“Hello,” I greeted the room, putting on the best smile I had. Admittedly, it wasn’t that great. I’d been told that my face was one better suited for tragedy than comedy. Sometimes, I wondered if I’d accidentally been born missing a few muscles around my mouth. Surely most people didn’t have to put in so much effort just to make a pleasant expression.
Still, with smile in place, I held up the books that I’d brought.
“My name’s Auggie. I’m here to read to you today. I’ve brought a few books of my own, but if anyone has one of their own that they’d prefer I read, then just let me know.”
From there, it was business as usual. The promise of a story made the children forget all about their interest of a newcomer. They huddled around my chair to listen, arguing over which story to read first. A few of the kids were in their own wheelchairs, and one was even lying in a mobile hospital bed, hooked up to several wires and tubes. These children stayed to the back of the group, too shy to interject into the group.
As I positioned myself on my too-small chair, I called out to the child in the bed and asked them to make the first choice. Their head was shaved, and they were wrapped up in a hospital gown, so I couldn’t tell if they were male or female. With a blush ontheir pale face, they leaned over to whisper to the nurse beside them, who then brought a book over to me.
“She wants you to read this one.”
The bright cover of a Doctor Seuss book stared up at me.
“Oh, The Places You’ll Go.”
I’d read this book several times before. It was a common choice for children who were trapped within hospital walls for a long time, and I wasn’t surprised to see it now.
When I held up the book for the other children to see, there was a collective groan from the group. Apparently, it wasn’t the first time this particular patient had requested this book during a reading session, and the other children insisted on picking something different.
I noticed some of the observing adults rolling their eyes or sighing in exasperation. This was often one of the quickest ways to tell if a hospital had quality staff. Good staff could handle stress and understood that children whined and complained. Especially, sick children. There was no reason to get mad at them for it.
Luckily, most of the disgruntled adults seemed to be parents, many of whom looked even more exhausted than the nurses. That was understandable. I couldn’t imagine what I would do if my own daughter ended up in the hospital, but I probably wouldn’t be very patient, either.
I managed to get the group of kids calmed down by promising that we would be reading several books. Then, propping the book open in front of me, I started to recite the words I almost had memorized. Doctor Seuss’s lyrical prose easily rolled offthe tongue, so I didn’t stumble over any of the words even when reading upside down. It only took a couple pages for the rowdiest kids to settle down, and soon enough, everyone was engrossed in story time.
By the second book, even a few adult patients had stopped by to listen. They pretended they weren’t too proud to be caught listening in on a children’s book, but it was no coincidence that they just so happened to decide to do some bird watching out the window of the visitor’s area at the same time I was reading.
This also happened all the time, and I let them keep their dignity. I didn’t call out to the listening adults, or draw attention to them, but I did make sure to pitch my voice loud enough that it would carry to the far side of the room where they were sitting.
Years of running military drills and calling out orders to other soldiers had unexpected benefits. I now knew exactly how to control my vocal chords in order to give my voice force without making it sound like I was yelling.
Children’s books are short, so in my allotted reading time we managed to get through half a dozen of them. We ended with Grandfather Twilight, as planned, and as I closed the last pages I was glad to see several of the kids nodding off and on the verge of falling asleep.
The children were carted off back to their rooms and I packed up the books that I’d brought. I was just about to leave, my mind already wandering off to how I would fill the remaining hours of my evening, when I was stopped by one of the nurses.
“Wait, Mister Conway,” the young man said, staring up at me with large blue eyes. “Would you mind staying a little longer and reading to one more patient?”
The young man was slim and didn’t even come up to my shoulder. Bright red hair contrasted his fair skin and was currently a disheveled mess in need of brushing. He definitely fit the appearance of an overworked nurse, yet there was a vibrancy to him most nurses lacked. His scrubs were patterned with fun cartoon characters that I didn’t recognize, and despite clearly being tired, his eyes never lost their sparkle as he stared up at me waiting for my answer.
The nametag on his uniform readNewt. It was a short, cute little name that fit him perfectly.
“Yeah, sure,” I agreed with a shrug, already pulling my books back out of my bag. “I always have time for another patient. Where are they?”
I would have agreed no matter what, but Newt’s enthusiasm for his job and eagerness to help his patent made it even easier to follow him deeper into the hospital.
To my surprise, we left the children’s area behind and headed toward the long-term care ward.
“It’s a John Doe patient, actually,” Newt explained as we headed into a section of the hospital that could have almost been mistaken for a hotel. The pale green paint on the walls had been replaced with a more soothing taupe color, and the white laminate flooring that was easier to clean was instead swapped out for low-pile carpet. Even the artwork on the walls changed, displaying peaceful landscapes instead of mass-produced modern art that looked like it had been created by a computer algorithm.
The lights in the long-term ward were turned down lower for the evening, and there weren’t as many beeping machines orbuzzing alarms as in the busier parts of the hospital. A person could actually hear themselves think here.
“Wait, you said it’s a John Doe patient?” I asked as Newt’s words finally caught up with me.
John Doe was the name given to someone whose name was unknown. Since retiring from the military and becoming a detective, I’d heard it plenty of times in reverence to unidentified victims, but never in the case of a living hospital patient.
“Yeah,” Newt said as we approached a door. “It’s a long story.”
He gestured to the room inside, but neither of us stepped through the doorway.