Drops of Reality

Have you ever tried to count all the stars in the night sky? It’s impossible. No matter how hard you try you will never be able to count them all in one night. Because even if you divided the sky up between nights, the stars are never in the same place. They’re always moving forward even though you just want them to stay put.

“Now listen,” my dad whispered in my ear.

Tonight may be the only night I can do this with him. that thoughts send a pain through my chest, tightening every muscle in my body. “What am I listening to?”

My dad smiled as he closed his eyes, running his fingers through his long hair. All of it had grown back, plus more. Two years after his relapse and he was still going strong, but the doctor’s appointment tomorrow may contradict that. He could be dying right now in front of my eyes and I wouldn’t know it because it’s inside of him. He doesn’t even know if the Mets are traveling through his bloodstream or not.

“The crickets. Just listen"

So I listened; because that’s what he wanted me to do.

The steady songs of the crickets were all in synch. Every one of them in the bushes below us were singing the same song as if they were in an orchestra.

I lay almost horizontal on the roof, the shingles digging little grains into my arms and legs.

“Now when I say go, count how many chirps there are until I tell you to stop.”

I squinted my eyes to try and focus on the moment. “Ah...why?”

“I’m going to teach you a trick. So start now.”

I looked up at the stars and started to count the chirps in the cricket’s song. It was pretty fast and I almost track before my dad said, “How many?”

“Thirty-one.”

“Okay now add forty to thirty-one.”

I turned to stare at him. His eyes were locked on the night sky, his face so excited and calm at the same time it looked comical. We hadn’t spent any weekend together like this in a long time.

“Its seventy-one.“

“I’m eleven dad, I know how to add.” I waited for him to explain more, but he let the silence stay between us until I broke it. “So, seventy-one, what does that mean?”

“That’s the temperature.”

I started, “The what?”

“The temperature. I’m sure you know what that is since you’re eleven.”

He was making fun of me. “Yes I know what it is. I just didn’t know you could tell like that.”

“The world is a mysterious place, isn’t it?”

“Cameron! Jani! What do you think you are doing up there?”

I sat up and looked down onto the ground below. My mom’s bright yellow bathrobe shone in the darkness. Her hands were on her hips in her motherly posture.

“It’s just me up here mom!” I yelled back down.

My dad stifled a laugh with his hands.

“Jani don’t lie to me. Cameron, if you don’t get down here this instant…”

My dad sat up then. “Are you going to punish me?”

My mom’s lips twitched, but she held her smile back. “You’ll catch a cold if you don’t come in.”

“It’s seventy-one degrees out Mom. He won’t catch a cold.”

My dad held his hand out to me and placed mine into it, taking his silent praise. “We’re coming, we’re coming.” My dad helped me down the ladder we used to get up, and heaved me onto his back.

“It is getting late.”

The man I knew as my best friend carried me through the house and into my room, dropping me onto my bed. “Hey dad?”

He turned to me. “Yeah Jani?”

“Is that real? The crickets I mean.”

My dad kissed me on the head. “Nothing I ever tell you will be a lie Jani, trust me.”

Nothing ever turns out like you wish it would. It’s kind of like playing sports. I play a different sport every season, and love the competitive atmosphere that swallows me up when I’m playing. Weather its soccer, tennis, cross-country, hockey, or just running down a dirt road. You have two choices: Push through and beat it or give up and let the opposing force win. I like to think that’s the same way with anything.

It’s the first day of chemo after my dad’s brain surgery. Its the second time he has gone into remission and the cancer turned up again in his brain and lungs. It was an endless cycle.The Mets controlled our family, surfacing whenever they wanted to bring us to the edge of destruction. But we would always fight back, pushing them away with our radiation, surgeries, and chemotherapy. And every time so far we have won. But you can’t always get what you want, not in cancer any way.

He’s getting weaker. I can just tell every time I go and visit him. I tell him about my day at school, the games I played that night, and every little thing in between. I don’t want him to miss out on anything that is happening outside his hospital room. He was always so full of life, so full of excitement that I figured he would always beat what ever was thrown at him.

I tried to see past the bald head and the dark circles under his eyes. There was no comfort in noticing his faults. I focused on his smile when he beat me in chess, or his laugh at the cheesy graphics in black and white films.

My mom seemed to be worse off than my dad. I noticed that she always had a glass of wine at night. And when I wanted to go see my dad in the hospital, she stayed in the cafeteria or in the hallway. I didn’t approach her on it, but it was upsetting to know that my mom didn’t want the same things for my dad as I did.

Savannah visited every now and then, but she was usually out with friends. She told me that it was because she knew dad was going to get better, and there was no point fussing over him now. I knew better than to believe what she said. She never liked to see Dad in the hospital. And I understood. It was hard to see a person you love and believe can do anything, in a hospital bed, weak and dying in front of your eyes.

“I’m not Superman,” he said one evening after I asked him how he was feeling. “But I’m not giving up. I will never give up on you Jani.”

And so you can’t help but believe it. Your father, your hero is telling you what you want to hear and you suck it into yourself, fill yourself with this comforting thought that you don’t even think could be a lie.

Almost four years of hospital visits and METs trials have worn him down. His legs aren’t strong enough to carry him, and he has trouble feeding himself. He just gets so tired. I hate seeing him so helpless.

I was at a soccer game late, and didn’t get home till the sky was already dark, and the stars were visible. My mom went right to the liquor cabinet above the fridge and open a bottle of wine. My arms gave out to all my equipment, letting the bags fall onto the floor by the kitchen table.

Savannah passed by with her cell phone attached to her ear. “Yeah I can come tonight. My mom won’t even notice if I just sneak out the back.” Her voice became softer the farther she went into the house.

My mom, who was standing over the sink with the bottle in her hand, ignored my sister’s banter to her friends. As I looked at her now, I could tell she was slipping. Her hair was bleaker, less shocking and beautiful than it had been. Her face seemed to have hollowed out, and all of her clothes sagged off like excess skin.

“Where’s Dad?” I asked in an almost apologetic tone.

My dad came home from the hospital this afternoon. They decided that it was better to make him comfortable.

My mom’s eyes met mine, their lids dropping over their irises, casting a dark look over her face. The weight of her shoulders looked like enough to weigh her down. “Out back.”

I bobbed my head in what I wanted to be a nod, but turned into an accidental twitch of my neck. I felt myself getting numb. There was just so much to think about, so much to say, and I couldn’t do any of it.

It was a picture view from the back door. My father’s head was tilted toward the stars as he gazed up through them to the heavens. A telescope a few feet away was pointed in the same direction, but was unoccupied. A hesitant smile curved my lips.

My dad’s bald head radiated the light of the stars back at me. My feet carried me over the stone path to my father. His perfectly smooth skin was interrupted by goose pimples. I grabbed the blanket from the back of his wheelchair and placed it over his lap.

His face lit up at the sight of me. “Jani, you’re home! I’ve been waiting for you.”

Exhaustion drew his face down. He looked twenty years older than he was, and yet, he was my father. His smile, his eyes, and his voice were still the same. A tube attached to a bag holding necessary fluids snaked from the back of his hand. I touched the skin around the tube, hoping to feel something comforting. All I felt was how cold his hands were how his veins were so close to the skin they looked as if they were going to break through.

“You didn’t have to do that Dad. I could have seen you tomorrow.”

Muscles drew the skin around his eyes tight. “I have something for you.” His thin arms shook with the effort of reaching underneath his blanket. When his hand came back out, it held a piece of paper.

I slipped it out of his hand. “What is it?”

My father gestured toward the telescope. “It’s a present.”

The paper was folded a few times. I made sure to be careful as I unfolded it. The top of the paper read Star Deed in large metallic letters. I looked to the telescope. “What is this?”

“Go look.”

I bent low to look into the telescope. Its lens was focused on a single star in the sky, small to the naked eye, but enormous in the telescope. I looked back at the paper. “This is a deed for buying a star.”

He drew in a long breath and let it hiss out slowly. “Yes, Jani. I bought you a star.”

My jaw muscles jumped as I considered his words. “An actual star?”

“Yes. The star in the telescope.”

I gazed through the telescope to locate my star again. It was mine. All mine.

“You own a piece of heaven,” he murmured.

My eyes glassed over with tears; I wiped at them with the back of my hand. “Why? I don’t deserve this.”

I put the deed back on his lap. He grasped my hand before I could pull away. “I wanted you to have something that would remind you of me.” He took a few deep breaths before continuing. “You are always going to have this, and its never going anywhere. You can look at it every night, and know I’m there too. I’m not going to be here—“

“Don’t,” I pleaded with him.

Tears streamed down my cheeks and onto my dad’s arm. “Jani please,” he pleaded back. “I love you so much. Just let me tell you this.”

My lips trembled with the force of keeping my sobs inside.

“I just want you to know how much I love you, and how proud I am of you. You’re so talented and smart. I envy you everyday. I just wish that you could see what I see.”

“Daddy,” I whispered. I couldn’t finish. I wrapped my arms around his frail body and squeezed. I wasn’t scared I was going to snap him, and I wasn’t scared I was going to hurt him. All I wanted to do was hold onto him and never let go. He sounded like he was giving up on himself. I wouldn’t let that happen.

“You aren’t leaving me Dad. You can’t leave me.”

His shaking arms enveloped me, pulling me closer to his chair. I could feel his ribs protruding from his chest, and his skin, so pasty white, vibrated with the pulses of his heart.

“You just can’t Dad,” I repeated. "Please don't leave me alone. I need you here with me. I have no one else. No one."

All of that jarred to a halt. His chest no longer rose to meet mine, and his muscles grew ridged. I pulled away from him, looking at his face. It was as if he was a sound building, and then there was an earthquake underneath him. His limbs started to flail every which way. His body slide off of his chair and onto the ground, his face covered with grass.

The smell of urine filled my nose as I bent toward him, pulling his arms to his sides. His body fought against mine, his head smacking the ground with a steady beat. I placed my hand underneath his ear to absorb most of the shock.

I could hear myself screaming, but I couldn’t stop.

Saliva poured from his mouth and onto the grass, wetting my hand. One of his legs lashed out, hitting his wheelchair, toppling it over. His arms smacked my back, my chest, and once hit the side of my head. I reeled back, but went right back to holding his head.

It felt like I was holding him for hours before his body relaxed into my lap.

I realized I was crying, but didn’t stop myself. I was calling for help, for anyone to come and save my father. My mom came with a phone, already talking to a 911 operator. I knew it wouldn't help though. My dad’s body was still, his chest no longer moving up and down. There was no life to him, I could tell.

I pressed my head to his, my sobs shaking us both. I opened my eyes to look up at the sky. I focused my gaze on the place where my piece of heaven was, and reached for it with my heart, trying to tug my father back. As much as I tried, as much as I wanted to, I couldn’t.

Jani couldn’t take it anymore. She closed the book, set it down on the coffee table in front of her, and left the room. She couldn’t leave the building, but she could certainly leave the eyes of the woman judging her. Her feet took her through the long hallway to the very last door. It was propped open by a door stopper. Jani kicked at it until it released the heavy metal door, letting it bang shut.

Jani’s sobs were breaking through her lips before she got into a stall. Her eyes over flowed with salty liquid, making her face puffy and red with the effort of holding them back. Jani pressed herself to the cold metal of the stall, and let herself slide down it. Her arms enclosed around her knees, making a barrier between her face and the rest of the world.

Her cries of pain were so intense it almost hurt. Jani’s shoulders smacked the wall of the stall every time her body jolted, her shoulder blades beginning to bruise. Jani wanted to stop, but she couldn’t. It was all pouring out of her at once. She cried harder, angry with herself for doing this here of all places.

The stall door squeaked open, but Jani couldn’t do anything about it. She was too far in to stop now.

Warmth enveloped Jani, arms wrapping around her to pull her close. She let whoever it was hold her, using all of her strength to keep her sobs at a minimum.

“Jani honey,” a woman whispered into her ear. “It’s okay. Everything’s going to be okay.”
But it wasn’t going to be okay. Nothing was okay about her situation. Jani let herself cry, let herself go and let herself be held like she belonged. Like she was loved.