I Fell in Love with Hope - Lancali

i understand
“Is this how you felt when Sony was dying?” I ask. I sit in a rolling
chair at the nurse’s station, holding the Hit List as I watch Hikari’s
room from afar.
Winter is here, and her mom has quit her job. She spends her days
at the hospital to stay with her daughter while her husband continues
to work to pay off medical bills.
“Did you think, This is it? ” I ask again. “This may be the day I lose
her. ”
Eric either doesn’t hear my question, or he ignores it. Rummaging
through charts, he handles paperwork with efficiency, as always, only
now with an added edge. After we spread Sony’s ashes, he went
back to work as if nothing had happened. He was offered leave, but
all of his colleagues, tiptoe around him still, offering to do tasks for
him.
I don’t think Eric likes that.
I don’t think he’s ever liked me either, but I’ve known him since he
first began clinical rotations fresh out of school. When he first saw
me, he reacted the same way all others do. He felt he knew me
fundamentally, a face from his past, but he didn’t question it. It was a
natural ignorance. He saw me as a detail.
A stethoscope around a doctor’s neck or the sound of shoes against
the tiles.
It doesn’t dawn on him that I don’t look like I’ve aged a day since
then.
People don’t question background details unless prompted. They
accept them as they are. Sometimes, though, I wonder if like Hikari,
Eric wonders what I