Terminally Ill

by Melissa Yi

  “Okay, okay,” said my dad, shaking his head once more.

  “I want to sleep with you!” said Kevin to me.

  “You kick,” I said.

  “I do not.”

  We argued until Ryan convinced him that a birthday girl should sleep alone. He and Kevin could camp out in sleeping bags on the floor of my office. I’d rather have Ryan to myself, of course, but couldn’t exactly protest in front of my parents. So I just bowed to the inevitable and brushed my teeth.

  Chapter 33

  I woke up to the sound of my mother banging pots in the kitchen and Kevin watching cartoons on the computer. When I walked into the living room, Kevin cannonballed into my stomach. “Happy birthday!”

  I’d braced my abs, so I was luckier than Houdini. Kevin didn’t hurt me at all. I hugged him back extra-tight. “Thanks, squirt.”

  “I’m not a squirt!” He raced in an S shape around the living room, deviating around the futon where my dad was reading the newspaper, the desk, and the Ikea computer stand where Ryan waved at me from in front of my laptop. Ryan mouthed, Happy birthday.

  I started toward him, but Kevin said, “Pick me up!”

  “You’re too heavy for me to pick up,” I grumbled, but I offered him my hands so he could climb up my legs and flip himself over, our usual routine.

  Ryan said, “You want to ride on my shoulders?”

  “Yeah! Cool!”

  Ryan got down on his knees, on my hardwood floors, so that Kevin could clamber up on his back like a monkey. My heart melted yet again. What a good man.

  Ryan stood up carefully, bending over so that Kevin didn’t smash into the flat, white ceiling.

  “I’m king of the world!” shouted Kevin, and Ryan headed for the hallway so he could maximize the ride.

  My mother hollered from the kitchen, “Good, you’re up! Ryan took us out for brunch! We brought you back some French toast! I wanted to try an Italian place next door, but Daddy saw the sign that they’ve gone back to Italy and closed the restaurant for six weeks. Can you believe that? I’m putting your food in the toaster oven for you!”

  “Thanks,” I said, dropping on to the futon. My dad had already turned it back into a couch before they’d gone out. “What time is it, anyway?”

  “After 2 p.m.! I wanted to wake you up, but Ryan wouldn’t let me.”

  “Almost—shoot!” I ran to check the cell phone that I’d abandoned by the door. Dead, of course. I’d forgotten to plug it in last night. When I belatedly started recharging it, it was so out of juice that it refused to turn on. I knew I must have ten million messages from Mrs. Bérubé, not the least of it because I’d missed the funeral this morning. Not that I’d turned up the silver dollar anyway, but I assumed she’d feel better, knowing that she was right and the murderer was in custody. I hadn’t called her last night because it was late and the police had told me they preferred to inform the family.

  As soon as the phone had enough juice to power on I ducked into the bedroom, closed the door so that Kevin didn’t thunder in on Ryan’s shoulders, replugged the phone, and left a message for Mrs. B. I wasn’t surprised that she didn’t answer, after a double whammy of her husband’s funeral plus Jeremy’s arrest. My heart ached. Was her family taking care of her?

  I called the funeral home. They told me that they’d already finished Mr. Bérubé’s service and internment.

  Bummer. I called the palliative ward. Ricky answered, all a-twitter, and I answered her rapid-fire questions as best I could. “Yes, it was ‘Rosie’s’ boyfriend, Jeremy. No, I didn’t stab him with a scalpel! All I had was a syringe and a needle, so I used that. Yeah, Jeremy said he’d charge me with assault, but one of the cops told me not to worry about it, I should be able to claim self-defense. Is Toni all right?”

  “Yeah, she’s fine. She wanted to go to UC Hospital, though—she was scared to stay here. But I heard she’s fine this morning. Eating applesauce.”

  I winced in sympathy. What if Toni never came back to St. Joe’s because she was too traumatized? None of us would ever be the same. I cleared my throat. “I’m glad she’s better. Listen, I remembered something for Mrs. Bérubé. She lost her silver dollar, the one she kept her husband’s bedside table. I was looking for it last night, but I didn’t search the bed because Mrs. Kincaid was in it. Could you ask the cleaner to really search the bed when they change the sheets? It would be great if they could flip the mattress.”

  “Will do,” said Ricky, a thousand times cheerier and more helpful than I’d ever heard her before. Nothing like near-death to make work interesting. “I remember that silver dollar. She showed it to anyone who stopped by for longer than two seconds.”

  “Thanks, Ricky.” I hung up the phone. I should probably call Tucker, but I just couldn’t handle it right now. And it was my birthday. I decided I’d just send him an e-mail later.

  “Your French toast is ready!” yelled my mother.

  I’d barely finished it and washed my plate before Kevin complained that he never got his egg tart, so I got on the computer and started Googling for a good Chinese place on chowhound.com.

  Kevin said, “Why don’t you use your phone?”

  “I don’t have an iPhone, just an iPod Touch, and it takes too long to type on its little keyboard.”

  “But don’t you have the app where you can just talk into it and it’ll Google it for you?”

  I ruffled his hair and pointed at my laptop screen. “No. And this way it’s a big screen and everyone can look at it together.”

  He ducked away from my hand. “You need an iPad.”

  “And you need egg tarts. So hush up a second.” I found a place called Restaurant Szechuan in “Chinatown II,” around the Musée des Beaux-Arts. I had no idea that Montreal was big enough for two Chinatowns, but anyway. Time to party. Or at least it would be, once they opened at 5 p.m.

  It took a while to drag my mother away from the kitchen, and then Kevin needed to show me a new game he’d found on the computer, but I didn’t care. It was my birthday. When I sat on the futon beside Ryan, I snuck my hand up his back and touched his hair. It still made me sad that he’d cut it short, but I liked running my fingertips over the ends and stabbing them into my palms, like short, firm hair spikes. I liked Tucker’s hair, but it was almost always full of product, which is pretty metrosexual. Ryan’s hair was just naturally cool.

  Ryan also smelled so good, like sandalwood soap and himself. I tried not to be too obvious while I breathed him in. I think that’s a sign, when you could just inhale your man all day.

  Ryan squeezed my hand. My mother nattered on before she realized that she’d misplaced her camera and we all had to search for it.

  Still, Restaurant Szechaun had only been open for a few minutes by the time I held the door open for Kevin. He thundered down the steps, into the open white square of the basement restaurant, and stopped at the counter where the owners/servers stood. He said, “We’re here for my sister’s birthday! I hope you have egg tarts!” Without waiting for their response, he spun on his heel and picked a table by the narrow, rectangular windows. “How about here, guys?”

  “Hi,” I said, smiling extra wide at the middle-aged staff. The woman nodded at me and grabbed five menus, which she shoved at us without speaking, until Ryan greeted her in Cantonese. Then she spoke to him rapid-fire until she gave him a slight grin and left.

  “What did she say?” I asked.

  “She said the beef was good,” my mother said, without looking up from the menu. She speaks Cantonese and my dad speaks Mandarin, but neither of them wanted to pass those language skills on to me and Kevin. “You’re Canadian. You should learn French,” she always said, so I never bothered to learn Chinese, which is now kind of a disadvantage.

  Ryan handed me a menu. “She wanted to know how old you were, and suggested a few dishes, like the cumin beef.”

  I smiled at him. Maybe he could teach me. And I’d never had spicy won ton soup before, so I ordered it too, even though my
mother complained, “But I just made you won ton soup! You could have it at home, for free!”

  “I want to compare it, even though I know it won’t be as good as yours,” I said. Cheesy line, but true.

  Ryan squeezed my hand under the table. He liked it when I was nice to my mother. Too bad it hardly ever happened.

  The cumin beef was excellent. I love a meal that makes you stop and think, just like a good book, and this was one of them. And, actually, I ended up liking my mother’s won ton soup better than theirs, so that made her day. We ate until even I was full, even though Kevin had lost interest twenty minutes before. He made our dad change places with him, so I sat between him and Ryan, facing my parents, and then Kevin said, “Is it time yet?”

  I set down my chopsticks. “We still have to get your egg tarts.”

  “Oh, yeah! Not that. We got you a present,” said Kevin, bouncing in his new chair. “Open it! Open it!”

  Ryan moved my rice bowl to the side just before the owner plucked it away. Then he covered my placemat with a small, rectangular box wrapped in red paper.

  I glanced at my mother. She usually doesn’t do small boxes, unless it’s ugly jewelry. I still haven’t worn the orange stone choker she gave me for my last birthday.

  “It was Ryan’s idea,” said my father.

  Ryan shook his head. “Just open it.”

  My mother leaned forward to grab Kevin’s hand, since he was about to rip the paper off for me. “We didn’t know what to buy. Ryan had already got you this, but it was too expensive! So we told him we’d pay half. He said no, but—”

  “Open it! Open it!” Kevin squeezed off his chair to try and sit on mine side by side. I’m not eight anymore, or anorexic enough to fit both my bum and his on the padded wooden seat, so I pulled him into my lap and carefully slit the Scotch tape with my thumbnail.

  “Just rip the paper!” said Mom, and Kevin’s hands stretched forward to do just that.

  “I like the paper,” I said, holding the package out of Kevin’s reach. It was a thick, red paper that had expensive written all over it. I like paper and I love trees. I would save it for wrapping another present, especially since I knew the paper must be from Ryan. My mother leans toward cheap Santa Claus paper that you can buy 75 percent off after Christmas. It tears as soon as you look at it.

  “You’re killing me,” said Kevin, but I sliced through each piece of tape before I unfolded the paper.

  A black iPhone box stared back up at me.

  Tears filled my eyes. Trust Ryan to buy me something I needed, wanted, and coveted, but refused to buy for myself because I could do without it.

  “It’s 64 Gigs,” said Ryan.

  “It’s better than my phone,” said Dad.

  Ryan laughed. “Not for long, eh?” My dad grinned back at him. They’re both tech geek engineers. Ryan said, “I’ve got the same one. This one does everything. It’s light, it’s tough, it’s got LTE Internet connectivity—”

  “Oh, Ry. I can’t accept this.” I hadn’t even opened the box, even though I couldn’t stop holding it in my hand, marvelling over its light weight and the sleekness I was already picturing in my mind.

  “Why not?” demanded Kevin. “Open it! Turn it on! I want to play with it.”

  I lifted the box out of Kevin’s reach, barely. He wiggled impatiently. I wouldn’t be able to pull stuff like this much longer. Kevin was getting too big. “It’s too expensive. This is the most expensive phone on the market. It’s not a gift. I’d have to buy it myself. It costs what, $399 if you buy it with a carrier and $899 if you buy it outright from Apple? Plus tax.”

  Ryan grinned. “You’ve been doing your research. I’m lucky I got it for you before you did.”

  I shook my head, blinking ahead. God, I was emotional tonight. “You’ve never bought me anything this expensive before. This costs, like, more than some cars.”

  Everyone burst out laughing. “That would be some car!” said my dad. “Don’t worry about it, we wrote a cheque for it too.”

  I looked at Ryan.

  The corner of his mouth jerked upward. “Don’t worry, I cashed it. Your mother stood over me until I did it.”

  I laughed, but I said, “My loans are—”

  “Your loans!” burst out my mother. “We’ll help you with the loans. We bought you the phone already. We can’t return it. So just use it!”

  “If you really, really want to, you can have mine instead, and I’ll take the iPhone,” said Dad, showing me his Samsung Galaxy.

  Ryan cleared his throat.

  I cradled the iPhone protectively against my chest, even though I said, “The bills per month…”

  “We’ll pay for them!” exclaimed Mom.

  “The bill has already been transferred to us,” said Dad.

  Ryan sighed. “They insisted.”

  “Well.” I opened the box. The black phone gleamed back up at me. I swallowed past the lump in my throat. “This is the best birthday present ever. Thank you. Thank you for coming down, and taking me out to dinner…”

  “How often do you turn 29?” said my mother.

  I glared at her.

  “Oh, 27.” She waved her hand. “What’s the difference.”

  Ryan glanced at me with laughter in his eyes. And I know it’s totally politically incorrect, and that you can’t buy someone with presents, and my family was front and centre, and that Ryan was celibate anyway, but I wanted him so very badly at that second.

  Instead, marveled at the phone’s wonderfulness just before they started singing happy birthday. I turned around to see the waitress bearing down on us with a big egg tart, illuminated by a single candle.

  Maybe I’ve said this already, but it was the best birthday ever.

  Just after the egg tart that made Kevin squeal with delight, I slipped off to the bathroom, but first I paused to pay the bill. If they could drive from Ottawa with the world’s most expensive present, I could pay for dinner. Loans be damned.

  “Your boyfriend already paid,” said the middle-aged woman. She had a moderate accent, but spoke pretty good English. She was probably the owner. She added, “Left a good tip, too! Good boyfriend. You are lucky.”

  I hesitated. “He’s not my…I mean, we’re not…”

  “Why not?”

  I paused. Why not? Well, he was my ex-boyfriend, so that was supposed to be a no-no. And there was always Tucker lurking in the wings.

  “Good man like that, you don’t let him get away. You give yourself birthday present and snap him up!” She snapped her fingers and walked away to talk to my parents in Cantonese. My mother answered while my father held on to Kevin, who wanted to sprint around the dining room.

  That was a totally Chinese thing, for an older stranger to give me blunt advice and walk away.

  Ryan raised his eyebrows at me. He knew I’d gone to pay and that he’d thwarted my efforts. I mouthed “Thank you” and headed off to the bathroom.

  Yep. The best birthday, ever.

  Chapter 34

  By Monday, the thrill of solving two cases and celebrating my birthday had worn off a bit. Staff and patients alike—nurses, cafeteria workers, anybody and everybody—gawked at me in the hallways and whispered to the few who’d missed the gossip memo. Two of them even took my picture before I thought to yank my raincoat’s hood over my head and take the stairs.

  I pushed open the staircase doorway on the fifth floor and took a right, passing by room 5656, where Mrs. Kincaid was sitting quietly in a chair by the window by herself. Then I took a left into the palliative nursing station, teeth already gritted.

  Ricky applauded when I rounded the corner. “Hi, Dr. Sze! Or should I call you Dr. Kamika-Sze?”

  “You can call me Hope,” I said, trying not to think of how Toni had been almost strangled about a foot from where Ricky was cheerfully sitting now.

  Fortunately, Dr. Huot broke the mood when she glanced up from the chart on the nursing station desk and glowed at me. “Oh, Dr. Sze, I’m glad y
ou’re here. You’re needed on 5 South.”

  “I am?” I was on call tonight, but I was supposed to spend the morning on palliative care, not medicine.

  “Yes. In the teaching room across from the nursing station. Let me show you.”

  She stood up and led me down the hallway, past the infamous soiled linen cart, around the corners with the elevators, and a quick right into the miniature teaching room we usually used for rounds on medicine. But this time, instead of a bunch of students crunched into plastic chairs, Mrs. Bérubé beamed at me from behind a table covered in casseroles, chips, and a carrot cake, while a bunch of unfamiliar people clustered around her yelled, “Surprise!”

  They’d written on the blackboard, “The detective doctor strikes again!”

  Uh oh.

  I crossed over to her side of the room, ignoring the food and the rest of the people, and said, “Mrs. Bérubé, I’m so sorry I didn’t make it to your husband’s funeral on Saturday.”

  “Oh, hush! You were busy taking care of his murderer! That’s much more important. You did everything right! They’re even supposed to release his autopsy report in the next few days.” Her eyes twinkled. She dropped her voice. “Someone told me unofficially that George fought back. They found skin cells under his fingernails. We’re going to put that bastard away for life.”

  Good for George. Jeremy had been charged with attempted murder, because of Toni, but if they could definitively link him to George Bérubé’s death, he should definitely face life in prison, even before they mounted a child abuse case.

  “Now I want you to meet my children. My son had to fly back to Toronto already, but my three daughters are here. Julia, I’d like you to meet our saviour, Dr. Hope Sze.”

  Oh, dear. I shook the hand of a middle-aged woman who looked a lot like her mother around the eyes, and repeated the process twice more, while more people filed into the room.