Chicken Salad
Eavesdropping on a phone call that determines her own fate, the words she heard let her draw only one conclusion, the worst one possible. She was the worst-case scenario. She was it. They came up the stairs to tell her but she didn’t need telling, she already knew. They said, “it’s not that bad.” She said, “Leave.” She refused comfort; she demanded to be alone… so they left. She let herself feel, she let herself cry. For what? What’s done is done; change is now impossible. In times like those she wanted one person, she told one person and even he did not get the whole story. She said, “I’m sick.” He said, “You’ll be okay.” She said, “I don’t know.”
Hunger rumbled in her stomach, confusion in her head. The place smelled like Asian sesame chicken salad; she found this unkind. When she sat down, they rolled up her sleeve trying to find which one was satisfactory. They asked her to take a deep breath in and that’s when she felt it. It was only just a pinch but she felt all the blood in her head drain, her stomach churn, and her heart race. She wondered, how much are they going to take this time? What will it tell them? Her stomach was empty, nothing was going to come up but she dry heaved anyway, she couldn’t help it.
Even if he wasn’t there at the moment, his optimistic outlook was what kept her hopeful. He did not know everything—she did not want him to. When she told him she had an appointment, he did not ask for what or with whom. He knew he would not get an answer and that was okay because everything else in between filled the slight void of not knowing what was truly wrong. In midst of all the uncertainty, love and happiness took over. The uncertainty was temporarily forgotten. She did not let it rule her life; instead, she was happy.
She told him he didn’t have to come, she didn’t want him to smell the sesame chicken salad or see her reaction to answers that she did not yet know. He told her that he didn’t mind, that afterwards they would get ice cream and spend yet another day together. She didn’t want him to wait but he did. She left him in the waiting room reading a magazine; she wondered how did she get so lucky? The news? Good. The boy? Outside waiting.
Now the boy is gone. The smell? The same. The pinch still leads to the same reaction. The news? Unknown. Her fear? Intensified.
