“Ow … ow … ow,” I cried out as the pain shot up my side and my stomach flip-flopped inside me.
“Okay, okay,” Delia said and swallowed hard. I stood up and took a step, but the pain brought me down to my knees.
“Nurse!” the doctor yelled out. His voice did not carry concern but annoyance. “Nurse!” he yelled again and scratched the bald space on top of his head. “Get this girl a wheelchair.”
A woman in white appeared beside me. “Excuse me,” she said, stepping around my mother and grabbing me under my arms.
I screamed out as she settled my body into the worn leather of the chair. Hy-Lo rushed to me; the fear was working overtime on his face, his bottom lip hung nearly down to his chin, and his eyes were open wide, blinking back the artificial brightness of the fluorescent light above our heads.
“You remember what I told you?” His whisper was a tremor of words and I knew the fear had hold of his vocal chords too. I didn’t drop my eyes in an obedient gesture or nod my head in agreement. Instead I held his eyes with mine until the nurse wheeled me into the examining room. I was in control now; his fate rested in the hairline fracture of my rib and the soft tissue of my tongue.
The doctor probed and prodded me and then sent me for X-rays. In between Dr. Katz asked questions, questions that made my mother bite at her already ragged fingernails. “So—” The doctor looked at his clipboard, flipped through two sheets of paper, and then said my name. He said it slowly with the uncertainty of a man from the Midwest unused to names with African origins. “Kenzie, how did you manage to hurt yourself?” There was no suspicion in his voice. His question was a required one as stated by the Board of Certified Physicians. He probably asked the same question over a hundred times during that shift alone.
I shot a look at Delia. I caught the spite that flickered in her eyes. She couldn’t take a stand. Not yet anyway. The right response would be her first step forward and away from Hy-Lo. She held her breath and waited for me to answer. Waited for me to help her climb out. Her eyes urged me to tell the truth.
“I, uh …” I began, the words climbing up the inside of my throat. Tired words that once out would allow me to be a child again. They moved too slowly and stopped often to rest. I blinked at the white curtain that surrounded and separated me from the moans, coughs, and sneezes of the others. My back was to Hy-Lo and I heard him shift behind me. Perhaps he was adjusting his jacket or just scratching the short hairs that had popped up on his chin during the few hours we had been there. But I knew his movement was a warning, a reminder of the lie he wanted me to tell.
“When they ask you what happened, you tell them you slipped in the bathroom. The floor was wet. You tell them that!” he yelled out above my screams of pain as I lay across the backseat of his green Oldsmobile.
“I slipped on the wet floor in the bathroom.” I said it, I told the lie he had made up for me and the tired truth rolled back down my throat. Delia almost crumbled and the dim light in her eyes went out.
The doctor nodded his head and wrote something down. “I got two kids and …” he started to say, but the rest of his words escaped me, lost in the the folds of the curtain that surrounded us.
Things were quiet in the apartment for days after my accident. There was no bickering, fighting, or the sounds of a bottle being opened, none except soda bottles and the grape juice I loved. That afternoon after we came home from the hospital and picked Malcolm up from Grandma Gwenyth’s place, I lay in my bed, my ear pressed to the wall listening to Hy-Lo promise Delia he would never drink again. He said “sorry” more times than I care to remember. And then I cringed because I thought I heard a whimper and it was not the one I was familiar with; it was not Delia’s.
Hy-Lo was lying, of course. This was his way of redeeming himself and gaining forgiveness from Delia. He hadn’t forgotten the look in her eyes from that night.
Delia did not accept his apology; but the fact that she did not hustle Malcolm and me out of the apartment and straight to the warm comfort of Mable’s home must have told Hy-Lo she had forgiven him. He threw in his promise for good measure like the cement around the base of a flagpole. Just in case.
That lie rolled so effortlessly from his mouth that even I believed him. He never apologized to me or promised me anything; maybe he thought his words to Delia were good enough for both of us.
Hy-Lo did his best to avoid me. It was as if we had switched places. He would step out of my way and excuse himself if he needed to pass near me at one of the tight corners in the apartment. He kept the shelves stocked with lime Jell-O and canned peaches, my favorite foods. And he did not harass Malcolm or call him those names that hurt his young manhood and fertilized the hate he had growing inside him.
The change was stressful; it hung around us, thick as an early autumn fog. You could cut it with your index finger and serve it up as pie. We moved around each other as if walking on broken glass, insipid smiles on our lips and cautious glimmers in our eyes. Even though our life now was uncomfortable, we hoped it wouldn’t change, but then hope had never been something we counted on.
For a week the brown paper bag that was a usual fixture beneath Hy-Lo’s arm did not accompany him through the door every morning. For a week he drank Pepsi by the liter and smoked so much that a thick haze filled the apartment and clung to the ceiling like an awning.
“How ya doing, kid?” he inquired on my third day of convalescence. His tone was light and carefree. He spoke to me as if visiting a friend in the hospital; he spoke as if he had nothing to do with my being in a brace and in pain.
His words took me by surprise and I responded: “Fine.” I gazed at him over my
Teen Beat
magazine.
“Good, good,” he said and smiled.
I saw that his face had lost the immutable crimson color and that his cheeks had deflated a bit. His eyes were cloudless and his words came out like crystals, clear and clean.
“Lemme know if you need something.” He threw those words over his shoulder as easily as a father tosses a ball to his son just learning to catch.
“Who was that man?” I asked the room aloud.
On the eighth day he came home later than usual, almost twelve noon, and I was reading another stolen erotic story. Jackie Collins had me riveted. I was moist and breathless all at once. I heard the front door open and close but that did not distract me. There was a new man living in my house and sleeping with my mother. He did not raise his voice or his hand and he did not walk into my room unannounced or uninvited. I read on.
It was the silence that followed the closing of the front door. The utter stillness of the apartment, the familiar quiet that always followed the storm. I closed the book and slipped it under my pillow. I pulled the covers up under my chin and shut my eyes. My body began to shake and my mouth went dry. A long while passed before I heard the water glass clink softly down into the porcelain kitchen sink. He was done. How had I missed the sound of the bottle’s top?
Hy-Lo crept into my room on the balls of his feet; I could hear the floorboards squeaking beneath him. I tried not to flinch and then he was standing over me and the air was sucked from around me.
The aroma of alcohol covered me like a wool blanket, my skin began to itch, and I wanted to open my mouth and gulp for air. Instead I lay as still as a rock and waited.
He began to hum to himself, some odd tune he’d hum whenever the mood hit him. It was a mocking tune that I’d hated the first time I heard it. He had hummed it when he ordered me to get the belt from his drawer, to pull my pants down and bend over. “Don’t you scream, don’t you dare,” he had said between notes, and then brought the leather strap down across my behind. I was six years old and had broken a water glass.
He hummed and walked over to the shade and pulled it down, blocking out the sunlight, and then he closed the curtains, pulling my room into total darkness. I kept my breathing steady even though my heart was going wild inside my chest.
He came and stood over me again, hummed once more, and then left. We had switched back.
I
didn’t know how many days I’d been coming here. Maybe three. Maybe eight. I didn’t know for sure. The days melded into each other and the hours disappeared altogether. But I realized as I walked down the street away from the hospital and toward the bus stop that the cold was deeper than the first few days, so deep that it reminded me of the blue ice packs that sat next to the frozen meats and bagged vegetables in our freezer on Rogers Avenue. The ice packs that Delia placed over the swells on her face, arms, and legs after he beat her.
I realized that time had escaped me and Thanksgiving had come and gone without my even noticing it. And now the windows of the apartments in the projects and some homes a block away were filled with flashing red and green lights, and some front doors had gaudy Christmas wreaths and cracked plastic signs with faded Santas that said
Happy
Holidays
and
Merry Christmas
.
I couldn’t even remember how we spent Thanksgiving Day or what we ate. I didn’t even remember if I came to the hospital on that day. I knew that Mable didn’t call, or maybe she tried and the computer voice told her that the number had been temporarily disconnected and no further information was available. The phone was turned back on now.
She used to call all the time, but she was old now and tired from trying to scream and cuss some sense into Delia, and plus she was still hurting about Malcolm, and Sam’s mind was going so she had to remember to keep the doors locked and the windows closed or he’d wander off down the dirt road that sat in front of their house in Poke County, Georgia. Down home.
So she called only on the holidays and sometimes on the odd Sunday. “There’s room here if you wanna come on down,” she always reiterated before saying she loved us both and hanging up the phone. She had a double-wide trailer with four bedrooms and two living rooms. A big front yard and even bigger backyard. There were pecan trees and watermelon patches skirting the property. Plenty of country space, good country living, and best of all, no Hy-Lo.
But moving to Georgia would be like moving to the other side of the world for me, and so I wouldn’t go unless Delia would, and she wouldn’t go and wouldn’t say why exactly. So here we remained.
I approached the hospital and saw that two large wreaths had been hung on the glass doors of the hospital entranceway and behind those doors a brightly decorated tree was now sitting in the center of the lobby. I walked in and there was Christmas music being played over the intercom system but the lyrics were constantly interrupted by announcements.
The hospital gift shop was bustling with people as visitors snatched up premade holiday baskets, potted poinsettias, and plush stuffed reindeer dolls.
I walked through the double glass door and tried to go straight to the Visitors Information window. I tried and failed and found myself standing on line in the gift shop behind two elderly people and their granddaughter.
“Cash or charge?” the pimple-faced cashier asked when I stepped up to the counter.
“Cash,” I responded, looking down at the glass ball with the floating snow and smiling St. Nick. I didn’t even remember picking it up but I stuck my hand into the pocket of my coat anyway. My fingers moved across bus fare and an old Certs mint.
“Sixteen twenty-four,” he said without looking at me as he started to pick at a pimple that was pushing through above his eyebrow.
I jiggled the change and then dug deep into the other pocket. There was nothing there, just a wide hole and the air that pushed through it.
The pimple was picked and was now an angry red dot on his face. “Sixteen twenty-four,” the cashier said again. His voice was impatient and I couldn’t tell if it was because I had no money and was holding up the line or because his hands roamed his face and could not find another plump subject to burst.
“Yes, one moment,” I said as I unbuttoned my coat and dug my hands into the pockets of my jeans. Annoyed whispers floated from behind me just as my fingers curled around a piece of something in my pocket.
I pulled it out and saw that it was a five-dollar bill. The cashier’s eyebrows raised and his mouth twisted. “Sixteen—” he started to say again.
“I know,” I said cutting him off. I dug into the other pocket and pulled out a dollar. “Look, I left my money at home or something. I’ll just take a … um …” My eyes traveled over the stuffed plush toys and plastic candy canes and then settled on the poinsettia. “That,” I said and pointed to the large leafy red and green plant on the shelf behind him.
He rolled his eyes at me and ran his hands through his slicked-back hair. “Nine ninety-nine,” he said. “Plus tax,” he added and cocked his head to one side.
“Oh,” I replied and looked down at the crumpled fiveand one-dollar bills I’d thrown onto the counter.
More annoyed whispers, clucking tongues, and the sound of merchandise being shifted from one hand to the other. I was so embarrassed; too embarrassed to pick up my money and walk out, so I just stood there with my head down and tried to keep my tears inside.
“Here you go.” The voice came from beside me. I saw a ten-dollar bill hit the counter. The hand was small, brown, and delicate. It picked up the one-dollar bill and placed it on top of the ten. “Here,” the voice said again and then the hand pushed the five-dollar bill back toward me.
I raised my head and turned my face to look into the eyes of Nurse D. Green. “I—” I started to say, but she put her hand up and slowly shook her head.
“It’s okay,” she said and smiled.
The cashier sighed in disgust. He snatched the poinsettia off the shelf and was about to slam it down on the counter, but then he caught the look in Nurse D. Green’s eyes and thought better of it.
“Thank you,” I said as I picked up the change and the plant, and then I turned to thank Nurse D. Green, but she was gone.
The poinsettia looked out of place on the hospital nightstand. More than out of place, unhappy. It had lost its vividness and its leaves drooped as soon as we entered the room.