Mother had agreed to drive Girl down to see William in the hospice wing after work, because she didn’t have a car and the bus to that part of town might not be safe for a teenaged girl to ride alone. Since Girl had moved out her relationship with Mother was strained, but they still got together for lunch or dinner once a week and they talked on the phone every few days.
Girl looked at the round unicorn sticker on the glove compartment as Mother drove. Mother wasn’t into frilly or girly things at all, but she always bought herself one stained-glass sticker from the museum gift shop to put on the glove box of her car. Mother wouldn’t spring for power windows or even an automatic transmission, always voting for cheap and practical over luxurious, but she’d made a special trip for that one unicorn. Girl was somehow proud that her practical, short-haired mother would spend money on an expensive sticker. It spoke of dreams and yearnings for beauty that must flow inside Mother as much as they did inside Girl.
“I’ll just wait in the car,” Mother said when they pulled into the circular drive of the hospital. “I brought a book.”
“Are you sure?” Girl asked.
“It’s not really appropriate to see someone in bed that you have never met. It might make him uncomfortable.”
“Well, I shouldn’t be too long,” Girl said, but didn’t move to open the door, still looking at the unicorn on the glove box. Girl hated going to new places and feared getting lost in corridors. She was a month away from graduating high school and was living on her own, but inside, she was still small and scared.
“It’s okay, I have a book, I told you. I’m fine,” Mother said, and that was the end of it. Girl would have to go alone.
There was an old lady at the volunteer desk who looked up William’s room number for Girl and gave her directions to the proper floor. It turned out that St. Mary’s wasn’t very big and it was easy to find the elevators. When Girl walked in, William was sitting up in bed, wearing a dull blue hospital gown with little anchors printed on it, the white sheet pulled over his lap. Although she had noticed the dark red spot behind his ear at work, Girl hadn’t thought much about it. Now, she noticed maroon spots on his skinny, nearly hairless arms below the short sleeves of his gown. Girl had heard of Kaposi’s sarcoma, the AIDS-related skin cancer, and she guessed that must have been what it was, but she didn’t ask. Girl always figured William wore long sleeves every day because he was prissy and formal, not to hide his disease. He had never looked sick.
“I’m so glad you came!” William’s eyes lit up. “You came at the perfect time! I have had nonstop visitors since I’ve been in—exhausting really. I can’t believe you picked a time when no one else was here.”
He hadn’t been watching TV or anything when Girl came in, just sitting there in his bed, staring into space. She hadn’t thought he’d be so excited to see her. He had never seemed to like her very much.
“I didn’t know what to bring,” she said, putting the candy on the rolling bed tray that covered his lap. It was a small box, the kind that was $4.95 and only had four pieces, but then Girl only made five dollars an hour and couldn’t afford much.
“I love candy!” he said, opening the card and reading it quickly without comment. There weren’t any cards or proof of other visitors in the room. Girl was sure his boyfriend, Walter, and all the guys from the shop had come by, but she guessed they hadn’t brought anything.
“Did you see the flowers at the nurses’ station? I had so many arrangements in here it set off my allergies. I just told the nurses to take them home. They were so excited. The nurses are really nice to me.”
Girl hadn’t seen any flowers, but she didn’t say so. Girl couldn’t have really been the only person to bring him something, could she? Not that William would have told her if she was. He needed to see himself as the life of the party, surrounded by friends, even if there was no evidence to prove it. It seemed unlikely that the flowers had disappeared so quickly, though.
“I didn’t know if you were supposed to bring a florist flowers. My mom said if you couldn’t eat the candy you could give it to the nurses or whatever.”
“I always like to have something for visitors. I have these abscesses on my esophagus, so I can’t eat a lot of chocolate. But Walter will love it.”
William’s boyfriend was one of the most beautiful men Girl had ever seen: tall, with dark hair and startling light blue eyes. Walter was always tan from working construction outside, and he seemed sweet; maybe because he was always really quiet when he came in the shop, never catty or condescending. Walter was the opposite of William—no one would ever think he was gay to look at him in his work jeans and flannel shirts. William looked as stereotypically gay as you could get.
“So tell me what’s been going on at the shop!” William demanded.
“Well, we did the wedding for Schmidt and the Gerbera daisies came in light pink instead of raspberry and the bride had a complete meltdown! I didn’t know what to do, but Ryan told her to focus on spending her life with the man she loves and sent her down the aisle. She didn’t dare talk back to him.” They gossiped for a while, but Girl could tell he was tired. After twenty minutes or so she stood up to
