Chapter 4

When I was young, I could only go to the playground at night, as my mother was usually working in the morning. Whenever I reached the playground, all the kids would have gone home.

“Boo. Boring.” I would often say that to my mother. Then, I would run to the playground and play alone. Sometimes, I tried to build a castle with the sand and my cups. My mother would sit on a nearby bench, her eyes half-closing.

“Mama!” One of the days, I yelled to her. She jolted up from her nap and stared at me. “See? Elle wants to live in this kind of building!” I pointed to the big sand castle that I had built. “Then, Elle wants a thousand Hello Kitty cats inside the castle!”

My mother smiled, nodded and then wiped her face with her hand. “Okay, when you buy this kind of castle, I buy you a Hello Kitten toy.”

I clapped in delight. Sometimes, it was fun talking to my mother. I climbed to the highest point of the slide and, then, as I slid down, I whispered, “Queen of the world-”

Somehow, as I slid down, my chest was too close to my knees. Instead of sliding down smoothly, I landed with my back on the sand. “Ouch!”

My mother ran up to me within a second. “Oh gosh, ah girl, are you okay? Did you hurt your head? Is it painful? Why are you so careless?”

I rubbed my back and my hips. “Elle’s backside is painful.”

“Oh gosh.” My mother started to rub my back and my hips. “Pain?”

“Mama, don’t send Elle to hospital, can?”

“Did you hurt your head?”

“No. Mama, please don’t send Elle to hospital.” I said, emphasising on the word ‘please’. Mrs Tee said we must use the word ‘please’ if we were asking for a favour.

“Okay. I won’t send you to the hospital. It’s just a fall, ah girl. Everyone falls before. You just need to know how to stand up after a fall. Why should I send you to the hospital after a fall?”

“Because in Channel 8 dramas, when a child falls down, the next scene will be at a hospital. Then, injection. And, then, the child will get cancer. Then, there will be good doctors and nurses from NKF trying to save the child. Then, the child will die. Elle doesn’t want to die.”

My mother was laughing as she rubbed my back. “I won’t let you come to any harm, ah girl. You’ll not need to stay in a hospital. Now, stand up, ah girl.” My mother moved away from me. “You’re seven years old. Once you fall down, you stand up. Come on!”

“Mama,” I was grinding my teeth as I said, “If Elle stands up, don’t need to go to the hospital, right?”

“I promise.”

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

When we reached National University Hospital Main Building 1, the first thing that greeted us was a bookshop and a 7-Eleven. I had not expected to see retail shops in a hospital. There was even a pushcart near the 7-Eleven. It did not look like a hospital in my first impression. The lobby was littered with nurses and visitors pacing around. The nurses wore different uniforms: Some in white, some in light yellow and some in colourful shirts. It is unlike in a polyclinic, where every nurse wears the same uniform.

My mother had said that she was in Ward 51 or 52 or 53. I could not remember, as I was not paying attention when she told me her ward number. We asked around for the exact location of the ward. An intern – we could tell from her badge and her young face – told us that the wards we were looking for were on level 5. There were many lifts in the building, but the first lift that we took did not take us to level 5. After rounding the lobby for ten minutes, we finally found a lift that took us all the way to level 5.

The lighting on level 5 was brighter and it was less crowded. The nurses were dressed in white floral shirts and dark blue pants. A few men in ties talked to each other. Terry grabbed my hand and started to look at the signboard. We turned to our left towards one of the wards. The ward was crowded with nurses and movable trolleys containing blue files.

Terry led me towards the ward. The glass doors opened automatically and three pairs of eyes looked at us. I was looking around, as if my mother would appear in front of me, all of a sudden. I dared not take in deep breaths, fearing that I would snatch the fresh air from the sick patients here.

We finally found my mother’s bed after enquiring at the Nurse Station. When I opened the room door, a small toilet was on my left. I forwarded circumspectly. The room was only about a hundred and fifteen square feet. The lighting was bright. In the centre of the room was my mother lying on a single bed. Her eyes were closed. She was snoring aloud and had not felt our presence. A long pole stood beside her. There were two packages of liquids hanging at the top of the pole. A tube connected the packages into my mother’s arm.

“Want me to check out which doctor is treating her?” Terry asked. He had been holding on to my hand all the while, like we were some teenage couple who had just gotten together.

“No. Let me just wait for her to wake up. You can go back to the-”

Terry sat on one of the chairs beside my mother. “No, cutie. You stay, I stay. We’re in this together.”

I nodded and waited. An hour later, my mother stirred a little in her sleep. She could weigh less than forty kilogrammes now. More wrinkles strained on her forehead and almost all her hair was white.

“Yeah.” she suddenly said. I released Terry’s grip and lunged close to her. “Eh. Ah girl. Hello.” When she saw Terry beside me, she nodded slightly at him and said, “Hello there, idiot.”

My mother yawned loudly, stretched her hands a little and tried to sit up. She failed. Terry offered to help, but my mother shoved him away. “Back off, idiot.” she said and rubbed her bloodshot eyes. As she smiled, her cheekbones became so visible that they might crack her skin. “Well, that’s it.” She then laughed and said, “The manager up there has given me a death sentence.”

I shook my head softly. I was lost for words. So was Terry. He was looking down at his knees.

“It’s okay, I’m old. I’ve achieved so much.” she said.

What have you achieved? I wanted to ask. She is not rich, she is not famous. All she has is a job that pays peanuts and a disease that threatens to steal her life away. What in the bloody hell have you achieved, mama?

“They just injected this-”

“Mama, what happened?” I said.

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