I Fell in Love with Hope(79)

We’re lucky, I think. Today was a good day.

Sony and I hold each other’s gaze as I whisper, “I just wish I could’ve given you more.”

Eric comes back a few minutes later with Hee in his arms. He’s panting, quickly laying the cat down by Sony’s legs. He checks all of Sony’s vitals, mumbling to himself, obsessing over every tiny detail.

Sony is only half conscious. He pats down her head, asking her all sorts of questions in a soft voice. Neo, C, and Hikari wake up, each careful not to crowd her.

I stand to give them room as they gather around their friend.

Time, in a turn of kindness, slows. It stands beside me, watching, as it has since I was born. It whispers no cruelties or taunts. It drags a hand down my back and slows the metronome, holding it off until that inevitable flat note rings.

“Sony?” Hikari cries. “No, no, Sony!”

Eric yells at all of us to leave. Sony’s doctors flood the room.

Hikari is so distraught I need to carry her out. C cries, following us, covering his face.

Neo is the last to leave. He shuts his eyes to the yelling and kisses Sony’s face. When he’s ushered out of the room, he takes Hee with him.

We cry together in the empty hallway, huddled from the blue and the cold. When we sink to the floor, there is the inevitable weight of something missing, like a limb cut clean from our bodies.

From outside the checkered windows, I watch with blurred vision as Sony takes her last breath. Once her eyes close, they don’t open again.

—

Death isn’t playful.

Death is sudden.

It has no taste for irony or reason.

It is a taker, plain, direct, no tricks up its sleeve.

But at least,

This time,

Death was kind enough to wait for goodbye.





butter baby





BEFORE


She’s the size of a stick of butter. Nurse Ella calls her butter baby. She was born six weeks ago, six weeks too early. Today would’ve been the day she was supposed to be born.

Her mother is a nurse too. Unlike Ella, her face is satin. Her belly fills out her dress, her arms, and legs heavy. She takes Sam’s vitals when Nurse Ella is home, a much gentler creature who bribes with lullabies rather than lectures.

Her baby takes after her softness.

“She’s so small,” I whisper.

“Be careful. That’s it, cradle her just like that,” her mother says. She twiddles with the braid cascading down her shoulder.

I’ve never held a baby. I’ve met so many, seen them swaddled in blankets and fed at their mother’s breast, but I’ve never had the responsibility of carrying one.

I adjust the cloth cap more securely over her head, supporting her neck in the crook of my elbow. She coos. Her pudgy little hands close around my finger.

What an incredible creature she is. A new life that knows only how to breathe and suckle encased in a body fragile as ceramic. I lay her back in her crib, but she’s a greedy thing. She pulls my hair, squealing out her laughter, little fat legs kicking.

“She likes you,” her mother giggles. She presses a chaste kiss on my cheek. “Come see her anytime, alright?”

“Goodbye, butter baby,” I whisper. I bow my head, and even once I leave the room, the baby grins toothlessly over her mother’s shoulder till I’m gone.

—

“Bam! Another win!”

Henry is a regular, Nurse Ella says. He lives in a cabin neighboring the river. No children or family to speak of. So when his 80th year struck with a leg infection, he had nowhere to stay but with us.

I like Henry. His hair is gray like pale smoke rising from the pipe that dangles between his lips. That thing is an extension of his body, another limb. He’s never without it. All its ashes nearly fall from the tobacco chamber when he laughs at his own jokes.

“You damn old man,” Sam says, tossing his cards down on the table between them.

This is the nurses’ break room. Technically, patients aren’t allowed in. However, Sam and Henry are resident troublemakers, me, their right hand. Where else could they gamble uninterrupted but where their nurses would never expect them to be?

Henry shimmies his shoulders back and forth, a victor’s chuckle wafting smoke in Sam’s face.

“Luck of the draw, my boy. Luck of the draw,” he sings.

“Yeah, right,” Sam throws one arm over the back of his chair. “You were hiding that king in your wrinkles, admit it.”

“Uh oh,” Henry takes a drag from his pipe, gathering the cards. “Looks like we have a sore loser in our midst. Quick! Get him some ice. The boy’s getting absolutely flamed.”

Sam tries not to laugh.

He likes Henry too. One night, Sam was walking past his room, mask, and gloves handy, when he heard a series of angry mumbles through the wall. Sam peeked in to find an old man staring at nothing, just talking to the air, two wooden crutches tucked under his armpits.

“You there!” he yelled, using one to point at Sam. “Come in here at once, this is an emergency.”

“Are you hurt?” Sam asked, rushing in to aid him. “Do you need a doctor?”

“A doctor? Are you trying to get me killed? No, no boy, this is much worse than mere injury. I am bored. Dreadfully bored. If I have to be in this room one more second without something interesting to do, I might just drop dead.”