Page 17 of Supernova

“Hobbies, Jo. What do you do for fun?”

Jo cuts off a bite of her cake to stall, looking at the paper plate in her hand as she does. “Well, I like to sew. I do a fair amount of that. And I read, but everyone reads,” she says, waving a hand to dismiss her own words. And then more quietly and with less confidence: “And I’m thinking of writing. I mean, I’d like to write.”

Dr. Chavez looks at her with interest. “Fiction?”

Jo shrugs. “Sure. Yes. I think fiction would be incredible, and I’d love to be a published author someday.” It feels bold—almost presumptuous—to say it out loud, but instead of walking back from her statement, Jo nods her head a few times, trying to convince herself of her own words. “So I’m thinking of gettinga typewriter and just carving out a bit of time to myself to start getting some words down.”

“Well, I think that’s wonderful,” Dr. Chavez says, watching her face. “I really do, Jo. I hope you find a way to make that happen, and for the record, I’d love to read anything you write.”

Just then the loudspeaker in the break room crackles loudly. “Code Blue, fifth floor,” a woman’s voice says with urgency. “I repeat, Code Blue, fifth floor.”

Almost in unison, every doctor and nurse in the room sets their plates down and walks to the door, brushing hands together and sweeping cake crumbs from the fronts of their lab coats and uniforms.

Jo is left standing there, looking at the now empty room. Instead of leaving it a mess, she cleans up some of the discarded plates that are empty, tossing things into a trash bin and wiping off the tables before she leaves the room and makes her way to see her favorite patient in the hospital, Douglas Dandridge.

“Come in, come in,” Mr. D says when he sees Jo peering in through the door. She’s pushing a cart that’s laden with books, juice, and packages of cookies and treats to hand out to the patients as she makes her rounds. “Hello, Mrs. Booker!” he says cheerily.

Jo leaves the cart to the side of the room and closes the door behind her. She’s loved her friendship with Mr. D, and has thoroughly enjoyed visiting the former high school math teacher throughout his long and arduous battle with cancer. The ninety-year-old widower has become one of the bright lights in Jo’s days of volunteering, and she’s actually been excited to tell him her news.

“How are you, Mr. D?” she asks first, sitting in the chair next to his bed. The sky outside his window is the bright, cloudless blue of a Florida winter day, and he sighs heavily as he looks out at the world beyond his hospital room.

“I’m tired, Josephine,” he admits, and she can tell that he doesn’t just mean that he didn’t sleep well. Several months back Nurse Edwina, Jo’s immediate supervisor, had predicted that Mr. D might not last until Christmas, and while it isn’t long after New Year’s, he’s still here, but looking a little worse for wear. “I think these relentlessly cheerful sunshiny days are going to do me in.”

“Oh, Mr. D,” Jo says, sitting in the chair and reaching for his hand to hold in between hers. His skin is cold and mottled, and he smiles at her gratefully as she wraps her fingers around his hand, warming it with her own body heat. “I want you to feel good.”

“Well, sweetheart,” he says, giving her a half-hearted wink. “That probably won’t happen. At this point, I’d just like to go and be with my wife, but these damn doctors keep showing up every day, giving me more medicine, taking more blood, and doing god only knows what to keep me alive. Can you tell them to just stop already?” He squeezes her hand to let her know he’s joking.

Jo wants to say something back—something encouraging—but she knows that, at this point, it’s fairly useless. Mr. Dandridge will die soon, and if he’s ready to go, then perhaps that will make it easier to say goodbye. Instead of offering false hope, Jo squeezes his hand back and looks him in the eye.

“I have something I want to tell you,” she says, feeling a nervous hopefulness in her chest. “I’ve decided that I’m going to start a new project.”

“Oh?” Mr. Dandridge attempts to sit up, but Jo pats his shoulder to let him know that he can stay completely flat and listen to her that way. “But you already helped to save that little boy, Josephine. How is he, by the way?”

An involuntary smile cracks Jo’s face. Adam Shepherd, a toddler with a heart defect who needed immediate surgery, had become Jo’s personal cause. Without being asked, she’dascertained that his parents would be unable to afford the surgery, so Jo had spearheaded a couple of fundraisers to bring in the money they needed, and just before Thanksgiving, little Adam had gotten the surgery.

“He’s doing great.” Tears spring to Jo's eyes. She doesn’t need any sort of recognition for her work on Adam’s behalf; just knowing that a little boy now has a chance at a full life because she was able to do something for him is reward in and of itself. “I hear that he might be going home around Valentine’s Day, so long as everything is stable.”

“That’s wonderful,” Mr. Dandridge says. He, too, looks like he might cry. “I have to tell you, Josephine, now that I’m at the end here, there are moments I wish I had children of my own.” He makes a face as he looks out the window again. “But it wasn’t in the cards for me and Mrs. Dandridge, and now here I am, alone. Your children are a blessing.” Jo knows this, of course: her children are the greatest joy of her life. She presses her lips together and nods. “But having you step into my life has almost been like having a daughter—or a granddaughter, given our ages,” Mr. D says, looking suddenly embarrassed. “I’m sorry if that’s overstepping the boundaries a bit, I just really appreciate you, Jo.”

She is still holding his hand and she presses it between both of her hands, looking into his rheumy blue eyes. “It’s not overstepping,” Jo says, shaking her head. “I’m happy to have been here. Your friendship has been such a highlight for me, and—“ Jo looks at her lap now, fighting back tears of a different kind than the ones she’d just felt for Adam Shepherd. “I’m going to miss you terribly.”

“Oh, no,” Mr. D says. “I didn’t mean to make you cry, Jo. And here you came in to tell me something wonderful, but I’ve taken us way off track. Tell me, please—what was it you were going to say when you came in?”

Jo gathers herself. She clears her throat and holds her head high, pausing for effect. “Well,” she says, “I have decided that…I’d like to write. I’m going to be a writer.”

Mr. Dandridge’s face beams back at her. “Is that so?” He smiles, looking proud. “I love that, Josephine. I really do. I bet you’ll be a crackerjack writer. What do you think you’d like to write about?”

This is the thing she’s been waiting to tell him. “I’d like to write romance,” Jo says. “Romance novels.”

Mr. Dandridge laughs. “Well, I’ll be darned! A romance writer has been visiting me all this time, and I never even knew it!”

Jo laughs with him. There is still doubt in her heart that she can actually write anything that a person might want to read, but something about the idea appeals to her in a way that nothing else does. “I’ve watched how much you’ve enjoyed reading the romances I bring you, and I thought: what unifies people in a way that almost nothing else does? Love. It’s love,” she says earnestly, still holding his hand in hers. “It doesn’t matter how old you are, if you’re a man or a woman, love is love, and there are an infinite number of love stories to be told. So I’m going to tell one.”

“Oh, Jo. I’m so proud of you. When will you have some of it written for me to read?”

Jo’s smile falters a bit; she hadn’t imagined writing something and then handing it over to someone else that quickly. “You really want to read it?”

Mr. D smiles at her, holding her gaze with his. “I’ll tell you what, Josephine Booker. You start writing, and I will do my absolute best to hang on here until you at least give me chapter one to read. Is that a deal?”

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