Ricky shook his head. Despite having made a children’s hospital his home for almost a decade, he looked shaken by my description. This isn’t normal, I reminded myself. If someone had told me they’d seen what I’d seen a year ago, I would probably be a bit traumatized too.
“That is . . . ,” he said. He rubbed his temple. “Angie, I don’t know what to say.”
What was there to say? Only a miracle could save that boy now.
“I don’t expect you to,” I said. “It just . . . It made me think. I’ve been so lucky. No one in my family has any serious health issues, but that doesn’t mean anything. Like, them being alive and well isn’t a given. I could get a call tomorrow that, I don’t know, Tabs was in a car accident. Or my mom had a heart attack.” I wagged my head, shaking the images away, along with the accompanying guilt; I hadn’t called my parents in a while.
Ricky was quiet for a moment. Our footsteps echoed through the lot. He didn’t speak again until we stopped at a car, a white Honda Civic. The most practical of cars, I thought. The doors clicked open.
“I get that. My grandparents are elderly,” he said then. His eyes met mine over the top of the car. “I think about them dying all the time.”
Oh. I looked down at my hands.
“Of course. That makes sense.”
He shrugged, then opened his door.
“Does it? Oh, sorry for the mess. You can throw that in the back.”
I looked at the “mess” he was referring to—a duffel bag and a half-empty water bottle—and laughed. If this was a mess, he should see the inside of Nia’s car.
“This is nothing. Thanks for dropping me off.” I tossed his bag in the back and piled into his car. A pine tree air freshener hung from the rearview mirror, a new one, by the fresh, nostalgic scent that hit me the moment I shut the door. “How old are your grandparents? Are they pretty healthy?”
“My grandpa is in his early seventies. I have no idea about his health because he won’t go to the doctor,” he said, starting the engine. “He’s lived a ‘clean life,’ doesn’t smoke, barely drinks, and is still pretty spry, so he thinks he doesn’t need to. I mean, I think he just doesn’t like speaking English at his appointments and is too proud to ask for an interpreter.”
All those medical school lectures on health-care disparities, and it hadn’t occurred to me that someone I knew would be impacted by a language barrier.
“I didn’t know your grandparents didn’t speak English,” I said.
“They do. Enough,” Ricky said. “My grandpa doesn’t like to; he’ll do it for work but that’s pretty much it. Abuela’s mostly fluent, though. She learned before they came here. She used to teach classes at the church for kids who’d recently immigrated. So she goes to the doctor all the time. She’s been trying to get Abuelo to go forever, but he’s stubborn as a mule.”
Just like my dad, I thought. Despite his background in clinical pharmacy, my dad preferred to stick his head in the sand about his health. Every year, Momma had to drag him kicking and screaming to the clinic for his annual physical, and we were yet to convince him to get a screening colonoscopy.
“So, you’re bilingual?” I said.
Ricky smirked, then said something in Spanish. I didn’t catch any of it, but my heart still stuttered in my chest. He could have just told me my breath stank and I still would’ve thought it was sexy.
“Come on, you might just know the one phrase,” I said jokingly. “For real though, that’s cool. It’s not a given. I can’t speak Twi,” I admitted. “My parents kind of just forgot to teach me.”
Ricky nodded in understanding.
“I’m the do-over,” he said. “My dad isn’t fluent. They thought he’d pick up English faster if they didn’t teach him. Turns out the only thing he picked up was ‘asshole.’” His jaw clenched. “He’s the real reason Abuela goes to the doctor, though. He’s always in the hospital for dumb shit, and so she’s always there too. And one day, she figured that she should get herself checked out. I can thank him for that, I guess.”
“You’re angry,” I observed.
“Yeah, well.” Ricky shrugged. “He’s a leech. He’s been leeching their money, and now he’s leeching years off her life. The stress . . . it’s not good for her. And for what? It’s not like he’s going to change anytime soon.”