After the doctor’s appointment, I didn’t go back to the hostel. Instead, I took the bus to Toa Payoh Central. Azman went home with Mom, he was tired, she looked drained, and I told them I needed some time alone.
The truth was, I just couldn’t bring myself to sit on a bus back to routine. Not yet. My head was too full. Tomorrow, I’m back on morning duty. My day off is in two days. Maybe then I’ll call Elder Aunty. We’ll talk. We’ll figure this out as a family.
I’m sure I can get her support. I have to. She’s the only one in the family who might understand. Mom won’t. I know her too well. She’s not just scared she’s stubborn. Always has been.Surgery? Completely out of the question. And if they tell her one of her breasts needs to be removed? She’ll say no. Without hesitation. Even if it means losing her life.
The doctor was kind. More than I expected. “We need to remove the tumor first,” he said gently, “and start her on therapy as soon as possible.” He didn’t rush his words. He didn’t assume I wouldn’t understand just because I’m still in training. He took the time to explain.
“Mammography first,” he said, “then a series of tests. We need to assess the extent. Hopefully no metastasis especially to the lymph nodes.” He said a lot of things. And I understood.
Because I’d gone to the library just yesterday. Read everything I could find on breast tumors. I had a feeling… and I needed to be ready. Now, everything I feared is becoming real.
Elder Aunt, she’ll help me make sense of this. She used to be an enrolled nurse, retired three years ago. Now she works at an old folks’ home near Jurong. Quiet place. She still wears her white shoes with rubber soles, like the ones we wear. She was the one who encouraged me to take up nursing in the first place. Not my mother.
She was always against it. Too low-class, she said. Too dirty. “You’ll be cleaning people’s backside all day.” But Elder Aunty saw something else. She said, “You have hands that want to help. You have a heart that doesn’t flinch.”
And that was all I needed to hear. I walked slowly through Toa Payoh Central, not really going anywhere. Just letting my thoughts unspool. Malls buzzing, hawkers calling out orders, elderly folks gathered around the stone chess tables, tapping coins against tiles.
The world was still moving. But something in me had stopped. Mom has cancer. And I’m the only one who truly understands what that means right now.I felt hungry… but didn’t know what I wanted to eat. I wandered into the hostel dining hall around lunchtime, following the familiar crowd of footsteps and chatter.
The scent of rice and fried sambal hit me, but my stomach turned. No appetite.I sat down at the long table with the usual group Nurjan, Maria, Manjit, and Noraisah. My roommate sat across from me, her tray balanced perfectly, neat as always.
She looked up. “How was your mother’s appointment?” she asked, soft but direct. I shook my head.
“I’ll update you later.”
The girls were digging into their food. Nurjan the oldest among us started her usual routine. “This curry again,” she muttered, pushing the vegetables to one side. “It tastes like they dumped the whole spice rack and forgot the meat. This isn’t food. It’s punishment.”
We usually ignored her. It was her thing complain first, finish everything later. But this time, something snapped. Without warning, my roommate stood up. Her voice rang sharp across the table.
“Look here,” she said, eyes locked on Nurjan, “if you don’t like the food in this canteen, please go out. Nobody is forcing you to eat it.”
The table went silent. Spoons paused. Eyes widened. Even the clatter from the other tables seemed to hush.
“What’s wrong with you…?” Nurjan fired back. “You’re very rude. I’m much older than you and yet you show no respect.”
My roommate didn’t blink. “Respect?” she shot back. “You deserve none of it. You’re immature and childish. A spoilt brat.”
Nurjan’s voice cracked. “How dare you call me a spoilt brat?”
“Yes, you are,” my roommate said coldly. “As I said if you can’t stand the food, don’t eat. No one’s begging you to.”
“I’m commenting on my food, not yours!” Nurjan tried to defend herself, her hands trembling slightly. “Why are you the one getting upset?”
My roommate stepped forward, voice lower but firmer now. “Use your head, Nurjan. We all eat the same food. Cooked by the same hands. When you say your curry is garbage, and the soup is like drainage water, you’re saying all of us are eating garbage. That the people who prepared this food are serving us trash.”
Her eyes narrowed. “How can I allow that to go on?” I’d never seen her so angry before. She didn’t shout. She didn’t flail. She just stared straight at Nurjan with this piercing, unblinking intensity.
Nurjan stood up slowly, her face flushed. Without another word, and walked out of the canteen.My roommate’s eyes followed her all the way to the door. “There you go,” she muttered under her breath. “No courtesy at all. Can’t even clear her own plate. Everything, others have to do for her.”
Nobody replied. Nobody dared. The rest of us quietly went back to eating. But the mood had shifted. The food didn’t taste the same anymore. After a while, she stood up and adjusted her blouse, calm again like the storm had passed.
She glanced at me.“Catch up with you later, okay?” she said gently, her voice softened now. “I want an update on your mother.” She gave me a small wave and walked off toward the lift. I watched her go. Then I returned to the ward, back to the routines bed-making, medication, vital signs. She was on afternoon duty today. I wouldn’t see her again till later. But I couldn’t stop thinking about what had just happened.
There was more to her than what she let on. And I was only beginning to see it. There was another death in the ward today. A Buddhist nun. She had seemed fine just a few days ago. Quiet, peaceful, always nodding gently when we passed. Then yesterday evening, something shifted. Right after they removed Catherine’s body, the nun became disoriented.
Her speech slurred, her gaze distant. And by this morning, she was gone.Two deaths, back to back. But it’s Catherine I can’t stop thinking about. She died last evening a very young Christian girl from complications of SLE. Systemic Lupus Erythematosus.
A long battle. Her body failing, one organ at a time. Eventually, her heart just stopped.The convent came to claim her body. The hospital couldn’t reach her family. For the past few days, I had grown close to Catherine. She was so fragile pale skin, thinning hair, eyes too big for her face but always smiling. Always polite.
There was a light in her, even in the worst pain.She told me she was adopted. Her biological father was Dutch, her mother Chinese. Both were killed in a road traffic accident. A Chinese couple adopted her soon after. Just when she thought she’d finally found a family a place to belong her adopted father tried to rape her.I remember the way she said it quietly, as if she was apologizing for someone else’s sin.
Her adopted mother didn’t believe her. Called her ungrateful. Catherine ran away. By the time they found her, she was collapsed in the street. Brought to hospital. Diagnosed with SLE.Since then, no one came. No visits. No letters. No calls.
The hospital tried to track her family, but the address was long abandoned. Neighbours said the couple had migrated back to Hong Kong.I wanted to cry for her. I still do. It’s one thing to be sick. It’s another to die in silence. Alone. Forgotten.
So here I am. Back in my room. I took out Sharil’s letter and placed it on the table. I wanted to write back. I wanted to tell him everything like I always used to. But tonight, I didn’t know where to begin. The words didn’t come. The room felt too quiet yet full of things I didn’t know how to name. I used to have so much to tell him. But now?
Tonight, I felt… empty. And all I wanted to do was cry. Around me, the hostel buzzed a soft murmur of girls’ voices drifting through the thin compartment walls. The rooms weren’t fully closed off the partitions stopped just short of the ceiling. If you wanted to, you could climb over into the next room.
Laughter, teasing, late-night gossip it was all there, floating above and around me like a faint radio left on in another house. But in my mind, it was silent. The noise had switched off. I was somewhere else entirely sitting alone in a small, shared space, surrounded by others… yet completely by myself.
She came back from duty at 2130 hours. The door opened softly. She looked at me. Just a glance but she must have noticed my red, teary eyes. She didn’t say anything. She went straight to the bathroom, took her shower, changed into her t-shirt and long shorts. Then she sat on the bed with a book in her lap.
After a few quiet minutes, she looked up and said gently,
“How’s your mother? The appointment was today, right?” I nodded, then told her everything. The doctor’s advice. The urgency. The next steps.
My mother’s refusal. The fear sitting in my chest like a rock. How I couldn’t imagine telling her she might need surgery and how she would never agree to losing a breast. She listened without interrupting. No expressions, no interjections. Just… presence.
As I spoke, my voice cracked. Then the tears came slow at first, then fast. I tried to wipe them away but couldn’t keep up. I covered my face with my hands. She stood, walked over, and without a word, opened her arms. I leaned into her. She held me firmly, gently one hand on my back, the other stroking my head. And I cried.
I cried harder than I’ve ever cried in front of anyone. I told her about my fears. My mother. The cancer. The thought of watching her fade. I told her I didn’t feel strong enough. I told her I was scared. Not just for my mother but for myself. Scared of what might happen. Scared of what I would become if I lost her.
She didn’t offer advice. She didn’t say it would be okay. She just held me. And that was enough.
“Look when’s your mother’s admission?” she asked as she folded her towel and sat on the edge of the bed. I told her the date.
“I should be free that day,” she said. “I can come with you. Maybe I could talk to your mother too. How about that?”I looked at her, surprised.
“Would you?” She nodded, casually, like it was the most natural thing in the world. Then she glanced at my table and changed the topic.
“You know, I’ve noticed something you’re a very diligent diarist. Do you write every night?” I smiled a little. “Yes. I find writing therapeutic. Helps to ease the stress.”
She raised a brow and smirked. “But you have a bad habit.”
“Eh?”
“You just leave your diary lying there wide open, like an invitation. We have all kinds of busybodies in this hostel. Some don’t knock. No manners. They just walk in, take stuff from your table like it’s theirs.”
“Do they?”
“Oh yes. No boundaries.” She tilted her head and grinned. “So… what do you write about?”
“Anything and everything that comes to mind,” I said.Her eyes narrowed playfully. “Even about me?”I nodded slowly.“ Do you want to read what I wrote about you?” I teased.
She shook her head. “Nah. It’s okay. Better leave it as it is. Maybe one day, when we’ve both become grandmothers, during some wild reunion tea party then you can let me read it.” We both laughed.
“…But,” she continued, grinning again, “I have to confess something.”
She lowered her voice slightly "One day I came in, and your diary was just lying there open. So inviting. I walked over to close it for you… and accidentally saw one of your entries.”
She paused, waiting to see my reaction.“I hope you’re not angry?”
I shook my head. “No. How could I be angry not after what you did today at lunch time.”
She gave a half-snort. “Ugh. That girl is damn irritating. I’ve been holding my tongue since day one. But today I had to shut her up.”
We didn’t say more. But I could feel it that quiet sense of shared justice. She had done what no one else dared to do. We were all silently grateful.
Even if no one said it. Then she leaned back, stretched, and asked, half-mocking, half-serious
