Hurrying along the buffed stone floor of the lobby, I passed the marble wall inscribed with the names of benefactors, then snuck my way through the crowds of people. In amongst the congestion, so many faces were familiar, from admin staff to doctors and nurses. Even the stressed-out families were anonymous yet intimate to me, on some level.
I stepped into the staff room while shrugging off my coat. There I caught Teresa mid-yawn, the back of her hand covering her mouth while the other jotted down notes on her pad.
“Ivy!” The smell of a cinnamon candle lit up on an autumn night wafted toward me. “How are you this morning? Done your ice bath?”
Teresa was probably the kindest human I had ever been lucky enough to meet. Her strawberry-blonde hair pulled back into a soft bun and her heart-shaped face exuded a sense of sweetness, just like her scent. A warm smile perpetually adorned her face.
We would be friends, if either of us had the capacity for new friendships in our lives.
“Always!” I hugged her, towering over her delicate figure. Helping Teresa put away the new medical equipment, I asked, “How are classes?”
“Too much; I barely have time to sleep.” She shoved her hands under her armpits in a self-hug or an attempt to keep them warm, maybe both. “I don’t know how you manage to have friendsanddates.”
“Friends, a few. Dates?” I scoffed. “I wouldn’t have time for those, even if Ihadtime.”
“I think the last time I went on a date was before medical school.”
“You can crash at my place anytime. It’s closer to your campus.” Teresa went to a human university not far from ours, but she lived extremely far away. For some alien reason, she refused to move closer.
“Oh, thanks, Ivy. That’s so sweet, but I’m fine here with the children. I am.”
I often found her sleeping on a cot, unable to leave the kids for the night. Not a healthy habit. Getting attached was dangerous. I’d done it before, and my heart had never quite recovered. The tragic part wasn’t even remembering their faces, but remembering what was listed right next to them. What had taken them away from us.
Federico, meningioma.
Pia, acoustic neuroma.
Ezekiel, leukemia.
It was almost as if the diseases had faces of their own. Dark silhouettes with slitted eyes and toothless grins, hissing,I won.
“I’m a dessert hound, too!” I added. “If you ever want to do a food crawl around the city so I can find all the best slices of cake, I’m down.”
Her hands folded in front of her like a serene bride. “My kind of plan.”
Pulling my hair into a ponytail, I beelined for room 237.
I smiled at Georgie lying in bed and put his chart down, then took my stethoscope out of my scrub pocket. “Ready for our check-ups?”
I placed the stethoscope against his chest, handing him another one. He mimicked me with a small giggle. He’d stopped talking since his mother passed; every time I got a giggle out of him, it was a victory.
“See? Our hearts are talking to each other now.”
This time, we both smiled.
His head was completely hairless, the overhead lighting bouncing off the smooth surface. His face sagged with the yellowish bags under his eyes.
I took the blood pressure equipment from the second drawer and tugged it open. “Now, blood pressure.”
Slowly, I bent his arm into position for the cuff, ignoring the prominent bones covered by a thin layer of skin matted with petechiae. The littlepiff-piff-piffof the balloon inflating the sleeve took longer than usual, but eventually, it got tight.
It was bad, and my heart tripped over itself. “Strawberry or peach today?”
He nodded toward my left hand, and I handed him the peach lollipop.
Too busy licking his prize, he didn’t notice when I pierced his overly punctured skin. I taped the needle in place and connected it to the IV line, which led to the bag of chemotherapy drugs hanging from the stand.
The bag was labeled with warnings and dosages, but we always covered them with cute adhesives. This one had smiling flowers and mushrooms.
