I Am so Proud of You

When I first met Eli, it was summer.

Everything was normal. Regular. Mediocre. The sun shone through the open window and reflected against the bed rails, rays refracting off and hitting my eyes no matter what angle I shifted in. There were three bottles of pills on her tray instead of two that day—the doctor said something about lithium. “It’ll help her recover,” he said, and spoke of the scientific side of her brain. And I said, "Okay, thank you," because, well, I didn’t understand a word of it. I really didn’t.

Julie came in with her hair all neat and her scrubs pristine to check her blood pressure. I tried moving out of the way but forgot the chairs were bolted to the floor. She smiled and said, “Here again, right on time,” which I responded, "Yes, thank you," even though I didn’t understand what I was thanking her for. Yes, thank you for taking care of her when I couldn’t. Yes, thank you for trying to make conversation. Yes, thank you for that smile.

The IV tubes got tangled at one point—clear liquid stopped dripping for a moment in time, and the calming dip, dip, dip sound came to a halt. She said, “Will you help me out, dear?” and I did, just as I had done every other day. When I finished, she told me, “Thank you, Chris,” even though that wasn’t my name, but I didn’t have the heart to correct her.

Birds sang outside the window. Humidity danced on the surface of the pavement. I watched a woman walk with her son down the street.

The sky was so blue, it pissed me off.

Then, out of the ordinary, I heard the sound of shoes squeaking against the polished floors, first afar, then rising slowly like thunder. Blue and pink scrubs filled the room, each one hovering over the bed they were wheeling in. She and I watched as they placed him at the right side of the room with little word to who he was or why he was there. They hooked him up and checked his pressure with faces made of stone, and even when he looked at them and said, “Thanks,” they said nothing. Absolutely nothing.

They left just as quickly as they came in, white shoes squeaking down to silence. He looked at me and I looked at him, and we said nothing for a while. Just stared.

And then, Eli smiled. He smiled despite the bandages on his wrists and the pale blue gown that sat awkwardly on his body. He smiled despite the tangy scent of disinfectant and medication in the air, and the slow dip, dip, dip of her IV and shallow breathing.

He said, “Hi, I’m Eli,” as if we were out there with the woman and her child and the birds and the boiling pavement, as if we weren’t there in that room—as if he wasn’t there.

I found it so strange that I couldn’t say anything back. I just stared. She shifted beside me, looking at him too, and whispered, “Chris, he’s so young.”

So young.

And I couldn’t help looking back at his wrists again, which caused Eli to look at them too, but he never stopped smiling. Not once.

“I changed my mind.” That’s what he told me. “I changed my mind.”

And the birds continued to sing.