Bubble - Softcover

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Bubble

ONE

11 YEARS, 2 MONTHS, AND 21 DAYS

“I’ve got a tattoo. Guess what it is?”

“A giraffe?”

“On my ankle?”

“Okay, an elephant.”

Beth touches me on my arm.

“Come on, Joe,” she says. “You’re not even trying.”

“Sorry. Show me it?”

She smiles then pulls up the right leg of the overalls that all visitors have to wear, even family.

“Last guess?”

“Spider-Man?”

“No.” She laughs. “You can get that one when you’re older.”

We look at each other and say nothing.

She used to say she was sorry. I used to tell her it was okay, that it didn’t matter. Now we just look at each other then look away, pretending nothing’s happened.

She pulls down her sock and I look at the tattoo, which is gray and red with a bit of blue in the middle.

“Looks like a smudge.”

“It’s a turtle dove! . . . And it itches.” She scratches the turtle dove so hard that I think it might come off. I shake my head at my sister. Beth covers her tattoo and gets up, and we stand side by side with the monitor beeping every thirty seconds beside us. We look out at the big gray building opposite with the sun shining on its windows and all the people inside sitting at their desks, staring at their computers. I see them come in and I see them leave, and during the nights and over the weekends I see the empty seats and the lights on dim until Monday morning when all the people come back again.

The air conditioner clicks, pushes cold air around the room, and makes me shiver. Beth asks me if I’m okay and I nod.

“It’s too hot outside, but it feels cold in here.”

“Is it hot enough to make asphalt melt?” I ask.

“No, not that hot.” She smiles then puts her arm around me, and we stand looking out of the window, watching the planes as they fly above the tall buildings on the flight path in and out of Heathrow. It’s the only window I can look out of, now. There used to be one that let me see into the corridor and watch the doctors and nurses walk by. But one day the maintenance man came to cover it up with a special white paint that stuck to glass. I asked them why they did it and they said it was for privacy. I told them I couldn’t hear what they were saying. They smiled, said that’s not what they meant. I don’t want any more privacy, though. I have too much of it already.

Beth squeezes me very gently—any tighter and she would bruise me. I’m glad that she’s not afraid to touch me. Whenever the doctors have to touch me because they’re doing an examination or helping me, they hold me like I’m glass. That’s why I’m so lucky to have Beth. She says she’s lucky to have me too; that she wouldn’t know what to do without me. Sometimes, just after she’s left, I wonder what that would be like. She’d be able to get a boyfriend and stay with him, or she could go out more with her friends. She wouldn’t have to worry when she’s in her university classes. But she says she’s happy spending her time in here with me.

Outside, a man in gray coveralls walks across the roof of the office building with a brown bag in his hand. He walks between the black poles and silver tubes, checking the pigeon traps in the gutters, then he takes a knife out of his bag, bends down, opens a cage, grabs a pigeon, and slits its throat.

Beth turns away.

“I don’t know how you can watch,” she says.

“It’s not that bad.”

We turn away and walk back to the bed, past the emergency oxygen tanks and the gray monitors with their flashing red lights and green numbers.

Heart rate: 79

Body temp.: 37.4C

Room temp.: 18C

Air purity: 98.5%

The drop in air purity is because she’s in the room.

I lie down, Beth squeezes onto my bed, and we watch TV while the monitors beep and the sensors in the corners of the room flash every second, my heart rate and body temperature transmitted from sensors on my body by Bluetooth. Footsteps pass faintly by outside and I smell coffee I can’t drink and food I can’t eat. Me and Beth get tired of watching TV, so I flick through my iPad for books and magazines I can’t have printed copies of, and she listens to music until my food comes through the hatch at five. It’s my superhero power-up food, vacuum-sealed in silver foil. It doesn’t taste very nice but it gives me energy. Most importantly, it keeps me alive. I open the foil and eat dried beef and rice while the sky turns from blue to gray outside.

At seven o’clock Beth gets up, kisses me on the forehead, then walks past my poster of Theo Walcott toward the door. Her white suit makes her invisible against the wall, kind of like Sue Storm from the Fantastic Four. She presses the call button and waits. I don’t want her to go. The nights feel so long after she’s been here. The door opens and she looks back.

“I’m not sure when I’m here again,” she says. “I’ve got a dissertation to write.”

“It’s okay.”

“Maybe the day after tomorrow.”

She smiles again then slides between the door and the frame, as though not opening the door too wide will stop the germs from getting in. I look at the white door and imagine her on the other side, taking her suit off in the transition zone. She’ll be putting her street clothes back on and pulling the elastic bands out of her hair. Then she’ll talk to the nurses and check my graphs. She says she likes looking at them, not just because they’re about me, but because they’ll help her at med school, where she’s studying to be a doctor. She’s got to do a residency soon. She says she doesn’t know where or exactly when she will go, only that she won’t be going yet.

I walk over to the window and look down as she crosses the road between the cars and buses stuck in traffic. When she reaches the other side, she turns and looks up at me. I smile and wave, and she waves back at me, then leans against the wall and looks at her phone. Every so often she looks up, sees I’m still looking, and shakes her head, laughing. I rest my head against the glass, feel it cold on my skin.

My head starts to spin. I swallow and taste metal on my tongue as blood trickles out of my nose and over my lip. At first it spots on the window sill, then it begins to splatter. I hold my nose with my finger to stop the flow. Beth waves as a bus arrives and blocks her out. I want to stay and watch her go but my legs are wobbling, going numb. I put both hands on the sill. Blood pools in the palm of my hand and drips down onto my T-shirt, my trousers, the radiator, and then the floor. The gray building is a fog; the traffic is a blur. I need to make it to my bed . . . I need to make it to my bed. The monitor is closer. I fall against it and press the red button.

*  *  *

I’m on my bed, on my side. Greg is holding my nose with a gloved hand.

“It’s okay,” he says. “You’re doing okay.”

I try to smile. He smiles back, then gently lets go of my nose and presses...