I Fell in Love with Hope - Lancali

I walk into his room. The curtains are drawn, the light kept out,
unable to kiss its little gardener or the potted plants on the sill.
Sam sits up on the edge of his bed, looking at the ground rather than
the window. I undo the curtains and press a passing kiss to the side
of his face.
“Everyone gets extra blankets today and no pudding, but I got us
sweet bread.” I lay down the treats wrapped in wax paper on the side
table.
“Do you want to go outside tomorrow? I’ve never been outside in the
winter,” I say. Sam hasn’t either. The air is too dry and pathogens
search for a home in bodies this time of year. But now that he’s
recovered, if he wears his mask and gloves and I am with him, we
can share the adventure, no matter how slight.
“Sam?” I call. He doesn’t respond. He doesn’t react to me. “Sam, are
you alright?”
“Do you think the sun rises because it fell?” he asks. He looks
through the glass now, at the colors fanning across the sky, each
darker than the last.
“Maybe,” I say. “But I trust the sun to rise no matter what.”
“Do you think it ever gets tired?” Sam asks. He talks the way he
breathes.
As if he is exhausted of it. “Do you think once the sun sets, it wishes
it could set forever?”
“I don’t know,” I admit, gazing out at the same colors. Only their
fading makes me turn away while it entrances Sam all the more.
I kneel before him, pressing my hands on his knees, smiling the way
he’s always done for me. “I think the sun knows that without it, we’d
be lost forever,” I say. “I think it keeps rising for us.”