I Fell in Love with Hope(72)

She blinks, returning to me, gradually, then completely. I bring my forehead to hers, wondering how there was ever a time I had the strength to stay away.

“Are you my lover?” Hikari asks.

“You’re my mirror.” I poke the bridge of her glasses, making her laugh.

“I never knew you liked my glasses.”

“Maybe I need a pair of my own.”

“You did tell me that hope is nearsighted.”

“Am I your hope, Hikari?”

“Am I your despair, Sam?” She smiles. A comforting smile reaches my face as she runs her thumb across the curve.

“I’ll draw it for us,” she whispers.

“Draw what?”

Her lips meet mine, the parting like light admiring darkness.

“The moment despair fell in love with hope.”





ella





BEFORE


Sam makes repetition feel new. He makes years pass in seconds.

The sun never rises quite the same, he tells me as the sun curves over the earth like a halo. Silhouettes of construction workers play with their orchestras of metal and machinery outside Sam’s window.

Every day, they build, till our little town becomes a city. The process is gradual, but it feels instantaneous. It feels the same when I realize Sam is growing as fast as our home.

Lanky and pale, he begins to fill out. His bones stretch furiously overnight. Those honey eyes settle on thinning cheekbones. His voice starts to crack, and his shoulders broaden. His temper becomes unpredictable, foul, and moody too.

But for all that’s changed, Sam is still a child. In the mornings, he wakes me with tickles up and down my sides. His breakfast goes untouched unless sweet bread and pudding sit on the plate. He lies about little things like brushing his teeth or doing his lesson work. And his curiosity is as insatiable as it always was.

“Sweet Sam,” he whispers. “Sweet Sam, wake up.”

My eyes flutter open. Sam’s face casts a shadow on mine, blocking out the basking sun. The summer heat turns him dopey and half-lidded. He leans in, voice cool on my chin, lips a breath from my nose.

“You’re so beautiful.”

“What does that mean?” I ask.

“It means I like looking at you,” Sam says. He scoots closer, sighing and stretching his limbs like a cat. “I like being with you.” His fingers trace my shirt collar, up my neck, poking my features.

Sam is still unable to touch other people. Other people are not allowed to touch him. I am the only exception. Most of the day, he is confined to his room. He calls it his bubble, his chamber, and, on sadder days, his cage. He spent so long staring through its glass partitions, I think he started to resent it. It was easier to pretend that room was the world when he wasn’t tall enough to see outside of it.

“I like being with you too,” I say.

Sam hums in pleased, tired tones.

Nurse Ella explained Sam’s disease to me a long time ago. She said it was simple, yet it wasn’t. She said he was normal cognitively, physically, and in every way, but one. She said his body couldn’t protect itself. She said that job fell onto our shoulders.

“If I see a single scuff on those pants, I’ll make you wash them in the river, young man!” she yells, sitting on the park bench as Sam and I run together across the field.

Nurse Ella is a harsh, disciplined woman. She wears her hair in a tight bun at the back of her neck. Her white uniform is neat, pressed, stainless. I’m convinced her back does not bend, and her hands are made of iron.

“Old hag,” Sam whispers, laughing, sticking his tongue out at her, and tugging me along.

Nurse Ella opens her newspaper with a displeased grunt.

Sam is under Ella’s care. When he was little and rambunctious, no other nurses could handle him. Nurse Ella was not deterred. She washed her hands vigorously and marched to wherever Sam had run off. She grabbed the collar of his shirt, dragged him back to his room, and warned him that little boys who don’t take their medicine cannot grow into strong knights. She told Sam that if he wanted his pudding and his sweet bread, he would keep himself clean, tidy his room, and do as he was told.

Nurse Ella is good at bargaining.

She is good at keeping Sam safe.

She told Sam all the fairytales she knew. She reads to him and smacks his arm with the cover if he interrupts. She sewed him a mask, told him not to lose it, and always wear it over his nose and mouth. She scolds him frequently. She makes him sit and think about his actions.

Almost daily, Sam tells Nurse Ella that she is boring and mean and an old hag. Nurse Ella reminds him that she doesn’t care.

She does care, though, I think, as much as I do.

For someone in Sam’s position, not living is a precaution, she once told me, looking at Sam past the glass as his doctors made him lie on his side and examined his body. That’s what those foolish men in white coats tell me. She made her signature displeased grunt. Pessimists. The lot of them, keeping a child cooped up here forever. That won’t do. He must live. Once you’re my age, living is unpleasant. Come along.

Where are we going? I asked.

Nurse Ella never answered my questions. She just told me to hurry up and follow.

She takes Sam and me outside every Saturday, no matter the weather. She makes sure Sam is wearing his mask and gloves. She tells us to hold hands as we cross the street. She takes us to the bakery, to the newspaper stands, and to the park.