How to Be Brave(60)

“But I did. I decided that I couldn’t watch her like that anymore. I decided that she needed to rest. I read her letter over and over and then I told my dad to tell the doctors. I told my dad she had to die.”

Evelyn looks back at the letter. I’m not sure if she’s listening. I’m not sure if she can hear me.

“And, look. I can’t make the decision for you. But I can tell you this…” I lean closer to her. “You have to live. You have people who love you. You have no other choice.” I reach across the cold metal rail for her hand. Static pierces our skin, and we both pull back from the shock.

“No, you can’t make the choice for me.”

She hands the letter back to me.

“You’re right,” I say. “You’re totally right. I don’t have the right to be angry with you, and I can’t tell you what to do, or how to live your life.”

She gives me a cold, blank stare.

“All I can do is tell you that I’m here for you.”

She turns her head away from me.

“Look, I was a bitch for not calling you back,” I say. “I have very few people in my life. To be honest, I don’t know you very well. But I like you. I want to be your friend for real. You’re weird and funny and you made me do things I wouldn’t have done on my own, and I never said thank you for that. So thank you.”

Nothing.

“We’re all allowed to f*ck up, you know. We all get to make mistakes.”

Still no words.

Just her and me and a crumpled letter. Wilting flowers.

She stares out the window, at the brick buildings blocking our view of the lake.

“What song is playing in your head right now?”

Evelyn looks at me and cracks a small smile.

“Beatles, of course. ‘Julia.’” And then she sings a line for me. “‘Half of what I say is meaningless—’”

“When you get out of here,” I say, “will you finish the list with Liss and me?”

Evelyn doesn’t answer immediately. Instead, she closes her eyes, and I think maybe she’s fallen asleep. Her breath is steady and full, like that of a child.

After a few long, heavy minutes, she opens her eyes.

She lets me take her hand. Her skin is cold, and I can feel her bones under the thin flesh.

“Yes,” she says. “I’d really, really love to.”

*

On the way out of the hospital, I check my phone. There are three texts from Daniel: Text #1: How’s Evelyn? Let me know.

Text #2: Movies are too asocial. Let’s do something else.

Text #3: You’re downtown, right? Shall we meet at the aquarium? Do you like fish?

The first thing I notice is that he’s a hypergrammatical texter, just like me.

The second thing I notice is that he wants to go to the aquarium.

He’s a big dork, just like me.

Siiigh.

I text back: Yes. That sounds perfect. Fish are fine, but I mostly love the sea horses.

Him: We’ll find the sea horses first. We’ll search for the pregnant fathers. Maybe we’ll witness a live birth. Maybe we’ll be asked to be godparents.

Oh, he’s ridiculously, incredibly, wonderfully awesome.

Me: I’m naming my sea horse Vincent. He’ll become a well-known master of maritime watercolors.

I write this as a reference to one of Marquez’s lectures where he showed us a bunch of Van Gogh paintings of sailboats. Crossing fingers he gets it.

Him: Here’s hoping he doesn’t drink too much and cut off his own fin.

YES.

Me: Nice.

Him: Scaling back on the fish puns so soon?

Me: Oh my Cod. You are too much.

Him: See you soon.

YES. YES. YES.

*

We meet out front and wait in the long line of tourists and families, and at first it’s incredibly awkward, but then I ask him about college and then about his dad, and then we find our way to reciting Marquezisms and bands we like, and we both relax a bit, and I sort of have to pinch myself that this is really happening, that I’m really on a date with Daniel Antell. We make our way in and shuffle through the throngs of people. We visit the sharks and the jellies, the eels and piranhas. We find our sea horse family and name the smallest ones after some of our favorite artists—Frida (for Kahlo), Andy (for Warhol), Keith (for Haring), and, of course, little Vince.

We head up to a large, open amphitheater on the top floor where the dolphins are leaping and dancing, midshow. Even though it’s crazy crowded, we find a few open seats in the back. Behind the dolphins’ pool is a wide wall of windows that looks east, onto Lake Michigan.

There are little kids behind us, crying because they want to sit down, so we give them our seats and make our way down to the lowest level, where we are in an underwater cave. We crowd in to the window to see the dolphins and belugas. Little kids squeeze in front of us, and the crush of adults behind us pushes us together so that I have to angle in front of him, my back against his chest. I want to look at the dolphins’ dance, now even more beautiful from this underwater perspective, but I’m blinded by the touch of his body that is so close to mine. I turn my chin to look at him, and he smiles. There’s no way I’m drooling on him this time.

“Should we get out of here?” he asks.