Finding parking at the Children’s Hospital garage should be a requirement for canonization. After twenty minutes of circling and false hopes, I finally manage to squeeze into a vacancy between two minivans covered in a variety of “Proud parent of…” magnets and bumper stickers. Even the zombie-stick-figure-family window sticker in the back of the Honda Odyssey I’m passing doesn’t get the dopey-grin reaction out of me that it normally would. I’m anxious about being in a children’s hospital, exhausted after an absurdly long lumbar fusion that faced several complications, and once again, I’m sweating like I ran a marathon.
I find the garage elevator that smells of warm piss and rust, step inside, and press the button that will get me to the tunnel that leads to CHOP’s lobby. I should have rescheduled, shouldhave explained to Ray that the routine procedure hadn’t gone as planned and that we should meet up for drinks next week instead, but I’ve already been forced to change dates on him twice since I arrived, and Ray deserves better. Shit, he deserves a medal of honor for the things he witnesses in the pediatric ward.
I lean against the handrail and shut my eyes as my stomach lurches upward. I’ll stay for a beer, eat something greasy and comforting, and then put a real date on the calendar—a day where we can meet someplace less depressing than this. A day when we both have off, so we aren’t scrambling to get a meal while Ray’s beeper threatens to go off at any minute for some emergency.
The elevator dings and I open my eyes to find my new favorite wide-eyed brunette staring at me with signature annoyance.
“Jesus. H. Christ,” she growls, crossing her arms as her teenage companion steps over the crack onto the elevator.
“What are the odds?” I ask, taking her in. She’s been avoiding me since that afternoon at the bar, always making some lame excuse to leave the moment I arrive, and I can’t say I wouldn’t do the same, but my stomach does another flip and I can’t blame the elevator because we aren’t moving.
“Really good when the universe hates you,” Devon deadpans. The doors start to close, but she doesn’t uncross her arms and I’m impressed by her commitment. There are few people in this world who would choose to stand on the third floor of a sweltering, stinky parking garage rather than step into an elevator with me. The thought makes me grin wider as I put my arm out to stop the doors just in time.
“Do you want to stand out there and wait for a magic escalator to appear or?—”
She lets out a long breath and her hands fall by her sides, then she steps onto the elevator sideways, dragging her boot across the dingy carpet, so she can watch me the entire time.
Someone clears their throat and I release the door and turn. The girl she’s with is smiling so big it makes my jaw hurt and she’s looking between us—back and forth—her neck twisting, her pierced brow lifted toward the gray-blue streaks in her hair.
“Sydney, this is Jeff Harrison. Kevin’s doctor friend and overall pain-in-the-ass,” Devon explains from the farthest corner of the space.
Sydney puts out her hand and I take it. She can’t be a day over seventeen and I’m about to ask how they know each other when the young girl beats me to it.
“Ms. G is my life coach,” she says, twisting at her eyebrow ring with her free hand in a way that makes my own brow bone ache.
I look at Devon who is shaking her head emphatically.
“I am no one’s life coach,” she promises. “Syd is a former student. We volunteer in the ED ward together.”
“Eating disorders,” Sydney clarifies, and I nod, all too familiar with the abbreviation for what my sister struggled through for most of her post-pubescent years.
“It’s very nice to meet you, Sydney.” I release her hand though she doesn’t seem to want to let go. Her fingers linger on my wrist. “You’ve chosen an excellent life coach,” I tell her.
Devon shuts her eyes as if the mere sight of me is causing her pain and I chuckle. The elevator lurches to a halt and the doors ping open. I sweep an arm out to let them off, accepting Devon’s warning look with a smile. Her message is loud and clear.Remember your promise. How could I forget?
Though it’s obvious Devon is hauling ass, pulling her boot along beside her as fast as her little leg can manage, I match her stride easily and walk between them.
“Do you work here, Dr. Harrison?” Syd asks.
“No,” Devon answers. “He’s just here to torture me.”
“I’m here to meet an old friend,” I tell the girl and she nods.
The lobby opens up before us, a wide marble expanse enclosed in sheets of glass to let the natural light flood the space—an architect’s doomed attempt to combat the unavoidable melancholy of a hospital for sick kids. The sound of coughing and crying fills the cavernous space, bouncing off the tall panes of blueish glass. I’m suddenly back in my third year as a med student. The eight weeks I spent rounding in pediatrics pulled my heart so thin it could have crumpled like tissue paper. I consider turning back around.
I open my eyes to find Devon looking back at me while Syd chats with the nurse behind the desk.
Her head tilts a little and her face softens. I quickly speak to cover whatever it is she’s found in my expression: “I’m coming over to Meredith’s tonight in case there’s some imaginary dog you need to walk or a very pressing manicure you need to have.”
She hesitates, narrows her eyes at me. Syd appears with a visitor sticker and holds it out to Devon.
“I’m not around tonight,” she says quietly, and I’m shaken by the change in her voice.
I nod and scramble for something to tease her with. Of course, she’s not going to be around. She’s never around. I wonder if my increasing presence in Kevin’s life is hurting her social life more than she’s letting on and something like guilt nibbles at my gut.
“If you want, I don’t have to?—”
“I like to be home. At my mom’s,” she cuts me off. “Believe me, Jeff. It’s not all about you.”
