My father took me to Puerto Vallarta when I was ten, just so I could jump out of an airplane.
I’d begged him to take me skydiving with him since I learned how to talk, but it’s not so easy in Texas to give your child legal permission to jump out of an airplane.
He was an adrenaline junkie, just like the child he had created. Because of that, I basically lived at the jump zone where he spent all of his free time. Most dads golf on Sundays. My dad jumped out of airplanes.
By the time I graduated high school, I had already completed four hundred fifty of the five hundred jumps it took to qualify as a tandem instructor. But because of the turn my life took during my senior year, it took me several years to finish those last fifty jumps. I finally became certified as a tandem instructor right out of med school. And even though Maggie was my five hundredth tandem jump, I’ve probably taken that leap at least three times that amount doing it solo since the age of ten.
Even with that much experience, that 500th tandem jump felt like the most terrifying jump I’d ever taken. I’d never been nervous to jump out of a plane before then. I’ve never worried that my chute wouldn’t open. I’ve never once been concerned for my life until that moment. Because if that particular jump didn’t end well, that meant dinner with Maggie was off the table. And I really wanted to take her to dinner. I’d planned to ask her out since the moment I laid eyes on her as I walked into the facility that day.
My immediate reaction to her surprised me. I can’t even remember the last time I was attracted to someone like that. But the second I saw her, something in me woke up. Something I knew was there, but had never been rattled until then. I hadn’t looked at a girl and felt that way in so long, I forgot how stupefying attraction could be.
She was standing at the counter, taking paperwork from Corey, who was on schedule to jump tandem with her. As soon as I realized she was there alone, I waited until she took a seat to fill out her paperwork, and then I begged Corey to let me take over and be the one to jump with her.
“Jake, you’re barely here once a month. This isn’t even your job,” he said.
“I’m here every day because I actually need the money.”
“You can have the fee,” I said. “I’ll give you the credit. Just let me have this one.”
When I told him he could keep the money for none of the work, he made a face like I was an idiot and then waved his hand toward Maggie. “All yours,” he said, walking away.
I felt triumphant for a split-second until I looked back at her, sitting in the chair, all alone. Skydiving is such a monumental moment in the lives of most people who do it. Most first-timers never come alone. They almost always have people with them who are experiencing their own monumental moment by also jumping, or they have people with them waiting on the ground for when they survive the jump.
In all honesty, she was the first first-timer I’d ever seen show up completely alone, and her independence both intrigued me and intimidated me. Since the moment I walked up to her and asked if she needed help filling out the forms, nothing has changed when it comes to the situation inside my chest. It’s been days and I’m still filled with that same nervous energy. I’m still intrigued. Still intimidated.
And I have no idea how to move forward.
That’s why I’m stuck in this hallway, right outside the hospital room where they brought her two hours ago.
I was dealing with another patient when Vicky found Maggie and dealt with the entire situation without my even being aware. She didn’t tell me until I finished up with two more patients and Maggie had already been gone for an hour.
Vicky said she noticed it was taking Maggie a while to get dressed and exit the room, so she went to check on her. Maggie was on the floor, just recovering from a blackout. Vicky tested her sugar levels immediately and then sent staff with her over to the hospital. The clinic I work at is adjacent to our hospital, so we’re used to having to transport patients. I’m just not used to the medical emergencies also feeling like a personal emergency.
Since the moment Vicky informed me of what happened, I haven’t been able to concentrate. I finally had a colleague take over so I could come check on Maggie. Now that I’m in the hallway, standing in front of her room, I’m not sure how to feel or what to do or how to approach this entire situation. We’ve been on one date with the potential of another. But now she’s in the hospital and in the exact vulnerable situation she was scared she’d be in when it came to us.
Her being constrained by her illness. Me being here to witness it.
I step aside when the door to her hospital room opens. A nurse walks out, heading for the nurse’s station. I follow her. “Excuse me,” I say, touching her shoulder. She pauses and I point at Maggie’s room. “Have you notified this
patient’s family yet?”
The nurse glances at the name on my coat and says, “Yes. Left a voicemail as soon as she was brought in.” She looks down at the file. “I thought she was Doctor Kastner’s patient.”
“She is. I’m her cardiologist. She was at my clinic when her condition worsened, so I’m just checking in.”
“You’re from cardiology?” she asks without looking up from the file. “We’re aware of the CFRD, but have nothing on file about heart issues.”
“It was just a preventative check-up,” I say, backing away before she gets too nosy about my nosiness. “I just wanted to make sure her family was notified. Is the patient alert?”
The nurse nods, but also makes a face like she’s annoyed that I’m questioning her ability to do her job. I turn and walk back toward Maggie’s room, pausing just outside the door. Once again, I fail to walk in because I don’t know her well enough to know what kind of reaction she would prefer from me right now. If I walk in and try to pretend her passing out in my office wasn’t a big deal, she might be put off by my casualness. If I walk in and act like I’m concerned, she might use that concern as a weapon against us.
I think if we were more than just one overnight date in, the next few minutes might not matter as much. But since we’ve only been on one date, I’m almost positive she’s in there right now, regretting showing up at my office and regretting that I’ll see her in such a vulnerable state, and possibly even regretting that she even walked into my life on Tuesday. I feel like my next moves are extremely crucial to how all of this will turn out.
I don’t think I’ve ever worried this much about how to act in front of someone. I normally have the attitude that if someone doesn’t like me, that’s not going to matter to me or my life, so I’ve always just done and said what I feel like doing and saying. But right now, with Maggie, I’d give anything to have a handbook.
I need to know what she needs from me in order for her not to push me away again.
I put my hand on the door, but my phone begins to ring as soon as I start to push it open. I quickly back up so she isn’t aware I’m right outside her door. I walk a few feet down the hallway and pull my phone out of my pocket.
I smile when I see that it’s Justice, trying to FaceTime me. I’m relieved to have a few minutes more to prepare before walking in to see Maggie.
I accept the call and wait the several seconds it usually takes for the FaceTime to connect us. When it finally does, it’s not Justice’s face I see on his phone. His screen is covered by a piece of paper. I squint to see it, but the grade is too blurry.
“It’s too close to your phone,” I tell him.
He pulls the paper back a few inches, and I can see the number eighty-five circled in the top right-hand corner.
“That’s not too bad for a night of horror movies,” I say.
Justice’s face is on the screen now. He looks at me like I’m the child and he’s the parent. “Dad, it’s a B. My first B all year. You’re supposed to yell at me so I’ll never make another B again.”
I laugh. He’s looking at me so seriously, like he’s more disappointed that I’m not furious with him than he is disappointed in getting his first B. “Listen,” I tell him as I lean against the wall. “We both know you know the material. I’d be mad if you didn’t study, but you did. The reason you got a B is because you went to bed too late. And I already yelled at you for that.”
I woke up at three o’clock this morning and heard the television on in my living room. When I went to turn it off, Justice was on the couch with a bowl of popcorn, watching The Visit. He’s obsessed with M. Night Shyamalan. His obsession is mostly my fault. It started when I let him watch The Sixth Sense when he was five. He’s eleven now, and the obsession has only gotten worse.
What can I say? He takes after his father. But as much of me as he has in him, he’s also very much his mother’s child. She stressed over every paper and every homework assignment throughout high school and college. I once had to console her because she was crying over receiving a ninety-nine on a paper when she was aiming for a perfect score.
Justice has that over-achieving side to him, but it’s constantly warring with that side of him that wants to stay up late and watch scary movies when he isn’t supposed to. When I dropped him off at school today, I had to wake him up when I pulled into the drop-off lane.
I knew his math test wasn’t going to end well when he wiped the drool off his mouth, opened the door to get out of my car, and said, “Goodnight, Dad.”
He thought I was dropping him off at his mother’s house. I laughed when he got out of the car and realized it was a school day. He turned back to the car and tried to open the door. I locked it before he could climb back inside the car and beg me for a skip day.
I cracked the window, and he stuck his fingers inside and said, “Dad, please. I won’t tell Mom. Just let me sleep today.”
“Actions have consequences, Justice. Love you, good luck, and stay awake.”
His fingers slipped out of the window and he backed up, defeated as I drove away.
I watch my phone as he wads up the paper and tosses it over his shoulder.
He rubs his eyes and says, “I’m going to ask Mr. Banks if I can get a redo.” I laugh. “Or just accept the eighty-five. It’s not a terrible grade.”
Justice shrugs and then scratches his cheek. “Mom went out with that guy again last night.” He says it so casually, like the possibility of a stepdad
doesn’t deter him. That’s a good thing, I guess.
“Oh yeah? Did he call you squirt and tousle your hair again?”
Justice rolls his eyes. “No, he wasn’t so bad this time. I don’t think he has kids, and Mom told him people don’t call eleven-year-olds squirts. But anyway, she wanted me to ask you if you were busy tonight because they’re going out again.”
It’s still a little weird, hearing about Chrissy’s dates from the child we created together. This is new territory I don’t know how to deal with, so I do my best to make it seem like it’s not weird. It was my decision to end things with her, and it wasn’t easy. Especially since we share a child. But knowing that Justice was the only reason we were still together just didn’t seem fair to any of us. Chrissy took it hard in the beginning, but only because we were all comfortable with the life we shared. But there was a void there and she knew it.
When it comes to loving someone else, I’ve always believed there should be a level of madness buried in that love. An I-want-to-spend-every-minute- of-every-day-with-you madness. But Chrissy and I have never had that kind of love. Our love is built on responsibility and mutual respect. It’s not a maddening, heart-stopping love.
When Justice was born, we felt that maddening love for him, and that was enough to hold us over through high school graduation, college, medical school, and most of our residencies. But when it came to what we felt for each other, it was the type of love that was too thin to attempt to stretch it out over an entire lifetime.
We separated over a year ago, but I didn’t get my own place until a little over six months ago. I bought a house two streets away from the house we raised Justice in. The judge gave us joint custody with an outline of who gets him and when, but we haven’t once stuck to that. Justice stays with both of us a fairly equal amount, but it’s more on his terms than either of ours. With our houses being so close, he just goes back and forth whenever he feels like it. I actually prefer that. He’s adjusted really well, and I think this way of letting him control most of the visitation has made our separation a smooth transition for him.
Sometimes too smooth.
Because, for some strange reason, he thinks I want to know about his mother’s dating life, when I’d rather be kept in the dark. But he’s only eleven. He’s still innocent in almost every sense, so I like that he keeps me up to date on the half of his life I’m no longer a part of.
“Dad,” Justice says. “Did you hear me? Can I stay at your house tonight?” I nod. “Yeah. Of course.”
I told Maggie I’d go to her place tonight, but that was before…this. I’m almost positive they’ll keep her overnight for monitoring, so my Friday night
is wide open. Even if it weren’t, it would have become wide open for Justice. I work a lot and I have a lot of hobbies, but that all comes second to him. Everything comes second to him.
“Where are you?” Justice leans in, squinting at the phone. “That doesn’t look like your office.”
I turn the phone and face it toward the empty hallway, angling it at Maggie’s door. “I’m at the hospital visiting a sick friend.” I face the phone back at myself. “If she wants to see me.”
“Why wouldn’t she?” Justice asks.
I stare at him a moment, then shake my head. I didn’t mean to say that last part out loud. “It’s not important.”
“Is she mad at you?”
This is too weird, talking to him about a girl I went on a date with who isn’t his mother. As casual as he may be about it, I’m not sure I’ll ever feel comfortable talking to him about my dating life. I pull the phone closer to my face and raise an eyebrow. “I’m not talking to you about my dating life.”
Justice leans forward and mimics my expression. “I’ll remember this conversation when I start dating.”
I laugh. Hard. He’s only eleven, and he’s already got more wit than most adults. “Fine. If I tell you about her, will you promise you’ll tell me the first time you kiss a girl?”
Justice nods. “Only if you don’t tell Mom.” “Deal.”
“Deal.”
“Her name is Maggie,” I say. “We went on a date Tuesday, and I’m pretty sure she likes me, but she didn’t want to go out with me again because her life is hectic. But now she’s in the hospital, and I’m about to go see her but I have no idea how to act when I walk through that door.”
“What do you mean you don’t know how to act?” Justice asks. “You’re not supposed to act or pretend around other people. You always tell me to be myself.”
I love it when my parenting advice actually sinks in with him. Even if my own advice isn’t sinking in with me. “You’re right. I should just walk in there and be myself.”
“Your real self. Not your doctor self.” I laugh. “What does that even mean?”
Justice cocks his head and makes a face at the phone that looks just like a face I probably make a lot of the time. “You’re a cool dad, but when you go into doctor mode, it’s so boring. Don’t talk about work or medical stuff if you like her.”
Doctor mode? I laugh. “Any other advice before I go in there?” “Take her a Twix bar.”
“A Twix?”
Justice nods. “Yeah, if someone brought me a Twix, I’d want to be friends with them.”
I nod. “Okay. Good advice. I’ll see you tonight and let you know how it goes.”
Justice waves and then ends the FaceTime.
I slide my phone into my pocket and walk toward Maggie’s door. Just be yourself. I stand in front of the door and inhale a calming breath before knocking. I wait for her to say come in before I open the door. When I walk further into the room, she’s curled up on her side. She smiles when she sees me and lifts up onto her elbow.
That smile is everything I needed.
I walk over to her bed as she adjusts it, raising the head of it a little bit. I sit in the empty chair next to the bed. She rolls onto her side, tucking her arm under her head, resting on her pillow. I reach over and rest my hand on the side of her head, then lean in and give her a soft peck on the mouth. When I pull back, I have no idea what to say. I lay my chin on the bedrail and run my fingers through her hair while I stare at her.
I love how I feel when I’m near her. Full of adrenaline, like I’m in the middle of a nighttime skydive. But even though I’m full of adrenaline and I’m touching her hair and she smiled at me when I walked in the door, I can see in her eyes that my chute is about to fail and I’m about to free fall alone with nothing ahead of me but an ugly impact.
Her gaze flits away for a moment. She pulls her oxygen mask to her mouth and inhales a cycle of air. When she pulls it away, she forces another smile. “How old is your child?”
I narrow my eyes, wondering how she knows that about me. But the quietness in the room reveals the answer. Everything happening outside this door can be heard very clearly.
I pull my hand from her hair and lower it to her hand that’s resting on her pillow. I trace a soft circle around where the IV is taped to her skin. “He’s eleven.”
She smiles again. “I wasn’t trying to eavesdrop.”
I shake my head. “It’s fine. I wasn’t trying to hide that I have a kid. I just didn’t know how to bring it up on a first date. I’m a little protective of him, so I feel like I should guard that part of my life until I’m positive it’s something I want to share.”
Maggie nods in understanding, flipping her hand over. She lets me trace the skin on top of her wrist for a moment. She watches my fingers as they trickle over her palm, down her wrist, until they reach the IV. Then she looks back up at me again. “What’s his name?”
“Justice.”
“That’s a great name.”
I smile. “He’s a great kid.”
I continue touching her hand, but it’s quiet for a while. I don’t want to delve even deeper into this conversation because I know it’s going to go where I don’t want it to go. But at the same time, if I don’t keep talking, she might take the floor and begin to tell me, once again, why she doesn’t want any part of this.
“His mother’s name is Chrissy,” I say, filling the void. “We started dating because we had a lot in common. We both wanted to go to med school. We had both been accepted to UT. But then I got her pregnant senior year. She gave birth to Justice a week before our high school graduation.”
I stop tracing her skin and slide my fingers through hers. I love that she lets me. I love the feel of her hand wrapped around mine.
“It’s impressive that the two of you had a newborn in high school and still somehow managed to become doctors.”
I appreciate that she recognizes how hard that was for us. “There was a stretch during her pregnancy where I looked into other careers. Easier ones. But the first time I laid eyes on him, I knew that I never wanted him to think he was a hindrance to our lives in any way, simply because we had him so young. We did everything we could to make sure we stuck to our goals. It was a challenge, two teenagers trying to make it through pre-med with an infant. But Chrissy’s mom was—is—a lifesaver. We couldn’t have done it without her.”
Maggie squeezes my hand a little when I finish talking. It’s gentle and sweet, like she’s silently saying, Good job. “What kind of father are you?”
No one’s ever asked me to evaluate my own ability as a parent. I think about it for a moment and then answer the question with complete honesty. “An insecure one,” I admit. “With most jobs, you know right away if you’re going to be good at them or not. But with parenting, you don’t really know if you’re good at it until the child is grown. I’m constantly worried I’m doing everything wrong and there’s no way to know until it’s too late.”
“I think your worry about whether you’re a good father is testament that you shouldn’t worry.”
I shrug. “Maybe so. But even still, I worry. Always will.”
There’s a moment of hesitation on her face when I mention how much I worry about him. I want to take it back. I don’t want her to think I have too much on my plate. I want her to think about right now and right now only. Not tomorrow or next week or next year. But she is. I can see it in the way she’s staring at me—wondering how she could possibly feel okay with fitting herself somewhere in my life. And I can see in the way she looks away from me and focuses on everything but me that she doesn’t see herself fitting in at all.
She was already hesitant when she thought my biggest concern outside of work was if the weather was right for skydiving. And even though she showed up at my office today, ready to give it a chance, I can see that finding out about Justice has not only changed her mind, but filled her with even more resolve than she held as she was kicking me out of her house.
I release her hand and bring mine back up to the side of her head, running my thumb over her cheek in order to bring her attention back to me. When she finally looks up at me, her mind is made up. I can see it in all the pieces of broken hope that are floating around in her eyes. It’s amazing how someone can convey so much in one look.
I sigh, sliding my thumb over her lips. “Don’t ask me to leave.”
Her eyebrows draw apart, and she looks absolutely torn between what she wants and what she knows she needs. “Jake,” she says. She doesn’t follow my name up with anything else. My name lingers in the air, heavy with weariness.
Not only do I know I can’t change her mind, but I’m not sure I should even try to. As much as I want to see her again and as much as I want to get to know her better, it’s not fair of me to beg. She knows her situation better than anyone. She knows what she’s capable of and she knows what she wants her life to look like. I can’t argue all the reasons why she shouldn’t push me away, because I’m almost positive I’d have the same outlook if our roles were reversed.
Maybe that’s why we’re both being so quiet. Because I understand her.
The mood is thick in the room. It’s full of tension and attraction and disappointment. I try to imagine what it would be like to love her. Because if spending one night with her can fill a room with this much angst, I can only imagine that this is what the beginning of a maddening love would feel like.
I’ve finally found someone I think could one day fill the void in my life, but to her, she feels that by being in my life, her absence would one day create a void. It’s ironic. Maddening.
“Have you seen Dr. Kastner yet?” She nods, but doesn’t elaborate.
“Has anything changed with your condition?”
She shakes her head, and I can’t tell if she’s lying. She answers too quickly.
“I’m fine. I probably need to rest, though.”
She’s asking me to leave, but I want to tell her that even though I barely know her, I want to be here for her. I want to help her cross those last several items off her bucket list. I want to make sure she keeps living and doesn’t continue to focus on the fact that she may not have as much time as everyone else.
But I say nothing, because who am I to assume she won’t have a
completely fulfilled life if she doesn’t allow me to be a part of it? That’s something only a narcissist would think. The girl in front of me right now is the same girl who showed up alone to skydive for the first time this week. So, I will respect her choice and I will walk away for the exact same reason I was drawn to her in the first place. Because she’s an independent badass who doesn’t need me to fill a void. There are no voids in her life.
And here I am wanting to selfishly beg her to fill mine.
“You were on a roll with your bucket list,” I say. “Promise me you’ll knock off some more items.”
She immediately begins to nod, and then a tear slips from her eye. She rolls her eyes like she’s embarrassed. “I can’t believe I’m crying. I barely know you.” She laughs, squeezing her eyes shut and opens them again. “I’m being so ridiculous.”
I smile at her. “Nah. You’re crying because you know if your situation were different, you’d be falling for me right about now.”
She lets out a sad laugh. “If my situation were different, I would have started that free fall back on Tuesday.”
I can’t even follow that up with anything. I lift out of my chair and lean forward to kiss her. She kisses me back, holding on to my face with both hands. When I pull back, I press my forehead to hers and close my eyes.
“I almost wish I’d never met you.”
She shakes her head. “Not me. I’m grateful I met you. You ended up fulfilling a third of my bucket list.”
I lean away and smile at her, wishing more than anything that I was selfish enough to try to change her mind. But simply knowing the one day I spent with her meant something to her is enough for now. It has to be.
I kiss her one last time. “I can stay until your family gets here.”
Something changes in her expression. She hardens a little. She shakes her head and pulls her hands from my head. “I’ll be fine. You should go.”
I nod, standing up. I don’t even know anything about her family. I know nothing about her parents, or whether she has brothers and sisters. I sort of don’t want to be here when they get here. I don’t want to meet the most important people in her life if I don’t have the chance to someday be one of them.
I squeeze her hand one more time, looking down on her while trying to hide my regret. “I should have brought you a Twix.”
She makes a confused face, but I don’t clarify. I step back, and she gives me a small wave. I wave back, but then I turn without saying goodbye. I walk out of the room as fast as I can.
As someone who has craved the feeling of adrenaline my entire life, I haven’t always made the smartest decisions. Adrenaline makes you do stupid shit without putting too much thought into your actions.
It was stupid of me at thirteen to crash my first dirt bike because I wanted to know what it felt like to break a bone.
It was stupid of me at eighteen to have sex with Chrissy when we didn’t have a condom, simply because it felt thrilling and we ignorantly assumed we were immune to the consequences.
It was stupid of me at twenty-three to jump backward off a cliff I wasn’t familiar with in Cancun, relishing in the buzz of not knowing if there were rocks beneath the surface of the water.
