Chapter Twenty-Five
I woke up. A bright light flooded my vision. It was hard to see.
Squinting my eyes, I turned my head, trying to look past the light. The room had changed.
“Ellie? Ellie, sweetie, are you awake?” It was Mom.
“Ellie? Hi. Are you okay? Do you need the nurse?” That was Jason. “She’s so…so puffy, Mrs. Hartwood. You can hardly recognize her.”
“It’s all the fluid, Jason. Ellie? Can you hear us?”
I still couldn’t see them—just a bright, blurry white. I tried harder to focus, but it wasn’t their faces I saw.
It was the woman from the portrait in Jason’s house. His mom. Linda Cooper.
She was beautiful, glowing, and smiling. I tried to reach out. Her presence emanated warmth and happiness. She spoke, the words not quite making sense yet, and pointed to another light, where there were two figures, one small and one tall. I didn’t understand, but the vision made me feel at peace. I closed my eyes again.
“It might take a while before she fully comes to.” It sounded like my dad, but was far away.
“I guess she still needs to sleep.” Mom’s voice. I strained to see her. My eyelids were too heavy.
Wake up. Wake up.
This time I opened my eyes and Linda’s face faded back as the outline of Jason’s face emerged out of her light.
“Jason,” I whispered. “Your mom’s here.”
“What? Yes, your mom’s right here,” Jason said, not understanding me.
Mom’s hand gripped mine. “Hi, sweetie. You did such an incredible job.”
“Hi, Mom.” It was hard to get the words out. “Jason’s mom—Linda. Jason…she’s here…she’s with you when you need her.”
It went dark again.
The next time I woke up I didn’t feel as out of it. I was able to open my eyes fully without the lids automatically wanting to fall shut. I didn’t know how much longer it had been, but there were Jason and Mom in the corner of the room, reading books.
“Hi,” I managed.
They popped their heads up and came to my bedside.
“How are you feeling now?” Mom asked.
“Pain. My leg’s throbbing.”
“Here, hit this morphine button.” Mom put the cord in my hand.
“Thanks.”
Jason’s brows were furrowed, and I could tell he was biting his cheeks.
“Are you scared of me? Do I look awful?”
“You do look a little like the Michelin Man,” Mom said, patting my hand. Leave it to Mom to not hold back. I gave a weak smile.
“Are you hungry? Thirsty?” Jason asked.
“Not hungry. Very thirsty. And itchy.”
“I’ll have the nurse add Benadryl to your IV,” Mom said and went out of the room to hunt for the nurse.
“I’m glad you’re here.” I glimpsed Jason through squinted eyes. I did feel supremely puffy.
“The others are in the café snacking it up.” Jason smiled his side-of-the-mouth smile. Kissing him sounded nice, but I was certain my lips wouldn’t have cooperated, being that they were dry and bloated and lacking muscles.
“Do I really look like the Michelin Man?”
“Well, because of the slight green tone, I’d say more like a mini Incredible Hulk—a Hulkette.” He waited a beat. “It was scary for a while. You needed a couple blood transfusions. I’m just happy to see you’re awake and not talking about bright lights or my mom. I thought you were, um, crossing over or something.” He pulled my blanket up a little higher around my shoulders. “Do you think it was a dream, or did you…really see…”
“Your mom?”
He nodded.
“It felt way more real than a dream is all I can say. Her presence was with me.” The knowledge swept over me like a huge comfort.
Tears brimmed his eyes.
“Jason, she loves you so much. She’s with you more than you know, and she’s proud of the person you’ve become.” The words just came out as if they were facts I knew by heart, not simply because they sounded nice. Jason dropped his head and a tear fell onto the bed.
“I miss her every single day.” He paused. “I’m so glad you’re okay. I’m glad she was watching over you through all of this.” He kissed my hand.
I couldn’t do much, but I squeezed his hand and tried to remember the details of the dream so I could tell it to him when I was more with it.
“Are you still feeling any pain in your leg?” Jason asked as he dried his eyes on a tissue.
I gave a breathy laugh. “You’d make a good doctor.” I hadn’t seen my leg yet. I reached down to grab the edge of the white sheet, and pulled it aside.
Oh my God.
My left leg was two or three times the size of my right leg, and in shades of green, yellow, and purple that made me think of regurgitated Easter eggs. Thick, black stitches poked up fiercely all along the outside of my leg from knee to hip. Mom walked into the room as I examined it.
“Did Tim Burton do the stitch-up job?” I asked, gasping at the monstrosity that was once a normal leg. “Did they get it all out? Is it going to be okay?”
Mom came around the other side of the bed and took my non-IV-burdened hand. “It went extremely well. You were in there for ten hours, but they got all the tumor cells out.
“The extra good news is he was able to save all the ligaments in your knee. That means you have an even better chance than expected of regaining rotation,” Mom said.
That did make me feel better.
Jason handed me a cup of water. “And the titanium plate fit just right.”
“That’s a lot to take in right now, sweetie. Dr. Ray will stop by early in the morning to check on you,” Mom said.
“Who sent all these flowers?” Bouquets and cards covered the windowsill, dresser, and bedside table.
“Everyone.” Mom smiled. “We can read all the cards that came with them when you have more energy.”
There was a tap on the door, and then it opened. “Ellie-bee, you’re awake.”
“Dad.”
“You did it, kiddo.” He kissed my forehead then gave me a large wrapped box.
I unwrapped it to reveal several pairs of the softest pajamas. “Thanks, Dad. Just what I’ll need.”
“There’s a card somewhere in there, too.” He rifled around in the box till he found it under some tissue paper and handed it to me.
It read:
I love you with all my heart. Keep healing strong. Love, Dad
“Thanks, Dad. I love you, too.”
Mom said, “Very thoughtful, Frank.” They shared the first genuine smile between them I’d witnessed in years.
There were more knocks on the door. “Can we come in?” Quinn asked, Hana and Craig by her side.
“Of course,” Mom said, waving them in, the room now cramped. “Frank, why don’t we take a walk and give the kids some time. It’ll give us a chance to talk about a few logistics.”
Hana, Quinn, and Craig gave me hugs, cooed at me, told me how scared they’d been, how happy they were to see me. I showed them my leg, and they cringed, covered their mouths, and generally didn’t hold back their flinching terror. Comforting.
“Guess what?” Quinn said to me, handing me her phone.
“What?”
“We’re getting a tiny bit internet famous,” Hana said, clicking play on the cued-up video of our Las Palomas del Disco sketch on Comedy Hub’s website. “It posted this morning.”
“What?” I jolted up a fraction in surprise, but even that small movement caused a pang, so I eased back down, holding still as I watched in disbelief. There were already thousands of likes.
“Hana, these comments. They all love you.”
She blushed and clicked around to another video. “Wait until you see this one. Someone from the audience posted it over the weekend.” It was a video of Craig and Jason singing.
I gasped. “You guys. Your song. I bet that recording deal isn’t far away now, Craig.”
“We’ll see,” he said, but his face radiated hope.
“It’s not all good news for us,” Hana said. She showed me the comments from all the people losing their minds over Craig and Jason. Some of the comments were extremely blunt about what they wished to do with our boyfriends.
“Whoa. Wow. Please never read these, Jason.”
“Too late.” It was his turn to blush.
“Enough of that. This one is even better,” Craig said. He clicked play on the video of my standup set. It was surreal seeing myself onstage under the spotlight, energetic and confident. Especially now, being in this hospital bed, a puffy, stitched-up, immobile green thing.
“Read the comments,” Quinn said, scrolling down on the phone.
Comedy Hub had subtitled the post with an announcement to the world that I was getting my surgery today and asking everyone to wish me well. People were sharing it. There were hundreds of comments.
Praying for you.
You’re so funny. You rock. Get well soon.
Sending big love and prayers.
You’re an inspiration.
You got this.
We love you, Ellie Hartwood.
It hit me hard and fast. Strangers. All over the world. Praying for me. Sending me their love. My shoulders shook and tears slid down my face.
There was a longer comment toward the bottom.
My son was recently diagnosed. We’ve been so devastated. This is our first laugh since. Thank you. Please give us an update of your surgery. Hugs.
My heart ached and swelled, my world expanding.
“And, the best for last.” Quinn played a fourth video.
There, in my hand, on this phone, via the internet, where the world could access it forever, were Jason and me kissing in front of the Porter stage to the booming “do it” chants.
“Oh…no. Oh God.” I covered my face. “Someone please hit that morphine button a few billion times for me real quick.”
I woke up again later, and this time it was just Jason with me. He put his book down and lifted a package out from behind a chair in the corner of the room and brought it to me.
I pulled back layers of bubble wrap and uncovered the gift. A framed painting. It looked mostly like a realistic cross section of a thigh that might be found in an anatomy textbook. But in the middle, instead of only a bone, there was this wonderland of flowers—in purples, blues, and greens—growing out of the center of the bone with rays of gleaming light.
There were no adequate words for how happy seeing this strong, beautiful bone made me feel, and how loved, knowing Jason must have put hours into it. But I tried. “This means the world to me. It’s stunning.”
“Well, you know, when you’re up worrying night after night, it’s more fun to paint than stare at the ceiling.”
“You were worried about me?”
He nodded. “Of course.”
“You climbed through my window. You wrote me a song and sang it in front of an entire audience. You flew out to New York to be with me. You made me this gorgeous painting. I’m getting the feeling you plan on sticking around.”
He laughed. “Have I been too subtle?”
“I plan on sticking around, too.”
I smiled and propped his painting up at the end of my bed so my body would be inspired to grow and heal like the flowers blooming from the bone.