PART 2
“Sunniva?” I said. “Princess?”
She laughed through her tears.
“Nobody’s called me that in twenty years.”
I stood up and hugged her. Right there in front of my son, my daughter-in-law, and two nurses who had no idea what was happening.
She was taller than me now.
When we finally let go, my son was staring at us.
“Dad? You know the doctor?”
“I used to drive her,” I said. “To this hospital. When she was sick.”
Sunniva turned to my son and his wife.
“When I was seven, I had the same kind of leukemia Emory has,” she said. “My mother had no car and no money. Your father drove me to chemo three times a week for two years. He never charged us a single dollar. His boss docked his pay for it. He kept coming anyway.”
She looked back at me.
“I became a doctor because of him. Every time I walk into this hospital, I think about Mister Taxi.”
My son’s eyes filled with tears. He’d never known. I’d never told anyone.
“Now,” Sunniva said, picking up her clipboard and wiping her eyes. “Let’s talk about Emory. Because he’s going to be okay. And I’m going to make sure of it personally.”
She did.
Emory’s treatment lasted two and a half years. Sunniva oversaw every part of it. She came in on her days off. She called my son at night to check on him. When Emory was scared of needles, she showed him her own scars from her old IV lines.
“See? I had them too,” she told him. “And look at me now. I’m a doctor.”
Some mornings, when my son had to work, I drove Emory to his chemo appointments.
I’d pull up to the front of the hospital. And every single time, Sunniva would be standing at the entrance, waiting for us.
She’d open the car door and say, “Good morning, Mister Taxi.”
I’d say, “Good morning, Princess.”
Emory thought that was the funniest thing in the world.
Here’s something I didn’t know until later.
When Emory’s insurance didn’t cover one of his treatments, a special medication that cost more than thirty thousand dollars, the bill just disappeared.
I asked the billing office about it.
The woman at the desk smiled.
“An anonymous donor paid it, Mr. Bennett. The note just said, ‘For a ride I never paid for.’”
Last spring, Emory rang the bell.
That’s what they do at the children’s hospital when a kid finishes treatment. They ring a big brass bell in the hallway, and everyone cheers.
He’s in remission. Cancer-free. Just like Sunniva was.
He rang that bell so hard the whole floor heard it.
Afterward, Sunniva knelt down and gave him something.
The pink knit hat.
“This brought me luck for twenty years,” she said. “Now it’s your turn.”
Emory put it on his bald head and grinned.
Then he turned to me.
“Grandpa, can you drive me home?”
“Yes, sir,” I said. “No charge.”
THE END.
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The kindness you give without expecting anything back has a way of finding its way home. Sometimes it takes twenty years.
Have you ever been repaid for a kindness you’d forgotten? Tell us in the replies.