hisses and pops of the old phone, was all business. Jack was grateful for Graem's nervous "hi, dad"; at the moment he wasn't sure he trusted his own voice.
"I'm afraid I have bad news. It's about your mother."
For a moment, time stopped.
Every detail, every nuance of the room around Jack sharpened, his senses suddenly cranked to full volume. The musty plastic scent of the rotary phone, barely noticeable moments ago, now filled the air. He heard every crackle of static on the other end of the line, felt every puff of air move against his skin as a fan feebly stirred the humid summer heat. He would never forget this moment, as long as he lived.
Then a gut-punch of clarity, and his first thought was please, don't say what I think you're going to say, please, God, please before his mind splintered.
Every broken piece started to panic in its own discordant way. His heart thundered in his chest, hot and frantic, while his stomach dropped, empty and cold. His muscles stiffened, locking him in place; his knees melted, soft as water. One hand hung numbly at his side; the other trembled so violently he thought the phone might slip from his white-knuckled grasp. His blood rushed in powerful waves, but his breath was shallow, floundering. His chest felt too heavy, his head too light, his back too tense, his shoulders too limp. Each part of him screamed in a different direction, and his body was stuck between the urges to run, to freeze, to simply collapse. His mind, already exhausted from the chaos and noise, threatened to shut down.
His father's voice jarred him, like a bucket of ice water had been thrown over his head. "She's in the hospital; it's not looking good. I'm sending someone to pick you up."
Jack scrambled to find something in his father's words to hold on to, something that would keep him from falling apart. "What… what are her symptoms?" he stammered.
A long pause. Then, a sigh—or maybe it was just the static.
"She has some medications in her system that… don't go very well together."
"What medications? Why was she taking them?" Jack's heart was pounding so hard it was starting to hurt. He was the one who usually helped Mom with her pills…
Another pause. Then: "they think she has chicken pox."
And whatever fragile hold Jack had on himself shattered into a million pieces.
He could feel the tears burning behind his eyes, the sobs clawing their way up his throat, and he tried to choke them back, ignoring the ache building in his lungs from the shallow breaths. Mom had told him he couldn't spread the chicken pox to her. She'd sat at the edge of his bed, gently brushing his fevered forehead, telling him she'd gone through the same thing when she was his age. You couldn't get it twice, she'd said. She couldn't get it twice.
He struggled to form words, to ask his dad for an explanation, but he was suffocating — barely getting by on the thin stream of oxygen trickling down his throat — and if he let in any more air, he would crack wide open and bawl.
Dimly, he heard his father and Graem ending the conversation, saw Graem moving to hang up the phone. He gripped the receiver with all his strength, yanking it back. No. He had to talk to his dad. If only he could hold himself together, just for a second…
"Jack, he hung up." Graem's voice was distant, barely there. His face was pale, hands unsteady as he pushed his glasses up his nose and rubbed at his eyes. "You know, she could have gotten it anywhere," he offered unconvincingly. "It's been going around. Gil Watson says his little sister got it by licking a doorknob."
"Shut up, Gray!" Jack's voice cracked on the last syllable, turning hoarse and raw, and the dam broke, hot tears cascading down his cheeks. He wished his brother would leave him alone.
"I'm just trying to cheer you up," Graem protested, his own voice rising to a whine.
Jack's eyes met his brother's, reeling under the weight of it all. His chest felt like it was caving in, his throat tied in a tight knot. He forced out the words, his voice barely a whisper. "She's going to be okay. She has to be."
But even as he said it, a cold, hollow part of him wasn't sure if it was true.
Jack stared down the clock like it was an enemy combatant. The hands ticked slowly, almost mockingly. With each second that passed, the waiting room seemed to grow more suffocating. Anxiety drained the room of its air, but only strengthened the pungent odor of antiseptic chemicals that made Jack's throat feel tight.
Two hours. It had been two long, agonizing hours since he'd first gotten here, taking the all-too-familiar steps two at a time. And still, no news. No answers. No word.
No word, but plenty of words — most of them coming from Graem, who hadn't shut his mouth the whole time, yammering on about politics and girls and the stock market, and just about anything else that popped into his head. Jack wanted to scream at him. Tell him to stop talking, because it wouldn't change anything. Just like Mom hadn't changed a thing when she told him she wouldn't — couldn't — get chicken pox. That had just been a lie, hadn't it, because probably won't wasn't the same as can't and saying otherwise was just denial, pointless, like Graem's constant blabber. Pointless, like everything you could do while sitting in a waiting room — which was to say, just about nothing.
But whenever he opened his mouth to rail at Graem, guilt sank its hooks between Jack's ribs. He'd snapped at his brother earlier, when Graem had tried to comfort him. And, yes, that story about Gil Watson's sister had been ridiculous, because you'd have to be a special kind of stupid to think Mom had gotten sick by licking a doorknob. But Jack still regretted telling Gray to shut up. It didn't do any good to get angry; it just made things worse. So instead he sat there, letting Graem buzz in his ears while he tried to think of something he could do, but instead ended up enumerating the ever-growing list of things he should have done.
Every second crawled by, each breath more difficult than the last as worry wormed around inside him. It was impossible not to think about what medicines his mother might have taken, about how much pain she must have been feeling to even make that decision. He imagined one worst-case scenario after another, each one adding more weight to his shoulders and more turbulence to the whirlpool in his stomach.
Jack squeezed the armrest of his chair when he heard footsteps coming down the hall. This was the fourth time a doctor had entered the waiting area, each time with news about a patient Jack didn't know. But maybe this time…
As the doctor rounded the corner, Jack's eyes narrowed with recognition. It was the balding middle-aged doctor with the glasses that seemed too large for his face. The one who was always quick to cite some rule or regulation to tell Jack he was wasn't allowed to be somewhere, wasn't allowed to do this or that. It was as if he wanted to remind Jack that he was out of place here, that his questions weren't welcome when they were too difficult or uncomfortable to answer. Every interaction with the man felt like a lecture, and today was no different.
"Mr. Bauer?" The doctor's nasal voice grated on Jack's frayed nerves. He motioned for Jack's father to come with him. Jack rose to his feet instinctively, but the doctor held up a hand.
"Could I have a moment in private?" he asked, his brow furrowed.
"Are you telling me I can't—" Jack started, but his father's hand came down firmly on his shoulder, a silent command it felt futile to disobey.
"Jack, this is no time to make a scene," he chided, with a kind of long-suffering exhaustion that dripped from every word.
Impulsively, Jack grabbed his father's wrist and shoved his hand away. Still, he bit down on his trembling lower lip and sat down hard in his chair, jamming his hands into his armpits. His gaze stayed locked on the floor, though every fiber of his being was straining to hear what was being said, to catch any hint of what was happening to his mother. He tried to tell himself that he didn't need the doctor's words anyway, that they were just pointless noise until he saw Mom for himself. But the waiting was killing him, and he could feel it gnawing at his insides, a slow burn that would not go away.
Even Graem had gone quiet now. The endless stream of words had stopped, and the room had fallen into an awkward silence. Jack glanced over at his brother, locking eyes with him, their gazes saying what their lips couldn't bring themselves to speak. Is this the moment we lose her?
The silence was crushing Jack like a bug, making every thud of his heartbeat reverberate too loudly through his chest. The air had turned to cement in his lungs, weighing him down and making him gag. He could almost understand why Graem had been chattering earlier — just to fill the space, to remind himself that he wasn't alone.
Alone. Which happened to be just the term to describe how he would feel if his mother… but he couldn't form the word. No matter how pragmatic he was, how much of a realist he liked to think he was… there were some things, some fears, you had to deny until you had rock-solid proof.
Just as the tension in the room stretched so tight it seemed imminent that something would snap, Jack heard the unmistakable echo of his father's footsteps. He could have recognized that sound anywhere: the firm, deliberate footfalls that always made Jack brace himself for a reprimand, even when he wasn't doing anything wrong. But something was off; the steps were too fast, too frantic compared to his father's usual dignified strut. Jack pushed himself out of his chair and hurried towards the sound, needing for the wait to be over, needing to know.
In his haste, he collided with his father's ribs as he rounded the corner. He muttered a mechanical "sorry," but his dad didn't slow down. His rushed steps seemed almost panicked, which was so uncharacteristic of Phillip Bauer that it sent a cold jolt of fear through Jack's chest.
"Dad!" Jack called, struggling to keep up. His knees felt like jelly, trembling beneath him, but he pushed forward, determined to stay at his father's side. He was slipping, like a newborn calf on ice, and it was only sheer willpower that kept him on his feet, just barely managing to keep pace.
"They're losing her." His father didn't slow down, his voice tight with something Jack couldn't quite place. "She's coding and they won't resuscitate her — she signed some piece of paper to refuse life support if she's in terminal condition. It's some bill they passed last year. I'm on my way to call my lawyer, but you and Graem should go see her… before it's too late."
Jack's mind was a blur, but one thing cut through the haze: he had a purpose now, something he could do to help. The words losing her and refuse life support and terminal condition echoed in his ears, but they didn't seem real, like something happening to someone else, not to him, not to his mother. Still, there was no hesitation. He turned, his legs moving before his brain could catch up.
The hall. Cold and white, but getting shorter with every step. He was in the waiting room in no time. Get Graem. Get the doctor. Now follow him to Mom's room. Just one linoleum tile at a time.
The room. Whirring of machines, smell of antiseptic but there was his mother's perfume, wafting just under the surface. Mom. Face pale and dotted with bright red blisters, tubes coiled around her like snakes but there's no time to panic; get to work.
CPR. He thought back to that episode of Emergency! he'd seen when he was bored at home with a broken shinbone. He wished he'd pushed harder when his father refused to let him take a class on CPR technique. It was useless, Dad had said; kids weren't strong enough to do CPR. But Jack was eleven now. He could do this. He had to.
Push on her chest, just like on the show. One, two, three, four. "Come on, Mom. You have to wake up. I need you." Nine, ten, eleven…
"Hey." A hand on his shoulder, gentle but firm. "Get down, buddy. She's gone." Fifteen, sixteen… a sickening pop underneath his wrists but he had to keep going… seventeen, eighteen…
Arms wrapping around Jack's shoulders, moving him away. He twisted and bucked, trying to shake them off. Twenty-four, twenty-five, twenty-six… "She's gone," again, as though it would make any difference.
"No, she's not!" Thirty-one, thirty-two. "She's not! You just don't want to save her because of some rule that she probably didn't even—"
More hands on him now. Too many to fight back. He tried, but they pushed and pulled and he was out in the hallway now, and his head hurt from the overbearing smell of antiseptic and he realized he couldn't smell Mom's perfume anymore.
Then everything sharpened — his thoughts and his senses and the invisible knives cutting into his chest — like he'd just emerged from underwater. Faces were staring down at him, bodies clad in lab coats and scrubs. His eyes were stinging. His left shoe was untied. His mother had opted out of life-saving treatment and he didn't know why.
His mother was dead.
"I'm sorry," he whispered to no one in particular. The words felt hollow; they couldn't fill the empty space in his chest. He doubled over and vomited all over some nurse's shoes, watching distantly as the chunky liquid stained the white fabric. He wondered, absently, why hospitals were always so white. The walls, the floors, the uniforms — all so clean, so pristine, like they could be kept pure no matter what. But it was impossible. Sooner or later, the white would be stained, marked by blood, by vomit, by tears. And no matter how much you scrubbed, no matter how many layers you washed away, it would never be the same.
He would never be the same.
He turned around and ran. He didn't know where he was going, just that it wasn't here. He wiped his mouth on his sleeve, welcoming the jarring impact of each step through his stiff muscles. Nothing felt right, but moving felt less wrong than anything else.
There was no running from this. No place that would erase the guilt or the agony. But as long as he was putting one foot in front of the other, he didn't have to think further into the future — about the empty chair at the dinner table, the silence where her laugh used to be, the birthdays and Christmases that would always be incomplete.
One step. Then another. Block out the thoughts. Block out the memories.
Was that all she was, now? A memory?
He should go back. Smell her perfume again. It might be his last chance.
But he wasn't ready. Maybe he'd never be.
One step. Then another.
He was alone.