Insight of a Kenyan Girl

I wasn’t expecting a visitor.

It was just past noon. The nurse had come in earlier with my lunch tray — cold rice, watery greens, and something beige pretending to be soup. I pushed it aside and reached for my phone instead, hoping for a message, a meme, anything to distract me from the sterile room and the silence that seemed to have followed me since I arrived in this unfamiliar city.

That’s when the knock came. Gentle. Hesitant.

“Come in,” I said, expecting another nurse or maybe a lab tech with another round of poking and prodding.

But it wasn’t a nurse.

He stepped in, just as casually as if we were meeting at a food stall instead of a hospital room. Patty. A shy smile playing on his lips, a paper-wrapped bundle in his hand.

“I heard you were still here,” he said. “Figured I’d drop by. Hope that’s okay.”

For a second, I couldn’t speak.

He looked… exactly like I remembered — scruffy, tall, with that easy kind of presence that didn’t ask for attention but got it anyway. His eyes were kind. That got to me more than anything.

“You came all this way?” I asked finally, my voice softer than I intended.

“I was in the neighborhood,” he said, clearly lying.

I raised an eyebrow.

He rubbed the back of his neck, sheepish. “Okay, not exactly. You mentioned you were still in the hospital… so I may have casually asked around.”

“Casually?” I echoed.

“Well, there aren’t that many private clinics around that treat post-surgical infections,” he said with a shrug. “And I have a cousin who works admin at St. Mary’s. I just… asked if anyone named Minnie was there. She thought it was weird, but hey — I charmed her.”

I laughed quietly — but only for a moment.

Because that’s when it hit me.

Minnie wasn’t the name I gave the hospital. It wasn’t on my ID or insurance. It wasn’t on any of the forms. I hadn’t used it once since I got here.

He had no way of knowing to ask for that name.

I looked at him again, this time slower. Watching the ease in his body, the practiced grin. Was he bluffing? Had he guessed? Or was there more to Patty than he let on?

“Don’t worry,” he added quickly, maybe sensing my shift. “I didn’t dig or anything. Just wanted to know if you were okay.”

I tucked the thought away for later. For now, I took the flowers from him and softened my face. “You really just showed up here?”

He nodded. “I figured since you didn’t vanish this time, I shouldn’t either. Besides, I owed you a face.”

“A face?”

“You know… one to match the name. Even if it’s still fake.”

I smiled. “Right. Minnie and Patty, still pretending.”

“Still pretending,” he echoed.

We didn’t talk about the infection or the three days I’d been unconscious. Instead, we talked about biryani stalls, hospital food, and how he once got food poisoning from a street samosa and still went back for more.

It was easy. Too easy.

When he stood to leave, he glanced back. “I’ll be around,” he said. “No pressure. Just… if you feel like talking again. Or need another flower delivery.”

“Thanks, Patty.”

He smiled. “Take care of yourself, Minnie.”

And just like that, he was gone.

But as I stared at the lilies on my bedside table, that little doubt tugged again. He couldn’t have found me using Minnie. So how did he?

And why did that both scare and comfort me at the same time?