“Doing ok, Dr. Mason. Did you need something? Has something changed with Anna?” I heard my father trying to keep his voice steady. At this point, I wasn’t sure if the tremor came from the fear that something had happened with my mother, or just plain embarrassment of getting caught in the parking lot.
“No, news. Everythin’ seems to be holdin’ steady at the moment.” Dr. Mason looked over in my direction and I quickly dropped my eyes to the floor. I wished my mind possessed magical powers to dissolve my body into the carpet floorboard, but I was no longer the child who believed in fairy dust.
“I saw you leavin’ and thought maybe you’d like to stay in the room with Anna tonight. I think it’d be big enough to pull in a couple of cots.” I looked back up in surprise, but only saw kindness in his expression.
My father glanced at me with a strained face as he tried to hold it together. He asked for my reassurance. I wrinkled my nose and tilted up in defiance. I was so tired of being his strength. Slowly, I nodded back at my father and gripped the pillow tight in my hands. Fine!
“Sure,” my father said with a smile. “I think that would be nice change to stay overnight. Could do Anna some good.”
Dr. Mason walked back to the hospital while we gathered a few items from the back. I looked over the parking lot and took in the reality of the moment. Shame pumped through my body with each beat of my heart. I hated charity. I hated depending on others. I hated being homeless. I hated people knowing we had nothing.
Every fiber of my being wanted to scream as I followed my father back through the sliding doors of the hospital. Each tennis shoe clomp on the tile took us down a path of no return. The stomping made the tight shoes hurt worse. I didn’t care. Until tonight, it has been our secret and now everyone would know.
Since she got sick, a little piece of my life disappeared every day, yet we still survived on our own. Tonight was different. It was the first step into the bottom of the barrel. We needed so much more than just a cot for the night. Dr. Mason had to know this about our life.
I watched one of the hospital staff wedge two small cots between the bed and window. It was a tight fit. Dr. Mason came in with some blankets, pillows, and a few towels.
“You know where the bathroom is with the shower. It’s shared with these six rooms on this wing. You’d be fine takin’ showers in the evenin’s. The patients usually have ‘em in the mornin'.” He looked at my father and nodded a goodbye. My father looked at me.
“Alex. It won’t be like this forever. I promise. We will be ok. It’s just going to take some time.”
His words were meant to comfort me but his eyes begged for reassurance again. Everything about our relationship seemed reversed and twisted. I gritted my fingers into the palms of my hands. I needed composure. When did I stop being the child and become the rock for my father? I nodded in agreement. It completely sucked. At the time I should be getting a bedtime story, I was lying to my father, so he didn’t have another breakdown.
I settled on the cot and focused on the ceiling as I tried to drift off to sleep. I heard the monitors tracking the remaining signs of life coming from my mother. I smelled the hospital. It always had a rotten stench that infested your nose and wouldn’t leave; a mix of bad food, urine, and cleanser intended to wipe away the stench. To me, it was the smell of death.
After tossing around for an hour, I got up to use the rest room. I heard people moaning deathly groans from their beds. I shoved my hands on each side of my head to block out the awful sounds.
I needed something to release this feeling. I would never sleep with this twisted aggravation circling through my thoughts on the brink of eruption. Two crystal glass dishes, the size of my hand, sat on the decorative table by the elevator. I slipped the cold objects under my shirt and snuck to the small balcony at the end of the hall. The sticky air caused sweat to bead up on my forehead. With a large swing, the first glass item hit the pavement below. Smash! The air rushed in my lungs. I could breathe. I launched the second one feeling the anticipation build as I waited for the crashing sound. Smash!
I slipped through the balcony door and drug my aching feet back to the room. The small sliver of release disappeared into the moans of the patients. My heart felt like the inside of dark clouded thunderstorm. Our fate was now in the hands of Dr. Mason. My mother just kept hanging on. Our lives remained stuck in this limbo. It would never get better as long as she continued to drag on and on. I wish she would just let go. I wish she would just die!
I pulled the blanket over my head to block out the awful thoughts and bit my lip until I tasted the salty blood.
Chapter 6
When I was eight…
I peeked through the slit in the curtains that blocked the sunshine from flowing across the hospital room. The start of a new day remained hidden beneath the thick drapes. My father left earlier. I stayed in the room staring at the clouds in the distance. The white puffs filled the sky without a single flying horse. I wondered if God was watching me right now. My father always talked about God watching over us. It was just something I couldn’t understand. I didn’t feel like I was being watched by anyone accept maybe the nurses lurking around the corners.
A knock on the door rattled my attention away from the window. I turned around to see a lady standing in the doorway. She had a stern expression on her face, surrounded by beautiful, blonde hair. My eyes trailed down her tiny figure at the expensive dress suit made of tan silk, accented with a strand of pearls just visible under the collar.
“Hello, you must be Alexandra. I’m Eva Lynn Mason. Is your father here?”
I don’t know if I was more startled by her sudden appearance or the fact she called me Alexandra. I felt self-conscious in my crinkled up shirt and jeans. I often just slept in my clothes and never bothered to change. Sometimes I wore the same thing for days so I didn’t have to wash it out in the sink. I knew I smelled, but it didn’t matter when my home was our car. It smelled too.
“Now, young lady. You really should speak when someone asks you a question. Do you know where your father is? I brought both of you lunch.”
Mesmerized by her strong Texas drawl, I had failed to notice the large container in her hands. I finally spoke up and said, “I’m Alex. He’s not here.”
“Well, Alexandra,” she said with a stressed emphasis, pulling out each syllable. Every word took twice as long when they left her flawless mouth. “I guess I will just have to wait until he returns, and please call me Mrs. Mason.” She turned and sat the container on the table by my sleeping mother who was oblivious to everything.
While I contemplated Dr. Mason’s other half, something in the hallway caught my attention. It was a boy. He leaned against the wall, just staring at the floor as if to say, I would rather be anywhere but here. The boy looked about the same age as me, but it was hard to tell. He was really tall, but so was I. He looked over to where I stood in the doorway.
I froze as he stared at me. The boy had blue eyes outlined with thick, black eyelashes. Blue eyes so bright and clear, like sunshine on a cloudless day. His black hair was a little shaggy and fell across his face almost covering the left eye. His hand went up and smoothed the hair to the side. His face took on a mischievous grin as the hair fell back in place over his blue eye.
“Don’t just stand out in the hallway taking up space. Be useful, Jessup. Go to your father’s office and bring back some plates.”
I watched Mrs. Mason with fascination. I’d never met anyone like her. So elegant, yet she held a commanding presence that ate up the whole room.
“Ok, Mother,” he paused and then looked at me, “You wanna come too? It ain’t very far.”