A Hope for Emily

“So how were you thinking to pay for it?” I try to speak reasonably, and not as if I am trying to catch her out, because I’m not. I just need to know.

Rachel slowly stirs her noodles, although she’s barely eaten any since I came into her house. “I have some savings. Some inheritance from my mother. I’m not saying it would be easy, but…” She trails off before she shakes her head, impatient now. “What exactly is the point of all this, Eva?”

“I want to help you.” I blurt the words, and Rachel cocks an eyebrow, clearly and utterly sceptical. As I would be, if I were in her situation.

If someone had offered to help me…

“Please,” I finish.

“Please?” Her voice rises incredulously. “Please, what? Please make you feel better, so you can be happy about your good deed for the day? You think you’re losing sleep over this? You think it matters to you?” Her words ring out, each one an accusation. “What even is this?” Disgusted, shaking her head, she rises from the sofa and goes into the kitchen, hurling the pot of noodles into the trashcan. Then she turns to me, hands on her hips, her eyes narrowed. “I don’t know why you’re here, and I’m trying to see the positive side, knowing you mean well, but…” She shakes her head again, slowly this time, back and forth, back and forth. “I really don’t understand why you’re here.”

“There are other options. Options I can help you with.”

Rachel stares at me, nonplussed. “I don’t know what you mean.”

I keep her gaze, everything in me straining, racing. “Ways to get James on board. To raise the money.”

“What are you talking about?”

I take a deep breath. Why am I doing this?

Because I have to.

“Have you heard of crowdfunding?”

“You mean asking for money online?” Her tone is slightly derisive.

“Sharing your story, Emily’s story, to people who are interested and want to support you,” I correct swiftly. I’m not in marketing for nothing. “People who can help, who want to help, if they just knew how.”

Rachel looks as sceptical as she ever did; I haven’t changed her mind at all. “So that’s your plan? I put up one of those websites telling random strangers about Emily, giving them my sob story, and then ask them to pay for me to take her to Italy?”

“You raise awareness,” I say. “Not only would it help Emily, but it would benefit the research on her condition as well as any potential treatment. You wouldn’t be doing it just for Emily; you’d be doing it for any child who suffers the way she has. For the doctors who can’t get funding for their research, because it’s too new or too weird or people think they don’t care about kids in states of unresponsive wakefulness. You can make them care. You put a face to a condition and it changes everything. It humanizes it. It makes people want to help.” Although raising awareness didn’t always help when it came to buying makeup. Still, this is different. This actually matters.

Rachel walks back to the sofa and slowly lowers herself onto it. There is a deep crinkle in the middle of her forehead, a hard set to her lips. I wait.

“I

don’t know,” she says after a long, tense beat of silence. “I’ve never thought of doing something like that before. Perhaps I should have, but…” She shakes her head. “I just didn’t.”

“This is what I do for a living, Rachel. I can help with this.”

“You crowdfund for a living?”

“I’m in marketing, digital marketing in particular. I try to get things to go viral. I use the algorithms, the keywords, the trends, to raise awareness, to garner interest. It’s amazing what you can do online.”

“I don’t want Emily to become some sort of poster child.” Rachel shakes her head again, harder this time. “I’ve seen those articles in the paper or the tabloid stories online. Desperate people with their ill child, asking for money, sharing their sob story… it’s awful. They open themselves up to all kinds of criticism and even hate. The comments… I couldn’t do that. I couldn’t put myself through that, or James.” She shoots me a searching, almost accusing look. “What about James, anyway? He would never agree to this, you know. You must know.”

“He doesn’t have to agree.” I can hardly believe I’m saying the words.

“He would hate it, Eva.” Another look. “And if he found out you were behind it too? How do you think he would take that?”

“ He’d feel betrayed,” I say quietly. “He… he doesn’t like me asking about you or Emily. He’s compartmentalized his life. Us.”

She stares at me for a moment. “Yes,” she says finally. “I can see that. James has always seen things in black and white.” She shakes her head slowly. “And yet, knowing that, you’re still here.”

“Yes. This… this is important to me, Rachel.” The words feel jagged in my throat. “But trust me, I don’t want to hurt James.”

“So how would you propose not to? Because, contrary to what you might think, I don’t want him to be hurt, either. I know he believes what he says. I know he loves Emily.” Her voice thickens. “We just have different ideas of what that looks like.”