The Hospital Tree

Frank never minded the small things, and as the squeak from the cartwheels bounced off the naked, white walls, he didn’t mind that either.

The hall was dark except the faint glows of the half-lit fluorescent lights that shone on the linoleum tiled floors. The halls themselves weren’t too long, but long enough for Frank’s left knee to start acting up again. A sharp pain entered his leg and Frank stooped. He grabbed the cart for support and reached for the rail on the wall with his other hand.

“Good grief,” he said through gritted teeth. Tendons tore from below his jaw as he strained himself upright again. After taking thirty seconds to catch his breath, Frank ambled along the hallway toward the main lobby where there were couches. There he could rest. There he would collect himself.

The tree stood in glamorous splendor in front of the three giant windows in the great lobby. From floor to the third story window, holly and tinsel hung from every branch, reflecting a glitter of lights and shimmer of ornaments into different directions of the room. Hues of red, green, yellow, blue, orange and even white were cast upon a backdrop of dark evergreen branches. Small China figurines of angels and stable animals hung in magnificence. Bulbs and orbs of every color, some plain colored and as reflective as a mirror, others encrusted in swirls of glitter, rose around from the base of the tree all the way to its top in spiral circles. But of all the wonder of the glory of the season, there was no decoration that shone as bright as the star at the top. Whiffs of evergreen and Christmas spice broke into every corner of the room and was only intensified by the heat that radiated from the hospital’s giant fireplace. Flames flickering in every direction from the fire’s stone-lined hearth.

Heavy arm chairs and couches surrounded the tree. Large curves of cushion rose and fell with the contour of the chairs themselves and it wasn’t until Frank sank deep into the plush that he saw the air push the dust out into the air.

“Gotta vacuum that shit,” Frank said, letting out a few grunts as he settled into the momentary comfort. To his right, Frank saw the dance of thick, heavy snowflakes as they fell with the utmost care and grace. They were the kind of flakes that wouldn’t turn into slush on the Earth but sit on the sleeve of a young man Frank once knew many years before. The flake would have just sat there as if it were invited to simply be and exist. Then slowly it would melt from the heat from the young man’s body, giving way to a single drop of water and then out of this world forever. A single snowflake, that would be no more.

Frank watched the flakes zoom in and out of the surrounding rays of the street lights that lit up the courtyard beyond the lobby’s windows. They zoomed and danced in and out of the darkness that the cold night air gave. Deep in the lobby’s corners, the soft voice of elevator jazz music played a familiar Christmas tune that rang loud enough only if Frank would strain his ear hard enough to hear. It sounded like a poor arrangement of the Little Drummer Boy, but Frank couldn’t be sure. He realized it didn’t matter in the slightest and began to gaze off into the deep colors of the giant tree in front of him.

His knee was beginning to come back to itself. He was about to stand up and return to his cart when he heard the girl’s voice for the first time.

“I’ve seen you here before.”

Frank jerked his head around, embarrassed at being caught sitting on the job more than anything. When he saw the little girl all alone at a table with chess squares lined the table’s surface, his shoulders lowered and his breathing became steady.

“Shouldn’t you be in bed?” Frank asked. He was straightening his shirt as he regarded the little girl. She wore slippers that formed the shape of a lion’s head at the toe. The hospital gown was tied along the sides and fell just below the knees. Her pink robe was tied around the waist and was adorned with yellow flowers. The blue knitted hat sat just above her eyebrows and wrapped around her hairless head. She looked at Frank with big round eyes that weren’t tired at all and gave him a smile that instantly warmed his heart and eased his aching legs.

“I should be,” she said. “But I was so tired earlier that I woke up and now I can’t sleep. Plus, the tree is just so pretty at night.”

Frank looked back at the tree. She was right. There was no denying that. “Well, what are you doing out of your room?” he asked. “Shouldn’t you at least be there?”

“I couldn’t help myself, it’s just so warm and nice out here.” Frank raised an eyebrow, not sure if he should excuse this as a reason to be out of her room or if he should call one of the overnight nurses to come and collect her.

The little girl walked towards the tree. Frank figured she couldn’t have been more than seven years old. As he looked closer into her face, he noticed that the girl’s eyes looked sunken deep and the face was thin and pale. It’d be amazing if she was here a few more months, Frank thought. He felt his heart go out to this little girl.

“Isn’t your mother or father here?”

“Mommy’s sleeping in the room,” the little girl said. She began walking around the tree, gazing up at the beauty of the light’s colors. “Isn’t it pretty?” she asked. Frank stood still for a few seconds. He didn’t want to say anything. He just watched the little girl as she walked around the tree, never taking her eyes from the twinkling glow of the small lights. When her eyes met Frank’s, she smiled at the corners of her mouth. “I think it’s just wonderful. All the different colors and garland and tinsel...it just makes me so happy.”

Frank didn’t know what to say at first so he only settled for what he could say. “It certainly is a beautiful tree.” He started walking back to his cart, faltering only a little with every step as he went. “I need to get back to it,” Frank said. “And you should be heading back to b-”

“Do you know this one’s my favorite?” The little girl interrupted. She stood on her toes, arm outstretched toward an ornament that Frank couldn’t see from his cart. But he saw her eyes.

They were wide, full of bright color and hope. Her mouth was open in anticipation as if she concentrated hard enough, she would grow a couple more feet and be able to reach the ornament of her desire and take it off the branch.

Frank hurried to her side, hoping she wouldn’t lose her balance and fall to either side, and looked up. The faint jazz arrangement of Drummer Boy sank to the deep voice of Bing Crosby singing White Christmas. At first, he didn’t see the ornament—there were so many—but after looking for a few seconds, he wondered how he could have missed it. The porcelain cherub sat at the edge of a branch, sitting with her knees pulled into her chest. It was a poorly painted face, but the smile couldn’t be mistaken. The wings were expanded to their fullest. But those things were not what made Frank believe that was the little girl’s favorite. It was the angel’s lack of hair on her head.

Frank’s mouth drew tight, and his lips grew thin. He looked down at the girl and felt nothing but an admiration that a grandfather or some other distant relative would feel for such a little girl. He expected to see tears on the girl’s cheeks but saw none. All he could see in her wide-eyes and expectant smile was a faint glimmer of hope. Frank felt his own smile widen and as it widened, he began to feel a warm energy run through his body. He stood up straighter and reached out for the ornament.

When he put it in the little girl’s hands, the girl held it close to her own chest, as if she was meaning to hug a life-sized doll.

“You know something, Mister?” she said, never taking her eyes off the cherub.

“What?” Frank asked.

“Someday, I’m going to be as beautiful as this angel.” Her small giggle filled the room. Outside in the cold and dreadful night, the snow continued to fall to the Earth below. Somewhere, a poor soul was sleeping under a bridge. Somewhere, a single mother was worried about making her own ends meet. Here in this very hospital, patients of every age were scared for their own demise and their own ends. But here in this very room, a little girl in lion slippers and a pink robe had expressed her own acceptance, and Frank couldn’t help but feel for this child.

“Elizabeth?” A voice called from the far corridor. A harried looking woman of about thirty-six by Frank’s guessing, was almost running to the little girl.

“Hi, Mommy,” Elizabeth said.

“You know you’re supposed to be in bed, you shouldn’t be out here.” She had reached out for Elizabeth’s hand and started pulling her back to her room. “You had me worried sick, young lady.” She certainly looked worried sick to Frank. Her own robe was thrown over her shoulders. She had run about the hallway in her bare feet and her brown hair was frazzled at the ends and even stood up a bit in the back. Her eyes looked furious, and her jaw was tense. Frank could tell from her red eyes and puffed cheeks that the poor woman had spent a day crying.

Elizabeth placed the ornament on one of the couches and started away with her mother back down the corridor. “Sorry, Mommy,” she said. “I just couldn’t get to sleep.”

They kept discussing Elizabeth’s nighttime adventures, but Frank couldn’t make any of it out. He simply stood there and watched them go. He looked back once more at the tree, sighed and walked back to his cart.

Frank was about to continue his rounds before he spotted the cherub that was left on the couch. It was light and cold in his hard hands. His lips formed into a grimace. He ran one hand through his thin gray hair and placed the ornament back on the branch, unsure if it was the same branch it sat on before and not really even caring.

He stood back a few steps to admire the same cherub that little girl had admired and pushed his cart down the farther hall.

#

Frank saw Elizabeth three more times between that first night and the New Year. The first night wasn’t as snowy outside, but a bitter cold still took hold of the night, causing not only the heat to be in full force, but the fireplace roaring as well.

Frank’s hip and knees were as bad as ever during that cold evening, so it was a relief to sit in the high-backed armchair. He had closed his eyes only briefly, dreaming of retirement. It wasn’t that far away, only two more years, then it was off to sunny Florida with Martha. Martha was a good woman and put up with Frank’s crabby, tiresome bullshit for the past forty-three years. Yep, she was a good woman. He had promised her they would retire off to the coast for the last thirty years, and he was happy as ever to follow through with that promise, determined even, no matter what. His closed eyes casted themselves into the direction of the heat from the fire and could see himself sitting in a nice lawn chair along Daytona Beach. The sun’s rays licked at his face and fish white northern belly. The sand was hot, and he felt it between his toes as he dug his bare feet further into the sand. A group of teenage kids (he had no reason to think anything else) were jumping along the shore, tossing a football back and forth. Thin, tanned, and long-legged, the beach beauties strolled along the beach up and down. Frank saw them but only briefly. His sweet Martha sat next to him, sipping a tall glass of red wine. She would lift the glass to her sweet lips, sip, and put the glass back on the small table they had set up between them.

He reached out for Martha’s hand, and she took it. The coastal sun had taken away the great beast of time that had long since plagued her beautiful face. Her wrinkles were still there around her eyes and maybe a little at the corners of her mouth, but they were thin and shallow. Her skin was smooth and well-tanned already. Oh, how she had been dreaming of this time. Frank could see it in her smile.

The waves rolled in and faded back out. Steady pulses of oceanic sound filled the air as the wind whipped his thin white hair here and there. Martha’s hair, red with flecks of silver lining the temples, flew out from under the brim of her wide straw hat. She looked peaceful. Happy, with anything closely resembling pain far away from either of them. Leave that shit in the northern Midwest, he thought. He leaned back and drew in a breath through his nose full of the Atlantic sea air. He had made it and even more important, he had kept his promise. Martha was happy. He opened his eyes again and turned his head.

Martha wasn’t there. Of course she wasn’t. He wasn’t there either. He turned his head to his left and saw the second high-back armchair. The fire blazed in front of him once more instead of the merciless sun. The faded colors of the hospital’s tree casted themselves along the walls, throwing shadows as it did so. Nat King Cole came from some kind of speaker somewhere in the lobby. Frank looked off into the dancing flames and sighed long and deep. Only a dream, he thought. Oh, well. It wouldn’t be a dream much longer. He was about to stand up from the chair and continue his night’s work when Elizabeth’s voice chimed like the small cherub she had admired a few nights before.

“Hi, Mr. Frank,” she had said.

Frank looked over and saw the small face once again. Her eyes were as big as teacup saucers once again. Her knit hat was now a beautiful blue with flecks of white, but the slippers and the robe remained the same.

“How do you know my name?” Frank asked.

“It’s written on your shirt.”

Frank looked down. So it was. He patted the seat of the second armchair, beckoning her to sit a while. “It’s just Frank, dear.”

“My mommy said to call everyone either Mister or Miss.” She looked as if she had done something wrong though her shoulders relaxed when Frank smiled and chuckled.

“Your mother taught you well,” he said as she sat down, curling her legs up on the chair’s seat. She smiled at this. “What are you doing out of bed again?” he asked.

“Same as last time,” she said. “I couldn’t sleep. So, I saw you sleeping here when I came out to look at the tree and thought I could try that.”

Frank smiled. “Well, I gotta tell ya, I wasn’t sleeping.”

“Your eyes were closed.”

“I suppose they were but I wasn’t sleeping.”

She considered this for a moment and shrugged it off. “Well, whatever you were doing, you looked happy.”

“I was happy,” Frank said as he looked back at the fire.

The two of them sat in silence for only a few minutes before Elizabeth put her head down on her folded elbows on the chair’s armrest, staring off into the fireplace. She lifted her head toward Frank and gave him a long blank stare.

“What is it?” Frank asked, starting to become bothered from being stared at like a zoo animal.

“She’s okay, ya know,” Elizabeth said. She said this with the same level of interest someone would have as they described the cold weather outside. Frank looked up from the fire, gazing at Elizabeth with a cocked eyebrow. His lip curved up to a sneer on the right.

“Who’s okay?” he asked.

“The lady.”

“What lady?”

“The lady with the hat.”

The skin on Frank’s arm began to crawl as the hairs started to twitch into gooseflesh. He had never mentioned any lady, and certainly not to this child—this child he barely knew.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, kid.” Frank pushed himself up from his chair with both hands on the arm rests. He stood upright and reached to brush the ceiling with his fingertips and gave a yawn that would make a lion proud. “Besides,” he continued, “I oughta get back to work and you should get back to bed.”

Elizabeth stood up from the chair and gave the same stretch and yawn that her fireside companion did.

Oh, wondrous flattery, Frank thought as he couldn’t help but smile at the child’s seeming innocence. His skin no longer crawled, and the goose that had walked on his arms had flown away. Elizabeth began to walk back toward her corridor where her bed waited. She turned upwards to the tree as she was walking past and pointed up towards what Frank knew was the cherub ornament.

“Someday,” she said, looking back at Frank, ever careful to keep her balance on the tip of her toes. “Someday, I’ll be as beautiful as her.” Then she waved goodbye and walked back down out of sight towards her bed.

Frank stood by the fireplace a moment longer, grasping for reason as a fool would grasp for smoke with long thin fingers. He began to feel a calm wash over him.

A little girl, he thought. A little girl who is obviously sick, however terminally I don’t know, but she seems so happy, so full of life. Frank smiled to himself as he looked out to where Elizabeth had run off only a minute earlier. He felt his knees and legs ease out of their pain and he was happier for it. A warmth had taken hold of him. He couldn’t tell if it was the tree, the fire, or something—

Someone

else.

But he felt happier. Lighter. He walked to his cart and began to continue his work.

#

White and black marble pieces stood before them like the troops of their respective armies. Elizabeth leaned forward in mock concentration, peering down to the table before her, carefully constructing the next four moves in her head. She lifted her knight and moved the soldier two spaces forward and one to the left.

She sat back with a slight smile on her face that began to show the small child teeth behind her lips. Frank, a chess player since a time out of mind, took his bishop and moved it along in a diagonal line to expire the fateful knight.

“Hey!” Elizabeth called, “I liked him.” Her voice was only a little offended, but after seeing the chuckle behind Frank’s smile, she laughed with him.

“I’m sure you liked him,” Frank said as he rested his chin on his left palm. “But I like my Queen better. Your move.”

Elizabeth considered the board in front of her but was drawn to another scene. Outside, the snow fell in graceful swirls that were neither frantic nor lazy. They simply were. Once again, the flakes danced in and out of viewable existence in the glow of the streetlight along the path of the outside courtyard. The night looked cold, but beautiful. The contrast of black night, yellow electric light glow, and white snow only added to the serenity of beauty that the lights of the Christmas tree provided. She looked up at the wrinkled eyes and gray hair of the older man sitting across from her.

“Are you happy?” Elizabeth asked.

Of all the things a little girl of no more than ten years at the most could have asked, Frank never thought he would have been asked something so deep and conversational as if he was happy or not.

“I’m not unhappy,” Frank said after giving a moment’s thought to his answer.

“What do you think happiness is?”

Frank sat back in his chair now, his mind far from the chessboard in front of him. He ran his hand along the stubbled chin on his face and felt the pricks of tiny hairs against his callused hands. I need to shave, he thought. Martha won’t like that I haven’t shaved. He reached for his coffee mug nearby, took a sip and sat with his arms crossed. “I guess happiness looks different to everyone, doesn’t it?”

Elizabeth shrugged, as if shaking off bugs that crawled along the skin. “You’re dodging the question,” she said, not impolitely. “I asked what you think happiness is. Not what other people think happiness is.”

Images danced in and out of Frank’s mind in a million pictures. His mind went to visions of the baseball field that wasn’t really a baseball diamond. Trash can lids lay in place of white bases. Trees marked the foul posts as boys of Frank’s youth, boys of summer, gathered to scream and hit and throw. Dust and dirt kicked up from the backs of their heels as they ran on and on, taking only a moment’s notice of the blazing sun above them. Frank heard his saxophone blowing into the air, sending a learned John Coltrane solo into the trees above him. A cool breeze lifted his black hair away from his brow. The metal saxophone was cool and heavy in his hands, but it had never felt more right in them.

Then the sun was blotted out by something. Someone.

A girl was standing there, a woman. The silhouette blocked the sun’s rays as she pressed her college English texts to her chest. Her face was dark from the sun’s light behind her, but Frank knew she was smiling at him. He had always known.

“Hi, Frank,” Martha had said before she sat next to him under the large maple tree of her college’s quad.

The years played a terrible dance in front of Frank’s eyes as if he were reliving them all at one time. He saw everything. He heard everything. Visions of his boyhood ball games, all the books he’s read, his first car, the first time he enjoyed his nights with a woman, the first time with Martha, the crackle and pop of great vinyl records of yesteryear, the level of which his reading matured from comic to novel, the last decades of marital bliss and all that came with it, good and bad. All these and more flashed before his mind’s eye.

He reached up and brushed away the tear that fell down the hard face of a man who had once had everything and now was only just waiting for the next day and whatever came with it.

“Mr. Frank?”

Frank had almost forgotten that Elizabeth was there, leaning forward, waiting for his reply, almost hanging on to every unspoken word.

“I’m sorry,” Frank said as he shook himself back to the here and now. Elizabeth gazed at him, lifting a puzzled brow across the table. “Well, I don’t know what happiness truly is, or what the true definition of it is. I guess happiness is the joys of living. The ease and joy of the small things that a life fulfilled can bring you.”

Elizabeth stared at him, saying nothing. He looked back, and when he realized she wasn’t going to say anything, he leaned a little closer.

“Are you happy?” he asked.

“The happiest,” Elizabeth said. She wiped her teary eyes dry with the back of her forearm and stood to leave. She turned back, studied the chessboard and moved a piece on the board. “Checkmate.” She spun on her heels and left Frank alone at the table in the lobby, illuminated only by the glow of the tree once again. Frank looked down at the chessboard, chuckled, and knocked his king onto its side.

It was a small thing.

#

Frank sat once more in the high-backed armchair in front of the stone hearth of the fireplace. The flames danced and licked at his hard, unshaven face as his eyes began to close. He was only woken up by the sudden burst of cold air that jostled from the open door that led to the courtyard.

Frank jerked around from the chair and looked around the lobby. Nothing. The flames of the fire danced like a fiery gypsy as the door slammed shut from its own weight. Frank stood up, grimacing at his knees as he did so, and walked toward the large window that overlooked the courtyard beyond. If she were standing in any other spot, he would have not seen her, but Elizabeth stood very still under the path’s overhead light.

Snow drifted in their lazy way as flakes landed gracefully on her shoulders and knitted cap. Her shins were bare beneath the hospital gown. A winter coat was clutched up to her neck and her slippers were fierce protectors against the night’s cold wind. Frank had never felt so happy as he did then that he remembered to shovel the courtyard’s path and lay down rock salt. But still this was a very sick young girl and should by no means be standing out in the freezing cold. It’s bad enough she’s sneaking out in the middle of the night to come to the lobby, Frank thought as he grabbed the White Sox baseball hat from his cart and put it on his head. A little thin, but something is better than nothing. He opened the door and stepped outside.

“Come inside from there, Elizabeth,” he called. Elizabeth stood still as if she didn’t hear him. The night was as still as she was. Snow sat on Frank’s sleeve and melted away to nothing as if it never had been there to begin with.

“Have you ever watched the snow, Mr. Frank?” Elizabeth asked. Her eyes danced left and right as they followed the falling flakes. “I mean, really watch it?”

Frank stepped further into the courtyard and began to reach out for the girl’s shoulders to direct her back into the hospital and the warmth it promised.

“Mrs. Martha loved to watch the snow.” Frank froze in his tracks, stunned to disbelief.

“How do you know my Martha?” he asked, his hand trembling. He was unsure if it was the cold air around him or this sudden realization that this little girl knew his deceased wife. “You have no way of knowing Martha.”

“She comes to me,” Elizabeth said in a still voice. “She tells me things.”

“She can’t,” Frank said. A tear was beginning to well up behind his eye. “She’s been gone these past three years.”

Elizabeth continued on without hearing him. “She told me how snowflakes are so unique. You know that no two snowflakes are ever alike, right?”

“Yes,” Frank said as he brushed his cheek dry. “Yes, I knew that.”

“A million billion snowflakes a year across the world,” Elizabeth said, almost jumping with glee at the thoughts that danced in her mind. “And no two are exactly alike. Isn’t that extraordinary, Mr. Frank?”

“It truly is,” Frank said. “How do you know Martha?”

“She comes and talks to me.” Elizabeth’s voice was clear and calm, but distant at the same time. “She wants you to know she’s okay, and she’s waiting at the beach for you.”

Life was draining from Frank’s legs. It was a few seconds before he regained his balance and started to walk them both back inside. “Ok, dear,” he said as they stepped back into the warmth of the lobby. “That’s fine, but you need to get inside and warm up.”

“I’m fine,” Elizabeth said. “It wasn’t even that cold ou-”

Elizabeth fell. Her arms reached in front of her, hoping to break her fall, but she met the floor with a sudden force that wouldn’t have been believed of such a small child. Frank reached out to her in an attempt to keep her from falling but missed by a mere inch.

“Elizabeth!” he called. “Elizabeth, are you alright?”

Elizabeth’s face turned a pale white, standing out in contrast from the carpet that surrounded her. She shot her eyes so wide that they may have fallen out of her skull. Frank grabbed Elizabeth at the shoulders, his face looked on in haggard worry. Elizabeth’s arms had grown rigid as her hips and legs began to jerk up and down on the floor.

“Help!” Frank called. His voice had turned hoarse and his throat ran dry. “Somebody, help! Nurse!”

Frank could hear the rise and fall of footsteps coming at a run. He looked up at the oncoming nurses. They began calling orders and directions at each other as Frank stepped back away from the girl, leaving her to more qualified hands.

Elizabeth’s eyes remained lifeless. Her arms locked as her body convulsed in every different direction possible. Tears ran down Frank’s face as the nurses had begun to stable Elizabeth on the floor. He stood firm by the lobby door. To his right he saw the tree that had stood there the whole time and would stand there for only a few more days. The lights beamed to every corner of the room. The cherub ornament hung in suspended beauty. It was a small thing.

#

Frank sat by the fireplace in the customary high-backed chair. The February evening sunset cast its red and pink rays into the lobby windows. The small coffee kiosk had begun closing their station. The grand piano in the further corner played out small quotations of some obscure French composer.

Frank had been off the job since the start of the new year. His days were filled with solace and peace in front of the fire that he had sat in all through his years as a maintenance man. He had just sat down to catch his breath before his own four-thirty appointment. The fire crackled and danced in front of him as he stared off into a nothing void. His head laid back into the chair’s cushions with the weight of a thousand hardships.

His mind drifted off into nothing as he closed his eyes.

“Hi Mr. Frank.” Elizabeth stood to his right. The sunset’s rays danced around her frame as she stood there smiling. She held out her small, delicate hand out to Frank. He took it and rose from the chair. The pain that had long plagued him for the past twenty years was nonexistent. Standing straight and reaching for the ceiling, Frank felt his limbs and joints relax with an ease that he had long since forgotten. It was pleasant. It was wonderful to behold.

“It’s time to go,” Elizabeth said. Her face was sweet and held the innocence that Frank had known in life, as if she had always looked at the beauty of a Christmas tree and the ornaments it held.

“Where are we going?” Frank asked as he took her hand and began to walk.

“To the beach. You promised Mrs. Martha.”

“So, I did, child.” Frank smiled. His face no longer gave him a hard, rough look, but a look that comes with life and time. He wanted to cry, but there was nothing to cry about...

The two of them walked hand in hand into vast rays of light and color. Frank held his hand up in front of his eyes as a shield. By the time he stepped foot on the hot comfortable sand, he was able to lower his hand. The sea rocked in steady droves as waves crashed along the shoreline. He looked down at his hand. The hand he held wasn’t Elizabeth’s anymore. His dear Martha sat there, smiling up at him.

“What makes you happy, Frank?” she asked, her eyes gentle, her smile kind.

Frank stood and thought for a moment. He saw the bright happiness of a young girl as she looked longingly to a cherub ornament and the warmth and joy it brought her. “The small things,” he said. “The small things make me happy.”