Chapter Thirty-Nine

“They were going to let me out in a couple of days.” Isaac’s eyes were veiled; Mr. Lincoln could tell that he was upset and trying to hide it. “But then they did this thing where they sent a camera down my throat, and they couldn’t get it all the way into my stomach, because there was scar tissue caused by an infection, and so they did a lot of more tests, and they did more surgery yesterday and they might do more in a few days, so now I don’t know when I’m getting out.” Shakily, he sighed. “I guess that’s just the way it goes, huh?”

It was the day before Valentine’s Day, and Isaac had been in the hospital since early January. He wished they would let him out. He knew they probably wouldn’t, not any time soon.

“I’d be mad, too,” Mr. Lincoln supplied. “It sounds like you were counting on getting out of here.”

Wistfully, Isaac smiled. “I guess I should have known better.”

“No.” Mr. Lincoln shook his head. “If I were you, I’d be really anxious to get out of the hospital.”

Isaac grinned. “I know. My friend Paul, he’s in the hospital a lot, he made a big sign for his window that says ‘Help! Let me out of here!’”

“You didn’t make one?” Mr. Lincoln asked.

“Well, I told him!” Isaac exclaimed. “Nobody will see it. They’ll all be on the ground, and we’re a few stories up.”

“That’s true,” Mr. Lincoln agreed. “So, you’re just waiting for the doctors to let you out?”

Isaac nodded. “Yeah.” He sighed. “It’ll be pretty bad to go back to school, though. I mean, I like working with you.”

Mr. Lincoln hid his smile. “Thank you. I like working with you, too.”

“But once I get out of the hospital, I’ll have to go back to school, I guess,” Isaac went on. “But I’ll probably have to go back in at some point, so they can do more surgery. So maybe I’ll see you then.”

“Actually,” Mr. Lincoln clarified, “you probably won’t be going back to school until a few weeks after you get out of the hospital. So I’ll be working with you at home until you go back to school.”

Isaac grinned. “Really?”

“That’s what will happen,” Mr. Lincoln assured him.

“Oh, great,” Isaac groaned, pulling the blankets over his head.

“What?” Mr. Lincoln asked, unsure of whether or not to be offended.

“Now I’m looking forward to getting out of here even more than I was!”

“And this is how the animals go,” Zac said to himself. “The mommies and the babies, all in a line.”

He was playing with a box of plastic animals, lining up cows and kittens next to lions and panthers. “I’m going to put you all in the zoo,” he told them.

“Zac!” Taylor came banging through the door, carrying a paper bag brimming over with pink and white construction paper. “Look! I maked a Valentime for you. That’s because it’s Valentime’s Day.” He handed Zac a misshapen pink heart with a red lollipop taped to it.

“It’s very pretty,” Zac observed. “You maked it all by yourself?”

Taylor nodded. “It says ‘I love you, Zac, love Taylor.’” (Actually, what the ‘Valentime’ said was “i luve u ZAC TAYLOR.” But such minor discrepancies made little difference to either of them.) “And you can have the lollipop, too.”

Zac grinned. “I like Valentime’s Day!”

“Me, too,” Taylor agreed. He pulled another paper heart out of his bag. “And sometimes you can write a poem on them. This one has a poem on it.” Clearing his throat, Taylor held up the Valentine and read Zac the message.

“Dear J.J.,

Roses are red,

Violets are blue,

You’re mean to me everyday and I didn’t want to give you a lollipop,

But Dan said I had to give one to everybody, so I am.

Amen.”

“Amen?” Zac asked.

“That’s what you say on the end of poems,” Taylor explained.

“Oh.” Zac thought about this for a moment.

“I made Valentimes for everybody in my class,” Taylor told his younger brother. “And my teacher, and Dan and Nora, and me and the principal and. . .”

“Now, I will make a Valentime.” Zac announced. “I will make a Valentime for Ike.”

“Oh, no!” Taylor wailed. “I forgot to make a Valentime for Ike!”

“Make one now,” Zac suggested, reasonably.

“Oh, right.” Taylor nodded, smiling. All was well in the world again.

“That’s not a heart,” Taylor told Zac.

“It’s a airplane,” Zac explained. “That goes up in space.”

“It’s nice,” Taylor said. “Want me to write on it what you want to say to Ike?”

Zac shook his head. “Dan.”

“Oh.” Taylor went back to his own valentine.

“Make it say ‘Ike, this is a airplane,’” Zac directed Dan.

“You’re a’sposed to say ‘dear Ike,’” Taylor interupted.

“No.” Zac shook his head. “Just ‘Ike, this is a airplane what I drew.’”

“Dear Ike,” Dan wrote. “This is a airplane what I drew.”

“And write ‘It goes up in space,’” Zac continued.

“It goes up in space,” Dan wrote.

“‘And it’s a Valentime,’” Zac finished. “‘From Zac. Amen.’”

“Amen?” Dan asked.

“That’s what you say at the end of it,” Zac informed him.

“Amen,” Dan wrote.

“Are you okay?” Nora asked Isaac.

He nodded. “Yeah.”

Both of them were quiet for a moment. Outside, a soft mist of snow fell steadily from the sky, silently blanketing the ground in velvet.

“I know you’re sick of this,” Nora said aloud.

Isaac sighed. “It’s all right.”

“I’m sorry,” Nora shook her head. She didn’t know what else to say.

“It isn’t your fault,” Isaac pointed out.

“I’m sorry anyway.” Nora smiled, warmly, apologetically. She took Isaac’s hand in hers. “It’ll be soon, I think. I just have a good feeling.”

“I hope so,” Isaac sighed.

“Don’t worry,” Nora told him. But she was worried herself.

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