[ TT ] The smell of death is that of sterilized metal and clean white sheets .

Lyla tapped her fingers against the padded armrests of her chair. The waiting room of the hospital was large and square. It was too large, so large that Lyla thought if she spoke her voice might get lost somewhere in the carpeting or the dome of the ceiling. There was some peaceful music that sounded like a waterfall not far off - something to calm the nerves of waiting family members. 
 
 Lyla got up and made her third cup of tea in an hour. Her footsteps were muffled by the carpet - purple with yellow spirals that seemed to make their way forever. The waiting room was too large and long - reminiscent of an airport terminal. Lyla sat down in her chair. *Hello, are you coming or going? * 
 
 She took a sip of her tea. It was too hot and she burned her tongue. She watched a woman a few chairs down pick at the corner of her mouth with her thumb and forefinger. A young man was sat off to her left with his back to her as he read one of the magazines freely provided on little tables placed every-so-often between the chairs. 
 
 `` Miss Wen,'' Lyla looked up to see a young doctor likely somewhere in his late twenties or early thirties. He was dressed in seafoam green scrubs that hung off him like he'd recently lost some weight. He held his scrub cap between his hands, wringing it gently as he sat down next to her. His scrubs were clean and looked new. He had that smell that doctors got from constantly washing their hands and living in such a place as a hospital - the smell that he was too clean. The smell of soap and shampoo and sterility and the absence of a smell at all. 
 
 `` My name is Doctor Idashkin. I was on your mother's team.'' At this point Lyla begins to tune everything out and a buzzing fills her ears. It grows louder and louder as the doctor continues to talk. She watches his mouth move but does n't hear him speak. 
 
 `` Would you like to see her?'' Dr. Idashkin asks. Lyla blinks several times, shaking her head to rouse the feeling of dissociation from her. 
 
 `` You're saying my mother... is dead?'' 
 
 `` Yes. Like I said, we did everything we could. Unfortunately the progression of her disease had made her body weak she could n't stand the trauma of the surgery. The attending physician and I made a decision to stop extraordinary measures after checking her chart. She was DNR. We stopped CPR. We pronounced her time of death at fourteen twenty-two. I'm so sorry for your loss.'' 
 
 `` I want to see her,'' Lyla's voice was tiny. It got lost in the large room. The doctor nodded and folded his scrub cap before sliding it into his pocket. He gestured with one hand toward the hallway and Lyla followed him. Her feet - even shuffling - were silenced by the carpeting. 
 
 -- - 
 
 The room they kept her mother in was cold. The smell of death is that of sterilized metal and clean white sheets pulled over Lyla's mother's head even though she would n't have known the difference were they dirty. That smell was the same as the doctor's - the smell of being *too clean*. Lyla kept her hands at her side in fear of touching anything and introducing germs into this seemingly perfect and sterile environment. 
 
 Dr. Idashkin pulled the sheet back to expose the face of the woman. Lyla stepped closer, putting her hand over the cold and rough hand of her mother's that was more like wax than skin. Lyla reached up to push a strand of hair from her mother's forehead, tucking it behind her ears. 
 
 `` You know I'm an orphan now,'' she told Dr. Idashkin. She looked up at him half expecting him to be looking at her with some strange, alien glance. Instead he wore that common look that doctors have that said *I do n't know how you're feeling and I wo n't pretend to know, but I have compassion for you. * 
 
 `` I'm sorry to hear that,'' he said as if on cue. 
 
 `` It is what it is,'' Lyla said. She ran her fingers over the skin of her mother's cheek. `` At least she is n't suffering anymore.'' 
 
 -- - 
 
 Lyla wore a yellow dress to her mother's funeral. She spoke in front of the people of their congregation and she handed out yellow daisies for everyone to wear in their hair. She looked out at them and rolled her eyes up to look at the ceiling and wiped away the tears that had gathered. Her mother would n't have wanted her to cry. 
 
 She thought about the church - small and wooden. Her voice bounced off every surface, magnifying and making her feel heard. She spoke about her mother - about their relationship and their traditions and everything else. 
 
 They buried her mother. Lyla came back several weeks later and in the baby grass she planted sunflowers. They bloomed - spilling their seeds and growing in number every year. A few of them were pulled, but mostly they were groomed around the graves. She would come to visit and see them - standing far above her head and turning their yellow and orange and brown heads with the movement of the sun. She saw them, and she thought of her mother's warmth. 
 
 She spoke to the world - speaking to the sky and the wide open outdoors. It was much larger than the hospital waiting room, spanning forever in any direction that Lyla tried to look. But when Lyla spoke she was n't afraid of her voice getting lost. She knew that her mother was there - somewhere. As long as there were sunflowers, she would be remembered. And as long as she was remembered, she would do her best to make sure that Lyla was heard.
