And if the answer is yes, which of these points would be doable?
Greenland would require preparation, vacation requests, travel planning. Nyla has only just started her job; she probably won’t be able to take time off for months.
Months.
That feels safe. So safe that I try to imagine what might be waiting for us in Greenland.
We’re lying side by side in the snow, wrapped in thick jackets. My breath freezes in the air, above us the sky stretches out, endless and full of light. Stars, so many that it’s impossible to count them. And yet Nyla starts.
I turn my head toward her, see how her face relaxes in the glow of the night, and wish that nothing else mattered but this moment. That what we’re doing here had no significance. That there were no worries, no past, no fear. Only us, the sky, and the feeling that we belong here.
‘Hey, you have to join in.’ Nyla nudges me gently and doesn’t stop until I lift my gaze to the sky.
My little sister loved the stars, watching them for nights on end through her toy telescope. She knew every constellation, knew all about the phenomena that take place in the infinite expanses of the universe.
There are too many of them, she explained to me more than once, disappointed, but every time, a little later, she would clench her fists.One day I’ll count them, she’d say then, looking so determined.
She was a fighter, always had been. Still, she lost the most important battle of her life.
It hurts. Just thinking about it hurts. I’m confused, sad, shaken – but somehow I’m holding it together.
Will there come a day when it won’t hurt anymore?
Thoughtfully, I slide the handover report for the patient with the upper arm fracture across the counter.
The emergency coordinator taps an empty space at the bottom of the sheet. ‘The signature is missing here.’
I sign, then make my way to treatment room two. Through the glass panel in the door I spot Nyla talking with two other doctors. One with dark curls piled into a messy bun, the other with a precisely cut blonde bob and piercing blue eyes. Probably surgeons assessing whether the arm needs to be operated on.
Now Nyla points to the screen showing our patient’s X-ray. Her cheeks are slightly flushed, her lips purse with every word in a way that makes me want to kiss her immediately.
I lean against the doorframe and watch her. Hard to believe that not so long ago she was ill. Yesterday she told me quite a bit about herself, and now, seeing her standing there in the treatment room, I remember all those moments when she talked about health risks with that seemingly excessive seriousness. Her overprotective manner, her health obsession, her difficulty letting go.
She is afraid. For her life, which she has already almost lost once.
And now I feel that fear too. There’s no reason for it, I know that, yet it’s there. I shouldn’t allow it to steal my happiness, but I also sense that I can’t ignore it.
Out of nowhere, a doctor is beside me.
The collar of his shirt and his tie peek out from under his coat. With a flourish he enters the treatment room, and the expressions of the two female surgeons change. The blonde onetenses up as if she had to brace herself for a fight, the one with the curls studies him with a strangely intent look.
While the other doctors are discussing things among themselves, Nyla’s gaze drifts over to me. She gives me a warm smile. I smile back, and all at once I wonder whether it isn’t just as hard for Nyla to experience Camee’s dreams with me as it is for me.
Maybe not every single item, but some of them. Tasting everything she’s never eaten before, for example. At the fair she didn’t want cotton candy, roasted almonds, or a hot dog. Too unhealthy. She didn’t say it, but I saw it in her eyes. Tasting everything she’s never eaten before must be an enormous effort for her.
And yet that’s exactly what she suggested yesterday. She would cross every one of her own boundaries just so I’ll try it too.
Warmth rises up inside me, and with it a thought that moves me. If we experience Lilly’s wishes together, far more could happen than just my keeping the promise I made her.
I could learn to live with my loss. Work through what happened, get my life back. Build something with Nyla, continue my studies, renovate the house. I could heal, but that might not be all.
Nyla could, too.
Out of my inner conflict, new hope grows. My breathing quickens, but I still signal to Nyla to come over to me as soon as she’s finished with her work.
A little later she joins me out in the hallway. ‘Did something happen?’ she asks anxiously. Apparently she’s noticed how worked up I am.
Gently, I reach for her hands, my gaze finding hers. ‘Let’s give it a try.’