Nevaeh's Hope

by Thereasa Black

  Junior

  I closed my eyes as the bathroom door opened. The bright light, after I had been in darkness for so long, bothered them. A little light wasn’t going to stop me from getting Jamal back though. I plunged the knife into his side when I heard the floor give from his weight. I was confused when my mom screamed. I didn’t think that she would care about me hurting Jamal. I mean of course she cared about him or she wouldn’t put up with all of his crap, but not enough to scream like that. When I went to grab his side so that I could push the knife in deeper I realized why she yelled out. My eyes were still adjusting but I felt her slender frame in my hands. I let go of her and stepped back as my mom fell to the ground. The knife was still in my hand and I couldn’t speak. I didn’t call for help, I didn’t tell her that I was sorry, I didn’t even try to help her up. My mind was telling me to go to her but my body wasn’t moving. I heard footsteps coming quickly towards us and then I saw Nevaeh standing over her. I could see Nevaeh’s lips moving as she looked at me with disdain, but I couldn’t hear a sound.

  What had I done? Why had the thought of jail never crossed my mind until now? I couldn’t go to jail; I didn’t want to end up like my dad. I didn’t want to leave my family alone. How could I have been so stupid to think that killing Jamal would put an end to our problems? I was going to become my dad. I was named after him. Now I was going to follow in his footsteps, all the way to his real home, prison.

  The next thing that I remember I was sitting in the car. Nevaeh was babbling on about a story. I didn’t need to listen to her, I was right there, I know exactly what happened. I did this to her. Her own son. Her own son.

  Sasha

  Nevaeh came running into my room and told me to hurry up and get into the car. I told her that I had an accident and had to get washed up. She didn’t tell me what was wrong, but, as always, she was angry at me for being this old and still not knowing how to control my body. I jumped up and grabbed some clothes, but as I went to the bathroom, I saw what she was in such a hurry for. My mom was lying on the floor in a puddle of blood while Junior stood over her with something in his hand. I couldn’t really see what it was, I had forgotten my glasses in the room. Nevaeh rushed passed me and went back to my mom instructing Junior to help carry her to the car. I let go of the idea of washing up and just changed as fast as I could.

  When I slid into the backseat Nevaeh told me to push down on my mom’s stomach where the blood was coming from and told Junior to get up front and that he had already done enough. I couldn’t stop shaking as my mom’s blood tinted my shirt copper red. I tried to push down on her side as hard as I could but I didn’t want to hurt her any further. What if she didn’t make it? Would Jamal take care of us from now on? People died on this block every week, was it our turn to feel the pain of loss? I cried uncontrollably from the idea that this could be the last time that I would see my mom alive. I hadn’t even looked into her eyes since last Sunday since we were always gone for school before she woke up during the week.

  I heard Nevaeh say that a mugger had done this and then ran away. She told me to tell the cops that I didn’t know what happened, but I didn’t know what happened. I wouldn’t be lying. All that I knew was that my mom was dying in my lap while her blood decorated the seat. It’s not fair. God is always taking away from us. When will it be our turn to receive a gift?

  Marsha

  I could hear a voice. At first, I thought that God had taken me home. I felt a sense of relief that the pain was finally over and I would no longer have to suffer on this Earth. Then my body lifted from where it laid and came down viciously and I immediately realized that I was in a car. The muffled sounds of a whimper filled my ears as I groaned and attempted to move. I was crippled with pain as the world disappeared around me.

  “Mom! We’re…”

  “How long has she…”

  “… need some blood…”

  “…upstairs now!”

  Nevaeh

  I felt a drum pounding heavily on my chest as we pulled into the emergency room parking lot. Ambulances crowded the front entrance as I came to a violent stop, kissing the back of the last ambulance with my bumper. I jumped out of the driver’s seat as the EMT snarled at me with disgust. “I need help!”

  “I know you need help! When a little girl jumps out of the driver’s seat of a vehicle after slamming into the ass of an ambulance, you know she needs help. Cause she’s about to go to jail for joy riding and damaging a government vehicle,” the man replied with an attitude.

  “No, my mom, she’s in the car. She’s been stabbed!”

  Like a light switch had been flicked, he transformed into a concerned caregiver and ran to the car. I opened the back seat and pointed to my bleeding mother. Junior was frozen in his seat and wouldn’t stop shaking his head. He didn’t break from his trance until someone came with a stretcher. “How long has she been passed out?”

  “Since we left the house about twenty minutes ago,” I answered urgently.

  “No, she woke up while we were driving,” Sasha chimed. I shot her a look, I told her not to say a word.

  “Hurry up, let’s get her moving, I saw her open her eyes as I was speaking,” the EMT ordered his partner.

  I ran beside her as they rolled her into the hospital. The doctors and nurses asked questions like they were the police. I thought that I practiced enough in my head. As I opened my mouth to respond to each question I couldn’t think straight. The words left my mouth and I did not recognize them. What was I saying? I thought that it was all in my head, I thought that I had it down. I was the glue that held this family together and I wasn’t about to start allowing things to fall apart. Junior was just as much my child as he was hers and my baby is not going to jail tonight.

  I was staring at my mother, my hand on the gurney, when a nursed grabbed my arm and asked if I was alright.

  “What’s wrong with you? My mom is bleeding out on a stretcher and you’re asking me if I’m ok?” I was in shock, I couldn’t even hear the words as they came out of my mouth. Everything around me fell silent and I could only see red… or was it black?

  Junior

  I heard my mom make a sound from the back seat. At least she was awake now. The harder Sasha cried the more and more afraid I was to look back there. I didn’t want to face what I had done to her. I couldn’t stop shaking my head. This wasn’t happening. I knew that it wasn’t. If I just stared straight forward and shook my head hard enough, I would wake up. I’d be back in my bed and everything would be fine. Jamal would be gone and my mom would be lying her bed for the first night in a long time without bleeding on her pillow.

  “1, 2, 3 lift.”

  I turned around as guys from the ambulance put my mom on a stretcher. It wasn’t a nightmare, this was happening. I left a blood stain on the handle as I got out of the car and followed everyone inside of the hospital. It seemed like everyone was running, it must be really bad. The nurses blurted out questions and Nevaeh answered each one. I couldn’t really understand her but I was kind of behind her and she was speaking away from me.

  “We’re going to need some blood! Call the blood bank and tell them to get us O positive in the operating room now!” a doctor screamed to the woman behind the desk as she came over to check out my mom. I barely caught a glimpse of my mom’s eyes right before a nurse grabbed Nevaeh’s arm and asked if she was ok. I didn’t understand why she would ask if Nevaeh was fine, she wasn’t the one bleeding on the gurney. What was wrong with these people?

  What was wrong with these people? I was asking the wrong question. What was wrong with me? I stopped as I looked at my hands. They were covered in my mother’s blood. I had done this, I brought us here. How could I?

  As I stared at my hands, I saw Nevaeh hit the ground. My heart stopped, the air left my lungs. “Why are you doing this to us God?” I screamed in my head. But it wasn’t God that had done this, it was me.

  Sasha

  “Mom! We’re at the hospital, it’s gonn
a be ok,” I told her when she gazed up at me. “Nevaeh is getting help now.”

  I didn’t move from the car when they took her inside. Nevaeh had already given me that look so I knew that I was in trouble. Besides, I didn’t want to know, I didn’t want to see what happened from here. I was just going to sit in the car until someone came out and told me that she was going to be fine. Junior and Nevaeh followed everyone inside. I watched as they entered the hospital and all of the nurses and doctors came running towards her.

  What if she wasn’t going to be fine? What if they were all afraid and that’s why they ran to her. What if I didn’t tell her that I loved her one more time before she died? I jumped out of the car, I had to tell her.

  When I got to the door of the ER it opened to me, inviting me in. I couldn’t see where she was now. I didn’t know where they had taken her. I fell to the ground as I slipped on the wet floor. My face hit the ground and I pulled myself up from the blood that painted the tile. It was her blood, I knew that it was. I followed it, I had to find her. She had to know, in case this was the last time that I could tell her. As I got to the end of the hall, I asked the nurse to let me into the locked door. “Please, I’m her daughter. I just want to tell her that I love her.”

  The door buzzed and gave to my weight. A woman stood behind it and tried to catch me before I went any further. I went around her. I saw my mom, I ran to her stretcher as they wheeled her further from me. “We need to get her upstairs now! She needs to go to surgery,” the woman in the white coat commanded.

  I reached the elevator as the doors closed, “I love you mom!” Two hands grabbed my shoulders as I placed my bloodied hand on the closed elevator door and slid to the ground.

  Marsha

  I opened my eyes to a blinding light. “I think she’s awake! Ma’am can you hear me? You had life threatening internal bleeding we have to…”

  Nevaeh

  My head was pounding. As I attempted to blink the pain away, I realized that I was lying down. I can’t believe that it was all a dream. A feeling of relief came over me as my mind wrapped around the fact that my family was safe, for now.

  I rolled over and my face planted itself right into a metal bar. “What the heck,” I said aloud as I looked around the room. Junior was sitting in a chair across from my bed, he came over when he heard me speak. I gazed at him with questioning eyes.

  “You passed out while you were walking beside mom’s gurney. She’s up in surgery, Sasha is waiting outside of the operating room.”

  It wasn’t a dream. Junior’s hands had blood all over them. I told him to wash his hands off in the sink as I got off of the bed.

  I didn’t realize that I was hooked up to an IV and monitors until they ripped from my skin. A nurse came running into the room as blood dripped down my arm. I covered up the fresh hole in my arm and listened to the nurse as she criticized me. “You know you really should be getting more fluids, it’s not just your life that you’re responsible for now.”

  “What?!”

  Why did Junior lie to me? Why would he not tell me that she died? Tears rushed from my eyes while a million thoughts rushed through my mind. Foster care, separation, funeral, murder, court, jail… I fell back to the bed as I shot my eyes at Junior. “Why wouldn’t you tell me that she was dead?” I realized then that he was just as shocked as I was, his body was shaking uncontrollably, he didn’t know.

  Junior

  I could lose my whole family tonight. If my mom dies, we’ll go to foster care. No one is going to take in three kids as old as us. We’ll all be separated. Not that it would matter anyway. Even if we were together, Nevaeh would never speak to me again and once Sasha found out what I did, I’d be completely alone.

  I heard Nevaeh slam her head on something just as that thought left my mind. I went over and got her up to speed on what was going on. It was hard to focus on what I was saying with those stupid machines going off. Right before I made an attempt to silence them myself, a nurse walked in. She was talking to Nevaeh like I wasn’t even in the room, not acknowledging my presence at all. “…it’s not just your life that you’re responsible for now,” she commented.

  What was that supposed to mean? I looked to the ground as understanding came to me. My mom was dead. This was it, there was no turning back. I killed my mother. Me, her baby boy. Sorrow filled my soul as I took deep breathes and rocked back and forth. This can’t be happening. I don’t believe her, Sasha would have come down and told us. Someone would have said something.

  My agony turned to rage as I thought about how this heartless woman just came in here and told us this horrible news so nonchalantly. Like my mom was a dog in the street. She didn’t even have the courtesy of saying that she died, just automatically assumed that we’d understand by her saying that Nevaeh was now responsible for us. How dare she disrespect my mom like that. How dare she disrespect us like that. I moved with conviction towards the nurse as Nevaeh yelled at me. “Why the fuck would you tell us like that?” I screamed at her. “You think that just because we look poor that we don’t have any feelings?”

  Nevaeh grabbed me before I could reach her. “No, no let me go!” I insisted as all of my power left me and I folded into my sister’s arms. “I can’t believe I did this,” I sobbed quietly into Nevaeh’s shoulder. “I can’t believe I did this.”

  Sasha

  They’ve been in there for a long time. Isn’t someone supposed to come out and tell me how the surgery is going? That’s what always happens in the movies. At least that’s what they do when the surgery is going well.

  A chill went up my spine. It was as if I didn’t even know that it was cold in this gloomy hospital until that moment. Or maybe it wasn’t cold in the hospital. Didn’t that guy in The Sixth Sense say that it got cold whenever a dead person was around. Maybe it was my mom’s spirit coming to tell me good bye.

  My imagination ran wild until the door of the operating room swung open.

  Nevaeh

  “Oh no, the babies not dead. It’s just fine. I was just saying that you should be more…” The nurse stopped talking as she processed the look on my face.

  “Baby?”

  Junior

  I paced the hallway outside of Nevaeh’s room while she spoke to the nurse. She claimed that she kicked me out because I tried to strangle the nurse for telling us about our mom like that, but I know the real reason. She didn’t want to look at me. I was now a monster in my sister’s eyes. We live in the slums, we see people killed like once a week, but a stranger’s death doesn’t touch us. Not even the shed blood of a friend would bleed us dry like this. My mom wasn’t the only one that died in that operating room tonight, she took our family with her.

  I stared numbingly down at my hands. They were still covered in my mother’s blood. Ambulance after ambulance pulled up and EMT’s rolled in wounded hood warrior after warrior, victims of the society that they were born into. Gunshot wound, stabbing, hit and run, was I one of them now? Was I one of societies lost children?

  I walked to the emergency room exit and looked back one last time. No one was calling for me to come back. I didn’t hear the echoes of my name being called from my sister’s room, I heard silence. Silence of the unspoken goodbye shared between Nevaeh and I, the silence of my mother’s lungs that would breath no more, and the silence of the organ in my chest that had been ripped out the moment the nurse spoke those dreadful words. A single tear rolled down my cheek as I left the hospital and speed walked by the police vehicle that was sitting beside our car. Soldiers don’t cry I remembered as I wiped the liquid from my face.

  Sasha

  A group a men and women in white coats walked out of the door. They seemed so happy, like they were on top of the world and nothing could touch them. The white coats walked down the hospital hallway away from me, away from her, as if we never existed. My head dropped as I remembered that the bodies of those that don’t make it through surgery are always left in the operating room until someone from the
morgue is free. My cries grew louder as I recalled all of the movies that proved this.

  Suddenly there was a hand on my shoulder. I looked up and saw a woman from the group of doctors that had walked away from me. Some of her dark curly hair escaped from the ponytail that had bound it as she leaned over and asked, “Are you alright?”

  I gazed in wonder at her for a moment. Her light brown eyes blended so beautifully with her mocha colored skin and her smile was so welcoming. I saw a whole new life in her eyes. A life where I was her daughter and I woke up every morning to that loving smile. I could smell the fresh pancakes that were sitting on the counter waiting for me to come downstairs and devour them. I looked around my bedroom and the baby dolls and stuff animals that she and I had picked out together covering my dresser. I heard her singing in the hallway as she walked towards my room, “There’s a land that I heard of, once in a lullaby.” I watched her walk into my room kiss my forehead to say good morning. As our eyes meant again, she opened her mouth and said, “Are you waiting for someone?”

  I snapped out of it. “They told me that my mom was in there,” I whispered as I pointed to the door that she had exited. “Is the surgery over? Is she ok?”

  “I’m sorry, we weren’t told that she came in with anyone. Your mother is fine, but she’s in a lot of pain so we gave her some medicine to make her feel better. She might not act like the person that you’re used to but she is right through here.”