That’s just how she was wired. Jackie was not the kind of student who raised her hand in class, she was (usually) not the kind of daughter who questioned her parents, and she was not the kind of Internet user to voice her opinion. Jackie was perfectly satisfied to troll without ever reeling in the net, though she wondered if her failure to participate made her a troll of a different kind. The only person with whom she interacted online was Max, and he lived in Saint Petersburg, Russia.
She and Max were participating in a social media exchange program through their respective schools. Jackie didn’t want a friend in another country—she had enough trouble with friends in the good ol’ U. S. of A.—but the teacher made it a required assignment. When she found out that her randomly assigned partner was a boy, she had a bit of a meltdown.
But Max turned out to be nice. He was fascinated by American culture and would pepper Jackie with questions when they were online together, which was usually during her morning free period in the computer lab. He was most interested in American movies and seemed obsessed with American directors like Martin Scorsese, Cameron Crowe, and Steven Spielberg.
So far they hadn’t talked about anything really serious, mostly just music and movies and what kids wore to school. Max had already dated three different girls, which made Jackie embarrassed about her own nonexistent love life, but luckily, Max never asked. He also played the guitar, which she thought was pretty cool.
Maybe it’s because she knew they would never meet, but somehow talking to Max felt safe. Jackie found herself stepping out of her comfort zone with him, and she liked it. Plus, she couldn’t help thinking that, maybe, he had a little crush on her.
She was just starting to get lost in a daydream about Max when the doorbell rang, pulling her back to the moment. Jackie being Jackie figured someone else would answer it.
***
Jared Stone read his listing for the fourth time. He couldn’t shake the feeling that he’d forgotten something:
HUMAN LIFE FOR SALE
Forty-five-year-old man with four months to live is selling his life to the highest bidder. You may do with him as you please—slavery, murder, torture, or just pleasant conversation. A human life, yours to control, yours to own. Buyers must live in a state or country with a law allowing assisted suicides, and the buyer bears the cost of transportation and tax. There is a reserve for this auction.
If there was something missing, he couldn’t put his finger on it. He’d worked on the listing in a moment of true lucidity, so maybe the feeling tugging at the corner of his consciousness was just the tumor. But still …
The listing had been live for only five hours, and already there were seven bids. These early bids were from a collection of society’s fringe actors. Their purchase histories showed a fondness for Nazi artifacts, medieval weaponry, and Hello Kitty collectibles. The highest bid from this group was $900, so far from the reserve of $1,000,000 that Jared had to laugh.
The doorbell rang, and he heard his daughter Megan scream, “I’ll get it!” as she thumped down the stairs, taking the steps two at a time as she always did.
Megan was a strong, self-sufficient girl, and he had no worries about her ability to accept, understand, and process his death. It would be traumatic, no doubt, but she would persevere. She was one of those kids who moved through life with a natural ease.
His older daughter, Jackie, was a different story.
Jackie allowed herself to exist in the shadow of her younger sister, never stepping into the light, never establishing who she was. She was small and tender, and Jared loved her more than life itself. It was worry about Jackie more than anything that propelled him to roll the dice with the eBay listing.
Jared heard a group of muffled voices at the front door, followed by “Mom! Dad!” from Megan. He pushed himself back from his computer and went to find out what was going on.
“Um, honey,” his wife, Deirdre, was saying, having reached the door a few seconds before he did, “is there something you want to tell me?”
Right, Jared thought on seeing the half-dozen camera crews and twice that number of reporters, now I know what I forgot.
***
Just as Jared was being besieged by the media at his front door, the glioblastoma was feasting on a memory from Jared’s second Christmas, when he, Jared, was one and a half years old. The memory was hidden so well that the tumor had to drill down through a rarely used sector of Jared’s brain to find it. The drilling was such a shock to Jared’s system that it caused the tumor’s host to stumble forward and fall into the arms of his wife.
The tumor was oblivious to what was going on in the world outside Jared’s brain. It was too enamored with the “snow boat”—the name with which Baby Jared referred to his first sled—to pay attention to anything else.