The nurse who finally came to give me the medicine Dr. Decker had promised started to check my pulse and take my blood pressure and then gave me a tablespoon of some syrup for my nausea, which she said was all she could do for me right then. She saw that I had been crying. I started to cry again, and she told me I should try to be a big girl.
“That lady said my mother died,” I said through my tears.
“Yes. Very sad, but you have to be a big girl now. It will make everything go that much easier for you.”
A big girl? How does a big girl react to the news of her mother’s death? I wanted to ask. Doesn’t she cry?
The nurse looked up when Dr. Decker came in quickly. “What’s happening?” she asked him, sounding a little annoyed.
“Milan isn’t coming. Once he heard she’s uninsured, he suddenly had another emergency.”
“And?”
“I’ll set the leg,” he told her. “We’ve got to move her along. There’s quite a backup out there.”
“Tell me about it,” the nurse said. “We should have a traffic cop.”
“Okay, let’s get to her.” He finally looked at me. “We’re going to get you on the way to getting better,” he said.
He tried to explain everything he was doing every step of the way, but I had long since lost interest in myself and was only vaguely aware of the activity around and on me.
“This kid’s practically in shock,” the nurse said. “Besides the injuries, she just found out her mother died.”
“The faster I get this done, the faster she’ll get out of it,” he said, obviously not wanting to stand around and have a conversation.
Get out of what, I wondered, sorrow or pain? I moaned, but because of my slight concussion, Dr. Decker said he didn’t want to give me anything too strong for pain. He said he would prescribe some Tylenol, and he was sure it would help a little.
“Just hang in there,” he said, and flashed a smile as if it were on a spring in his face.
After my leg was set, they moved me to a ward. It was nearly morning now. Through the window across from my bed, I could see the sunlight creeping up on the horizon as if it were afraid night would slap it back. Everyone else in the ward, six others who looked like mostly elderly women, seemed to be still asleep. To me, the one nurse in charge, Mrs. Stanton, appeared to be as old and as sickly as the other patients. Her face was so pale and her eyes so watery I thought one of them might have gotten up and put on a nurse’s uniform. She settled me in and told me to try to get some sleep.
“Do you need anything?” she asked.
What a question, I thought. Yes, I need something. I need my mother not to be dead. I need a home. I need to be in school and have food and clothes. I need to remember how to laugh. I saw from the look on her face that if I had said anything like that, she might have been the one to laugh, so I didn’t say anything. I hadn’t said anything to anyone since that woman had told me my mother was dead and in the morgue. All I had done was moan and cry. Mrs. Stanton went off to check on another patient, and I closed my eyes.
I slept on and off. The clatter of dishes and trays woke me when breakfast was served. I looked at it but turned away and didn’t eat or drink anything. The nurse who had replaced Mrs. Stanton shook me to tell me I should try to eat. “And you have to drink something. I don’t want you to get dehydrated,” she said, as if I worked for her. She stood there waiting to see me reach for the glass of juice and then handed it to me. I drank some, and she repeated that I should try to eat. “If you don’t nourish your body, it won’t heal,” she warned. She said it as if it wouldn’t be her fault or any doctor’s. Whatever had happened and would now happen was my fault. It sounded as if she meant it was my fault that I had been born.
A different doctor stopped in to visit the patients in the ward. I heard the nurse complaining about me. He read the chart clipped to the bottom of the bed and then examined my bruises, checked my eyes, and listened to my heart and lungs through his stethoscope. His name tag read “Dr. Morton.” He looked older than Dr. Decker, but something told me he wasn’t. Later, I heard he was interning.
“You’ve had quite a shock to your body,” he told me. He looked at my chart and added, “Sasha. You want to eat and drink so you get stronger, okay?”
He was talking to me in a tone of voice he might use with someone only about five years old. I didn’t reply, and he turned to the nurse and said, “We might need the psychologist to stop by for this one.”
“Is my mother really dead?” I asked when I saw that he was going to move off.
He looked at the nurse.
“Her mother was hit by the same car,” the nurse told him. “She expired at the scene.”
“Oh. Well, what about…” He nodded at me.
“There are no other relatives listed. I’m sure Social Ser-vices has been contacted. Homeless,” she whispered, but not low enough for me to miss.
“Right. You hang in there, Sasha. We’re going to look after you.”
He smiled at me, patted my hand, and moved on to the next patient. The nurse trailed along like an obedient puppy as he went from bed to bed.
Loo