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Jack comes awake to a voice. At first, that’s all it is, an indistinct series of noises that don’t make any sense. He’s reminded of the teacher from the old Charlie Brown cartoons: wah wah wah-wah wah wah-wah-wah. Then consciousness floods all the way back in and they’re words, English, carried on a warm, sweet accent.
“...you hear me? Hey, are you wakin’ up? You’re okay, I got you. Don’t move your head. An ambulance is comin’, honey, just you wait a few minutes.”
Jack pries his eyes open. The rearview mirror dangles precariously, reflecting the passenger seat. Through the cracked windshield, he can see snow, a tree lit by headlights, crumpled metal. A memory filters in, slow and reluctant, like it’s swimming to him through cold syrup. Hitting black ice, trying to accelerate out of the skid, the dark line of elms along the side of the road.
He crashed his car. Jack’s eyes widen and he tries to straighten up, but someone has their hands on his jaw, holding his neck in a straight line.
“Don’t move!” the voice says, desperate. No one is there in the car with him, not that he can see. The hands belong to some disembodied spirit. An angel, maybe, here to stop him from ending his career by paralysis.
Jack begins to discover pain where there wasn’t before. His left elbow feels like a throbbing sun under his skin. His right ankle is almost as bad, thudding with his heartbeat. He tries to shift it and a pained grunt is yanked out of him involuntarily.
“I mean it,” the voice says again, more stern. Jack keeps forgetting it’s there. His head aches something awful, but the voice is steady. “Don’t move, you’re just gonna hurt yourself. What’s your name, honey? Can you tell me that?”
“Jack,” he says. He sounds like he’s been gargling gravel. “Who are you?”
“My name’s Eric,” the voice says. “I saw your car on the side of the road, there’s no one else around for miles.”
“Where are you? Are you an angel?”
“An ang-” The voice cuts off with a muffled laugh. “Oh, honey, no. I’m in your back seat, I’m supportin’ your neck, just in case you hurt your spine. I’m just a guy who called 911. I’m no angel, I promise.”
But Jack isn’t sure of that. When the ambulance comes, they put a neck brace on him, strap him to a backboard, and load him onto a stretcher. He can’t look around much, but he can see just how remote the road is. He could have been alone for hours, waiting for help, if Eric hadn’t come by when he did. As he’s lifted into the ambulance, he spots his savior waiting by the doors. Eric is tinier than Jack imagined, blonde, with the biggest brown eyes Jack has ever seen. He matches his voice, warm and gentle. He looks like an angel.
“You’re gonna be okay,” he says.
The ambulance doors close, and Jack realizes he didn’t ask Eric’s last name.
---
There’s little good news at the hospital. Besides his concussion, Jack’s left elbow is broken, and while it isn’t a career-ending injury (they keep throwing that phrase around, they don’t know the panic it shoots through his chest every time), it’s going to keep him from playing the rest of this season. His right ankle is broken, too, just a hairline fracture. If he stays off of it, it should heal correctly in a matter of weeks.
“My son-in-law broke his ankle once and it wasn’t ever the same,” a nurse says, when she comes in to prop up Jack’s pillows and bring his lunch.
“Oh?” Jack tries to be polite, but anxiety spikes up inside of him, his ribs squeezing into a vice around his heart. If he can never play hockey again, then what? What else is there? Hello, I’d like to introduce you to the great Bad Bob Zimmermann, and his son Jack the photographer? He closes his eyes and breathes.
“I’m only scaring you a little so you’ll keep up with your PT once you heal,” the nurse says, patting his knee through the blanket. “My son-in-law is a lazy couch potato. You’ll be fine.”
“Wonderful, thank you,” Jack says, without opening his eyes.
“Here,” the nurse says, and lays a paperback book in his lap. “This got left for you. You ring if you need anything, okay?”
She goes and Jack decides he will not need anything at all until he gets out of here. He forces himself to focus on the book in his lap instead of his pounding heart.
It’s a hand-bound cookbook. Slow-cooker recipes. Jack lays it in his lap and thumbs through with his good hand and a small envelope falls out of the page that reads “Slow Cooker Cherry Cobbler”.
The card inside the envelope is simple, plain white with red apples and blue flowers. It says “Get Well Soon”.
Jack,
I didn’t know your last name, so I hope this gets to you. I’ve hurt my wrist before, and I know how hard cooking for yourself can be with only one good hand. So here’s a book of recipes my family put together and passed out to all the kids. I contributed this one - I love cobbler. I wish we could have met under better circumstances. Feel better!
-Eric Bittle
Under the name, squished into the space like an afterthought or a greatly-debated addition, is a phone number, and the phrase: if you need anything at all .
---
Visitors come and go. A couple teammates, one with his family in tow. They’re nice, but Jack barely knows them. His manager calls, but she sounds grim, and Jack can’t help but wonder if she blames him for the accident. He doesn’t ask.
His parents call. Jack can barely talk to them. He reassures them he’s fine, he’ll be fine, it’s just one season. Come October, he’ll be right as rain. And then he tells them the doctor has come to talk to him, and he needs to go. When he hangs up, he’s alone in the room, but for the cookbook on his bedside table.
The nurse comes back, and when she grins at him, Jack hears “it wasn’t ever the same” on repeat.
“I hear they’re letting you go,” she says, as she wraps the blood pressure cuff around his arm. “Do you have somebody to drive you home?”
“No,” Jack says. “I’ll think of something. Uber, or a taxi.”
“Don’t get a taxi,” the nurse warns. “Filthy things. You’ll be back here in no time with a staph infection. Find someone with a clean car who can drive you. Someone reliable.”
Jack is twenty-seven hundred miles away from every reliable person he knows.
The nurse goes again, and Jack can’t get a deep enough breath to be relieved that she’s gone.
On the bedside table is the cookbook. He gropes for it, and manages not to knock it to the floor. That phone number stares up at him from the card.
if you need anything at all.
Maybe it’s time to ask for help.
---
Is this Eric Bittle’s phone?
yes it is! who’s this?
This is Jack. You helped me out after I was in a car accident.
oh jack!! i’m so glad you texted! how are you doing?
Not terrible. Been better. Ha ha
i bet :(
I hate to impose but I was wondering if I could ask a favor. You’ve already done so much.
anything
gosh that sounded hasty!! i mean, i’ll help you however i can
I don’t have a way to get back to my apartment from the hospital, and none of my family lives nearby. You wouldn’t happen to be able to give me a lift, would you? I’ll pay for gas.
oh my goodness, of course i wouldn’t mind! i can be there in a jiffy, i don’t live far. two shakes
I appreciate it. I owe you.
My life haha
That was meant to be a joke.
you must be feeling better ;)
---
Jack meets Eric for the second time when he gets into his car. An orderly wheels him out to the curb in a chair, and she helps Eric get Jack into the front seat. They load his crutches into the back, and off they go.
The silence as they drive is awkward. Jack only speaks to direct Eric to his apartment downtown, nerves buzzing under his skin. All he can think about is how empty it is there, and how many takeout containers will pile up until he can ask a neighbor to help him take out his trash, and how likely it is he’ll fall in the shower and never be found. He’s so preoccupied with his catastrophizing that he almost forgets to point out the turn for the parking lot. Looking out the window, Eric peers up at the highrise.
“You live on the ground floor, right?” he says. There’s the tiniest bit of hope in his voice.
“The fourteenth,” Jack says, dryly.
Eric helps him up to his apartment. They brave the elevator together, and the hall down to Jack’s two-bedroom. By the look on his face, it’s nicer than Eric expected.
Inside, Jack collapses into a chair and chuckles, his voice full of exhaustion. “This isn’t how I planned to spend this season. Could you grab those scissors from the counter so I can cut this bracelet off?”
Eric brings them to him, but leans down to do it himself. “This season of what?” he asks.
He reads the name Jack Zimmermann just as Jack says, “I play hockey.”
Eric straightens up and stares at him, and underneath the pallor and dark growth of stubble, there is a familiar set to his mouth and eyes that he somehow hadn’t seen up until this point.
“You’re Jack Zimmermann,” he says.
“Yes.”
“You play for the Las V-”
“I play for the Providence Falconers,” Jack says, too quickly.
For just a moment, silence stretches between them, worse than when they were in the car.
“I’m sorry,” Jack adds. “I interrupted you. It’s a sore subject. I was happy with the Aces, and then I got traded.”
“No, don’t be sorry,” Eric says, and his smile is so genuine that Jack is immediately reassured. “I saw you on television. I should’ve remembered.”
That smile. Jack has never seen one quite like it, so soft and real. It tells him that Eric is legitimately pleased to be talking to Jack, to help him out. He knows who Jack is, has seen him on TV, and is asking nothing of him.
Jack asks, “Would you like to sit down?”
Eric sits down. They talk for a few minutes, about hockey (Eric played in high school, then college, but wasn’t professional material). Then a few minutes more, about baking (Eric owns a small shop about a mile from Jack’s apartment). Then a few minutes more, about family (Eric’s parents live in Georgia, he’s an only child, they’re proud of him).
They talk for a few minutes, and then a few hours, and by the time Eric finally looks at his watch, the windows are dark.
“Oh lord, I didn’t realize the time,” Eric says, concern creasing his forehead between his eyebrows. “You’ve been in the hospital and here I am, keepin’ you up. I can go.”
“You’ve been keeping me company,” Jack says. Talking came so natural, he hadn’t wanted to speak up when he noticed the late hour. “And I appreciate it. It’s sort of lonely around here.”
“Well,” Eric says, considering, “in that case, why don’t I come back tomorrow?”
The connection is simple. Eric is easy to talk to, and Jack likes him. He likes the way Eric looks at him. He likes his smile.
“Yeah,” he says, “come back tomorrow.”
---
Eric comes back tomorrow. And the day after. And the day after. And all the next week.
Eleven days in, he asks Jack, “Am I botherin’ you? I hope I’m not intruding, I’m suddenly here all the time, and we hardly know each other.”
Jack, who is watching Eric use his oven to bake a maple sugar crusted apple pie, is thrown. He’s been eating three solid meals a day, is never in want of company, and hasn't been bored since his last day in the hospital. He feels like he’s heard Eric’s whole life story, and knows him better than he knows most of the Falconers. Jack is feeling better since he's been injured than he has since coming to Providence. He reassures Eric that he is not bothering him.
The pie is delicious. The maple sugar adds a depth of flavor Jack has never had in an apple pie before, though he admittedly hasn’t had many. The crust is flaky and the apples are tender and the lattice on the top is so perfect Jack would think it was machine-cut if he hadn’t watched Eric do it himself. With the fork in his mouth, it occurs to him that Eric (Bittle is what Jack calls him in his head, it's such an unusual name) is a professional baker.
“Don't you have a job?” he asks, and when that sounds like an accusation, he forces himself to finish chewing, swallow, and make another attempt in the time it takes for Eric's surprise to wear off. “I mean, you're here most of the day. You said you had a bakery-”
“I did,” Eric admits, sheepishly. “I mean, I do. I own the space, but I can't afford to keep the shop open. The day you had your accident, I was actually looking into selling the shop and movin’ back to Georgia. I just don't have the money to stay here if I'm not working.”
A hole opens up inside of Jack. It's so sudden and yawning that he nearly falls into it. It's been eleven days and this tiny baker who came to his aid is his only thing keeping him going. How did he not realize?
“So you need a job,” he says. His own voice sounds very far away.
Eric twirls his fork on the end of one tine, frowning. “Well, I mean, yes. Ideally, something in a kitchen. But the cost of living in Rhode Island is so high, my apartment doesn't even have heat and I-”
“So stay here.”
The words are out of his mouth before he thinks about the implications of what he's offering.
Eric's laugh is incredulous. “What?”
“I have two bedrooms.” Jack is speaking on autopilot. “Central heating and air. We get along perfectly. You spoke to my mother on the phone and I think she loves you. You like my kitchen - you've named my oven.”
Eric's sidelong glance towards the gleaming Franklin in the kitchen says everything.
“I know it's sudden,” Jack continues, “and I may not be thinking straight. But if you move in and help me out a little while I recover, that will free up your expenses. It solves your problem. Doesn't it?”
“Yes, it does,” Eric concedes. He sounds flabbergasted, one hand delicately resting on his collarbone in shock. “But why? Why would you offer me all that?”
Jack wants to say, Because I like you. Because you brighten every room you're in. Because this place suddenly feels like home. Because you’re an angel.
Jack says, “Because you saved me.”
---
In February, Bob and Alicia Zimmermann fly down to Providence, Rhode Island to see their only son.
They've been married for thirty-one years, and it shows. When they pick up their rental car at the airport, they squabble over the keys, a quiet but furious struggle. In the car, Bob rests his hand on Alicia's knee, expressing his love and silently willing her not to drive so fast.
“Do you think we're intruding?” he asks. “It's Valentine's Day. We could have waited until tomorrow, he might have plans with someone.”
“He asked us to come today,” Alicia says, with a shrug. She passes a weaving SUV loaded with bicycles and pretends not to notice Bob's hand tighten on her knee until they've left the other vehicle behind. “I think he has something planned. You can't intrude on an invitation.”
The door of Jack’s apartment has a paper heart taped to it, “Come In” printed in Jack’s careful hand. Alicia says it looks like the valentines Jack used to bring home for her from school, only those usually had mama written on them. Bob kisses her, and then he opens the door.
The apartment is decorated, not just with paper hearts but with curtains on the windows and throw blankets on the sofa, with new pictures on the walls and a whole shelf full of framed photos on the entertainment center. It was nice, before, the first time they came to visit, but impersonal. Now there are little glimpses of life everywhere.
The biggest of these is Jack himself, sitting up in his armchair with his foot up. He welcomes them jovially, and when Bob hugs his son, he’s solid and warm and up close his smile is real.
“It’s good to see you,” Alicia says, when Bob gives her enough room to kiss Jack and comb her fingers through his hair. “You look good, even with the casts. What’s all this about?”
“Well,” Jack says, and looks past them. Bob and Alicia turn, and there’s a wide-eyed blonde man standing in the entry to the kitchen. His apron says “Kiss the Cook”.
“Hi,” he says, “we talked on the phone a coupla times. I’m Eric.”
Jack smiles, broad and genuine, and Eric smiles back.
Jack says, “I wanted to tell you in person. My boyfriend made us dinner.”
---
That night, Jack lays in bed and listens to the low sound of his parents talking in the second bedroom. Eric is curled up against his back, his soft cheek pressed against Jack’s shoulder blade. His breathing is even and deep, and Jack hates to disturb him, but his ankle is protesting. He shifts away so he can roll onto his back, and Eric mumbles, before snuggling up close again.
“You okay, honey?” Eric whispers, sleepily. Jack tucks a kiss into his sleep-fluffed hair.
“Yeah, bud,” Jack whispers back.
“I’m here if you need anythin',” Eric yawns.
“I know.” In the dark, Jack can barely see Eric’s face. “My guardian angel.”