Page 9 of The Wish

A lex stares at his bike, parked in the same place as yesterday, working up the courage to go inside the hospital.

He needs to have it out with Kelly before he speaks to Jesse.

One fight at a time , he thinks. Although he hopes not to fight with her today, remembering Max’s advice to apologise.

At the main reception, Alex asks for the social work department and is directed down the corridor with instructions to follow the signs.

All signs eventually lead to social work, the exhausted receptionist tells him.

Staff, visitors, patients in wheelchairs or being pushed on beds, others trudging slowly hanging onto loose pyjama bottoms or in gowns gaping at the back, waltz around each other with varying speed and intent.

Alex walks through them, dodging and weaving.

Seeing Kelly, he slows his pace before stepping in front of her.

‘How can I help you, Mr Daniels?’ Kelly asks, walking on, Alex now beside her.

‘I’d like to talk to Jesse.’

‘Not going to happen.’

‘Why not?’

‘She doesn’t need to be upset by you.’

‘I promise I won’t upset her, OK? I just need to ask her some more questions about what she wants to see if I can help. I want to help.’

Kelly stops abruptly and turns towards him. Once again, those bright blue eyes seem to pierce right through him.

‘OK,’ she says, ‘I’m listening.’

Alex gestures towards the side of the corridor, stepping out of the flow of people.

Beyond the glass a beautiful garden invites anyone needing the comfort mother nature provides in abundance.

Dappled sunlight dances on the faces of worried and distressed patients and their loved ones, sitting beneath the trees, on the grass or on benches.

Finally, Alex speaks quietly. ‘I’ll be honest with you.

This job – it’s a lot. Yesterday, it just felt too much, too .

. .’ Alex searches for the word but it eludes him.

‘I took on board what you said about letting Jesse down. I don’t want to do that, of course, but it’s .

. . it’s ambitious. I know I’m here to do a job and I will do it to the best of my ability.

But . . . I’m going to need your support to do it. To make that wish a reality.’

‘You really want to help?’

‘Yeah, I do.’

‘Then come with me,’ Kelly says, turning and walking towards the lifts.

Alex hesitates then scurries after her.

Walking side by side, Alex and Kelly enter 6 East, heading purposefully to Jesse’s room. On the way they pass Amy, Luke and Ryan who are helping staff rearrange some of the children’s paintings strung around the nurses’ station.

‘Two minutes, I give him two minutes,’ Ryan announces.

‘Five, I reckon,’ Luke confidently replies.

‘You’re both wrong,’ Amy says.

‘What do you mean?’ Ryan asks.

‘Kelly will leave first,’ Amy tells the boys.

‘It’s a bet,’ Ryan says with bravado, his hand outstretched for Amy to shake.

She takes his hand in her, and they shake.

As Kelly and Alex approach Jesse and Amy’s room, an immaculately dressed, middle-aged woman intercepts them, smiling warmly at Kelly.

‘Kelly, have you got a minute?’ she asks.

‘I shouldn’t be long; can it wait a moment?’ Kelly asks.

The woman notices Alex.

‘Oh, I’m sorry for interrupting.’

‘This is Alex Daniels,’ Kelly says. ‘He’s here to see if he can help Jesse fulfil her wish.’ Turning to Alex, she says, ‘This is Dr Christine Taylor, Jesse’s doctor.’

The doctor extends her hand to Alex, who takes it, blushing despite himself. He feels five years old again in her calm yet commanding presence.

‘It’s nice to meet you, Alex. Call me Christine – everyone does. Thank you for helping Jesse. You have no idea how important supporting our patients in this way can be at a time like this.’

‘It’s nice to meet you, Doctor, but we’re not quite there yet.’

‘Oh, you’ll be fine, and you’ve got Kelly here to help you. She’s the best.’

She turns to Kelly. ‘I’ll leave you to it then. Kelly, I’ll catch you when you’re free.’

‘She doesn’t look like a doctor,’ Alex says, watching Christine walk down the ward.

‘What should she look like?’

‘Wear a white coat and have a stethoscope hanging around her neck, I guess.’

‘This isn’t an ordinary hospital ward. We’re much less formal than most hospitals and that’s something we’re super proud of. Now, come on. Jesse’s finished her treatment for the day. We never want to give up but, just to prepare you, there is only so much her young body can take.’

As Kelly and Alex enter Jesse and Amy’s room, Jesse looks up from the book she is reading.

She’s pale, Alex notices, there are deep rings under her eyes, and she’s rigged up to an IV.

For the first time he properly registers just how unwell she is.

It hits him like a blow to his gut. How could he have been so blunt with her yesterday?

She’s still a child and she’s . . . dying.

Alex attempts a smile and Jesse scowls back. Kelly grabs the spare chair next to Amy’s bed and pulls it alongside Jesse’s bed, indicating for Alex to sit. Jesse slowly places a bookmark in the book. Closing it carefully, she puts it down on her bedside table and gazes at the two of them, waiting.

‘Jesse, Alex has asked if he can talk to you about your wish, he’d—’

‘Let him speak for himself,’ Jesse interrupts, staring intently at Alex.

‘I’m sorry I upset you yesterday,’ he says. ‘I’d like to talk to you some more about your wish. Maybe I can make it come true for you after all.’

‘Who made you come here? Was it Kelly?’

Before Kelly can reply, Alex jumps in.

‘No. Sorry, no, it was my boss.’

‘What’d they say?’

‘In less than polite language, he said that I have to make your wish come true.’

‘Or else he’d fire you. Is that it?’

‘Something like that, yeah.’ Alex grins ruefully.

‘Do you think that’s a good reason to be here?’

‘As good a reason as any. Kind of motivates me, don’t you think?’

For the first time since Alex and Kelly had entered the room, Jesse smiles. Alex relaxes a little and smiles back.

Jesse turns to Kelly. ‘Thanks, we’ll be OK now.’

‘I’ll just stick around for a bit,’ Kelly says.

Alex turns to Kelly, trying to keep his annoyance in check.

‘Like Jesse says, I think we’ll be OK, but thanks for the vote of confidence.’

‘I think he’s going to behave, Kelly. He’s going to take my suggestions seriously, and we’re going to do this together. Aren’t we, Alex?’

Alex is surprised to see a hurt look on Kelly’s face. She returns her chair back to its place beside Amy’s bed and silently leaves the room, keeping the door wide open behind her.

‘So,’ Alex says, ‘where shall we start? We have a virtual reality suit and games at the office, I could drag one out—’

‘No, Alex, that’s not the kind of thing I want.

I don’t want my family to be locked into their own suits with goggles, wandering aimlessly around and unable to engage with one another.

I know you can create moving backgrounds of places and scenes for people to walk into together, and experience a moment already lived or dreamed of.

I want to be part of the scenes, and I want them to be able to enter them without me. Does that make sense?’

‘Yes, absolutely. But you’re going to have to give me more background.’

‘Go and look at my pinboard. Really look at it.’

Alex walks over to the pinboard, but this time lingers over the contents.

Several drawings are pinned up alongside the photos.

Childish but with a clear message. A family of four building sandcastles on the beach, a woman, a young girl and a boy close together, a male figure sitting apart with a phone in his hand, a dog further away.

Three stick figures playing a board game.

He points at them. ‘Who did these?’

‘My little brother Sam. He’s eight. They make me sad when I look at them, they tell me how our last holiday together as a family was for him.’

‘Wasn’t it a happy holiday?’ Alex asks.

‘It should have been, we were away from all of this,’ Jesse says, waving her arms to indicate the hospital room.

‘It was a beach holiday, and it was during term so there weren’t many people around, and we had the whole beach to ourselves.

Dad took time off work, but he didn’t leave his work behind.

He’d sit on the beach with us or go to a restaurant with us but most of the time he wasn’t with us, if you get what I mean. ’

‘I think I do.’

Alex takes a piece of paper from the pinboard, a poem. He starts to read. The effects of the words play out on his face, which he has turned away from Jesse.

My sweet Jesse, my love, my precious one,

The days we’ve shared, the joy, the fun.

I see you fight, so brave, so strong,

Through every night, you still hold on.

Should time fade and seasons change,

My heart will stay, my love remain.

In every breath, in every sigh,

You’ll live with me, with no goodbye.

You are my daughter, so pure, so bright,

And in your eyes, I see the light.

No matter where this journey goes,

I’ll hold you close, through all our woes

‘Who wrote this?’

‘My mum.’

All Alex can do is nod. He doesn’t trust his voice. Slowly, he starts examining the photos he had seen yesterday from a distance. He lifts a photo from the board taken at the beach, Jesse wearing her favourite floppy hat.

‘Nice hat.’

He doesn’t need to be told that the young boy photographed so often with his arms around his big sister’s neck is Sam.

There is no doubt that the beautiful woman with the same features as Jesse is the author of the dazzling poem: her mum.

He spies a photo which includes a man, Sam on his shoulders, Jesse beside him, all three of them laughing together.

‘Your dad? He’s not in many of the photos.’

‘That’s because he’s behind the camera.’

‘Ah, of course.’

Alex returns to the bedside but doesn’t sit down.

‘It’s a bit . . .’ He looks around the room. ‘Is there any chance we can go somewhere else to talk?’

‘Don’t like being in a sick room, is that right?’