I Fell in Love with Hope(99)
“Is there nothing I can do to change your mind?” I ask.
He leans in, twiddling his fingers like loose screws. They travel down my arms, holding them as they did on the days I helped him learn to stand again.
“You know you never wanted us to be happy, Sam. Happiness is a brittle, fleeting thing,” he says, looking into my eyes, I think, so that I can see he is not sad. He is not in pain, nor is he regretful, resentful, or anything other than at peace. “You wanted us to feel loved, and we did.”
Looking out at the sea, his gaze reaches across its endlessness. He picks up his book, fidgeting with the strings of his stolen sweatshirt.
Then, he stands up on his own. He walks across the tether of our dreams and roams into the ocean. Great Expectations soaks up the sea and sinks to the floor, its ink dissolving into nothing.
He climbs into the rowboat, pushing it from the muck with one foot below settling in its center. As he begins his journey, I stand and though I cannot follow him into the dark, I cry and realize he was never in love with being sick. He was in love with the home we gave him. He sails to the heart of that home through waves and storms and a layer of darkness so thick it can be breathed.
On the other side, I like to imagine that he finds a shore. There, the shape of a boy and a girl draw in the sand with sticks and seashells.
He cannot contain his joy. He jumps from the rowboat, swimming the remainder of the way. He trips in the shallows, the mud to his ankles, yelling their names. He runs up the beach, overcome with rejoicing laughter.
Coeur hears his voice and turns around. Heaven casts light upon him till the only shadow that remains is that of Neo jumping into his arms and kissing him just as he promised.
all your tomorrows
BEFORE
I haven’t seen Sam since the night Henry died. Well, I have seen him. He reads in his bed most of the day, finishing books as quickly as he picks them up. He doesn’t sleep often. When he does, I look at him just a little longer as I pass his room, wishing I could crawl into the bed and apologize.
I feel half gone without him, like I’m missing a part of myself.
Without Sam, I follow Nurse Ella. She calls me her shadow. We care for patients together. Or at least she does. I mostly watch. Babies and infants, people that have yet to become people, are what bring me joy. Nurse Ella says I stare at the little creatures too much. I tell her that once you are her age living is unpleasant and I must enjoy the pleasure of looking at babies while I still can. Rightfully so, she smacks the back of my head.
“Is Sam doing alright?” I ask. She scribbles on a sheet of paper. I have no interest in what. Paperwork in hospitals requires whole forests for production. Paperwork is like violence. Overly abundant and often useless.
“He’s been a ripe old pain in the arse,” Nurse Ella says. “You two haven’t been causing much trouble now that I think about it. What happened?”
“I upset him,” I tell her.
“Whatever for?”
“I didn’t mean to upset him.”
Nurse Ella grunts, displeased. “Sam is becoming a man. You should learn while you’re young, men are an emotional lot. God knows who let them be in charge of things. Is this why you’ve been sulking like a hound?”
“Hound?” I ask, unfamiliar with the term.
“Stupid child,” Nurse Ella throws her papers down and wipes off her apron. “Come along.”
“Where are we going?”
Nurse Ella never answers my questions.
She merely leads and I follow.
Sam’s room is dark. He has a single lamp in the far corner, his blinds drawn. The potted plants on his windowsill that have grown into vines and shrubbery for the past decade wither away in the blue overglow.
Nurse Ella marches in without so much as a knock or a greeting. Sam looks up from the lesson work propped on his knees, brows knitted.
“Nurse Ella?”
“Get up,” she says, rounding his bed and snapping her fingers.
“What?”
“Up,” she says again, taking the work from his hands and tossing it aside.
Sam frowns. “No.”
“I’m sorry, did I preface that command with it please your knighthood?”
“Hag.”
“Up. Now!” She claps her hands. “And you! In here. Sit.”
Once Sam and I are both at the edge of his cot, Nurse Ella plants her hands on her hips, scanning us like prisoners deserving of a baton.
“In my entire career, I have never encountered such pains. Since you were at my knee, you’ve been wreaking havoc together. By god, the headaches I’ve suffered taming you beasts of children.” Nurse Ella makes a masterpiece of her scoldings. She is theatrical, inhaling strength as she pauses.
“That being said, when you are apart, you are even worse. You.” She waves her arm at me. “Becoming a mopey babe clinging to my skirt at all hours. And you.” She flicks Sam’s forehead, I assume, in an attempt to rid him of the wrinkles he’s forming from that scowl. “Losing your temper every hour of the day because you got your feelings hurt. Did I raise you to be so pathetic? I am not a patient woman. I have better things to attend to than your squabbling. So make up! And do so promptly.”
Walking out, Nurse Ella continues muttering about our various crimes against her sanity. The door shuts behind her, and a draft cuts through the room with heavy, ugly silence.