When I turned the corner, I heard a sob.
There stood Toby Wesley, gripping Eli’s white coat.
His three interns all tried to help, but he just waved them off. “Toby—”
“She’s all I have left. She’s my little girl, there has to be something else you can try. We’ve poked and prodded her, we’ve pumped her veins full of poison! You have to do the surgery!”
“The tumor is—”
“Fuck the tumor!” he yelled, releasing Eli's coat and pushing him away. “Fuck the damn tumor! I want it out of her, and if you won’t do it, I will find someone else who will!” He walked back into the room, the door slamming behind.
Eli took a deep breath, saying something to the doctors around him before heading toward the stairs.
Only when they were all gone did I head to the patient's door, gripping the painting in my hands. Unsure whether or not I should go in, I put the painting by the door, but before I could leave, it opened again. “Sorry.” I backed up quickly. Toby looked understandably worse than the last time I had seen him; the dark circles around his eyes made me feel like he hadn’t really slept in years. His gaze shifted down to the painting that had fallen into the room.
“Did you bring it?” Molly waved behind him.
“I made a promise, didn’t I?” I smiled, bending down to pick the painting off the ground. Without a word, he moved over for me to enter.
I walked up to her bedside. Her skin looked almost gray, and she couldn’t even lift herself up. Her scarf was the brightest sparkling pink I had ever seen, and she wore a bow on her arm where her IV was.
Pulling up a chair, I sat, placing the painting on my lap. “Can I open it for you?” I asked her.
She tried her best to nod.
Pulling the brown paper off, I held it up closer for her to see. “What do you think?”
“Daddy, it’s Mommy and the baby.” She reached up to touch it and smiled to her dad, who leaned against the window with his hand over his mouth, looking at the family portrait of them. Swallowing a lump in his throat, he knelt by her bed, taking her hand. “Yes…yes sweetheart, it is,” he whispered.
Seeing them, I felt my eyes burn.
“What do you say to Ms. Poe?”
“Can I really have it?” she asked.
Laughing, I nodded. “Of course you can have it. I made it for you…the both of you.”
He glanced up at me and stood on his own two feet again. “Molly, you still need to say thank you,” he said to her.
“Thank you!”
“You're very welcome. Keep looking at it, and hopefully it makes you feel better, okay?” If only it was that easy.
“I feel better now.” She touched her mother's face.
“I’ll come visit you later, all right?”
“I’ll walk you out,” her father said when she nodded.
He didn’t have to, but I felt like he wouldn’t take no for an answer. The moment I stepped out, he closed the door behind us.
He stood there, fighting back tears, but failing. Taking a deep breath, he smiled at me. “I know you don’t know me too well, but can I hug you?”
Nodding, I wrapped my arms around him.
He let out a small cry, but stifled it to the best of his ability.
It felt like he was falling, or just crumbling in my arms.