Page 10 of Never Forget
He never once made me feel like a burden.
When I graduated high school and left for New York, he hugged me at the airport and told me to go do amazing things. When I called him crying from my dorm room three weeks later, homesick, overwhelmed, and convinced I'd made a terrible mistake, he talked me off the ledge for two hours and then sent me a care package full of my favorite snacks and a handwritten note that said:You're braver than you think. I believe in you.
I kept that note in my wallet for years.
So when I got promoted, my first instinct wasn't to call my boyfriend or my editor or any of the friends I'd made in New York. My first instinct was to call Jack.
He answered on the third ring. His voice was rough, tired, but warm the way it always was when he heard from me.
"There she is," he said. "My favorite sister."
"I'm your only sister."
"Still my favorite." I could hear the smile in his voice. "What's up?"
"I got the promotion."
"Jamie. Are you serious?"
"They're syndicating the series nationally. The whole thing. Every profile. And they want me to do more. They're giving me my own column."
Jack let out a sound that was half-laugh, half-exhale. Like he'd been holding his breath without knowing it. "I always knew you'd make it."
My eyes stung. It was stupid. I was a fully-grown woman, pacing my apartment in New York, tearing up because my brother told me he was proud of me. Some things you never outgrow.
"Thank you," I said. "For everything. I couldn't have done any of this without you."
"Yes, you could have. You just would've been more stressed about it." He coughed, then coughed again, the sound wet and rattling.
"Are you okay?"
"Fine. Just a little under the weather."
"That doesn't sound like under the weather. That sounds like bronchitis."
"It's nothing. Just some smoke inhalation from a call a few days ago. Doctors are keeping me for observation, but I'll be out by the weekend."
I stopped pacing. "Doctors? Jack, are you in the hospital?"
"It's not a big deal."
"You're in the hospital and you didn't tell me?"
"I didn't want you to worry."
I sank onto my couch, suddenly needing something solid underneath me.
My brother was in a hospital bed. The only family I had left. The man who had been my father since I was fifteen years old.
I'd already lost my parents. I couldn't lose him too.
"I'm coming down."
"Jamie, no."
"I was already planning to visit after the project wrapped. I'll just move up my flight. I can be there tomorrow."
"You just got promoted." Jack's voice was firm. "Celebrate. Go somewhere nice with your boyfriend. I'll be out of here by the weekend."
