I Fell in Love with Hope - Lancali

“Goodbye, butter baby,” I whisper. I bow my head, and even once I
leave the room, the baby grins toothlessly over her mother’s
shoulder till I’m gone.
—
“Bam! Another win!”
Henry is a regular, Nurse Ella says. He lives in a cabin neighboring
the river. No children or family to speak of. So when his 80th year
struck with a leg infection, he had nowhere to stay but with us.
I like Henry. His hair is gray like pale smoke rising from the pipe that
dangles between his lips. That thing is an extension of his body,
another limb.
He’s never without it. All its ashes nearly fall from the tobacco
chamber when he laughs at his own jokes.
“You damn old man,” Sam says, tossing his cards down on the table
between them.
This is the nurses’ break room. Technically, patients aren’t allowed
in.
However, Sam and Henry are resident troublemakers, me, their right
hand.
Where else could they gamble uninterrupted but where their nurses
would never expect them to be?
Henry shimmies his shoulders back and forth, a victor’s chuckle
wafting smoke in Sam’s face.
“Luck of the draw, my boy. Luck of the draw,” he sings.
“Yeah, right,” Sam throws one arm over the back of his chair. “You
were hiding that king in your wrinkles, admit it.”