But I’d felt nothing. Instead, when my parents returned from Ghana with funeral favors in tow—fans, mugs, posters, and napkins adorned with Auntie Gifty’s stern face—Tabatha and I had laughed at the garish designs. Once, Momma caught us snickering over a keychain with her name in bright pink bubble letters and snatched it out of our hands.
“You have been protected,” she said, her voice trembling with a deep, soul-dampening disappointment that Tabatha and I would crumple under for weeks. “You don’t have to even look upon suffering. All you have to do is work hard, and study, and be kind. And this is what you choose to do instead.”
But I had looked upon suffering now, and my brain could hardly process it. It kept going back to that destroyed face. One eye had been perfectly intact. I mentally filled in the rest—full lips, like his mother’s, on a wide mouth. It must have been close range. Was this going to be my life now? Watching person after person die? In just three short years, would I be in Shruti’s position, looking down at the body with clinical indifference, shouting out orders with barely any recognition for the horror that was in front of me?
“Oh. Hey, Angie.”
Startled out of my thoughts, I looked up—and nearly leapt out of my seat. A smiling, goofy bright blue Barney the Dinosaur knockoff loomed over me. Before I could ask Why the fuck, it took off its head, and revealed, of all people, Ricky.
Not that his appearance was that surprising. Ever since our truce at the improv show, Ricky and I had been running into each other quite often. I knew when to expect him these days. He was a regular volunteer, here for three hours on most Tuesday and Saturday afternoons, and I’d interrupted many of his paint sessions to evaluate my patients. Still, I’d yet to see him in costume. The juxtaposition of the ridiculous image before me and the horrific one in my head was too bizarre to reconcile. I burst out laughing, and then . . . just didn’t stop. I must have looked hysterical, but it was nice to laugh, even better to realize that I still could.
“All right, har-dee-har,” Ricky said. “I’ll have you know I’m wearing this for the kids. Regular Dino guy couldn’t make it.”
“The family jewels still intact?” I asked, harkening back to Markus’s story with a less fortunate, similarly dressed Child Life volunteer.
Ricky’s eyebrows lifted with recognition. He had his hair up in a ponytail, secured back with a sweatband, and his whole face shone with sweat.
“Yup,” he said. “No punters in this group.”
“Lucky you,” I said. “Why are you still here, anyway? It’s seven p.m. On a Saturday. I didn’t even know we had volunteers this late.”
Ricky placed his hands on his hips, a comical picture given that he was still wearing mitts.
“There’s a kid on the oncology floor who’s stuck here getting induction chemo. His birthday was today, so we decided to throw him a party. He likes dinosaurs. Though, he didn’t like how inaccurate Arnie the Ankylosaurus over here is.” He tapped his giant dinosaur head affectionately.
“To be fair, he’s right. Where are his spikes?”
“He has spikes!” Ricky said. He did a surprisingly graceful twirl to display the back of his costume. As promised, the suit had a few paltry triangles sticking out of the back, and a tail that ended in a spiked ball.
“Apparently, ankylosaurus tails ‘don’t actually end in maces,’” he continued. “That kid is only seven and is already an insufferable nerd. It’s pretty adorable.” He spun back around to face me, his expression thoughtful. “It’s crazy to see these kids so sick. Like . . . cancer seems too grown up for them, you know? They should be out playing with friends or getting in trouble at school. Not here.”
The boy from the trauma bay’s face flashed through my head again. My expression must’ve changed, because when I met Ricky’s eyes again, he looked concerned.
“Everything okay?” he asked.
“Yeah, um . . .” I shrugged. “I just saw something really messed up today.”
Ricky seemed to get my implication, that describing something as “messed up” in a children’s hospital meant that it was supremely messed up. He nodded sagely, then dropped onto the couch next to me.
“You want to talk about it?” he asked.
I shook my head. It didn’t feel right to talk about it, not when the boy’s body was probably still cooling in the trauma bay.
“Let’s talk about something else,” I said. “Like, what got you into volunteering here?”