"Good." She turned to Sabrina. "Sabrina, you are going home."
"I'm not going home."
"You are. Bonnie is fine. The doctors are coming back. You have until they come back to go home, take a shower, and come back. I'm here. I'm watching her."
"Mrs. Park, I — "
"Sabrina, you stink."
"I don't."
"Sabrina." Mrs. Park gestured at me. "Why don't you ask that handsome man over there?"
Sabrina turned and looked at me. "Beau, tell her I don't stink."
"You don't stink." I said what she asked me to.
Mrs. Park made a sound.
"But I do think she is right that you should go home. Just for an hour. Mrs. Park has it," I added.
Sabrina muttered something I didn't catch and got up.
She kissed Bonnie on the cheek. "Be good. Eat the rice. Listen to Mrs. Park."
"Don’t worry, Mommy," Bonnie said.
Sabrina turned to me. "Take me home."
I took her home.
She didn't speak.
I drove.
I was thinking about her and Bonnie. I couldn't let this happen to her.
I had watched my father die. My father had been invincible to me my whole life. He had been to every game, play, and emergency-room visit. He was always supportive of me and whatever I wanted to be. And now he was gone.
I wasn't going to let that happen to Bonnie.
I couldn't imagine what losing her would do to Sabrina. I didn't want to imagine. I was refusing to let it.
We pulled up at her building.
I parked and turned off the engine. She sat there still. Then she opened the door and got out. She walked to the front of the building. She didn't turn around to see if I was coming.
I came.
Her apartment hadn't changed. The throw pillow on the couch I had passed out on the night I had met her was still there. The coffee mug on the side table had a quarter inch of cold coffee in it. The wall above the TV held Bonnie's artwork — three years of marker drawings taped over each other, forming, in this household, a curation system.
Sabrina didn't look at me. "I'm going to shower."
"Take your time."
She went down the hall, and I sat on the couch in the dark.
I put my hands on my knees and looked at the wall of artwork.
