it’s past 7:15 PM and lawyers stride
through the hallways like shapeless figures.
My mind at last has the opportunity to think of
other things. I begin to contemplate Robert sitting over his dad in the
hospital, and I feel as if I should start praying again.
Slinging my backpack over my shoulder, I make
my way downstairs to the street and onto the bus. The city is almost dark,
office lights twinkling like distant heat lamps, and cars passing by, breathing
gritty heat and rumbling sounds into the nighttime air.
When I arrive at the hospital, I ask the front
reception where Mr. Spencer’s room is and find out that he’s on the 8 th floor. “Are you family?” the reception asks. “Yes,” I lie. I feel adept at
lying lately. Not a good thing.
Before I head up the elevator, I buy the last
flower bouquet from the gift shop: a wilted sunflower with purple and white
sweet peas around it. I can’t imagine a worse combination of flowers, but
perhaps flower arranging doesn’t need to be perfected in hospitals: sick people
won’t notice.
When I step off the elevator on the 8 th floor, it’s ghostly quiet, as if everyone has already died and the nurses are
just waiting for the bodies to be collected. Bright lights shine through some
of the open hospital room doors, spilling white onto patches of the tiled
hallway floors.
As I’m about to approach the nurse’s station, I
see a familiar figure through an open door.
In an instant, I realize I could recognize the
back of him anywhere. I’ve feared it and dreamed of it so often that it’s
imprinted into my psyche. In the same way I’d remember a villain who tries to kill
me or a nightmare that I won’t forget. He leans over the railing of the hospital
bed, his head on the metal as if he’s sleeping. He’s wearing a t-shirt, jeans,
and tennis shoes. Perhaps, I expected him to sleep in a suit and business
shoes. His hand drapes loosely over Mr. Spencer, whose face suggests he’s in a
comfortable sleep. The back of Robert’s hair looks unbrushed and wavy. In his
t-shirt I clearly see the lines of the muscles that almost shape a y, which
extends from under each arm and disappears into his back. Briefly, I stand
there, knowing he can’t see me. His shirt shakes, and I think I hear him
whispering.
Frozen there in the hallway, I begin to wonder
whether I should leave. Why did I come anyway? Because Mr. Spencer was nice to
me? Because I feel obligated to do something nice to Robert before I ruin his
life?
For no apparent reason, I also begin to wonder
whether I was right about Mrs. Smith, my sixth grade teacher, the evil woman
with the gray beehive hairdo whom I believed hated me from the day I stepped
into her classroom. She was a beady-eyed creature who would not let me go to
the nurse when I fractured my arm on the playground, and who never apologized
when I returned to class the next day with a cast. Maybe I had her all wrong.
Maybe she wasn’t mean. Perhaps she was simply doing her job? Perhaps she was just
one of those dry, unemotional types unable to express herself?
Backtracking, I take two steps back and one
sideways, the flowers in my hand, backpack over my shoulder. Witnessing Robert
like this is like watching monks in prayer. I definitely shouldn’t have come.
After I take a step, Robert turns around, his
eyes puffy. Instead of the fear-inducing lawyer I know, he’s just a guy leaning
over his father. Does he call him his father?
He sees me and reaches for the tissue box near
him, wipes his nose, and then tosses it into the nearby trashcan.
“Come in,” he says, looking as though he’s lost
two inches in a day. And then he stands, resuming his height, strides over to
the other side of the room, grabs a chair, and sets it down near his own.
Wordlessly, he then takes the flowers from my hand and sets them in the water
bucket on the nightstand. The hospital room is brightly lit, solemn.
Checkerboard tiles on the ceiling give the room a seventies
through the hallways like shapeless figures.
My mind at last has the opportunity to think of
other things. I begin to contemplate Robert sitting over his dad in the
hospital, and I feel as if I should start praying again.
Slinging my backpack over my shoulder, I make
my way downstairs to the street and onto the bus. The city is almost dark,
office lights twinkling like distant heat lamps, and cars passing by, breathing
gritty heat and rumbling sounds into the nighttime air.
When I arrive at the hospital, I ask the front
reception where Mr. Spencer’s room is and find out that he’s on the 8 th floor. “Are you family?” the reception asks. “Yes,” I lie. I feel adept at
lying lately. Not a good thing.
Before I head up the elevator, I buy the last
flower bouquet from the gift shop: a wilted sunflower with purple and white
sweet peas around it. I can’t imagine a worse combination of flowers, but
perhaps flower arranging doesn’t need to be perfected in hospitals: sick people
won’t notice.
When I step off the elevator on the 8 th floor, it’s ghostly quiet, as if everyone has already died and the nurses are
just waiting for the bodies to be collected. Bright lights shine through some
of the open hospital room doors, spilling white onto patches of the tiled
hallway floors.
As I’m about to approach the nurse’s station, I
see a familiar figure through an open door.
In an instant, I realize I could recognize the
back of him anywhere. I’ve feared it and dreamed of it so often that it’s
imprinted into my psyche. In the same way I’d remember a villain who tries to kill
me or a nightmare that I won’t forget. He leans over the railing of the hospital
bed, his head on the metal as if he’s sleeping. He’s wearing a t-shirt, jeans,
and tennis shoes. Perhaps, I expected him to sleep in a suit and business
shoes. His hand drapes loosely over Mr. Spencer, whose face suggests he’s in a
comfortable sleep. The back of Robert’s hair looks unbrushed and wavy. In his
t-shirt I clearly see the lines of the muscles that almost shape a y, which
extends from under each arm and disappears into his back. Briefly, I stand
there, knowing he can’t see me. His shirt shakes, and I think I hear him
whispering.
Frozen there in the hallway, I begin to wonder
whether I should leave. Why did I come anyway? Because Mr. Spencer was nice to
me? Because I feel obligated to do something nice to Robert before I ruin his
life?
For no apparent reason, I also begin to wonder
whether I was right about Mrs. Smith, my sixth grade teacher, the evil woman
with the gray beehive hairdo whom I believed hated me from the day I stepped
into her classroom. She was a beady-eyed creature who would not let me go to
the nurse when I fractured my arm on the playground, and who never apologized
when I returned to class the next day with a cast. Maybe I had her all wrong.
Maybe she wasn’t mean. Perhaps she was simply doing her job? Perhaps she was just
one of those dry, unemotional types unable to express herself?
Backtracking, I take two steps back and one
sideways, the flowers in my hand, backpack over my shoulder. Witnessing Robert
like this is like watching monks in prayer. I definitely shouldn’t have come.
After I take a step, Robert turns around, his
eyes puffy. Instead of the fear-inducing lawyer I know, he’s just a guy leaning
over his father. Does he call him his father?
He sees me and reaches for the tissue box near
him, wipes his nose, and then tosses it into the nearby trashcan.
“Come in,” he says, looking as though he’s lost
two inches in a day. And then he stands, resuming his height, strides over to
the other side of the room, grabs a chair, and sets it down near his own.
Wordlessly, he then takes the flowers from my hand and sets them in the water
bucket on the nightstand. The hospital room is brightly lit, solemn.
Checkerboard tiles on the ceiling give the room a seventies
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