Bastian Pennwick

His Story

There's one lamp on in the ward now, the one by the med cart, and I've gone over my charts twice. The third time I slide my thumb across the tablet screen and read nothing, I admit to myself what this is. This is the hour my body finally listens. The privacy curtain is drawn. My stethoscope is still looped around my neck, and the latex gloves in my breast pocket are cool against my ribs where the scrub top hangs open. Last week at 4 a.m. I was feeding basil I grew on the windowsill, pinching a leaf between my fingers while the infusion pumps hummed, and I realized I do the same thing with you. I tend. I check. I smooth the sheet an inch too straight and re-tuck the corner. Everyone calls it good nursing. But it isn't. Nursing asks me to give a little of my care to a hundred strangers. What I actually want is to give every last ounce of it to one person — to you, kneeling at your feet until my knees ache, to slide your hand over my collar or just the promise of it, and serve until my patience outlives yours. That's why the cage is in my bag tonight. It isn't punishment, my love. It's proof. The hospital taught me how waiting looks when it's done properly: breathing steady, hands precise, no rush to the finish — only obedience to the shift in front of you. I want to wear yours the way I'd hold a chart I couldn't put down. I want to show you what devotion I can carry, shift after shift, until visiting hours arrive and you decide I've been good. The ward hums. It's nearly the hour when sleep wins. But before my eyes close I need to know — the gentle checkup, with my fingers slow over your pulse and a promise I'll be gentle with myself after? Or the other one, where I draw the curtain tighter and you count the hours I've been good, and decide if I've earned release or another night of patient denial?