“Mrs. Davis,” he said. “You don’t remember me.” I didn’t recognize him, wondering if he represented the hospital, an insurance company, or a law office. He put his case on an empty chair.
“But you paid for my lunch,” he said, “every day in third grade.” Even my monitor seemed to pause. I searched the successful-looking stranger’s face, his expensive suit and shoes revealing no familiar features.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I don’t…”
“Malcolm,” he said. “Malcolm Peterson. I became Malcolm Chen after I was adopted. When I was ten.” Recognition took me to Franklin Elementary in South Seattle, 1978: a thin boy with stubborn dark hair, an oversized plaid shirt folded four times at the cuffs, and sneakers worn through at the toes. His brown eyes lowered as other children unpacked paper sacks or cartoon lunchboxes. With no lunch of his own, he watched silently, pretending to read whenever noticed.
“You were hungry,” I whispered.
Malcolm nodded slowly.
“You noticed,” Memories returned. In 1978 I was sixteen, working at Franklin Elementary in South Seattle because my father’s shipyard back injury left us short of money. Three afternoons each week and every lunch period, I helped teachers and monitored the cafeteria for $1.90 an hour. Lunch cost forty cents, though Malcolm remembered three dollars; to a hungry child either could seem impossible. On my second day I bought tickets myself, thereafter slipping one beneath his elbow daily.
“The cafeteria made extras today,” I told him. “Somebody needs to eat them, or they’ll go in the trash.” Malcolm would look up and join the cafeteria line. Nobody, including him, knew those tickets consumed nearly half my small wages for an entire school year.
He pulled David’s unused chair beside my bed. Kayla cleared her throat.
“Sir,” she said, a little nervously. “I’m sorry, but visiting hours on the cardiac floor are limited right after surgery. Unless you’re immediate family.”
