His daughter

I was seven

We moved into the coziest single-storey terrace house

You had a clinic of your own now

An attached washroom and a black plaque by the entrance 

Your name imprinted in gold

I didn't understand the switch to somewhere further from home

The nights spent alone in a room that smelled like mom's lab

Because it was 'too far' to come home

The only cool part was the washroom 

It was the school holidays

Mom brought me to work

I thought that her job was pretty boring 

All she did was to stare into the eyepieces of a microscope

The fingers on her right hand skilfully pressing the buttons on the counter

I spun myself on the black high-stool Occasionally setting the counter back to zero

Fascinated by the sharp ring that sounded like a typewriter 

I tried looking into the microscope

Pink and purple beats or even blue

The colours were pretty

But all the slides looked the same to me

(They still do)

I was getting impatient

Because all I wanted was pastry from Deli France downstairs

I was twelve 

We moved again

Your new room has no washroom

And the tiles weren't shiny like before

But the room was still cool because it was the first one upon entering the hospital

You had your own waiting area

And the lounge in this new hospital had doughnuts and machine-made Milo

I was thirteen

School started at one

I followed mom to work in the morning

No more microscope now

But she was still dealing with the pretty pink beats

Except that they were pictures in her computer being arranged into PowerPoints 

She shared her room with a Burmese lady who did the same thing too

And sometimes she sent us the most wonderful Burmese laksa 

I wonder where she is now

After PMR

I followed you to work

I wasn't allowed in the room

Just behind the counter

Typing names and pasting stickers

And sometimes fetching files and papers from the lab

People asked me if you were my dad

I nodded

Almost too proudly

At nineteen

It is lunch time

Mom is waiting in the car outside

I peep into your clinic to see if there are still cases left unseen

A patient greets me with the same question

I nod

Still proud 

She asks me if I am going to be a doctor too

I nod again

Even prouder