She bore the humiliation of the hospital gown with as much dignity as she could muster. Blowing out her breath impatiently, she snuck yet another look at the slender watch on her wrist. There was nothing to do but shift uncomfortably and try to cover as much of her backside as she could while she waited for her doctor to come grace her with his presence.
Bored with drumming a beat on her thighs, she swiveled her head to look around at the patients occupying the beds around her. She unconsciously wrinkled her nose at sight of a frail man sleeping to her left. His breathing was a harsh whistle even with the aid of the ventilator threaded across his upper lip and around his ears. He looked every one of his years and then some, his sparse white hair on top of an extremely thin face. He looked delicate, as if his bones might break if someone so much as touched him.
She turned her head to the right, opting to look away from the elderly man, and did a inconspicuous double take. The woman next to her was young, younger than herself, in fact. Yet she looked in no better condition than the other patient she had seen. The young woman was awake, breathing heavily through an oxygen mask. They locked gazes and she pulled down the plastic mask laboriously with a pale, bony hand. Her hands looked three times as old as her tired face. Her veins and delicate bones were clearly visible underneath the translucent skin.
"Hey," she rasped, managing a weak smile.
"Hi." She was startled and she was certain her surprise showed. She suddenly felt that odd prickling of guilt spread low in her belly. Although the girl was almost four times younger than the man, it was clear that she was just as ill. It didn't feel right being in the room when she was not bearing the type of burden they were. No burden at all, if.
"What're you in for?" The girl's voice was scratchy and she could ascertain that each word that was forcibly pushed from her throat was an immense effort on her part.
"Nothing," she answered abruptly. Then she hesitated. "I-well, actually I think I might be pregnant." Guilt was back again, this time tenfold, giving her an unsettled feeling in the pit of her stomach.
If the other patient was offended, she did not show it. "Congratulations." She put the mask back over her nose and mouth for a few breaths and then pulled it down again. "Do you want a boy or a girl?"
She gave a light laugh that rang false in her own ears. "I haven't given it much thought yet."
There was a slight pause and instead of the definite feeling that came over her when it was instinctively known that polite chit-chat with a stranger was over, all she felt was an overwhelming need to say something of importance and say it quickly. So she blurted, "What about you?"
She could have kicked herself.
"Well, I'm not pregnant." She laughed and then coughed gruffly. The oxygen mask was replaced for a few moments. "I'm waiting for my heart. Or rather, any heart," she finished wryly.
She was shocked. "But you---I mean you're."
"Too young?" she offered. She smiled wanly. "I know it."
"So you're on a transplant list?" she asked uselessly, once again trying to fill the stretching silence with anything she could.
She nodded, the action taking obvious effort. "I feel kind of scummy, waiting around for someone to get into a car accident."
She wasn't sure how to respond properly to such a statement.
A nurse arrived and promptly put the plastic covering over her face. "You know you're not supposed to take this off, Sam."
"'Cause it might kill me?" she quipped. But she made no move to touch the mask.
The nurse then turned to another bed. "The doctor would like to see you in exam room three."
She shut the back of her gown as she hopped down. There was a wheelchair waiting for her. "I don't need that."
The nurse smiled kindly. "Hospital policy. That's all."
She obliged for no other reason than to move the entire process along faster. She could barely fit the time to come into the hospital in the first place. In between planning Charlie's birthday party and work, she didn't have time to eat, much less take hours out of her hectic day to sit around waiting. But she figured a missed period when she wasn't on any kind of birth control was motive enough to at least take a pregnancy test. She was disappointed when it was the all too familiar negative sign had glared back up at her.
She was in the room now and a man who looked far too young to have graduated medical school was looking at her quite gravely. Suddenly, she knew she wasn't pregnant. But she didn't want to stick around and listen to him tell her that, all she wanted was to go home. Not to the bakers and figure out what cake to get Charlie, not back to the office, just home to hide under some covers.
However, that was not an option. She was here. This moment was inevitable and it was happening. She tried to toss back her head and face the doctor boldly, daring him to tell herself something awful.
She watched very carefully as he first cleared his throat. She could see the flutter of his pulse in the triangle right below his throat. She was transfixed by the pattern it followed. Then his lips parted, ready to form ominous words, words she was not ready to hear, words she would never be ready to hear. She idly thought about him, her thoughts racing into space, faster than time. Did he have a family? Children? When did he get off of work to go home?
Then his voice reverberated in her ears and all thought ceased.

She was seven and it was her birthday party and the day was filled with all the importance the age held. Her cake and her friends and her presents were all stacked around her, circling her, and she happy. Then she was eight and completely discontent with the lost bliss of the lucky numbered age she was leaving behind.
She would grow to be in junior and senior high and get asked to go to senior prom by her longtime crush. She would graduate and pick a major in college, eventually obtaining a degree, and consequently, a career. She would get married and turn thirty-seven .and there was more, but it was hidden behind obscurity that threatened to black out everything.
She sat on the park bench quietly, her hands clasped and tucked motionlessly between her legs, her posture straight and calm. She appeared to be watching the children in front of her play loudly with a Frisbee and anything else they could get their small hands on, but she was not registering the picture they made. She was looking past them, trying to figure out if she would ever feel warm again.
The doctor had told her it was rare. She remembered distinctly how his face had looked when telling her. He had made it seem as if that was some sort of twisted, bizarre consolation: "rarity". As if she should feel a bit less terrible because it was so uncommon. As if she should be grateful that of the handful of people this could strike, she was part of the lucky elite. The chosen.
She acutely remembered the almost overpowering urge to hit him. Hurt him as she was being hurt. She allowed herself the feeling, refusing to feel guilty for blaming the messenger. She reasoned that part of being told you were dying was permission to curse a few people.
She laughed aloud and incurred a few strange, darting glances from the young children before her. They soon forgot about her and continued on with their playing while she smiled with bloodless lips. Her still hands went to her abdomen, feeling strangely stupid and naïve for entering that hospital thinking she was pregnant. She felt like a complete ass, surrounded by sick people, sitting proud and tall with an air of invincibility that comes with health.
She blew on her hands, trying to instill some semblance of heat into them. She gave up after a few moments of futility. She sat there, long after it grew dark. Long after the children abandoned the Frisbee and opted for the warmth of their homes. Long after the park life had stilled to absolutely nothing.
It was a conscious decision for her to go home, one that was made out of routine need. There was too much to be done for her to stay on the bench any longer. Part of her did want to remain there, locked alone in a timeless position. But she a party to plan, flowers to order, and a cake to decide on.

She finished writing out a list of guests who had RSVPed. Setting the pen down, she looked at her hands. They were youthful enough now. What would they look like in two months? She took in the slim fingers, the bluntly cut and pink nails, the delicate veins, the rings on her left hand. She saw another pair of female hands then, rings absent, wrinkled and fragile, the youth and health stolen, leaving only brittle, white nails.
She blinked and swallowed harshly, a painful lump forming in the back of her throat. She pressed her palms together tightly, her fingers clasping and digging into the fleshy part of the back of her hand. It took a moment but she eventually felt it. The dull, drumming beat vibrating throughout her. She reveled in the thrumming joy of it until she pulsed with it, the feeling turning into a sound reverberating from her toes to her ears. It was steady and secure and safe.
Then the door clicked open and the hands fell apart, white spots forming where the skin had been clutched the tightest. She sat on her hands then, as if she had been caught doing something wrong. Guilt caused her to lower her head as her thighs brought heat to her hands.
He came in, swooped down to give her an idle kiss while sifting through the mail. He missed her lips and pecked her somewhere between her check and the corner of her mouth. His lips were warm and dry, smooth as they brushed against her cold face. She looked up at him, staring at his profile as his brow furrowed in concentration.
The lump was back and she pushed it down again, smiling briefly as he turned toward her.
"How was your day?" he asked.
"Busy."
"What'd you do?" He was back to opening mail, and the question was an idle one that did not demand a detailed response.
She hesitated one moment before shrugging her shoulders eloquently. "The usual. Planned more for the party."
He did not reply.
Her mouth went dry, and her palms began to sweat. She felt her heart beating in her chest, unusually strong as it thudded against her rib cage as if it would leap out at any moment, furious with being imprisoned within her for so long. Terrified he would hear it, she pressed her flattened hand to her chest, trying to quiet it-calm it. When it finally subsided and it was no longer pounded incessantly in her ears, she took a breath.
And then: "What kind of cake would you like?"