The sliding doors open instantly, she
passes through them and the cold, sterile air hits her in the face.
She barely notices, making a beeline for the front desk. An exhausted
looking nurse spares her a polite smile. “Visiting?” the woman
asks, “What's the name?”
She says it, and it feels strange upon
her lips, to speak out loud a name that for so long has only existed
within her mind. The nurse glances at the computer, and with a slow,
deliberate hand types the name into the blinking search bar. “Room
427,” the she replies, “take the elevator on your left, its the
fourth floor...” but trails off. The girl has already gone, the
sweeping end of her long skirt slipping through the closing elevator
just in time.
The cheerful ping at each passing floor
undermines the fluttering wings of urgency she feels within her
stomach. One...In this long moment it seems that this could be
any elevator, in any place, with doors that open to a different day,
to what now felt like a different life. Two...she
is...Three...uncomfortably aware of her heart, trying its best
to beat itself out of her body. Four.
The metal cage releases her onto an
otherwise empty floor, save for a push-cart that bears a barrage of
old flower baskets, their blooms wilted and hanging in defeat over
hastily scrawled get-well notes. You are in our prayers
and You are thought of warmly in our hearts. She pauses
to finger one of the notes. What does that even mean, she wonders. As
if the senders were already severing emotional ties at the time of
post, as if the recipient were already dead. A preemptive, even if
in hindsight, not entirely unsuitable gesture.
She sets off in the direction of his
room, the clacking of her strappy Prada heels rebounding off linoleum
tile.
Outside a recursion of identical doors,
a metal plaque reads “427.” She reaches for its handle, but stops
short to stare through the tiny glass pane in its center into the
vacuous hospital bedroom . He lays in a bed, his face turned away,
searching for something he'll never quite find out the large window
on the opposite wall. She takes a deep breath of resolution, and
twists the handle.
Upon hearing the door, his head turns
and his familiar brown eyes come to rest upon her figure within the
frame.
The corners of his mouth stretch into a
smile and in a raspy, British lilt, he whispers: “Maggie.”
