With the first few steps I took out of the hospital, it felt incredibly unreal and left me feeling a little uncomfortable. I waved goodbye to Aisling and jokingly said, “It was a nice stay here, but I hope I never have to see you again.” She gave me a smile and waved goodbye as I walked out with my mother and grandmother. My Mom heard me say that and wasn’t pleased with my rude joke.

“Why did you say that to her? You know that girl was taking care of you the whole time. As soon as they found you, she never left your side. She’s Irish, too, like us. You must be more kind to our people”, my Mom said.

“Sorry, Mom. Bad Joke.”

It was true; she had been nothing but kind to me. When I see her again, I’ll apologize to her.

On my walk home, I passed by all the old buildings and flat fields of corn, wondering if anything had changed in the time that I was gone. It was a hot Saturday, and most stores had lost power due to the heat messing with electrical lines. That kind of thing was common during the Summer, but it was strange seeing heat this late in the year.

The stores lucky enough to own an external generator remained open during those times and were often more successful. Most of them were franchise stores from mainland America. When I was a teenager, a Dominos moved here to St. Anthony, and we have had pizza ever since. God bless the Italians.

Sometimes, the bigger stores would share power with their neighbors. Still, most of the time, the small businesses would be closed until the primary circuit to the Island was restored. The worst one we experienced was back in 65’, the power was out for about 13 days. My family and I were going to leave for San Francisco then, but we stayed here for two those miserable weeks. It got so bad that even the US government got involved.

When that happened, many people feared it was happening because of the war. There was a lot of talk that the Russians were behind the power outage, but I thought it was all just a red scare ploy. It’s kind of comical; despite us being away from mainland America, there is a good percentage of patriots on this Island. But I think they are all just paranoid since the Los Angeles bombings back in 51’.

We passed by the Miracle’s Bakery, and my Mom asked, “Do you want to stop by? To get some for when your cousin gets here?”

“No, it’s ok,” I told my Mom, “Anyways, I don’t have any money. I missed work for two months and need to start saving money to pay the hospital bills.”

“Don’t worry about it; I have some leftover money from the stuff I pawned,” my Mom told me. I looked at her worried and asked, “What did you sell?”

“Things that I didn’t need anymore, stuff that was just taking up space,” my Mom told me.

I wasn’t buying it; my Mom must’ve sold something pretty expensive to make it for the two months that I was gone and to have some left over. I told her, “It’s ok, Mom, just save up that money for a better time.”

“Don’t be like that, Franklin. Come on, let’s get some”, my Mom said as she grabbed my grandma’s hand and walked inside the bakery. I followed her inside, and I saw Joey behind the counter. It was quite a surprise because I hadn’t seen Joey in quite a few years, not since I was 18. I went to school with him when we were little and always remembered him as an intelligent kid.

He used to go to high school with Charlotte in San Francisco, and from what I remembered, they were pretty close friends. I have to admit that I was pretty jealous of him at the time, but the only thing that somewhat brought me comfort, as funny as it is, I could beat his ass if given the opportunity.

He was a thin, wispy-looking guy, and I was always big and wide. It would be easy if he and I got into it. I feel like a bully when I think like this, but it’s true. He might have a higher IQ than me, but all his formulas and theories won’t stop these beefy mitts when they punch him across the face. But once I got to know him, he was an alright guy.

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When he and Charlotte finished high school, I heard he was attending a university in Lincoln, Nebraska. That was so many years ago I couldn’t remember what he wanted to become, but I can tell it wasn’t just to come back here.

“Oh shit, Joey!” I blurted out to get his attention. He turned around from the shelf he was filling, and when he looked at me, his face turned white, like I threatened his life.

“Holy Hell,” muttered Joey, “Frank, is that you?” he questioned as he adjusted his glasses and squinted his eyes. I spread my arms for a hug, and Joey’s expression changed from confusion to happiness as he also turned for the embrace. He hugs me tightly and excitedly tells me, “I thought you were dead, man!”

“You know me, man. I’m too tough to die”, I jokingly said as I released him from the hug and lifted my arms to flex my biceps, “You think some car accident was going to do me in?”

Chuckling to himself, Joey said, “Well… No, but when I went to go see if you were home and your Mom told me that you were in a coma, I thought, shit, for sure Frankie’s fascinations finally blew up in his face, literally!”

“Huh, what are you talking about?” I asked.

“What, you don’t remember? You asked me if I know how to build a bomb-” I quickly cut Joey off before he could finish his sentence.

I looked over to my Mom to see if she was listening, but she was busy picking up the bread with my grandma. I said to Joey with slight annoyance, “Hey, shut up. My Mom is over there. She’s going to think that I am a member of the IRA or some shit.”

“They’re only in Ireland.”

“Shut up, Joey.”

We both look over to see my Mom looking at us, and she begins to walk over to us. Joey quickly greets her in his dweebish way and a wave, “Hi, Mrs. Lambe.”

My Mom smiles, “Joey, where’s your father at?”

“My dad? He’s back at home; it’s just me here today. Is there something I can help with?” Joey eagerly asks.

“No, not at all. I was just curious where your father was. How has he been? Did the hospital give him something for his heart?” she continued to ask. Confused, I ask Joey, “What’s going on with your dad?”

Joey’s face scrunched up, and his usual goofy way of talking dissipated to a more serious tone, one that I had never heard him speak before. He told me, “A couple of months ago, I got a phone call from my dad, and he told me that he was really sick. He said that he was constantly feeling tired, he had diarrhea and occasional vomiting. I thought he must’ve had some kind of stomach flu, so I paid no attention to him. I told him to take a few days off from the bakery and see a doctor if anything worse happened.”

His face further soured as he continued, “I got a phone call from him a couple of days later, and he told me that he had heart cancer. I asked around at the university, and they told me that they had never heard of cancer of the heart. Only one person said they heard of it, and apparently, it’s extremely rare.” His eyes begin to water up, but he fights the tears; he looks over to my Mom and tells her, “No, they can only give him something for the pain.”

“Poor Joey” is all I can think about as I waved goodbye to him when we left. He waved back and gave me that goofy smile that he always had on his face. Behind those thick-brim glasses, I couldn’t even tell there was that much sadness.

As I walked home, my Mom randomly told me, “You know what’s worse than being broke and sad?”

I looked over to my Mom and asked, “What?”

“Being broke, sad, and hungry,” she gleefully says as she takes a piece of bread out of the bag and eats it. She offers me a piece, but I decline with a hand gesture. She looks at me with an understanding look and gives a piece to my grandma, but she looks at it and throws it on the ground.

“What are you doin’ ma?!”

Then it hit me. Considering what just happened to me and everyone around me, I am going to die one day. I got lucky once, but what if I am not so lucky next time? What if death doesn’t come next for me but for someone I love? There’s so much that I want to do, and now, I begin to feel a timer placed on me.

I want to do something with my life: I want to get married, have children, own a place of my own. I want a family of my own, one I built, not one handed to me. Then I began to think about Charlotte and how much I love her. I began to imagine living with her and having at least two kids with her, a boy and a girl. That thought brought so much warmth and peace into my heart. If I had that, I wouldn’t even mind living here on St. Anthony.

“I’m going to marry Charlotte!” I accidentally blurted out.

“You’re going to what?” my Mom angrily replies.