By Philip McGann
Niko helped with his father’s cannoli cart; a business his father had started after Niko’s mother had died. Niko was studying to become a teacher, but stepped back to part-time, to help his father, and to wheel the cart home every night. The mornings started early and breathed of honeyed dough and baked custard. On this morning, Niko had a lecture before the frost had fallen from the bluebells.
“You work hard, Niko,” his father told him, again. “I need you to learn everything you can. I can’t do this forever.”
“I will, dad. I’ll come by after lunch.”
The lecture was on behavioural management. A moth flew around the room and seemed to orbit around the hair of a girl before him. Her hair fell in an auburn wave; she tied it up with a leopard-patterned claw clip. Niko’s phone vibrated and he stepped outside.
A paramedic was waiting on a folding chair before the cart.
“I didn’t know what to do with it,” she said, standing, opening her hands towards the cart.
“I’ll wheel it home,” Niko said. “Where is he?”
“Intensive care at the Prince Charles.”
Niko rolled down the glass panel and hoisted the cart onto his shoulder.
His father had a cannula in each arm and a ventilator mask over his face. He waved his hand when Niko asked how he was feeling. In a side room, the doctors told Niko that it was an aortic dissection; a partial tear, but because of how calcified his aorta was, it was inoperable.
“There’s nothing we can do?” Niko asked.
“We can manage it, but it will be a band-aid. I’m sorry.”
Niko sat by the bedside until his father fell asleep; then, he slept against his coat in the waiting room at the end of the long, white hall. The door woke him. Half-familiar, half-awake; she sat opposite him, across the empty room. Released and shook her hair. The leopard pattern.
“Teaching?” Niko asked, leaning forward, his voice hoarse.
“Sorry?” she said, squinting, as if he was a long way away.
“Sorry,” Niko said. “You were at the lecture today? Behavioural management?”
“Yes,” she said, slowly, as if waking up. “I’m sorry, I’m Abbey. Why are you here?”
Niko told her the story, from the start.
“I’m so sorry. My brother’s in here,” she replied, after Niko asked the same question. “A stroke.”
Abbey moved to sit by Niko’s side, her hands held in her lap. There was little that either could say. But they stayed, neither knowing what was before them.
Niko’s father died that night. Niko deferred his course. He woke up at four o’clock every morning to prepare the cannoli, and to wheel the cart into town.
Abbey’s brother was in hospital for a month. Over time, he regained most of his functions. Every night that month, Niko arrived in the room at the end of the long, white hall, with two cannoli, held in a folded, paper bag.
