Diamonds Dancing

Forty Seven "Part Three"

PART THREE

As bad as it sounded, she was starting to lose all hope. It had almost been two weeks and still, nothing had changed.

Every single night she would come to the hospital with a cooked meal which she had made all by herself. It usually took her the entire day to make hence why she came by at dinner time, she was not used to making such meals but that wasn't going to stop her.

And every night she was told the same thing by the lovely nurses—'sorry, no updates today'—to which she would sigh heavily at before thanking the nurses for their cooperation and be on her merry way. She would eat the now lukewarm meal on her lonely subway ride home, worrying incessantly.

Was he okay? Why wasn't he waking up? How much longer would it be?

Twelve nights of home-cooked meals that were made for nothing. Twelve nights wondering how he was doing, how her girls were holding up. Twelve nights of her mind wreaking pure havoc.

Despite being in contact with Vera, she still had yet to see the sweet innocent little girls that filled her hazy thoughts daily.

The last thing she wanted was to make them feel more overwhelmed than they already were?

She feared her presence would irritate them? Maybe even disgust them... After all, she had taken the cowardly way out and not even said goodbye to them face-to-face.

She was losing hope, slowly yet surely, and doing that was not something Rika Sato-Johnson believed in.

Being alone, homeless, hungry, for nights on end on the cold streets of New York had taught her one thing.

That was to never give up.

She didn't give up on him, she refused to do that and so when she started to feel like her hope was slipping, she did something new.

It was no secret that she didn't know much about the world, she didn't have the first clue about the wonders of the world let alone all the different cuisines. But, on that thirteenth night, she tried something different.

She attempted to make him a cultural meal from his home country, Russia. 

The recipes she had found online were overwhelming, to say the least, she didn't know the first thing there was to make a homemade authentic dish.

However, like everything else in her life, she pushed forward and tried her best.

It appeared her change of dinner choices worked in her favour because that night when she went over to the hospital, she was met with relieved faces.

"So he's really awake?" She repeated, a bashful smile spreading onto her concerted face. "And his daughters... They were able to see him? Is he... okay?"

A blonde-haired nurse gave her a comforting nod, looking up from her pile of notes. "He's absolutely fine, darling. We were able to run a few tests on him, and they all came back normal."

Rika let out the imaginary breath she had been holding for the last two weeks. Her cheeks were a rosy red from the frosty air outside, she had been travelling in the freezing cold. Wrapped up in a black longline coat and a fluffy scarf around her neck, her leather gloved hands held onto the bag of food tightly.