As I Lift Up My Hands 1/8

[keire_ke]

June 1996

The beads of the rosary are warm against his fingers. Jacob doesn’t pray, not anymore. He tried, more than once, if only to calm his nerves, but it turns out his nerves don’t want the comfort of Hail Marys. After he recites the final Hail Mary of the fourth decade he finds himself staring blankly at the wall, twisting the chain around his hands. The wall is a sickly green. Whoever thought that green was a good color for a hospital wall deserves a long stay in such an establishment, as penance. Jacob closes his eyes and rests his forehead against his hands, by now tied thoroughly together by the rosary.

He wants to pray, but his mouth is dry and the words won’t come out.

“Hey man.”

Jacob looks up. “Hey Dennis.”

“How are you holding up?”

“How do I look?”

“Like hell. Perhaps a little worse, depending on the season.”

“Thanks,” Jacob says, though he can’t say he knows for sure what Dennis meant.

“Any time.”

It is hard to believe it’s only been half an hour. Thirty-seven minutes, to be precise, since they wheeled his father in for surgery. Jacob returns to staring at the wall, seeing nothing. He hopes the time will fly by, that it’d be several hours before someone comes out of the operating room with a message. They warned, him, his mother, his father. The surgery could take as much as half a day, or just the time necessary to open his father’s abdominal cavity, determine the cancer had spread too far and declare it inoperable. Jacob solely hopes it would take forever. Days, if at all possible. Anything to avoid seeing the empty look in a doctors eyes when he says the words “I’m sorry, but there’s nothing more we can do.”

He has heard them before, once. He’d been ten, and it was his grandfather being sentenced to death. He remembers the look on his father’s face. He wonders if he is wearing the same expression, just now.

“You know this could take all night. You should go home,” Dennis said. Jacob looks down, at his hands. The beads are by now etched into the back of his hands. The rosary is wound up so tightly he can feel the hardness on the bones in his hands.

“I’ll wait,” he replies tightly.

“What about your mom?”

“She’s with her sister. She’ll be fine.”

Dennis is silent for a longer while. “You know… Your father could be fine.”

“That’s what I’m hoping for, yeah,” Jacob replies, a trace of humor in his voice.

“I mean, really. They might find it was just a scare, get the tiny lump that got them so confused, close him up and send you both home.”

“Yeah. Here’s hoping.”

“And it won’t cost you anything,” Dennis continues. His voice is dreamy, and unfocused. Jacob has a feeling he is listening to someone not quite there. His mind supplies an image of the Greek prophetess in the Delphi temple, high on the fumes, and he almost, almost cracks up, but he is too somber to be amused.

“Have you been drinking?” he asks instead, glancing at the man.

“No.” Then after a pause, “Don’t you wish it were so?”

“Sure.” The chain of the rosary is painful now, heat and pressure against his skin. “Yes. I do.”

Dennis smiles, lazily. “There you go. You hold on to that.”

Jacob smiles back. “Thanks.”

“No problem. Just one small thing.”

“What?”

“In about ten years I’ll swing by your home, for an errand. Promise you’ll help me out?”

“You have been drinking,” Jacob accuses, but the whole conversation has been just short of amusing, so he goes along with it. “Hey, if that makes you happy. Yeah, I’ll help.”

“Great.” Dennis picks up his hand and shakes it, solemnly. Jacob wrinkles his nose.

“Okay, that’s not alcohol. What are you on?”

“Weeds. Don’t tell anyone.”

“Go home,” Jacob says, his spirits lifted considerably. “Sleep it off. The cops are wandering by every now and then, carrying drunks, I’d hate for them to grab you on the way.”

Dennis gets off the bench a little unsteadily. “Yeah, I’m going.”

“I’ll ring you, when we get back home.” Drunk or not, there was something about Dennis Jacob can’t help but grin about. A useful guy for getting your spirits up, that’s for sure.

“Goodnight.” Dennis walks past him and Jacob straightens in his chair.

“Shit!” The rosary breaks in his hands, beads spilling into the quiet corridor with thunderous noise. Jacob shoots out of his chair, hunting for the errant spheres. “Of all the times to break,” he mutters to himself. Luckily, most of the chain held together, so he has no problem completing the rosary again. He has all but one when he looks up and sees the final piece, dangling off Dennis’ fingers. For a moment they both stare at it in rapt fascination.

“Dennis, go home,” Jacob says, grabbing the piece from his hand. “I’m okay here.”

“Can you fix it?” Dennis asks, his voice hushed and fascinated.

Jacob blinks. He is still looking at the broken rosary. “Yeah, no problem.” Dennis’ grin is positively scary. “Dude, go home. Call a cab or whatever, ‘cause you’re seriously creeping my out.”

“I am? Sorry. See you later.”

Jacob watches Dennis go, a little unsteadily, down the longest corridor in hospital history, and disappear behind the door. He shakes his head and looks down at the rosary. It feels warm against his skin, warmer than before. But the only damage is a few broken links and that can be fixed easily enough.

He gets back in his chair, to stare at the opposing wall once again. The feeling of impending doom is well and truly gone by now. He doesn’t realize when he falls asleep, though later he suspects that the sudden appearance of Dustin Hoffman in a toga at eight forty-nine was a suspicious clue. He wakes up to a very surprised doctor, shaking him by the arm.

“Mr Lake? Your father is out of surgery now.”

Jacob looks at a clock and swallows painfully. It’s been less than a couple of hours. “Can I see him?” he asks, feeling bleak and washed out.

“He hasn’t woken up yet. The surgery went very well,” he says, though his brows are furrowed as if he doesn’t quite believe his own words. Or his own eyes. “The cancer was surprisingly insignificant, considering the test results. We got all of it. His prognosis is excellent.”

Jacob sags weakly against the chair. “Thank God,” he whispers reverently, pressing his mouth to the broken rosary. “Thank God.”

“You may see him, if you wish. We can’t let you in just yet, though.”

“Thank you,” Jacob follows the doctor to a room where a couple of nurses are checking needles and machines, all of them hooked up to the living breathing man in the middle. His father. His eyes are still closed and the amount of machines and tubes is frightening, but he looks okay. Jacob watches for a few moments, because it seems too unbelievable to be true, but he looks as if he were sleeping comfortably in his own bed.

In a few minutes he will call his mother, with the good news, to share the miracle. If he knows his aunt, by tomorrow the whole town will know and there would be quiet celebration and joy for everyone. This moment though, right then, the miracle is his and his alone.



Master Post :: Part Two