“Mama!” Leo shouted as his mother walked through the gates of the playground to pick him up from kindergarten. “The numbers changed!”
His mother’s face brightened up right away; it was the first time that Leo had seen anything like that expression on her face in a long time. “Are they gone?” she asked excitedly. Maybe Dr. Rijkaard was not so bad.
“No, of course not!” Her face completely fell, and she did not even bother to feign even the slightest of smiles. “They changed, not left! They got slashes, like the dates do, you know, like the ones we’re learning about, and they got those double dot things, like on the clock in the kitchen! The one with the birds!”
“I think we need to go see Dr. Rijkaard again,” she replied after a pregnant pause. She grabbed her son’s hand and dragged him to the car, her other hand occupied by her cheap cellphone. “Hello? Yes, this is Celia Messi, my son Lionel is a patient of Dr. Rijkaard…Yes, there is an emergency…”
When they arrived at the doctor’s office, Dr. Rijkaard was waiting for them in the front, a chart in his hands. “Is everything alright?” His face was worried, his lips in a downward curve.
“The numbers changed,” is all Leo’s mother offered, her eyes shifting nervously between the patients reading outdated magazines in ugly, overstuffed, red chairs.
“I see,” was the reply as Dr. Rijkaard ushered them into his office.