Chapter 9
The smell of disinfectant hit me like pushed open the doors of Cleveland Medic Center, and a decade felt like a lifetime ago.
The greenery in the hallway, the layout of the nurse’s station, even the faded marks on the walls–everything felt inexplicably familiar.
My father said I had amnesia, but why did everything feel etched deep within me?
“Ms. Cohen, the vegetative patient ward is on the fifth floor,” the doctor accompanying me said softly.
“There’s a caregiver there, quite special. Over the years, the survival rate of the patients he’s cared for has been the highest in the entire hospital.”
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The elevator doors opened, and a wave of warmth rushed toward me.
Sunlight streamed through the
floor–to–ceiling windows at the end of the corridor, casting golden streaks across the floor.
In the distance, a figure was bending over, turning a patient gently.
His movements were light, as if handling something fragile, a treasure.
“His resume is mysterious,” the doctor continued.
“Ten years ago, he suddenly came to apply, saying he wanted to specifically care for vegetative patients. The hospital, impressed by his sincerity, decided to keep him. No one
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Chapter 9
expected his care skills to be extraordinary.”
I stood at the door of the ward. Time had etched too many marks on him.
Those hands, once flipping through business contracts, were now clumsily yet
wiping the patient’s forehead.
arnestly
He gently lifted the patient’s head, adjusted the pillow, and carefully combed their hair.
Every movement felt like performing a sacred ritual.
“The most incredible part is,” the doctor lowered his voice, “every patient he’s cared for has shown exceptionally stable vital signs. The families all say he has some sort of magic, that even the most critical patients seem to regain a bit of life when he’s around.”
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He turned, and our eyes met.
Memories surged like a tidal wave. The office on a rainy night, the blinding lights of the operating room, his suit and tie, his cold words.
Everything was so clear, so clear it hurt.
He paused for just a moment, then lowered his head and walked past me. His steps were light, as though afraid to disturb someone’s dream.
The white cuffs fluttered in a breeze, mixed with the faint scent of disinfectant.
The nurse’s station called out to him, and he quickly walked away. His figure vanished around the corner of the hallway.
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“Ms. Cohen?” A colleague’s voice snapped me back to reality.
S
“Would you like to see his care records? Many hospitals have been studying his methods.”
I shook my head gently. I finally understood why my father kept saying I had amnesia.
Some wounds, perhaps, can only be healed by forgetting.
As the sunset dipped below the horizon, I passed by the ward once more on my way
out.
He was still there, massaging the arm of a newly admitted patient in a vegetative state.
Beside the bed was a stack of medical journals, the cover pages filled with dense
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notes on patient care. In the corner, an old photo frame lay upside down, its edges. yellowed with age.
“He’s always like this,” the head nurse said, walking over.
“Ten years, through all kinds of weather. He never even goes home for the holidays, says the most important thing for a vegetative patient is companionship during the holidays.”
She paused for a moment. “He always says, even though vegetative patients have no consciousness, they can still feel love and warmth.”
Tears blurred my vision. This was probably the best ending.
He spent his life atoning, and I healed
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through forgetting.
In this hospital, the place where we began, we had both transformed into the most unexpected versions of ourselves.
He would never know that I remembered everything.
Just as he would never know, the unborn child–who I believe would have been a girl.
From the nurse’s station, I heard his soft humming.
It was the lullaby I loved to hear when I was unconscious ten years ago.
So he remembered. He had always remembered.
One by one, the lights in the outpatient
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building flickered on, just like the night we first met. But this time, we had finally learned to let go.
In the long corridor of the hospital, his figure continued to move, bringing a little warmth to each sleeping life.
I walked boldly into the night, never looking back.
Some say forgiveness is harder than forgetting.
But at this moment, I suddenly understood -what is truly hardest is to carry every memory and still move forward.
END
