We land in a completely white room. I look around and see medical equipment all around. My stomach drops. Nothing good ever comes from being in rooms like this. Death is always near. I look at Michael, but he looks completely calm. I look around the room once more and breathe a sigh of relief when I see a made-up bed with no one in it. And then my heart sinks. Does this mean they are already dead? How did we miss the reaper?
I hear Michael chuckle. I look at him incredulously, not able to believe he would be this heartless. Yeah, sure he's still a guardian, but dang. All guardians, but David, really are terrible. Michael gives me a side-eye as if predicting my thoughts, "Calm down, Emma. Claudette is probably on her way to another part of the hospital."
"You can't even put us precisely where your wards are?" I ask, knowing he truly is a joke. How could I have let myself be deluded? This guy is an imbecile.
"She's here a lot, so I figured she would be here still." He explains, looking around the room, and his eyes lit up. "If she isn't here, then I know where she is!" He takes off out of the room, leaving me in the dust. "Follow me, Emma!" He shouts back, remembering me.
I follow after him, "Where are we going?" Michael ignores my question, not slowing down. How often is he here that he knows exactly where he is going? Is this normal for a guardian? After running for about a minute we make it to where he wants to be skidding to a stop a smile on his face. I skid to a stop next to him and I observe what he was rushing off to.
There's a woman with a cloth wrapped around her head. She's wearing a hospital gown and yet she has such a happy look on her face. There is another woman, who has a lot of similar facial features to the woman with the cloth. This woman has a smile on her face, but her eyes are swimming with unshed tears. There is a nurse and a doctor as well. The odd thing is they were all round a silver bell on the wall. A dynamic quartet surrounding a single, meaningless bell. Right?
"She's cancer-free." I hear Michael mutter, and then he does a weird sounding laugh. I look over at him and nearly fall down in surprise. He has a huge grin on his face, but tears were steadily streaking down his face.
"What?" I say, looking at her again and realizing she was indeed a cancer patient. The turban cloth over her head and how fragile she looks giving it away.
"Sorry, I guess I didn't tell you about her," Michael says, wiping away his tears. "Her name is Claudette and that is her sister Catherine. For about a year now, Claudette has been battling kidney cancer, but now she's okay." A fresh wave of tears began to fall down his face, his voice breaking on 'okay'.
"Come on Claude!" I hear Catherine exclaim, pulling out her camera. "Ring the bell!" Claudette gives her sister a small smile and steps up to the bell.
There's an apprehensive look on her face, but it warred with the complete relief in her eyes. What is going through her head? Maybe that cancer might return? That this is all a dream and she'll wake up in the white bed with medical equipment surrounding her on all sides? She grips her hands around the rope and looks at the bell. She gazes at the bell as if it were both a saving grace and a terrible enemy. Finally, she pulls the rope and the sweetest ringing erupts from the bell, and with it, the dam broke for so many of us.
Catherine's taking picture after picture with tears falling quickly down her face. I watch as the doctor looks away, as if afraid to let the patient see their tears. The nurse has a smile and quickly wipes her tears away as subtly as she can. Michael starts to sob with the rest and rushes over to where Claudette is, looking as if he was going to hug her. As if he could and she would feel it.
Claudette is crying as well, as if not believing she had made it. She collapses to the ground with a giant relieved huff, her smile bright and even more beautiful than that meaningful bell. She gazes up at the bell with such a look that it makes me want to turn away, afraid to interrupt such a tender moment. Her moment with the bell symbolizing her winning of the battle.
Suddenly, I feel a tickling on my face and go to wipe it away encountering wetness. I'm...crying. I bite my lip, watching as Catherine gets on her knees and gathers Claudette into her arms. Michael sinks to his knees as well, looking at them both with so much love. The love of a parent.
I turn away, not wanting to witness such a beautiful moment between a family, hating that bitterness starts to claw my stomach.
Comments (0)
See all