Losing Her Wings

Chapter 39

Raya was relieved to hear from Kinsey after her two hours that she had passed her initial training and was now an official candy striper. She couldn’t have been more excited. Sitting with Bert had shown her that she could help a lot more than the nurses because they were so busy treating people and doing their own jobs that they didn’t have time to sit with a dear old man for an hour, reading his horoscope and poetry books to him, helping him fill in crossword puzzles and talking about his grandchildren. She had only spent fifteen minutes with him, doing the puzzles and talking but from what she had learned of him, he needed a creative, intellectual outlet and she would be happy to come in for a full day’s work and spend two hours talking with him before moving on to spend another two hours getting to know someone else. Even if she ran back and forward between the ward and the canteen, getting them something they craved so much and hadn’t been well enough or in the mood to eat beforehand, she would be happy. Chemo did things to a person, she knew that. Taste buds changed and sleep overtook everything else, there were days when her father, her real father had been so ill, being sick four or five time an hour, that he couldn’t face the thought of food. It had been a common occurrence to see him hooked up to a food bag because he just couldn’t eat. His mouth had been full of ulcers and even just the touch of his top and bottom teeth meeting could be excruciatingly painful.

Raya knew what it was like for those people. When they finally felt like eating only to find themselves confined to their beds, unable to walk the distance if they had had the will do attempt it. Knowing that when they had reluctantly filled out the menu the night before, when they hated the sight of food, they had just ticked any old box and could barely remember what was going to be delivered to them at meal times. Knowing that the menu’s didn’t allow for spontaneity and that the nurses did not have time to go running around the hospital to vending machines and canteens and WRVS’s just to cater the their ridiculous craving for a pot noodle or a bar of chocolate. She knew that it would be the first thing they had eaten for possibly weeks, the first thing they would put in their mouth and actually taste, they deserved to have something they wanted.

So after getting changed, with those happy thoughts in her head, she couldn’t help but be excited when she walked out of the front doors of the hospital and found Joey sitting, leaning back against his car, smiling up at her. He hadn’t offered to pick her up because she had told him just to go straight to work, grateful enough that he had dropped her off when she could very well have got the bus. But seeing him there, being very much the romantic, thoughtful boyfriend, she couldn’t help but run up to him in true old fashioned style and hug him, letting him catch her and laugh at her antics. It felt to her as if she were in some old black and white movie and she had said her goodbye’s to him, that he had gone off to war or some far off place only for him to show up at the most unexpected moment and bring joy to her heart again. It had been so long since she had felt truly happy that she almost wanted to tell him how he had woken her up from the dreary life she had been living and really, truly, given her something to be happy about. “You’re happy. I take it you got the job?” He asked as if he already knew, but it was just another thing that she loved about him. He had the kind of faith in her accomplishing things that Angelo had always had in her and Paige, only Joey was no Angelo. He was most definitely not a big brother or a father figure. He was her wonderful boyfriend, sweet and kind and thoughtful and just to prove that to herself and remind herself of that lovely, lovely thought, she kissed him. He was a little surprised but happily so, letting their kiss linger on until he pretty much got the picture that she had passed her training and now had the job that was most perfect for her. “So this is a good time to tell you that I got the rest of the day off and we’re going to celebrate?”

“What?” Raya couldn’t believe how well her day was going, smiling when Joey said it was a secret but her father had given him permission so she couldn’t back out of it, taking his hand and promising him she wouldn’t even think of it. She was too happy to refuse herself some alone time with a boyfriend she had only had for two and a half days. She wasn’t stupid, if Julius said it was okay then he was obviously in a good mood and she had nothing to worry about, just happy thoughts and a boyfriend who had planned a very romantic outing for them to celebrate her new job. Life was good.