I Fell in Love with Hope(106)
He doesn’t. He grabs another chart and gets back to work, only now his pen is fresh out of ink. He gets frustrated and scribbles so hard that the tip breaks through the page. His eyes become heavy as if the pen itself has committed a great offense by not working. He tosses it aside and knocks the chart off the table entirely. It clatters, and Eric plants his elbows, pulling at his own hair.
“Eric?”
“Do you know where the word patient comes from?” he asks. “It means the one who suffers. Hospital comes from the word hospes which means stranger. Or guest, depending on how you feel interpreting Latin. I learned that in college. I was on my eighth cup of coffee alone in the medical section of the old library. I sat in a crummy chair praying that I’d pass my finals and right there, in the midst of my privileged struggle, I realized that a newborn baby and a dying old man are both suffering strangers.” His hands descend to his face, forming a prayer bind around his nose. “I realized that I was starting a career in a place where people begin and end their lives.”
Hee meows again, propping herself up on her hind legs to press her paws against Eric’s chest. She nuzzles under his jaw, scratching her head against his stubble.
Erics sighs and pets her.
“I could lie to you, Sam,” he says. “I could tell you that it’s important to be grateful, like Neo’s mom, but I’m not. I’m angry. I’m angry that their doctors didn’t do more. I’m angry that I didn’t do more. I’m angry that kids have to go through this sheer amount of pain and I’m angry they died.”
His voice gains a struggled quality. But rather than throw a pen or capsize a chart or hit something or yell, he crumbles. He takes Sony’s cat into an embrace and stifles a cry into her fur. When she gives a little mewl of protest at his clinginess, his cry turns into a laugh.
“You were all so happy that day on the roof, dancing together,” Eric whispers. He smiles against his hand at the thought. “You have no idea how comforting it was getting your phone calls, catching you sneaking out, stealing, being stupid, and just… being kids.”
I remember the night we all fell asleep under blankets like little yellow hills on the rooftop. Eric must’ve come to tell us to come back inside, but when he saw us in the midst of music and frost, he let us just be.
I used to have an estranged concept of love. I think I tried to give it a face the way I give faces to all things I don’t understand. But from the look on Eric’s face as he remembers Sony dancing, I know for certain that it cannot be stolen.
“Your purpose isn’t saving suffering strangers, Sam.” Eric wipes his eyes. He hugs me and pats my hair, and smiles the way you smile at an old friend. “I hope you know it’s so much more than that.”
Eric doesn’t say anything else. He picks up the chart and pen, putting them neatly back into place. He straightens his ID card and pats down his wrinkled scrubs. As he turns to get back to work, a group of toddlers runs into his legs. The little gowned creatures huddle around him like herding dogs. One of them holds up a picture book, the rest jumping up and down, shrieking and giggling.
“Hey! Slow down! What did I say about running!? Sebastian, stop picking at your mask. Caitlin, Nora, didn’t we already read you this book last week? You didn’t steal it did you? Hey! Sawyer quit kissing Hazel. You’re going to eat her cheek if you keep at it! C’mon, I’m not reading unless everyone takes their medicine without complaining–Did you hear me, Nora? Don’t walk away from me, you little pest. I see you.”
Eric picks up one of the children, bouncing her in his arms once and adjusting the breathing tubes over her cheek and ear.
I smile for Eric. I know he is hurting, but as he leaves to care for his new little band of thieves and doesn’t look back, I know he is content too.
A stale, burrowing sadness lays heavy in my chest when I gaze back at the lonely notebook on the counter. Eric boxed and took home Sony’s clothes and her dirty white sneakers. Coeur’s parents emptied his room and took home his records and tangled earbuds. Neo’s father burned his manuscript and all of his books.
The Hit List is all I have left of them.
I slowly flip to the first page and read the dedication, the raging declaration of war against all those who committed injustice upon us. I can feel Neo’s skinny fingers writing out the words and hear C’s voice orating. I see Sony’s tapping feet as she spun in circles around the notebook, the wind catching her hair and splaying it red against the gray.
I flip to the next page. The words are jumping ship, uneven, scribbled about, with note after note in the margins and a list of things stolen so long it should be kept from the police at all costs.
I smile to myself, remembering when Sony said that once. I flip more pages, reading them all. I laugh at center entries, the time-stamped ones Neo wrote with such vigor, the rather funny entries made by Sony, the rather odd ones made by C.
The last header stares back at me in bold: Our Escape
In the end, they didn’t escape with all they took.
They didn’t get away with it.
They didn’t find their everything.
And their only heaven left to reach was in death.
I don’t realize I am crying until a teardrop hits the page. It soaks into the white and smudged tint of blue and black. I clench my fists over the counter, shutting my eyes so hard they hurt.