Family Storms (6 page)

“Will I see her again?”

“It's not pleasant to see someone who has passed away, especially a young person.” She took a deep breath and nodded. “But a daughter should say good-bye to her mother. I'll look into it for you.”

“She used to be very, very pretty,” I said.

“Well, you're a very pretty young girl, so I know that's true. Now, don't you worry. Dr. Milan will get you up and about faster than any other doctor around here can.”

I turned away to look out the window. It was another sunny California day. How could the world be so beautiful after my mother had died? I didn't mean to, but I started to cry.

“Oh, God,” Mrs. March said. She stood and looked at me.

Just then, the nurse she had hired came into the room. Mrs. March didn't wait for her to introduce herself or anything. She practically lunged at her.

“Dr. Milan is going to reset that leg right now,” she told her. “The cast wasn't done correctly. You make our little patient as comfortable as possible. She's been through the most horrible experience, especially for someone her age.”

The nurse nodded. She was younger than any I had seen so far, younger but heavier, too. Mama would have said she had a body like a turnip. When she smiled at me, though, I saw she was warmer and friendlier than any other nurses I had met. Somewhere under those heavy cheeks slept a pretty face. That was something else Mama might have said.

“This is Jackie,” Mrs. March said.

“Hi, Sasha,” she said, coming over to me to take my hand.

She knew my name without looking at the clipboard. That was good, I thought. Whether she was doing it for Mrs. March's benefit or mine, I didn't know, but she started to rearrange my pillow and raise the back of the bed.

“You should be at this angle right now,” she told me. Then she looked at my chart. “She has a mild concussion,” Jackie read aloud, and then looked at Mrs. March.

“I know,” she said.

“Are you nauseous, Sasha?”

“I was. I'm not so much now.”

“I'll have a neurologist in to see her today,” Mrs. March said. Jackie nodded. Mrs. March looked at her watch. “You'll be here until eight?”

“Yes, Mrs. March.”

“I'm arranging for another nurse.”

“She might not need round-the-clock, Mrs. March.”

“I'm arranging for another nurse,” she repeated, and looked at Jackie Knee as if she would have her shot if she said another word about it. She just nodded and looked at me, smiling again.

“Don't worry. We'll have a good time together,” she told me.

In a surgical blue shirt and pants, Dr. Milan returned with another male aide pushing a gurney.

“I need to take her to another room,” he told Mrs. March.

“Of course,” she said. “I'll be back later,” she told me. “You do your best to cooperate with Dr. Milan, okay, Sasha?”

I nodded. What else would I do? I wasn't about to get up and run out, although I wanted to more than anything.

“I'll look into your seeing your mother,” she promised before she left.

Later, while Dr. Milan redid my cast, Jackie tried to distract me by telling me about the time she had broken her ankle.

“My little brother left one of his toy cars right outside my bedroom door. I was about your age, too. I think I flew ten feet. I was rushing out to meet some friends. Of course, everyone signed my cast and wrote silly things on it.”

I didn't think Dr. Milan was paying any attention to Jackie's babbling, but he said, “She'll be able to write a novel on this cast.”

Afterward, I was taken back to my private room and discovered that Mrs. March had sent flowers to dress it up. There were five different arrangements. Jackie raved about them. I knew she was trying her best to make everything seem better than it was. She made sure I ate most of my lunch. Soon after that, another doctor arrived, the neurologist. He was older and nicer than Dr. Milan. His name was Dr. Sander, and when he looked at me and talked to me, I felt he really saw me. Dr. Milan could have been working on a big doll.

“Well,” Dr. Sander said after looking at my eyes, “no concussion is pleasant or should be ignored, but you'll be fine in a week or so. I'll stop in to check on you again soon. For now, you just take it easy. Your nurse has what you need if you get nauseous again.” He turned to Jackie. “You know how to reach me if you need to,” he said. Unlike Dr. Milan, he said good-bye before he left.

Everything was catching up with me. I tried to stay awake, but not long after Dr. Sander left, I fell asleep and
didn't wake up until it was time for dinner. Jackie was getting it all set up for me. I saw a pile of magazines and books and a few boxes beside them on the table to my right.

“What's all that?” I asked.

“Oh, you're up. Good. Mrs. March sent up some magazines and books she thinks you'll like. There's a DVD player in the box with a dozen movies for someone your age. She knows it's no fun just lying around here waiting to get better. Let me fix your bed so you can have your dinner, and then you can look at everything, okay?”

She moved the tray over after she raised my bed for me.

“This looks good,” she said, lifting the cover over the plate. “But if you don't like the food, Mrs. March left instructions for me to send out for something you do like. You have no dietary restrictions.”

“It's all right,” I said, trying to sound casual.

Dietary restrictions? We had dietary restrictions, such as some days only two meals. When Mama and I were on the street, meals like this would be like Christmas dinners. She'd be really angry if I didn't eat it.

Jackie had her dinner served, too, and pulled her chair up to my bed table. She smiled. “When I was your age, I'd hurry my meal just to get to the dessert. My mother always had something great. This chocolate cake looks delicious.”

“Did you know Mrs. March before she asked you to be here?” I asked.

“Yes. She had work done by the plastic surgeon I used to work for. She liked the care I gave her. We had a special place for the patients to recuperate, and I was her private nurse four times for surgeries.”

“Four times?”

She laughed. “I'm not supposed to talk out of school, but yes, she had a full face-lift, work on her rear end, breast implants, and a bit of a tummy tuck, not to mention her lips.”

“All at once?”

“No,” she said, laughing again. “But all of it over four years, I think. I don't want to tell you how much it all cost.”

“You know why she's doing all this for me?” I asked.

“I know she does a great deal of work for different charities. I think that's very nice of her. There are lots of very rich people who don't do anything for anyone else.” She smiled and started to eat again.

“I'm not a charity case,” I said.

“Oh?”

For a moment, I wondered if I should say anything. Maybe it would make Mrs. March angry and she would stop doing nice things for me, but then I thought about Mama lying in a morgue and lost any hesitation.

“Her daughter killed my mother and did this to me,” I said. “She said she was high on Ecstasy.”

She stopped eating. And for a few moments, she looked as if she should be the one in the hospital bed, not me.

4
People with Influence

I
knew Jackie was thinking how much more horrible this was because I was a homeless child without anyone to care for me, and therefore I had to appreciate what Mrs. March was willing to give me and do for me. Another child who had a family would probably tell her to go to hell with her daughter.

“Well,” she said after a few moments to gather her thoughts, “you just take whatever she gives you. You deserve it and more. Maybe her husband is afraid some alert attorney will come see you and get you to sue the Marches. A lot of money could be held in trust for you to have when you're eighteen. I bet that would bring your father back.”

“Would it?”

“I imagine so. Of course, he might be returning just to get his hands on the money. How long has he been away?”

“Three years,” I said.

“Three years? Has he called you often?”

“Never.”

“Not even written or sent you things?”

“We don't even know where he really is.”

“Well, don't you worry about it. Your first job is to get better.”

“Maybe he'll come back when he hears what happened.”

“He might not find out about it. I always read the newspaper from beginning to end, and I didn't see anything about this accident. I'm not surprised that the Marches were able to keep it out of the news, though,” she added. “They are what you call ‘people with influence.'”

She didn't have to convince me of that. Look at what Mrs. March had gotten done for me in so short a time.

After I finished eating, I began to look through the magazines and books. Most of it was what I would read when I could get my hands on it. I hadn't seen any of the movies she bought for me, and I had never had a DVD machine you could hold in your lap. Jackie checked my blood pressure and temperature and then sat and read some of my magazines, too.

We spent the next two days like this. Mrs. March didn't return during those days, but I knew she called often to speak with Jackie. The nurse who came when Jackie left was older and less talkative, at least with me. She spent most of the night talking with other nurses. I guessed Jackie was right. I really didn't need the second nurse, because I slept through most of the night. I did look forward to seeing Jackie first thing in the morning.

Either because she really enjoyed talking about her family and her life or because she was just trying to keep me from thinking about things, Jackie told me all about her
brothers and sisters, her parents, how she became a nurse, and her one disappointing love affair. She rattled on about her taste in music and things she loved to eat. It seemed there wasn't anything she didn't like. I enjoyed listening to her talk about her family. I imagined myself a part of it.

What was a family, anyway? Could just a mother and a daughter be considered a family, or did you have to have a father, too, not to mention at least one brother or sister? A house or an apartment didn't seem like much without a family living in it. When Jackie described her house, especially when all of her brothers and sisters had lived in it, I felt as though the house was alive, a warm place that embraced them and kept them happy and safe. How far that was from the cold apartment we had lived in and that small hotel room. How could I call either one a home?

Soon, though, instead of enjoying hearing Jackie describe her family and home life, I became sadder. Look at all I had been missing and would miss forever now. What sort of a woman could I become? I'd be like someone without any past. How could I ever do what Jackie was doing, describe my parents, where I lived? I'd be like so many of those homeless people I saw at the beach, pan-handling or trying to sell something to survive. Their faces were caverns of despair, their eyes empty, a smile as hard to find as a decent meal or a place to stay the night. The sound of other people laughing was painful to them and to me. If one day we weren't there, no one would care; no one would look for us. Sometimes I wished the tide would come farther in and wash us all away. I was sure many
people who saw us and shook their heads wished the same thing.

As I looked around my nice hospital room, I wondered where I would go from there. One day, the doctors would tell me I was recuperated enough to be discharged, but discharged to where? An orphanage? Some foster home? When I thought about that, I almost wished Daddy would come rushing back to get me, even if it was just to get himself some money. At least I'd be with someone who was supposed to care about me.

Late on the third morning, Mrs. March appeared and told Jackie she had arranged for me to be brought down to the morgue.

Jackie's face lost color, and she turned sharply toward me. “Are you sure?”