A woman lay in the hospital bed, looking up at Kris, weak but alert.

He suddenly regretted coming here. This was so intense. What was his problem? He hardly knew this girl.

Who the heck kind of person spies on someone in order to go visit their sick family members?

Someone mental, that’s who.

Someone mental, like Kris had decided he surely was.

“Yes, I am her mother,” the woman said, smiling softly. Kris smiled back, and looked deep into her friendly eyes. She must have been very beautiful in her youth, but of course he knew she would have been before he saw her; after all, she was Sooyoung’s mother. “Are you a friend of hers?”

She had very good speech for someone with Lou Gehrig’s. Kris could see she struggled, though. Sooyoung must’ve spent many long hours working with her to regain her speech.

That meant there was hope, though. She could talk still, so the disease must not have progressed beyond hopefulness.

“Yes, I am a friend,” he looked down. She didn’t even freak out when some stranger showed up in her room, uninvited. He could not even exaggerate to this sweet, sick woman. “I barely know her, actually. But I care for her.”

She strummed her fingers like she wanted to touch his arm. Typical of Lou Gehrig’s, she had very limited mobility. He reached his hand closer and gently laid his fingers over hers. She smiled, and looked like she was about to speak, when she broke into a fit of coughs.

She was too weak to cover her cough. He quickly filled a glass on the table with water and tried to hand it to her. She couldn’t reach it. Without thinking, he gently brought it up to and wiped her cheek with a napkin to dry it.

The look in her eyes was really soft and thankful. “Don’t say anything,” Kris instructed, “I think you’ve talked a good bit today, and it’s made you tired.”

Mrs. Choi nodded in agreement. Kris was overcome with a sudden impulse to tell her a story. “How about I tell you a story, so you can rest?”

She nodded again. He hoped she wasn’t offended. He hoped she would like his story. “In this city there is one girl who is different from all the others. She lives in a quiet place, in her own mind. She stays there, and she thinks. When she gets to that one perfect thought, she is completely alone then, and sees nothing but goodness in the world. She goes outside, walks around, and thinks, all the time. She isn’t afraid to go anywhere. The city is hers. The air is hers. Do you know this girl?”

Mrs. Choi smiled and nodded, several times. She closed her eyes, but he could tell from the way her eyelashes fluttered that she was still listening. “She is independent and courageous. She is responsible. She provides for everyone and takes care of everyone. She never questions it. Taking care of others is not only her place; it is her calling and her joy. But times are changing. The air is different, and she is running out of resources to take for everyone.”

Mrs. Choi’s eyes shot open. He hadn’t meant to worry her. In a moment, she would not be worried. “In this city there is one boy who is the same as all the others. He lives his average life and does nothing that doesn’t benefit himself. But lately, something has added a bit of difference to his life. He met the beautiful girl. He loves her and watches her from afar. She doesn’t know. He watched her so much that he found out that she struggles. She doesn’t know.”

Mrs. Choi was worried. “Is Sooyoung struggling?” Mrs. Choi pleaded, faintly. “I cannot help her. Her father passed away years ago. I can see all her bones, but I try to ignore…”

That saddened Kris so much. He thought about it all that night, but back in the present he had an important message for Mrs. Choi. “You never have to worry again. You never had to worry about her. I send her gifts in secret. That’s why I came here. I want to give her a very big gift, but I want to make sure it’s okay with you. I feel it’s kind of weird. I just want to take care of her, always. And I never want you to worry. I can watch over her.”

Mrs. Choi coughed, momentarily. He gave her more water. “What do you want to give her?”

“A scholarship,” he told her. Mrs. Choi gasped. “I want to give her a full scholarship so she can have a real education and a real career. The years are passing her by.”

Mrs. Choi was tearing up. The emotion flowing through her seemed to give her the strength to speak in abundance. “She had to leave school at age fourteen because of me and do homeschooling.  It is all my fault. I told her no, but she insisted. This means everything to us.”

“So I have your permission?” he questioned.

She nodded through her happy tears.

“You must promise not to tell her who it is from. I don’t want her to know. It would make her ashamed. You won’t tell her, will you?”

Mrs. Choi furiously shook her head. She began motioning with her head as if he should come closer. She seemed to have lost her voice after her long speech.

He slowly edged toward her. He went very slowly, so that if he was doing the wrong thing she could give him some signal. She never gave a signal. He was uncomfortably close now. She moved her head closer and touched her cheek to his, only for a moment.

That must be her way of a hug.

“I’ll be going now,” Kris said, hugging her back. “It was so nice to meet you.”

He made his way out the door, but he heard Mrs. Choi make a soft noise. He turned and waited patiently for her to speak.

“Thank you,” she whispered. The strenuousness of the words made their meaning far stronger than they are used on a daily basis. It was like she was saying, “thank you, for everything, forever.”

Kris went back to his untouched easel in the park and couldn’t concentrate from his sadness.

He washed away his tears in the fountain.

Sooyoung realized during work that she had left the expensive purse that Jessica had lent her on the back of the door in the hospital. The thought of losing here generous friend’s beautiful possession plagued her until she got off her shift at 2:00.

She raced back to the hospital and went to her mother’s room.

It wasn’t there! She was devastated. It must’ve been stolen. How could she tell Jessica?

Sooyoung sighed, about to leave. She peeked into her mother’s room. There was the purse, beside her mother. One of the nurses must have brought it in. What an angel.

She walked by her mother’s bed to get the bag. “Mama?” she whispered, checking if she was asleep.

Her mother’s closed eyes fluttered open. She could tell from her mother’s expression that she wanted to talk. Sooyoung could tell almost anything from her mother’s expression. Their communication method was designed to minimize her mother speaking during resting periods and alternate to much speaking during short vocal exercise periods.

Her mother definitely needed to be in a resting period now. She looked far more tired than when Sooyoung had left her after their exercise session this morning.

Mother blinked three times fast. That meant alphabet. That was the resting exercise where Sooyoung would write all the letters of the alphabet on the whiteboard, which was on the wall opposite her mother, and point to them each in turn until her mother affirmed the letter with blinks.

They would form whole sentences this way. For a long time, this was the only way her mother could communicate with her.

The process continued for a while, Sooyoung and her mother in silence, trying to get the message across.

Finally, the sentence was complete. Sooyoung put all the letters together and was amazed.

On the whiteboard, clearly written in blue ink, Sooyoung’s mother had told her:

L-U-H-A-N  C-A-M-E  T-O  S-E-E  M-E  T-O-D-A-Y