Make A Wish

Fiction by Jeff Harrell

It started with a cough. And then the world changed.

Hayden Breaux was nine years old when she caught a chest cold that never went away. After year of fevers, pneumonias, tests and biopsies, the diagnosis came down: aggressive T-cell lymphoma. The specialists gave her three years. With chemotherapy, and luck, maybe four at the outside.

And then life went more-or-less back to normal for the Breaux family of Lake Charles, Louisiana. Hayden was sick. She was really sick. She spent a lot of time in and out of hospitals. She probably wasn’t going to live very long. But days continued to tick by, time went on, and everybody pretty much got on with their lives.

Until one day Hayden’s brother Nicky, six-and-a-half and precocious to a fault, snuck downstairs and dialed the number of the Gulf Coast chapter of the Make-a-Wish Foundation.

That’s when everything started to change.

You’ve seen the clip on the news. Everybody’s seen the clip on the news. There’s little Hayden, looking heartbreakingly tiny in her hospital bed, with a tube up her nose and IVs in both arms. Her head’s as smooth and shiny as a cue ball from the chemo. She’s got ash-colored circles under both eyes. But her eyes are glistening with tears and her smile is too big for her frail little cheeks to contain.

“I want there to be peace,” she says, her voice breaking with excitement, and it’s almost drowned out by the chat-chat-chat of the cameras. She repeats it: “My wish is for there to be peace.”

At the edge of the frame, you can see two of the Make-a-Wish volunteers glance sidelong at each other. They weren’t expecting this. Sick kids want to go to Disney World, or they want to drive an ice-cream truck, or maybe they want to play Nintendo. You know. Easy stuff.

“Don’t look at me that way,” Hayden says in a stern but still playful voice. “I’m not stupid, okay? I know I’m not going to be around much longer. But for as long as I’m here, I want there to be peace. Is that really so much to ask?”

That’s where the news director always cuts back to the anchor for two minutes of weather and then a commercial before the sports highlights. The never show what happened next.

“Hayden, honey.” That’s Aaron, Hayden’s dad. He’s a big guy with a bald spot that he always covers with a John Deere cap and a patchy goatee that Loreli’s been meaning to ask him to shave off.

She’s not listening. “No, seriously,” she says. She’s a little out of breath from the effort. “I’m stuck in here in this room a lot of the time. I watch the news. It’s always war this and bombing that and people getting shot and killed and arrested. It makes me sad. I can’t go out and play. I can’t go catch crawdads with Nicky or ride my bike. All I can do is sit here and watch TV and be sad.”

The shot goes a little shaky at this point because the pool cameraman has to wipe his eyes.

“How long am I going to live, anyway? I’m not a doctor, I don’t know. But it can’t be more than a couple more years. You asked me to make a wish, so I’m making it. I just want there to be peace. Not forever or anything. You can go back to hurting everybody after I’m dead. But until I’m gone, I just want peace.”

The tape goes black at that point. Nobody ever asked the pool cameraman why he stopped shooting. Nobody had to. And when took early retirement from his bureau job with the AP to spend more time at home with his kids, nobody blamed him.

That’s where the story should have ended. By all rights, that’s where it should have stopped. But it didn’t. Because one of the Make-a-Wish volunteers in Hayden’s room that day was dating an intern who worked for Bernice LaPlauche, the newly elected freshman Congresswoman from the Louisiana seventh. And that night, when Shawn turned out the light and started working his magic on her, she started crying. He asked her why.

And she told him.

Shawn told his fellow intern Marcus, who told Katie Holloway who worked in the press office, who told Steve Stringer who told Candace Johnston, and the next weekend when Congresswoman LaPlauche was in town Candace told her about the little girl who wished for an outbreak of peace.

The following Thursday, Bernice LaPlauche was in H-107 looking across a huge walnut desk at the House Majority Leader, telling the story of the little girl from her district who’d made a wish.

Three weeks later, H.R. 49 found its way onto the legislative calendar. As bills before the House go, it was a decidedly modest one.

A BILL

To declare that, for the lifetime of Miss Hayden Breaux of 2232 Kirby St., Lake Charles, Louisiana, the policy of the United States of America shall be one of peace.

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled,

Section 1.

(a) A Declaration — In accordance with the wish of Miss Hayden Breaux, aged 10, the United States of America shall throughout her lifetime forswear all conflict, including but not limited to direct military actions foreign and domestic.

(b) Suspension of authorizations — Any authorizations adopted by this body shall hereby be suspended without prejudice for the duration of this Act, to recommence forthwith upon this Act’s expiration.

It really should have ended there. Silly laws get introduced in Congress all the time. Most of them don’t make it out of committee. Those precious few that make it to the floor never come to a vote, because above all the leaders of the Congress are pragmatists. They know better than to waste their time.

But this bill was different. It didn’t look like much on paper, but every time it came up for discussion, either in the halls of the Capitol or in the smoke-filled and booze-scented back rooms where the laws are really made, somebody told the story. The story of a sick little girl who said, “Is that really so much to ask?”

Within twenty-four hours, H.R. 49 had thirty-one co-sponsors, from both sides of the aisle. Two days later, it had a hundred and ten. It made the pages of Roll Call. It made the pages of the Washington Post. It made the last five minutes of Evan McDowell’s newscast, complete with pool footage of little Hayden propped up on a pillow with tears in her eyes.

And that’s how it found its way onto the desk of Scott MacGregor, the President’s deputy press secretary.

The following Monday, at the conclusion of an otherwise entirely routine and completely un-newsworthy statement in the Rose Garden, the President ad libbed something that made the front page of every newspaper in America.

“Now, our colleagues on the Hill are going to be debating a piece of legislation next week that you might have heard of. It’s called the Hayden Breaux Peace Act. Y’all know I’ve had my issues with this Congress. Like all siblings, we fight like cats and dogs. Truth be told, I’d rather they’d get around to passing the Tax Reform Act like they promised last fall.

“But this is a little different. This time, the Congress and I see eye to eye. And I applaud the sponsors of Hayden’s Act, and I look forward to getting that piece of legislation on my desk for my signature.”

PEACE DECLARED

President Signs Hayden’s Law, Welcomes Outbreak of Non-Hostility

WASHINGTON — This morning at a standing-room-only event in the East Room of the White House, the President signed the Hayden Breaux Peace Act, better known as Hayden’s Law.

The law, named in honor of terminally ill Hayden Breaux of Lake Charles, La., declares that as long as Hayden lives, the United States will not engage in any military actions anywhere, overtly or covertly.

The President was joined at the signing ceremony by Hayden, her parents and her brother Nicholas, as well as members of the Cabinet and senior members of Congress.

In a prepared statement, the President said, “The Scriptures tell us to be on the lookout for wisdom from the mouths of babes. I’d like to thank Hayden for reminding us all that there are things in life that are more important that settling our differences at the point of a sword.”

After the signing, Defense Secretary Pierce entertained the VIP crowd by quipping, “I’m looking forward to a long vacation.”

Support for the President’s peace initiative is far from universal, however. Opposition leaders in Congress have thus far been skeptical. “It’s a stunt,” said Sen. Minority Leader Elizabeth Menosky of Indiana. “The minute something goes south overseas, this President will strap on his six-guns and go charging off to war again.”

That’s what it should have been, too. A publicity stunt. A PR campaign carefully orchestrated to shore up the approval ratings of an embattled President and a gridlocked Congress. Which it certainly did, to be sure. In over forty cities around the country, holidays were declared in the wake of the bill signing. Hayden’s Day parades filled the streets with red, white and blue confetti. Fireworks exploded in the skies from Buffalo to Burbank.

Then the initial excitement wore off, and it was back to business as usual.

For a week.

The following Thursday, the President in an usual move asked at the last minute for fifteen minutes of prime time on the broadcast networks. Twenty million Americans were infuriated to discover that their weekly fixes of “Mystery Mountain” and “Celebrity Stunt Challenge” were being pre-empted, but they tuned in anyway.

“My fellow Americans, good evening. Thank you for letting me interrupt your leisure time this way. I hope you know I wouldn’t barge in on you like this if it weren’t very important.

“And this is very, very important.

“You see, I have instructed Ambassador Murrow at the opening of the proceedings of the United Nations Security Council first thing tomorrow morning to introduce Resolution 1658. You’ll be able to read the text of the Resolution in your newspapers tomorrow morning, but let me sum it up for you tonight.

“I am proposing that the United Nations, on behalf of all the nations of the world, adopt a complete moratorium on war and violent conflict.

“We Americans are a proud people, and the Lord has blessed us with a lot to be proud of. In this case, I think we deserve to be a little bit proud of the fact that we’ve recognized the futility of war, and declared peace to be our policy. We’re so proud, in fact, that we’re encouraging all the nations of the world to follow in our footsteps.

“Will the rest of the world agree? I honestly don’t know. But I can tell you this much: After consulting with our closest allies overseas, we stand a very good chance.

“With luck, and God’s help, at this time tomorrow I will be able to announce to you that our Resolution has been adopted.

“Hang in there, Hayden. We’re almost home.

“Thank you, and my God continue to bless the United States of America.”

It all seemed like a dream. By noon New York time the next day, UN Security Council Resolution 1658 was adopted, and carried the strength of law for all the nations of planet Earth. By sundown in the East, troops were being withdrawn from contested areas. The West Bank grew quiet. So did Kashmir. In Groznyy and in Teheran and in Caracas, the streets fell silent for the first time in years.

Nobody really believe it at first. We were all waiting. Waiting for the news of the next car bomb in London or Amsterdam or Orlando, the next massacre in Karachi or Khartoum or Khalid.

But the news never came.

The world was at peace.

Hayden, for her part, was everywhere. You couldn’t turn on the television or surf the Internet without seeing her beaming face. “Good Morning America,” the BBC, Larry King, the Drudge Report. She was all over, occasionally in person but more often by satellite from her hospital bed in Metairie.

She always got the same questions. And she always gave the same answers. But we watched anyway. We watched, and we cried tears of joy.

Then, about eighteen months after what had around the world come to be called Peace Day, Hayden got sick.

Hayden had always been sick, of course. The cancer made her sick, and the chemo made her sicker. She was always pale, always thin, always frail and small and bald. But there seemed to be a sort of life burning inside her. It was in her eyes and in her smile, every time she was on television. Every time she got the question.

“Hayden, how does it feel?”

She never answered that one. She always just smiled. That same perfect, beatific smile.

Until one day she just wasn’t there any more. She stopped doing media appearances. Rumors circulated that she’d died. When the grapevine whipped itself up to a sufficient level of hysteria — Drudge had the siren up on his page — Hayden’s family called a press conference.

Aaron stood at the podium; Loreli was behind him, with little Nicky — now not quite so little — on her knee.

“Hayden’s still hanging on,” Aaron said, his John Deere cap pushed back on his head to reveal his balding pate gleaming in the TV lights. “But she’s real tired. We feel so blessed ’cause of all the cards and letters and calls. But we need to be with Hayden now. Thank you for understanding.”

That was the last time anybody saw the Breaux family in public.

All at once, a feeling of dread swept around the world. It’d been almost two years since peace broke out, almost two years of the kind of world we’d always dreamed of but never dared hope for. Was it really all going to evaporate so quickly?

Congress sprang into action, of course. Bills were introduced to make Hayden’s Peace permanent. Or at least to extend it. Another year, another five, another hundred. They never got any traction. It was sheer foolishness, wise and respected men and women argued, to shackle the United States to a policy of peace when the rest of the world is free to return to the old ways. Doing that would be criminally irresponsible, not to mention unconstitutional, for reasons the legal experts failed to explain but insisted were unassailable.

For months, a deep and murky depression gripped the world. Peace still reigned, but suicide rates skyrocketed. Crime, once so rare as to almost be forgotten, started to be a problem again. People started taking drugs to escape the inevitable, and they needed money, and some of them weren’t afraid to rob or steal to get it.

Everything started coming apart.

In the end, it was the doctors who gave us hope.

Hayden was dying, and with her Hayden’s Peace. We all knew it was coming. It was just a matter of time.

But it was the doctors who first raised the possibility that maybe, just maybe, Hayden didn’t have to die.

The NIH opened its pursestrings. When the purse was empty, Congress refilled it to the tune of nearly half a trillion dollars. Money poured into research labs all over the country, matched by funding from other governments around the world. Retroviral therapy. Stem-cell transplantation. Even human cloning; long-standing moratoria on certain ethically dicey research techniques were lifted en masse. Nothing was too crazy to try. Nothing was beyond considering.

Only none of it worked.

Eventually Hayden died.

Now nobody knows where we stand. Hayden’s Law? It’s still technically on the books. The legal scholars have been over it and over it, trying to find some creative interpretation that would let it hold weight long after that sick little girl passed away. They haven’t found one. But then again, nobody’s challenged the law in court yet either. So who knows.

There haven’t been any bombings. No massacres. Armies remain quartered in their barracks, their tanks and guns kept oiled and fueled and ready. Soldiers still train, but they train on home soil. Ever watchful, ever prepared.

There’s been talk of introducing a new UN resolution, one to make Hayden’s Peace permanent. But frankly, we’re all too afraid to rock the boat right now. The US introduces a resolution, China vetoes it and then it’s off to the races.

Right now we’re living in a sort of limbo, on the narrow precipice between global peace and global war. And nobody wants to make any sudden moves, for fear of tipping the balance.

Is this the kind of world Hayden wanted us to live in? One where we’re constantly afraid, where we’re constantly waiting for the other shoe to drop? I don’t know. I don’t think anybody knows. I don’t think even Hayden knew. She was nine years old at the time. She didn’t think it through. All she knew is that she wanted peace. And by God, we gave her that.

What happens next is up to us.

Copyright © 2007 by Jeff Harrell. All rights reserved.