I held the bouquet of peonies while waiting near the reception at the hospital for my dad to accompany me, but the nurse with her hazel eyes and a dimple on her cheek cut us out and said only one person can go inside at a time. My dad motioned me to go ahead alone. A peculiar air took grasp of me as if I have just entered a pharm factory, the room had a small plastic vase with daises resting in it, when I looked at Ms. Amelia she singled me to sit. Watching her barely move on her bed made me a little strange, how can she scratch her back when she feel itchy? of course the nurse won't be around 24/7 to scratch her back, I thanked god that I was not at her place and then I felt gratitude towards my life and felt awful for Ms. Amelia who was helplessly laying on a clean white bedsheet. I first greeted her with a smile and put the bouquet near her vase. She asked about my health and academics and then moved the topic towards Dahlia. I talked about how often she stayed in her room and barely speak to me and amount of coffee she consumed each day and how her scores in every test are high. Ms. Amelia smiled, she asked me about dad and then suddenly she tilted her face a little and saw my peonies then after a brief pause asked me about my mother. My eyes followed hers and I answered "She is doing pretty well too."
It was peculiar of her to ask me about my mother, she never met her since the day she signed those divorce papers, she even cursed dad that he'd loose something precious in his life in return of the gloom he had burdened on her and went away with Dahlia to another town. It was only the news of her brain tumor that ring in my dad's ears that he brought Ms. Amelia to the hospital since she was still lurking in destitution and brought Dahlia at home after giving me strict and serious instruction on how not to annoy her by clinging to her side more often than required. My mom was annoyed at first but after observing the miserable condition of Ms. Amelia she started minding her own business and started smiling towards Dhalia which Dhalia never used to return.
Dhalia has an air of a brat girl from high school but she always top in class, I think that's what keeps my dad an inch away from scolding her when he found her misbehave in public gathering. No one seems to know her even briefly as she always stays inside packed in her room with her books and laptop, once I entered without knocking in her room, since then Dhalia pasted a text on her door "Learn social etiquettes, knock before entering" I thought she is the one who should be learning social etiquettes cause she ruined my 9th birthday last week by blowing away all the candles before me cause she was getting late to meet her mom at the hospital. Dad and mom told me to be patient with her since her mother is sick she might be mentally exhausted and disappointed that we are still making celebration here. But when my friends made a joke out of me and called me an unlucky birthdayboy I had it on my nerves, I went straight in her room when she was not there and took out three books from her bag and tore them. For the entire night I didn't sleep thinking she'd sneak in my room and break my bones, and the morning mom scolded me for peeing in bed and asked me If again I had a nightmare, I said yes. I lied.
Dhalia didn't even touch me, she was as normal as ever, I though if she had seen all those teared pages or someone just cleaned them and replace those books with new one. One evening when she was at the hospital with her mother I sneaked in her room and searched through her bag, those books weren't there so I aimlessly wondered what happened to them and to her? maybe she'll revenge in a different way maybe silent act like I did. I put an apology note near table but it fell on a book that was stuck in a drawer, I put the note back on the desk and pulled out the book, it said "Journal" I opened it and i read the text
"Anne Frank wrote in her diary dead people receive more flowers than living ones because regret is stronger than gratitude, I want to experiment it"
-Dhalia
It was the only text that I read, the entire book was empty. Before sleeping I comprehend on the text and though she must me experimenting on how many flowers her mother would receive before her tumor take her away. So to correct my notorious act of revenge and to help Dhalia in her experiment to be proven wrong I started bringing bouquets of peonies everyday to Ms. Amelia, It was difficult to take time out of my daily routine but I managed it cause I know gratitude wins always. That's what dad taught me thats what mom taught me, and that's what life is all about they say, being happy for the things we have so we can never run over the paths of regrets. One day the entire table of Ms. Amelia was filled with nothing but the peonies that I brought, the nurse said the leftover peonies were put in all the vase there are in the 1st and 2nd floor of the hospital, that's double the quantity of flowers Robin's granny received when she died. I was glad I helped out Dhalia in her experiment and proved her that gratitude wins.
It's been seven years since
