Baked Scribe Flashback : A Gift In The End
Sondra pulled through the intersection and glanced to her left at the man on the corner, taking money from the woman in the white Lexus. He looked homeless, but she could have sworn she had seen him just last week at Cooper’s, ordering a fifty five dollar steak dinner. No difference. Most of these guys were con artists anyway, and they all came crawling out of the woodwork for Christmas. Nothing better than taking advantage of as many people as possible during the holiday season.She couldn’t say for sure how long it had been since cynicism and spite had jumped on board, but the two of them had long since committed an emotional mutiny and were now steering the ship. Every night she went to bed, wincing at the taste of her own discontent, which continued to fester and poison her soul.
Snow was starting to fall gently, and it was one of the rare moments that she actually enjoyed taking in what was happening around her. The sight of snow falling, and crisp afternoon air always made her nostalgic. She opened her window and let the cold air flow in and over her, perking her up to an extent that no coffee or drug ever could.
Her mind drifted back to so many winters ago. Running up the slopes with Tobias, Red Runner sled clutched in her left hand. She remembered school nights, staring out into the blizzard, checking by the illumination of the street light to see if it was still snowing, wondering if it would be enough for them to cancel school the next day.
The squealing sound of her radio in this memory had suddenly begun to sound like locking brakes. Her eyes snapped open as she looked up into the flashing headlights of the car ahead of her, and realized and that she was in the wrong lane. She pumped the brakes and turned the wheel, causing the car to rotate before spinning back on course and drifting back to the correct side of the road.
It was just by luck that a cop hadn’t been there to see her stunt driving. She turned right, off of the street and into the small parking lot in front of the communications studies building. The package didn’t look like it had been damaged but there was no way to know that for sure. Of course she would hear about it if, at the hospital, they opened the box and found anything wrong. She would hear the wails of the patient, likely in pre-op, waiting for the delivery of the liver that they needed so badly, and after taking so long to find a compatible donor. All she could do was get it to the hospital, and pray that nothing had happened to it from being tossed around in her car.
She had no way of knowing who the liver was for. All she knew was that it was going to end up going to someone else, while her father just sat at home and waited to die. Regardless, it had to get to the hospital within the next few hours or the organ would be useless to anyone. It did feel nice to be able to make these dreams come true, but at the same time, it would be nice to get something for herself as well. Didn’t she deserve anything? It was Christmas after all.
Was she being greedy? Missing the point of the season, unreasonable to want things for herself? She pondered all of this as she turned into the hospital lot. As she walked into the lobby, it occurred to her that the Styrofoam container that she was transporting this organ in looked like the exact same cooler that they used for bait when they were kids.
The bitch at reception directed her upstairs as if she didn’t know where to go already. She walked up to the elevator, rode to the seventh floor and exited, walking past all the idiotic posters with the fake families gushing about how amazing the hospital was, as if people were really coming here because they were tired of summering in the Hamptons.
She walked past the pre-op area so quickly that she almost didn’t recognize her father sitting in the room, looking with the wide eyes of expectation. Their gazes met as she passed and a moment later, she registered who she had just seen. She stopped and walked back to the doorway, letting her mind go quiet as the string of revelations began hitting her.
Pre-op meant that he was here waiting for surgery. Waiting for transplant surgery. He had been waiting for months for the liver that would allow him to survive, and stay a part of her life, at least a little longer. How many nights had she fallen asleep, crying at the thought of losing him? All he needed was the liver that seemingly was never going to come.
The liver that she was holding right now under her arm like a piece of firewood. She lifted it up, now seeing it as the valuable relic it was, and looked back up at her father. He saw the understanding in her eyes and nodded, lips turning up at the corners, into a smile.
