We Own the Sky(75)

Jack giggled. “I’m going to eat a million hamburgers.”

“A million?”

“Really,” he said, nodding proudly. He was getting tired now, his eyes

beginning to flutter. “Daddy,” Jack said, sitting up again on his pillows.

“Yes, beautiful?”

“You know we talked about treats?”

“Yes.”

We had asked Jack whether there was anything special he wanted to do. His answers were always modest. No Disneyland to see Mickey Mouse; no trip to Peppa Pig World or Buckingham Palace to see the queen. No, he was adamant.

He just wanted to go to McDonald’s for ice cream.

“Can we do another thing, as well?”

“We can do whatever you want, Jack, whatever you want.”

“Can we go up the London Eye again? I want to go right to the top.”

Subject: Re: Jack

Sent: Wed Dec 24, 2014 3:33 am

From: Rob

To: Nev

Dear Nev,

I  wrote  to  you  before  but  haven’t  heard  back  from  you,  so  I  hope everything  is  okay.  As  I  told  you,  we  stopped  treatments  at  Dr.

Sladkovsky’s  clinic,  despite  the  visible  signs  of  improvement  Jack  was making.  As  soon  as  we  got  back  to  London  and  Jack  went  back  on chemo, he started declining again.

I  am  still  trying  to  come  to  terms  with  everything  that  has  happened.

There is nothing left now. No hope. I wish I could say that I don’t blame Anna  but  part  of  me  does.  He  was  getting  better,  I  could  see  it  with  my own eyes. That is a horrible thing to think about the person you love, but it is the truth.

We  don’t  really  speak  about  it—Jack  dying  that  is.  We  don’t  speak about  anything  anymore.  We  just  pretend  it’s  not  happening.  I  still  can’t believe it has come to this. I can’t believe I will soon lose my little boy.

I hope you and Josh are well.

Rob

Bundled up against the cold, we lifted and positioned Jack’s wheelchair at the edge of the cabin and then began our slow ascent up into the twilight. As soon as we rose above the Thames, the city lights glistening on the water, Jack took his camera out and started to take photos.

We climbed. I pointed out to Anna, because Jack already knew it all, the

Hungerford Bridge and the South Bank Centre, which from above looked like a soulless cluster of gray chimneys. On the other bank, the wings of the air force memorial twinkled in the sun, guarding Whitehall and the Ministry of Defence.

As we rose farther, we could see St. James’s, Green, and then Hyde Parks, a fat royal leg stretched out across London.

It was Scott who sorted it all out. After Jack had made his request, I called the London Eye’s bookings line. It wasn’t open on Christmas Day and the day after was already fully booked. I pleaded with the rep, explained that Jack was very ill and asked if she could pull a few strings. She checked with her supervisor, kept me on hold, but no, she was sorry, there was nothing they could do.

I called Scott. We had barely spoken, just a couple of texts, an email around the time I had gone to Prague. He was thinking of me, he said, and I should let him know if there was anything he could do.

So I did. “You know people, Scott,” I said, “all the CEOs in London you used to boast. So please help us, please help us, because we might not have much time.”

Scott called back within an hour. He had a prime slot for us—at sunset on Boxing Day and we had the cabin completely to ourselves.

“Shall we move you around so you can see the other side better?” Anna asked Jack as we climbed farther.

“Okay,” he said, not really listening, frantically taking photographs as if he was paparazzi afraid of missing his prized shot.

We moved him over to the opposite window, putting the brake on the

wheelchair. Anna zipped up his coat and tucked in his scarf. We knew he didn’t have long left. His speech had started to change. He forgot things, repeated his words. He was weak and needed the wheelchair if we were going to be out for a long time. As the doctors had warned us, he had become more detached. He did everything slowly and with such caution—walking, picking up a spoon, eating a piece of toast. It was like watching someone walk through a rock pool with bare feet.

“Look, Jack, Big Ben,” Anna said, as we kept rising. We turned to look at the Houses of Parliament, lit up from below, the four faces of Big Ben hanging in the air like ghostly orbs. Jack swung himself around in the seat of his wheelchair and took more photos, zooming in and out, twisting the camera to take horizontal and vertical shots.

Making memories, they said on  Hope’s Place, and those two words had never made any sense to me. They would be our memories, mine and Anna’s. They wouldn’t be Jack’s.

I snapped out of it, painted on my smile. Making memories, making

memories. We had been at every point in the cabin now, looking down toward Canary Wharf, the Shard, the cozy huddle around St. Paul’s.