Natalie Moreno, MS3
University of Michigan Medical School
Daniel waited for Sophia. He had been in the waiting room for nine hours, but the surgeons had told him the procedure would only last for seven. He looked through the door and down the hallway. Running his hand through his hair, he sat back down in the waiting room and sighed.
Determined to distract himself, he fiddled with a thermos full of alphabet soup. He and his sister called the soup ambrosia when they were kids because they considered it the food of the gods, and they liked that it had “bro” in the center. It was their ambrosia growing up in East Los Angeles. The weeks their family couldn’t afford the Danimals yogurts they liked so much, their mother would buy cans of soup for fifty cents each and show them how to spell. They were poor, he thought. But at least their mother would let them play with their food. He saw the letters PC come together. “Pastor’s Child,” he thought. Then he saw a PB. An all too familiar acronym, for he himself had gone from being a pastor’s child to a pastor’s brat. He frowned as the soup mocked him for regressing one letter. He needed more alphabet.
He set the soup down and walked toward the window for the view, where the skyscrapers lit up like black and white chessboards. One building he recognized from childhood had red and green neon lights lining the roof. It was the one his parents used to drive by on the 101 freeway at least twice a week when they took the family to church on weeknights.
After pacing about, he settled down onto one of the chairs and let out a sigh. The room was empty, save for an elderly woman whose hair shone like white plastic threads. She sat at the other end of the room at a round table with a Bible beside her and a look on her face that could have been lost or pensive. Daniel was tempted to approach her and took a light step from his seat, but sat back down.
“I’m an asshole,” He mumbled, cupping both hands together and resting his forehead on them.
“You like basketball?”
Daniel looked up to find the elderly woman watching the film John Tucker Must Die.
“Yea,” he blurted.
“My son does too. He likes the Lakers, just like you.” She said, pointing to his jersey. “Do you play?”
“Not anymore.”
“Well, you look like you can.”
“Thanks.”
The elderly woman nodded and looked towards the television. She shook her head at the scene of John Tucker doing lay-ups in a blue thong. Daniel caught her staring at the tattoos from his shoulders to elbows.
“I’m sorry, I was just wondering who they were.”
He pointed to the faces tattooed on his right arm. “Them?”
“Yes.”
“They’re my parents. They’re out of town.”
She nodded and was about to speak, but right then the surgeon walked in.
“Mr. Gutierrez?”
Daniel stood. “How is she? Can she....”
“She can see. I was very pleased. She identified my voice, smiled at me, and even reached out for my hands, so motor skills are intact. We still need to check her vision every…”
Daniel listened in vain. He become lost in all of the medical jargon and decided to leave terms such as “optic chiasm” for his college-bound sister, then remembered she couldn’t come. The little he understood terrified him—a brain tumor located between Sophia’s eyes that could blind her whether or not it was removed.
“When can I see her?”
“We are bringing her to the post-op wing soon. You may see her then.”
Daniel was afraid to see her, but was anxious to. Sophia used to dress in Bebe tights and mini skirts that displayed her voluptuous, athletic legs. Daniel used to joke that she had purchased her skirts from the kids department. It didn’t matter to him if she looked the same after the surgery, but he was worried for how she’d feel if she saw herself garish and sickly.
As he entered the room, he saw her lying in bed. Her flushed porcelain face, peaceful sleep, and wrapped head bandage gave her the likeness of a Persian Sleeping Beauty. Even in sickness, she was beautiful, he thought. He couldn’t understand why he had ceased to notice before.
“Baby?”
Daniel stirred at Sophia’s voice. He had been sleeping on the chair a few feet from her bed.
“Hey,” He said. “How are you feeling?”
“I’m thirsty.”
Light rushed into the dim room as a nurse opened the curtain and walked in. “Hello, how are we doing today?” she asked.
“I’m sick,” Sophia stated.
“Yes, yes, but you will get better. I am going to check your vision. You need to identify the numbers I point to on the clock, okay?”
The nurse walked over to a clock next to a white board with notes in blue ink and pointed to different numbers, all of which Sophia was able to identify.
“Does that mean my IQ is 1? Am I getting dumb?” Sophia looked at the white board.
“No, no! Where did you get that idea?” The nurse asked.
“The board says my IQ is one.”
Daniel smiled at her. “You’re funny, hun. That’s not you IQ.”
“That number one with the little dot just means ‘primary.’ Your IQ is fine,” said the nurse.
“Sophia, give me one second, okay? The two of us are gonna talk.” Daniel headed out the room with the nurse and closed the curtain behind them. “Is she going to get better?”
“She is doing well right now, and the fact that she can see well is great. In the meantime we’ll watch for her behavior and overall health.” She noted Daniel’s nervous face and patted his shoulder. “Try to remain optimistic. She needs you to be strong.”
Daniel returned to Sophia’s room and found her wrapping varicolored tubes around her wrist.
“I’m still thirsty. Do they have pink straws?”
“No, my love. They only have white ones. These have red stripes, see?”
“We can use this,” She lifted a tube with a thin coating of blood on the inside.
“No-don’t touch those, you need them.”
“Can you get me pink straws? They match my socks.”
“Sure.” Daniel held the tip of the straw to her lips as she sipped.
“Can I have juice instead?”
“Yea.” He sat on the mattress and caressed her leg as he took the juice from her tray.
“That’s your birthday.”
Daniel turned the side of the drink to the expiration date in violet, courier font. He smiled. “Yea, you’re right. You’re smart, hun.”
He punched a straw through the foil lid of the juice. Before he could get it to her, Sophia reached with her right hand, struggling to coordinate until she placed it over his. She sipped her juice and stared at him. He felt naked. The tumor between her large brown eyes seemed to swallow the wisdom in them and create a void, like two black holes full of dark matter, the gravity of which stretched him thin.
He had made many mistakes. Unapologetically so until now. Once they were done, they became dimmer to his memory. But as he lay on the couch, they displayed themselves as clearly as a flat screen in front of him. In one scene, he was walking out the door of his apartment and Sophia was yelling inaudibly in the background, until a change in her voice made him turn around. It sounded like she was croaking car alarm sounds until the ticking of a round, black and white clock above her drowned her out. All he saw was her shrieking face and clenched fists at her hips as she sank to her knees when the clock rang, then the image before him cracked like a mirror. The ringing sound became all the more louder, and louder.
“Get the doctor! Get the doctor!”
Daniel stirred from his sleep and saw the nurse from earlier at Sophia’s bedside. She analyzed the monitor and asked her questions.
“W-what’s wrong?”
The nurse looked at Daniel with pity and resumed her questions. “Sophia, could you lift your left hand for me?”
Sophia looked at the nurse with a smile that was half lifeless and half mischievous. “I like my right one better.”
The nurse lifted both Sophia’s left leg and arm. Both sank on bed once she let go, then she exited the room.
Daniel sat on the mattress and rested his head on her left leg, where he cried in silence. His torso trembled as he sobbed, until her leg quivered.
“My leg is shaking.”
Daniel got up and looked out to find the nurse rush in with the surgeon.
“She needs help!”
The surgeon came in and tested her vision again, only to find that it had deteriorated in the last few hours. Daniel explained the leg trembling in a choked up voice and red-puffy eyes.
“She had a mild stroke,” the surgeon responded. He checked her monitor and examined her. “We are taking care of that, but she has a rough headache, so we are going to put her on morphine.”
Daniel watched as they injected several fluids into her IV and watched it drain into Sophia’s veins, her eyes drooping more by the minute. He clutched onto a pack of pink straws in his hand. He had asked a nurse to get them for him after learning that the hospital carried colored straws for pediatric patients. When the surgeon was gone, he held them up for Sophia to see in hopes that she would slumber well. A faint smile formed on her lips until they relaxed into a thin line.
“When are we getting married?” She asked.
Daniel’s eyes widened.
“Seven years,” she continued. It had been seven years since they had started dating, and six since they had started living together.
“When you get better, we’ll decide, my love.”
She pointed to the white board with poor dexterity.
“What do you want?”
“The blue eraser.”
“What for?”
“Give it to me.”
Daniel took the eraser and handed it to her, staring as she beheld it with all the consciousness she could muster. She then rubbed it about her face until Daniel took her wrist and unhooked her fingers from it.
“What are you doing?” He rubbed away the black marks off her face with his thumb.
“It’s a magic eraser. It erases things.”
“No. What are you doing that for?” He saw that her lids were closing and then leaned in to kiss her forehead.
“You hurt me,” she said with her eyes already closed. “I still love you.”
Daniel covered his mouth and wiped a couple of tears away. He inhaled through his nostrils, each breath jerking like a particle undergoing friction. The thought brought back memories of the times he had cheated. Overwhelmed with guilt, he left her with the nurse when she was in deep sleep and headed to the waiting room to stand by the window with the skyscraper view.
“Young man,” the elderly woman from before appeared at his side. “I know it’s hurting.” She patted his back and looked out the window with him. “But listen. My husband is dying in there. I remember being so angry with him that I used to wish he was dead. But I never meant it.” She paused. “But he will never hear it from me because he’s lying comatose on a hospital bed next to your “love’s” room.” She turned and looked at Daniel in the face. “You can fix it.” She held both his hands, closed a scrap of paper in them, and walked away.
Daniel unfolded the paper and read. He looked back at the skyscrapers with neon lights in contemplation and then headed back to the bedside of his dark and lovely Sophia. On the whiteboard, he hung up the note on which was written: By steadfast love and faithfulness, iniquity is atoned for, and got on his knees at Sophia’s bedside to pray.