At night, when his mother would head home to tuck Katie into bed, Sam could hear the hospital sigh as visiting hours ended. The hallways emptied, the guest-lounge television quietened, and once the kitchen ladies had finished clearing the remains of dinner from their trays, the sound of rubber wheels passing through the wards stilled to silence. Then Sam was alone with the sound of his own breathing, with the whistle in each suck and push of his lungs and the throb of his swollen jaw. The breathing tube was gone now to help the stoma heal, and in its place was a small plastic vent that he could feel shift in place when he moved. Beneath his bandages the inside of his throat was oddly itchy, and when he swallowed he thought he could feel scabs crinkling against his tongue.
He had a sick, churning feeling in his belly every day. In the daytime he could almost block it out—flick through the worn books brought to him from the patient lounge, watch the orderlies make their rounds, stare through the small television in the corner of the ward. But at night it was different. A swell of anger bubbled and frothed in his gut as he rehearsed the same bitter questions: Why him? Why just him? He was the only person he knew with cancer. What had he done differently? Was there something he shouldn’t have eaten? Was Dettie right all those times she’d insisted that the microwave was radioactive? That it mutated your blood? Was there some way he could have noticed earlier what was growing inside of him?
In the nurses’ station three goldfish circled in place, each of them opening its mouth wide, silent under the water. Sam curled tighter into himself, festering in his rage. He imagined himself lying in bed all those nights before his operation. Years and years of nights. His neck was so sore now; had it always been this sore? Had it always hurt just a little? Some tiny telltale ache that he ignored and didn’t think worth mentioning? He wanted to go back. Back before now. Before this. He was suddenly furious that he couldn’t. That this wasn’t even an option. It didn’t seem right that he was stuck in the after, when it was too late. When he’d had to give up so much. He wanted to go back to before, when he might have done something. Noticed something.
There was a hole inside him. An empty space he had never even known was once filled. He was supposed to sing the school song with everyone else at assemblies. His teacher had made him remember part of ‘The Man from Snowy River’ to recite at the yearly talent show. He’d just taught himself how to do an impression of Kermit the Frog. But all of that was gone now. It all seemed so enormous, and so silly, and so unfair, all at once.
He moved his lips as if willing the sounds—any sounds—to return. As if somehow, by some miracle, he could call them back into being. In his imagination he opened his mouth and a deeper, richer voice erupted. ‘It’s extraordinary,’ he could almost hear his doctor saying. ‘Never before in medical history have we seen someone’s voice grow back! It’s a miracle!’
There was a boy four beds over who had broken his ankles and dislocated his shoulder being thrown from a horse—Dettie had rolled her eyes at the big ‘production’ he put on when he needed to use the bathroom. Each day, he was taken to physiotherapy, where the nurses made him do exercises for his arm, strengthening his muscles, keeping them from wasting away. Eventually, once the casts came off, he would have to do the same for his feet. Sam sat dreaming up similar exercises for himself. Things he’d half understood from the pamphlets on his bedside table, and filled in the rest.
Think the word: Banana. Split it up. Ba. Na. Na. Mouth the sound. Ba. Move your lips. Breathe out.
Pah. Pah.
Mmmpah.
He wheezed and sputtered. His whole chest seethed. The hospital around him pressed in and his stomach turned. The fish kept circling, their mouths gaping, dead-eyed and mute. Sam collapsed back into his pillow and cried.