“That’s crazy,” I tell her.
“Not when your friend is having a hard time,” she says.
“I can’t leave the hospital,” I tell her.
“I know,” she says. “Just tell me where to meet you and I’ll come there. You can be as close or as far away as you need to be.”
I don’t know what to tell her. I don’t know what to say.
“Thanks,” I finally mutter, and I tell her where to meet me.
While Danna’s sleeping, there’s no reason I can’t spend a little time talking to Emma.
Before her diagnosis, Danna was in school, training to be a ballet dancer. She was really quite something.
I never really understood the ballet, but Danna loved it. Every time we talked, that’s what she wanted to talk about. I think that’s why it’s so much harder to see her stuck in a bed or struggling to get around the house.
It’s not always like that, though.
With relapsing remitting MS, Danna actually spends most of her life symptom-free, at least to the largest degree, but even with her long bouts of healthiness, Danna had to give up her dream.
Since Jamie, I’ve dated a bit here and there. I even tried being the Hollywood swinger type for a little while, but Danna always needed me more than I needed to be with someone.
A little time passes and I spot Emma walking toward our designated meeting place, so I set off to meet her.
“What’s going on?” she asks when we’re within conversational distance. “Is everything all right?”
“Yeah,” I tell her. “Danna’s going to be fine.”
One of the things about Danna is that she loved Jamie. The feeling was mutual. In fact, I’m not entirely sure that Jamie liked me more than she liked my sister.
That was all well and good, but now that Jamie’s gone, as far as Danna’s concerned, nobody will ever measure up.
It took me years before I realized what was really going on.
After Jamie died, Danna didn’t grieve. Because of my own sorrow, I hadn’t allowed her to grieve.
It wasn’t a conscious decision, it was just the way things played out, and so Danna took the role of pillar while I was allowed to let loose with my emotions whenever and however I saw fit.
I think, more than anything, Danna talks down every woman that comes around because she is afraid of getting attached to someone new only to end up losing them as well, whether to death or to a breakup or whatever the case may be. She never got to grieve and so she’s had to stifle that sadness, she had to channel the hurt. It had to go somewhere.
Anyway, there are a lot of reasons I don’t think right now would be the best time for Danna and Emma to meet.
“I’m glad to hear that,” Emma says. “You sound a little better than you did on the phone,” she continues. “Are you doing better?”
“Yeah,” I tell her. “I don’t know.”
“I don’t suppose you’re going to tell me what happened, are you?” she asks.
“It is what it is,” I tell her. “I just wish there was something I could do.”
“Maybe there is,” Emma says. “You’re a rich and well-known, if not well-respected, actor. This is what we do, isn’t it? When we want to see something change, we find a cause and we get behind it.”
“Yeah, the problem with that is that a few million here or there isn’t going to change anything,” I tell her. “Look, I know how this whole thing is going to go. I’ve been through this with her before, and I don’t really think we’re going to make all of it feel better or that we’re going to make me magically stop caring.”
“I know,” she says. “I just know that sometimes it can help me feel better when I talk about what’s going on with me. It
doesn’t necessarily solve the problem. It doesn’t have to. Some problems aren’t just going to go away by talking them out. All that you can do when there’s nothing else that you can do is to try to get through it without running yourself down mentally, emotionally, or physically.”