The man looked up and met Jared’s eyes. He seemed confused. Jackie couldn’t tell if he was confused that Jared was talking to him, or just confused in general. His clothes—a dirty pair of blue jeans; a black sweater with little holes in the shape of some nighttime constellation, which must have been warm in the summer heat; and boots with the soles worn thin—along with the sign and money, told Jackie that this man was homeless. She knew from television and from overhearing adults talk that there were homeless people in the world, but she wasn’t sure she had ever seen one, and she definitely had not met one.
When the man didn’t answer, Jared squatted down so they were eye level. He extended his hand and said, “Hi, I’m Jared Stone. I’m your state representative.” The man paused a beat before he burst out laughing. Jackie thought the man was old at first, but on hearing him laugh she thought maybe he wasn’t much older than her dad. His laugh was genuine and infectious. Her dad laughed, too, and it made Jackie smile.
“Yeah, I’m guessing you don’t really care that I’m your representative. Maybe you’ve got bigger fish to fry.”
“Mister,” the man said, speaking for the first time, his voice gravelly but each word spoken clearly, “I wish to holy hell I had a fish to fry.”
Jared smiled at this. “You know the city has shelters. You can get a good meal and a warm bed,” he offered.
“I know. But you can only stay so many nights in a row.”
“Do you work?” The man shook his head. He was about to say more, but he looked at Jackie and Megan and thought better of it. Jackie could tell the reason he couldn’t work was some sort of dark secret that he thought might scare children. Even at eight, this touched Jackie; this man who had nothing still had concern for her.
“Well,” Jared said, taking his wallet out of his jacket, “maybe this will help a little.” Jared placed a twenty-dollar bill in the basket. The man stared at it in disbelief for a second, wondering if maybe there was some trick, but then he snatched it up in one fluid motion.
“It will help a lot,” he said. “Thank you.”
“Do you have a name?”
“Richard.”
“Well, Richard, it’s nice to meet you.” Jared stuck out his hand again, and this time the man shook it. He smiled at Jared and nodded to Deirdre, Jackie, and Megan.
“C’mon, girls,” Jared said, moving back toward the entrance to the bookstore.
“Wait.” They all turned to look at Jackie. She opened her small pocketbook and took out the five one-dollar bills her mother had given her in exchange for the pile of quarters she’d earned at the lemonade stand. “Here,” she said, crouching down and gently laying the money in the man’s basket with great care.
The man met her eyes and sort of smiled; somehow that made him seem sadder. He nodded but couldn’t find any words of thanks to offer. Jackie was confused and worried that maybe she’d done something wrong. When she looked up at her mother in alarm, Deirdre’s smile told her everything she needed to know. She pulled her into a tight hug and kissed the top of her head.
“You take care now, Richard,” Jared said, “and you put my daughter’s money to good use.” He steered his family into the bookstore.
It wasn’t until years later that Jackie understood her father’s final admonition to Richard, that he not use Jackie’s money, the hard-won money of an eight-year-old girl, for drugs or alcohol. On that day, Jackie simply felt proud; she felt good. So very good.
Megan clutched her own pocketbook to her chest and, once they were in the store, proclaimed that she was not “giving my money to that dirty man.” Jared shook his head and smiled, chalking it up to Megan’s age. No one said a word as they fanned out and went book shopping.
Jared and Deirdre bought Jackie a book anyway—Judy Blume’s Otherwise Known as Sheila the Great—as a reward for her selfless behavior. While they did stop at another store so Megan could buy a tiara (also with financial help from her parents), Jackie couldn’t remember ever seeing her sister wear it.
Jackie thought about that day as she processed her mother’s one-word answer to the question of why they’d signed on with the television network: Money.
The word in this context seemed filthy; it filled Jackie with a kind of dread. “Okay,” she said, “but I hope we’re going to do something good with it.”
Deirdre looked at her daughter, sighed, and nodded. “C’mere,” she said, and held out her arms. Jackie curled up, resting her head on Deirdre’s lap. She fell asleep while her mother stroked her hair.
***
With the memory of his first CT scan—and the fear and apprehension that came with it—now gone from Jared’s psyche, his thrice-weekly trips to the doctor didn’t cause him nearly as much anxiety.
The radiation treatments—which Jared thought of as “microwaving my brain,” though he could no longer remember why he thought that—were painless. But they were making him tired. He thought about stopping the treatments and asked the doctor about it.
“Really, Jared, it’s up to you,” she told him. “It’s what we talked about when I first signed you up for the program.” Jared tried to recall that conversation but couldn’t seem to find a marker for it anywhere in his memory. “The treatments may buy you a little more time, but they may also make the time you have left less … less …”
“Alive?”