Authors: C. K. Kelly Martin
In the beginning
Armstrong tolerates being the focus of my attention, but he soon tires of it
and I know it’s time to let him sleep. I put him back inside his cage, where he
promptly makes himself comfortable in his bedding. Then I swiftly clean the
bath before filling it with warm water and lowering my body inside. It’s a deep
tub and if I fill it nearly to the top I can almost float inside it.
Bobbing in the
water, my head back and my hair fanning out around me, I slip into the same
kind of trance that sometimes the television, or watching waves at the lake,
can send me into. I’m not consciously aware of how slowly or quickly time is
passing, but I jerk at the sound of the telephone, which I only now realize
I’ve forgotten to bring into the bathroom with me.
I run to
Abigail’s bedroom naked, droplets of water landing on the carpet under me, and
have the hand in my phone before it stops ringing. “Hello?” I say urgently.
“Leah?” Vishaya
says.
“It’s me.” I
grip the phone tighter. “What’s going on?”
“I just got off
the phone with Sumi and they’re moving Yunhee out of ICU this morning.”
My heart’s
beating with the swiftness of a hummingbird’s. A step behind, it doesn’t yet
realize the danger’s over. I can’t find words big enough to reflect what I’m
feeling and I stand there gulping in air, wet hairs on my arms pricking up on
end.
“Sumi said that
the past few days have been really scary,” Vishaya continues, “but that the
doctor told them Yunhee’s condition has improved, that she’s stable and alert.”
Joy shines through Vishaya’s syllables and their sparkle makes my lips tingle
and shoot into a smile. “They’re moving her to a regular surgical floor where
she can have visitors shortly.”
“Shortly?” I repeat,
more giddy than I can ever remember feeling. “Do you mean she can have visitors
today
?” It’s amazing how quickly life can take things from you—and
astounding the swiftness with which its gifts arrive too. I feel as though
every bone in my body has simultaneously relaxed and woken up during the past
few seconds.
We almost lost
her, but we didn’t.
Yunhee’s safe.
She’s going to be okay.
Happy
tears leak out of my eyes and spill down my face, dampening the only part of me
that was previously dry.
“Obviously her
parents don’t want a ton of people showing up, especially in the first couple
of days, but yeah, we can see her,” Vishaya says. “I’m just about to call Chas
because I’m sure he’ll want to be one of the first. You know how he’s been
holding himself responsible.”
“I know.” And
hopefully now he can begin to let go of the guilt. “
God
…Vishaya…this
is…this is…” I still can’t find the right thing to say.
“I know,” she
says. “
I know
. It’s exactly what we’ve all been hoping for.”
“Do you think
later this morning would be too early to stop by the hospital?” My vision’s
streakier than a windshield in a tropical storm, and I mop my eyes with the
heel of my hands. “I’m in work at three but I’d love to see her before I go
in.” That’s the understatement of the month. There’s nothing that would mean
more to me than being able to see Yunhee today.
Vishaya gives me
the floor and room number that Yunhee’s going to be transferred to and says she
thinks it should be fine to visit later this morning, that otherwise Sumi wouldn’t
have said so. “We’ll just make sure to stagger the visits so it’s not too much
for her. Maybe I’ll wait until tomorrow to go since I know you’ll be there
today. Can you call me on my cell after you get back to let me know how she’s
doing?”
I tell Vishaya
of course I will and then hurry back to the bathroom to dry myself off and
empty the bathtub. The past few days suddenly seem like a bad dream. The
heaviness I’ve been carrying around with me has dropped away, leaving me as
light as a sunshine—so excited about facing the morning that I can’t get out of
the house fast enough. Everything has changed. Yunhee’s pulled through and the
world is an okay place to be again.
As I pull on my
clothes, dry my hair and walk to the train station, I’m beaming all the while.
Things I couldn’t conceive of before have begun to seem possible. It’s not that
I’ve come to terms with Bastien’s death over the course of the last several
minutes. More like someone’s opened a window a crack, allowing light into a
room that hadn’t seen in it in almost a year.
Maybe sometime
in the not too distant future I’ll begin to think about going back to school.
Maybe even if I don’t Yunhee and I can resurrect noodle night. We kept it up
for a while after I moved in with Bastien, but then our noodle nights began to
grow fewer and farther between and eventually stopped entirely. We didn’t stop
spending time together; we just didn’t do it nearly as often as before. Between
homework, classes, the museum and Bastien, my time was stretched thin. Then,
once he was gone, Bastian took up more of my energy and time than he ever had
when he’d been alive. I gave him everything, gladly, and it never felt like a
sacrifice.
But now I’ve
discovered I need some things back. The revelation comes as a surprise and I’m
so excited and grateful that I forget to stop into the hospital gift shop to
buy Yunhee flowers or a cuddly plush toy. The mental lapse doesn’t occur to me
until I’m walking into her room, my eyes searching her out. The first bed has a
curtain pulled snugly around it for privacy, but in the second lies Yunhee, her
mother sitting on a chair next to her near the head of the bed.
Yunhee’s eyes
are closed and she’s hooked up to an IV, but she’s breathing on her own. Mrs.
Kang turns to look at me and smiles. She rises from her chair and meets me at
the end of Yunhee’s bed, where she pulls me into a hug. The relief and
happiness that I feel in her embrace are identical to my own. “How is she
doing?” I whisper.
I’ve only met Mrs.
Kang a few times, but I’ve heard a lot about her and I guess she’s heard a lot
about me too. “Much better,” she whispers back. “It will just take time.”
“She’s been
through a lot,” I say.
Mrs. Kang
frowns. “Too much. I’m afraid for her to come back here to the city.” She
explains that when Yunhee’s released, which is still a ways off, and is well
enough to travel she’ll be taking her back to Ottawa to look after her there.
Her husband and daughter, who have been missing work and school, will be checking
out of the hotel tomorrow and returning to Ottawa. Mrs. Kang has arranged for
several weeks’ leave of absence from her own job.
“Maybe you can
stay at Yunhee’s apartment,” I suggest, my eyes clinging to Yunhee in bed,
watching her breathe in and out. I know Vishaya wouldn’t mind having Mrs. Kang
stay with her and the apartment is only a short subway ride from the hospital.
“I had the same
thought this morning,” Mrs. Kang confirms, the both of us still whispering so
as not to wake Yunhee. “I’m going to call her roommate later and speak with her
about it.”
Mrs. Kang
motions for me to take the chair she was sitting in when I walked through the
door. “So she’ll see you there right away if she wakes up,” she insists,
pulling a second chair closer to the first and dropping into it herself.
I thank her and
sit next to Yunhee. She looks so young in her sleep, the hospital sheets—and a
thick red and yellow blanket that her parents must have brought—pulled up to
her chin. A nurse drifts in to look at her briefly and smiles at me before
leaving the room again.
Mrs. Kang and I
sit at Yunhee’s bedside, punctuating the silence at irregular intervals with
hushed snippets of information. She tells me she was very impressed with the
ICU—how wonderful everyone’s been to Yunhee—and says the nurses are hoping to
get Yunhee up a little bit tomorrow and that they have her hooked up to a pain
pump, which allows her to medicate herself to relive the pain whenever she
wants.
Mrs. Kang and I
haven’t seen each other since Bastien died and she offers her condolences and
says that she remembers meeting Bastien once. “He seemed like a very nice boy.”
“He was,” I say.
“Thank you.”
Soon Sumi
strides in nursing a bottle of orange juice. She kisses her mother and mouths
the word “hi” as she glances my way.
I know there
aren’t supposed to be many visitors at the same time and begin to get out of my
chair so Sumi can sit close to her sister. I wonder if maybe it’s time for me
to leave, although I was hoping I’d have a chance to speak to Yunhee directly
first. Sumi points to the door and whispers that she’s going down to the gift
shop to buy some new magazines so I should stay awhile.
She’s only just
left the room when Yunhee opens her eyes. Blinking like her eyelashes are
coated in dust, she looks straight at me. “Hey,” I say gently. I stand up and
lean over the bed to kiss her forehead.
“Hey,” she
croaks back. She looks every inch as young as she did when her eyes were
closed. More than that, she looks delicate. But it’s incredible to see her eye to
eye again. Less than a week ago we drank bubble tea and shopped for Sumi
together, but I’ve missed her with a vengeance over the past few days. I didn’t
know I had that much feeling left in me until I thought I might not see her
again.
“Your mom tells
me the hospital has been really good with you and that you’re doing better,” I
say.
Yunhee furrows
her eyebrows. “It’s been a blur.”
“Yeah, I bet.” I
dip my head closer still. “When you’re feeling a bit better I have stuff I want
to tell you,” I whisper. I’m sure her mother can hear me anyway, since she’s
only a couple of feet behind me. “Major stuff that you’re probably going to
want to kick my ass for not telling you sooner.”
Mrs. Kang is on
her feet, moving towards the door where she and Sumi hover, speaking quietly in
Korean. “Stuff about you?” Yunhee asks, her eyes popping.
“Me and a guy
named Liam,” I confess.
“Oh my God.”
Yunhee shuts her eyes, opening them again momentarily to add, “I can’t believe
you.”
“Yeah, I know.”
I don’t want to tire her out by forcing her to speak too much. “We’ll have a
lot to talk about later.” I slip back into my chair and spy Mrs. Kang crossing
the room back towards us. “I think Chas is coming by to see you today.”
“I heard he was
okay,” she says. “Just his hands…”
“That’s right.”
I begin to tell Yunhee about our vigil that first night at her apartment, but
before I can finish a lanky bearded doctor ambles into the room and wants to
examine her. I use that as an opportunity to go down to the gift store and buy
Yunhee the cutest teddy bear in the place. With the bear in my arms, I head
back up to her room where Sumi and Mrs. Kang are sitting—much like I imagine
they have been for the past several days—quietly next to Yunhee’s bed. Sumi
flips through a magazine while Mrs. Kang snores lightly and Yunhee, too, is
once again sound asleep.
I leave the
teddy bear with Sumi and tell her to let her sister know I’ll be back for
another visit on Monday. In the hallway I spot Mr. Kang striding towards
Yunhee’s room with a bouquet of flowers and a large coffee. We stop and
exchange hellos. He says he’s been in touch with the university about Yunhee’s
condition and that it’s too early to know when she’ll be able to return to
school but that he’s going to gather the paperwork necessary for her medical
leave. I tell him I’m sure the university will be able to work things out once
they know what kind of timeframe they’re dealing with. “What about the police?”
I ask. “Have they picked up the guy who did this yet?”
Mr. Kang
grimaces. “They think the suspect’s left the Toronto area. He could be
anywhere.”
My molars clamp
together. I can’t believe someone put Yunhee in ICU and might get away with it.
But the brief moment of negativity is pushed aside by an overwhelming feeling
of wellbeing. Like Mrs. Kang said, it will take time, but Yunhee will heal.
I say I hope
they track the man down shortly and soon I’m on the train back to Oakville, the
hopeful feeling keeping me company the whole way. Walking to Abigail’s house
from the station, I take note of Halloween wreaths on some of the neighborhood
doors, and eerie decorations like psychotic pumpkins and disconcertingly plump
tarantulas peeking out from behind curtains. Tomorrow’s holiday is just one of
many things that I haven’t been able to hold in my head lately. Now it makes me
think about Bastien, Yunhee, Katie and me at the zombie walk two years ago.
Given all that’s
happened since then, it feels like much longer ago. In two years you can love
somebody with all your heart and lose them. You can become the very best of
friends with someone and then neglect them to the point that they don’t expect
anything different from you anymore. You can become someone you never expected
and forget things you believed you could take for granted about yourself.
Two years can
contain a lifetime’s worth of people and events, but I can’t live solely in the
past anymore. I’ve survived Bastien by exactly nine months and nineteen days
and today is the first day since January eleventh that hasn’t felt like a kind
of prison sentence.
There’s only an hour until I have
to leave for my shift. I nibble on sourdough bread and cheese while placing a
quick succession of phone calls. The first one is to my parents to fill them in
on the details of the last few days. My mother’s at work but Dad, though he’s
never met Yunhee either, is very glad to hear she’s out of ICU. It would make
his day if, on top of that, I told him I might go back to school next year, but
it’s too early to get his hopes up. I’ve only just begun to consider the matter
and I want to be sure first.
Then I call
Vishaya and Katie, who are both planning to visit Yunhee tomorrow, and assure
them that she’s doing well—not eating or walking around yet, though; that will
come later. I pass on what Mr. Kang said about school and the police too, and
before I know it I’m out of time, unable to place my final call.