On Rotation(30)

“All right, har-dee-har,” Ricky said. “I’ll have you know I’m wearing this for the kids. Regular Dino guy couldn’t make it.”

“The family jewels still intact?” I asked, harkening back to Markus’s story with a less fortunate, similarly dressed Child Life volunteer.

Ricky’s eyebrows lifted with recognition. He had his hair up in a ponytail, secured back with a sweatband, and his whole face shone with sweat.

“Yup,” he said. “No punters in this group.”

“Lucky you,” I said. “Why are you still here, anyway? It’s seven p.m. On a Saturday. I didn’t even know we had volunteers this late.”

Ricky placed his hands on his hips, a comical picture given that he was still wearing mitts.

“There’s a kid on the oncology floor who’s stuck here getting induction chemo. His birthday was today, so we decided to throw him a party. He likes dinosaurs. Though, he didn’t like how inaccurate Arnie the Ankylosaurus over here is.” He tapped his giant dinosaur head affectionately.

“To be fair, he’s right. Where are his spikes?”

“He has spikes!” Ricky said. He did a surprisingly graceful twirl to display the back of his costume. As promised, the suit had a few paltry triangles sticking out of the back, and a tail that ended in a spiked ball.

“Apparently, ankylosaurus tails ‘don’t actually end in maces,’” he continued. “That kid is only seven and is already an insufferable nerd. It’s pretty adorable.” He spun back around to face me, his expression thoughtful. “It’s crazy to see these kids so sick. Like . . . cancer seems too grown up for them, you know? They should be out playing with friends or getting in trouble at school. Not here.”

The boy from the trauma bay’s face flashed through my head again. My expression must’ve changed, because when I met Ricky’s eyes again, he looked concerned.

“Everything okay?” he asked.

“Yeah, um . . .” I shrugged. “I just saw something really messed up today.”

Ricky seemed to get my implication, that describing something as “messed up” in a children’s hospital meant that it was supremely messed up. He nodded sagely, then dropped onto the couch next to me.

“You want to talk about it?” he asked.

I shook my head. It didn’t feel right to talk about it, not when the boy’s body was probably still cooling in the trauma bay.

“Let’s talk about something else,” I said. “Like, what got you into volunteering here?”

Ricky shrugged.

“One of my childhood friends got in trouble when we were in high school, so his mom made him start coming here to teach him a lesson. Of course, I tagged along. But then it turned out volunteering here meant playing Call of Duty with the teenagers who were stuck here forever, so it wasn’t actually a punishment. We made a few friends.” He paused to wet his lips. I read between the lines. Some of those friends didn’t make it. “And I just never quit. Thankfully, work is pretty accommodating—I just go into the office earlier on the days that I’m here. And since I’m a veteran volunteer, Child Life mostly lets me do what I want.”

“Is that why you’re the paint guy?” I asked. Other volunteers seemed to be tasked with whatever needed doing: reading with kids, playing games with them, or playing music, but I’d only ever seen Ricky here with a brush in hand. “I only ever see you doing that.”

He nodded.

“The ‘paint guy.’ Sure, I guess,” he mused. “I mean, there are real art therapists here too. I mostly help stave off boredom.” He rocked back to his feet, Arnie’s body sloshing around him. “I need to go change out of this.”

“Oh, okay.” I tried to keep the disappointment out of my voice. “Nice running into you. Have a good night.”

“Wait,” Ricky said. “It’ll take me like three minutes to change. Are you headed to the parking garage?”

I shook my head.

“No, um, I walk.”

Ricky looked aghast.

“But it’s late! And dark out!” He looked down at my hand, from where my keys hung. “Oh good, you have pepper spray. There’s creeps out there, you know.”

“Sounds like something a creep would say,” I said, enjoying the way Ricky instantly seemed to clutch his pearls.

“Wow,” he said. “I was going to offer you a ride!”

“So,” I said, tilting my head. “Are you not going to offer me one anymore?”

Ricky shook his head and started waddling toward the office. Just before he disappeared from view, he pointed back at me.

“Don’t go anywhere!” he shouted.

I nodded. Distantly, I could hear the door to Child Life slam shut. The air in the lobby felt still, and suddenly I was alone with my thoughts. Part of me wanted to go back to the trauma bay, to see whether the scene I’d left was still intact. Had they been able to resuscitate the boy? I doubted it—his blood pressure had barely registered on the monitor, and Shruti hadn’t looked hopeful. Had they let his mother into the bay?

“You ready?”

I whipped around. Ricky was behind me, dressed in joggers and a thin T-shirt. Out of Arnie the Ankylosaurus, he’d become a boy again. A boy whose every word I stowed away in the back of my mind to revisit when my mind was idle. A boy, I reminded myself, who was very much not available.