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The small crowd around the hospital doors was starting to thin as Radar reached the bottom of the mailbag, the last few straggling envelopes for the last few stragglers pinched between his fingers. Klinger folded his arms, watching Radar hike the bag up to pull out the final pieces of mail. “Goldman,” he said, and Goldman snatched his letter up and ran off without even a by-your-leave. “Layla.”
Klinger bit at a nail. His stuff was usually at the top or at least middle of the pile—usually the Arabic slowed it and got it approved last. Never, not once, had his mother missed a mail call.
“Childs,” Radar said. “Newmarr.”
There were rushed footsteps in the mud to his right. Klinger glanced over just in time to catch Kellye running up, still in her scrubs and surgical cap. “Radar! I didn’t miss it, did I?”
“Oh, hiya, Kellye,” Radar smiled. He paused his digging—to the complaints of the two remaining corpsmen—to pull an envelope from his top pocket. “No, and I saved your letter for ya.”
Kellye smiled brightly. “Gee, thanks.”
The last two letters were handed off: for Smith and Pérez. Frowning, Klinger trailed after Radar into the office. “Hey, wasn’t there anything for me?”
Radar blinked back owlishly, then winced. “Oh, gee, I’m sorry, I shoulda said. You got a package. Looked and smelled real nice, so I hid it under my cot.”
“Oh,” Klinger perked up. He’d bet his last five bucks that it was a delayed birthday gift. The party some of the nurses, corpsmen, and a belated Doctor Hunnicutt had thrown two months ago had been nice, sure, but he’d been hoping to get something special from home. “From who?”
“Your ma, I think,” Radar said. He knelt and dipped down to retrieve the package: just as beat up and tape-wrapped as anything that made it here, but the box below was a rich shade of orange, with intricate red patterning printed on its surface. Klinger whistled. “I bet Hawkeye would’ve torn this thing right from my hands.”
“You’re a saint,” Klinger said genuinely. He kissed the pad of his thumb and pressed it to Radar’s cheek, which made him squirm. “I owe you one.”
“Nah,” Radar shrugged. He gave Klinger a sheepish, tired smile, and headed towards the OR doors. “But you’re welcome.”
Smiling to himself, Klinger wandered back outside, picking at the tape with a blunt nail. In his periphery, he saw someone, and glanced up to say hello—then paused. Kellye hadn’t left. Instead, she was leaning up against the wall of the hospital, tears threatening to overflow.
“Hey,” Klinger said, folding his gift beneath his arm and joining her. “Hey, what’s wrong?”
Kellye looked up at him. Her face was still mostly dry—she’d just started crying. She sniffed. “It’s my aunt.”
Klinger laid a careful hand on her arm. “What happened?”
A tear or two spilled down Kellye’s cheek. “She had a stroke,” she said, and reached up to swipe off her tears with the tips of her fingers. “I don’t know what to do. I can’t do anything. I mean, I’ve known her all my life, and I can’t…”
“Oh,” Klinger sighed. He dropped his gift and wrapped his arms across Kellye’s shoulders, letting her tuck her head into the crook of his neck. “I’m sorry.”
They stood there for a long moment, a damp spot slowly forming on the collar of Klinger’s sweater, until Kellye eventually straightened, face flushed pink. “Thanks, Max. Sorry.”
“Sorry for what?” Klinger scoffed lightly. He stepped back, framing her arms in his hands, and spotted his gift. An idea popped in. He smiled and raised a brow in Kellye’s direction. “How about a surprise date?”
“A date?” Kellye repeated.
“Friendly date. I got a gift from my ma, and I bet I know what’s in it. We could split.”
“Did she send you food?”
“I think so,” Klinger said, and bent to scoop the box up from the ground. The scent had significantly faded, but there were still subtle hints of orange when he pressed his nose to the cardboard. “I know a spot where we won’t be bothered, either, if you don’t mind getting the seat of your scrubs wet.”
“They’re already going in the wash,” Kellye said. She sniffed again, but her tears were dry. “Where to?”
The spot was a few paces back from the hospital, hidden by a thicket and a scraggly young tree. Walking the long way around landed them in a small clearing, big enough for four at most, with a twin pair of stones hidden in tall grass and a stretch of clear sky through the trees above them. Leftover drops pattered down from the branches, and the stones were of course wet with rain, but the spot was otherwise comfortable. And, as he opened the package, he found that his prayers had been answered.
Klinger leaned his face into the box, breathing in the delicate smell of citrus, smiling broadly as he leapt right back to Toledo, to sitting on a high stool beside his mother in the kitchen as she worked. “Knafeh,” he sighed, and carefully unwrapped the treat from its paper. There was an envelope tucked underneath it, too, which he pulled out and laid on his lap as he split the sesame loaf open. He handed the box to Kellye. “Get started! I gotta read this. Oh, you’re not allergic to pistachio though, are you?”
“I’m not allergic to anything,” Kellye said.
“Then go nuts.” Klinger grinned at her unimpressed look.
Bending over the paper to protect it from the lingering rain, Klinger tore open the envelope. He recognized the careful loops of his mother’s Arabic, and some notes at the bottom from his brothers and sister, and one from his aunt, too. To our dearest Max on his birthday.
“Wow,” Kellye said, voice muffled as she spoke with her mouth full. “This stuff’s amazing—hey, are you alright?”
Klinger wiped a stray tear off with the heel of his hand. “Yeah, I’m okay.”
Kellye nudged at him, the loosened laces of her boot tickling the top of his foot, exposed in his ballet flats. “Only one of us was supposed to cry today! Is something wrong?”
“No,” Klinger said. He smiled. Sometimes his heart really ached. “I just miss ‘em.”
“Oh.” Kellye smiled back. “I know. Me too.”
In the end, they split the knafeh into equal halves, perfect and heartening even as the bread was stale, the cheese hardened, and the floral notes all but gone. When they stood, peeling damp fabric from the backs of their thighs, the patch of sky above them was a soft, cool blue.