Hope and Other Punch Lines(63)

I might be dying, but I’m alive right now.

The beeping grows louder and more persistent, almost angry, and Noah breaks contact to make sure I’m okay. At first, we have no idea what’s happening, and I worry that it will be musical chairs redux. Blood and hyperventilation all over again.

But then it dawns on both of us at the exact same time and we burst out laughing. Among this collection of wires, I’m hooked up to a heart rate monitor.





My mom demands that Phil put away his phone tonight, so the three of us sit around the dining table, dishing pot roast onto our plates and half talking. I feel sorry for Phil that this meal is not billable, though I wouldn’t be surprised if he has papers in his lap. My mother beams at me, like we’re about to embark on some sort of happy familial breakthrough. Oh, crap. I better not be getting a half sibling.

“So I had a better idea for this weekend instead of golf,” Phil says.

“It’s a Christmas miracle.” I hear my sarcasm and then try to break the bite in my voice with a smile. It’s not Phil’s fault that I despise his favorite hobby. It’s not Phil’s fault that I’m pretending to be eating when I’m really pissing myself with worry about Abbi. It’s only even sort of Phil’s fault that he’s Phil.

“One of my clients got me two tickets to see some comedy roundup at the Apollo. You in?” he asks.

“That’s awesome,” I say. “Yes. But just so you know, you had me at not golf.”

“We can go to the club after the show,” Phil says, and I groan. I’ve been vocal about how much I hate Phil’s country club, which is full of rich, entitled white assholes who live in McMansions like this one. It makes me terrified that my future looks exactly like my right now, only with a beer belly and a forty-minute commute. “I’m joking.”

Until yesterday, my worst fear was never leaving this place. Now it’s Abbi dying. Earlier, I Googled lungs and 9/11 syndrome. Not my finest idea.

“How’s Abbi feeling?” my mom asks, as if she can read my thoughts.

“She’s really sick,” I answer, and find that my throat closes around the word sick.

“I’m sorry. She’s young, though. She’ll be okay.” My mom uses her best skinned-knee-mom voice.

“You don’t know that.”

“You’re right. I don’t,” my mom replies, and I wonder if she’d have backed down so easily if we were having this discussion last week or the week before. She and I now live on less stable ground. She treats me like I could detonate at any moment. She’s probably right.

“I’m not trying to be a pain in the ass. But you don’t know,” I say.

“You’re worried. You should be. We get it. We are too,” Phil chimes in, and I wonder if this version of Phil, iPhone-less and still with something to offer, has been here all along. It’s possible I mistook unflappable for boring. He’s such an easy target, with his collared shirts and workaholism and shredded wheat every damn day. “But I really do believe she will be okay.”

“That sounds a lot like magical thinking. I’m kind of done with that.” I cut my meat into smaller and smaller pieces, with no intention of eating them. I make track marks in my mashed potatoes with a fork. I consider building a spud snowman. Anything to not look up.

“Or it’s good old-fashioned optimism,” Phil says. “Sometimes there’s a difference.”

“Thanks for the tickets,” I say, because I’m suddenly grateful that Phil is here with us.

“Wait, you do realize I’m coming with you, right?” he asks.





As they put me under for surgery, six hours after I was scheduled, I feel myself slip into sleep. In my dream, I’m falling fast headfirst toward the ground. My body lines up with the building behind me in perfect synchronicity, and I don’t need to look to know where I am. One World Trade Center smokes from the top, like the tip of a dainty cigarette. Paper blows around me in a tornado of documents: personnel files and receipts and contracts. These things kept in folders, once thought important, now exposed as meaningless.

Other than the roar of the wind, it’s quiet, almost peaceful; the decision has been made. No choice but to give in and to let my body fall.

Of course it’s 9/11.

Of course I’m Falling Man.

The ground comes toward me fast, and right before I slam into it, the image morphs again. Ash swirls, coats my face, like I’m swimming in paste. Am I Dust Lady? That would be the logical next step in this iconic photo nightmare. But then I see Connie, and she runs next to me and she’s smiling. Alive! Connie signals that I should follow her with a flick of her thumb. I am again Baby Hope, except this time, I am not a baby. I am sixteen-year-old me, running for my life while the taste of death sits on my tongue like a cough drop.

I grip the string of a red balloon with my right hand, always with that damn balloon, but this time I’m not strong enough to hold it down. Instead, I find no matter how hard I try, I can’t let it go, and so it lifts me up toward the blue, blue sky. As I rise, Connie shrinks smaller and smaller still, until she becomes nothing but a speck on the ground. Just another particle of dust for someone else to ingest.

And then I too am lost to the heavens.

I am terrified I might never wake up.