Chapter 22 Jack

Mr.Faisal Hamdy's mother visited him every day in the last week of his life. The day before he died, he told Jack she was taking him somewhere. He seemed excited. Interested. His eyes were shining with a different sort of light than Jack had seen in the last few days.

"That's awesome," Jack said.

"Yeah," Faisal croaked. He looked like a grinning skeleton, his teeth starkly white against his gray pallor and grayer hair. When he'd first come into hospice, he'd been tormented by the cancer that had eaten away at him, as well as all the things he'd left undone. But once his mother started visiting, that all changed. He seemed at peace. He seemed ready.

Jack never saw Faisal's mother, of course, because she'd died several years ago. She'd come back across the divide to escort her son to wherever they were going, and sometime between Jack's last shift and today, away they'd gone.

It truly was incredible how the dying generally found their peace with it. Sandra said that was the only reason she'd been able to do this job all these years. "If they were going any other way, I don't think I could handle it. Gives me hope my husband will be there when it's my time."

Jack hoped his mother would be there when it was his time too. It had been more than fifteen years.

Before she got sick, she used to take him to Lake Austin on summer afternoons. They would lie on the grass and eat bologna sandwiches she'd made from the box she got at the local food pantry. Jack would ask about his dad, and she would say he was the captain of a ship. They'd make boats from twigs and leaves and grass and push them into the water. "Bye, Dad," he'd say.

If he had a chance to meet his mom again, he'd ask who his dad was.

He'd never had any sort of father figure. No grandfather, no uncle, no male acquaintance who ever stuck around long. Jack had sometimes imagined he'd have three kids, just in case something happened to him. There was nothing lonelier than being an only child and losing your only parent at the age of fifteen.

But he was beginning to doubt he'd ever find his life partner. He'd gone on a date last week, one Tracy had set up for him. Lucinda was pretty, and she had a good job at Google. He liked her—she was personable. But there was something that didn't quite click for him. She didn't laugh at the same things he laughed at.

Just for grins, he'd asked Lucinda what her biggest childhood fear had been.

"Hmm... I guess getting separated from my parents. Isn't that every kid's nightmare? What was yours?"

"Spontaneous combustion,"he said.

She frowned. "That's not real."

She didn't get the game, and maybe he was being finicky, but there was no chemistry. He couldn't have babies with someone who didn't understand the childhood fear of spontaneous combustion.

He was thinking about Faisal Hamdy when he got to the Goodfellow Community Garden. Catherine was incensed by an attempt at tomato thievery—she rolled over to him on hot wheels and without preamble launched into her account of the event. "Plot Nine was helping herself! She was standing right where you are now with her fingers on a tomato. I stopped her. I told her we don't do that around here." Honestly, he never would have noticed if a tomato was missing—he was going to have a bucket of them as it was.

"Plot Nine?" He had to think a minute. "The lady with the twins?"

"That's Plot Two. Her husband is having an affair, by the way. You can take that to the bank."

Jack looked curiously at Catherine. "She told you that?"

"She didn't have to tell me anything. That man is always away on ‘business trips,'" she said, making air quotes. "He missed the twins' birthday party too. Anyway, this isn't about them; it's about someone with the gall to steal."

Jack looked across the garden to Plot Nine. It didn't look quite as ragged as it had, and it was clear the new person had put in some work. It wasn't exactly blooming, however.

"You should put up a sign that says ‘No picking allowed.' Once that kind of thing starts, where does it end?"

Jack was not putting up a sign.

"You're coming to the theater today, aren't you?" Catherine's tone had changed from angry to excited. "Big meeting, and I'm going to need some backup. Meredith thinks we can bake sale our way out of this."

Meredith thought a lot of things Catherine didn't agree with, and the fact that Jack even knew that surprised him. He was in the thick of it, wasn't he? Last week he'd told Byron and Clark he would have to skip a trip to a new club that had just opened.

"What? You don't want to miss this. I've got a reserved table, thanks to my boss,"Clark had said.

Jack was tempted. "I can't, sorry. I promised Catherine and the crew I'd help out that night."

Byron stared at Jack like he had a cat on his head. "Are you, like, dating her?"

Jack had laughed. "She's seventy-six, Byron." Frankly, he wasn't sure if Byron thought he was dating her anyway.

"I'll be there," he assured Catherine. "Just have to do some work here first."

"Catherine! Let's go," Walter was calling from their plot.

"He's so snippy," Catherine said. She stood up from her wheelchair and grabbed the handles. "See you later."

Jack watched her push the chair back to their plot. He waved to Walter, who waved back. He was discovering that geriatric thespians were a big-time commitment. Between repairs, set construction, learning the two dance routines he guessed he'd agreed to do, and breaking up arguments between Meredith and Catherine... it was a lot.

When he finished what he'd come to do, he looked again at Plot Nine. He walked over to have a closer look.

The soil had been turned, which was good, and most of the weeds were gone. But there were a couple of leggy plants in the back that looked like bindweed. Interestingly, the bindweed looked pruned. Next to that were some cucumber vines that had crept over from Plot Eight. And there was a row of neatly planted tomato seedlings. He thought it might be too late in the season to plant them, but A for effort.

He noticed a boot print in the soil. He imagined an older woman in a utility apron with big pockets and a beat-up sun hat. He'd seen a couple of that type in here.

He walked back to his plot and opened his footlocker, rummaging around until he found a used plastic baggie. He dumped some of Mr. Hauser's supersecret tomato food into it. Next, he opened his backpack and took out a small notebook and a pen and jotted down a note:

My friend Ron Hauser gifted me with a secret formula to growing tomatoes. I have extra and thought you might like some too. Good luck with your seedlings. And help yourself to a tomato in Plot Seven anytime.

He left the baggie on top of the Plot Nine footlocker and anchored it with some rocks.

***

The gang was all present at the theater. Meredith and Doralee had mounted an effort to hook new seat cushions, but so far they had covered only ten of three hundred. At this rate, Jack calculated it would take them about four years to finish.

When the thespians noticed him approaching the stage, they shouted, "Jack!" in unison. It was like coming home at Christmas to a room full of grandparents.

Jerry, the dance instructor, was the first to reach him. "Soglad someone with sensehas arrived."

Doralee put out her hand to stop Jack from advancing any farther down the aisle. She was in charge of costumes. "What are you, a 34, or maybe 36?"

"Doralee, that can wait," Catherine said.

"Canit wait, though? We haven't as much time as you think."

"Let him pass," said Walter. He was sitting on the edge of the stage, a tool belt beside him. Walter had been a decorated set designer, Jack had been told, but Jack had never seen him do any actual set construction—generally he left that to Jack, Mr. Carlton, and Martin. Walter was the de facto director of this entire project. "We were about to review the chores for the day," Walter informed him. "But true to form, Annabeth claims to have a conflict."

"What do you mean, ‘true to form'?" Annabeth demanded.

"I mean, every weekend when we try to tackle some tasks, you're indisposed."

"I can't help it that I have a more interesting life than any of you."

Jack took a seat next to Martin, who was married to Mary. Martin handed him a red Solo cup. The cups, and their contents, were standard fare at these meetings. Mary picked up a shaker, opened the top, and poured something into Jack's cup. The smell of alcohol wafted up; they liked their drinks strong.

Walter was still arguing with Annabeth, who was trying to convince him that she'd had this "thing" scheduled for weeks. Walter wanted to know what "thing."

"At the... Oh, I can't remember the name of the place. You know, in Montopolis. Everyone knows what I'm talking about."

"I don't," said Catherine. "If it's not within six blocks of here, I don't know it."

"What's that like, Cat, to be a shut-in?" Annabeth asked, and Meredith laughed too loud and too long.

"Okay, okay, let's get back to business," Walter said gruffly. "Let's start with the chore list." He held up a honey-do list of repairs. The thespians raised a hand if they thought they could tackle one. Some of them had their hands shouted down, given past performances with similar tasks. The shaker of booze kept going around. At one point they were derailed from the agenda by a lively debate about performances that had been robbed of Tony Awards, stretching back to nearly the Pleistocene era.

Whatever the boozy concoction was, it was excellent.

When the chores were finally divvied up, Jack laughed at something Catherine said, which, it turned out, was a line from a performance. She made Walter haul her up onto the stage and proceeded to reenact the entire scene, everyone laughing, Jack included.

In the end, when Walter asked if there were any comments, Jack suggested they adopt a no-booze rule for meetings so they could make some progress. He was roundly booed.

It remained to be seen if this group could pull off the impossible, but in the meantime, Jack was having a great time.