Lulu's Café

by T. I. Lowe

  She settled into her uncomfortable seat as the bus pulled out of the station. The last two things she remembered were profound—relief when the baby started kicking, and Lenny Kravitz’s hypnotic voice crooning from another passenger’s handheld radio. As she listened to Lenny sing about flying away, the lights dimmed and complete darkness took over.

  6

  TIME HAD COMPLETELY FALLEN OFF its track, and Gabriella felt oddly suspended in it. Somehow, she ended up in a hospital in Lincoln, Nebraska, with absolutely no memory of how or when she arrived there. Countless days passed as she lay helplessly in a hospital bed, hooked to an IV and monitors. The only constant she could recall was a dark-haired nurse with a warm smile. She seemed to always be there when Gabriella regained consciousness.

  Resurfacing from another spell of darkness, Gabriella felt the already-familiar small hand holding hers. After a few failed attempts at focusing, she was finally able to hold a steady gaze on the comforting nurse. Gabriella licked her brittle lips and winced. The effort to swallow was agonizing and sent a growing panic throughout her.

  “Here, sweetie,” the nurse said softly as she held a cup with a straw near Gabriella’s mouth.

  Sipping cautiously at first and then greedily sucking the delicious ice water, Gabriella drained the cup completely. The cool liquid soothed her parched throat, and she couldn’t get it down fast enough.

  “Slowly,” the nurse encouraged. “You don’t want to pull too much on the stitches in your lip.”

  After draining another cup offered generously by the nurse, Gabriella lay back on the bed. Reality gradually teased at her consciousness. Her hands moved of their own accord before her foggy brain could comprehend. She grazed her fingers along her deflated belly in confusion. A part of her—the most important part—was absent. And in that moment, her heart plummeted.

  The nurse seemed to know what Gabriella was thinking. “You don’t remember, do you, sweetheart?”

  Wisps of memories gathered around the edges of Gabriella’s brain, but she couldn’t make sense of them. Brent beating her, someone holding her, pain and more pain, someone ripping her baby out of her arms, terror at losing the most precious part of her, pleading for someone to take care of her baby, more pain . . . always, the pain.

  Gabriella’s world abruptly closed in on itself again, the darkness overtaking her. The next glimpse of awareness was of a middle-aged doctor standing by her bed, alongside the nurse. Concern and empathy riddled their features and did nothing to soothe her aching heart.

  Gabriella cleared her throat. Barely able to voice her fears, she mumbled, “My baby.” She didn’t need to form it into a question. She already knew. She felt it was what she deserved. She had failed at her promise.

  “Mrs. Sadler, I’m Dr. Daniels. Your nurse tells me you are starting to remember what happened.” He paused as if unsure how to proceed. “I’m sorry to have to tell you, but your placenta detached and caused a severe hemorrhage. . . . We were barely able to save you. . . . I’m sorry to say . . . the baby didn’t make it.”

  A thick silence stifled the room until sharp gasps of agony escaped from Gabriella. The hurt clamped down on her in a stinging vise.

  The doctor spoke over the gasps, trying to be reassuring, but failing monumentally. “The good news is there is no permanent damage. You’ll be able to have more children with a very low possibility of complication.” He nodded his head, clearly hoping to have delivered some comfort.

  All of the abuse from the past decade, the abandonment issues, failures after failures, and most importantly, the cruel impact of losing her child, slammed into Gabriella in one brutal blow. Years of unacknowledged, unvented pain erupted in a scream that ripped through her body, directed at the doctor. Fresh blood trickled from the newly torn lip wound, causing the doctor to take a step closer, but Gabriella rendered him motionless as she slashed him with her tongue.

  Clutching her throbbing side, Gabriella spit out through gritted teeth, “You act as though losing my baby—my very own flesh and soul—was nothing more than losing an earring that I can simply replace. My. Baby. Is. Not. Replaceable.” Her voice, low and menacing, struck out full of venom.

  “Mrs. Sadler—”

  “Don’t call me that!”

  Gabriella noticed that other staff members had arrived to inquire about the disturbance but were dismissed immediately by the nurse. She offered a small nod to the nurse in appreciation.

  “Gabriella,” the doctor said, his hands raised in surrender.

  She turned on her side, with her back to the doctor. She would not waste one more word on this man. She shut him out completely after his insensitive statement. She hated him in that moment and couldn’t care less that he saved her own life. She hated him for that, too.

  “Gabriella,” Dr. Daniels whispered. “I’m going to let the nurse explain to you about your injuries and take care of your lip.” His defeated voice trailed away as he exited the somber hospital room.

  She refused to acknowledge him as she continued to lie on her side, staring at the mint-colored wall until the nurse filled her vision. She knelt, a sympathetic smile tugging at her lips as she gently pressed a wet cloth to Gabriella’s bloody lip.

  Leaning close, the kind nurse whispered, “You had a beautiful baby girl.” The last word was almost inaudible as the nurse’s emotions overtook her. “And she looked like an angel. I promised you I would take care of her, and I did.”

  The news of the baby being a girl beckoned another wave of intense, violent grief. Gabriella’s body trembled as she cried a sob so forceful no sound could escape her. Pain, both physical and emotional, engulfed her and she welcomed it—wanting nothing more than to drown in it. She had failed at taking care of her baby. She deserved every second of pain she withered in.

  Hours of grief passed before Gabriella calmed enough that the nurse could explain the extent of her injuries. She was told that she had suffered two cracked ribs and a cracked collarbone, all of which were taped up tightly. She’d also received twelve stitches to her bottom lip and nine above her left eye. Her fractured wrist was uncomfortably set in a plaster cast. She had no recollection of those treatments taking place.

  After consoling Gabriella as much as she could, the nurse administered a sedative through an IV. As Gabriella was losing consciousness, she heard a whispered prayer for her healing. She wanted to beg the compassionate woman to pray for her death, but her numb lips couldn’t form the words. For death was the only way Gabriella thought life could ever be acceptable again.

  With the help of a morphine pump and an occasional sedative, another week passed in numbing agony for Gabriella. She refused to communicate to anyone the events that had taken place. She refused to eat. She refused to give the hospital any personal information about herself. She suspected that they had rummaged through her bag and found her ID since they knew her name. When she wasn’t sleeping, Gabriella would just stare off into no particular place. She had erected walls and shut the world out as she let her pain hold her captive.

  When the weekend arrived, Gabriella began to resurface from her haze. Panic replaced the numbness as she realized the danger of staying in one spot for too long. The hospital knew her name and where she had come from. Surely they would soon know that she had abandoned a dead husband.

  Late Sunday night, Gabriella finally mustered enough bravado to leave. The first few attempts to get into a sitting position without any support were a nightmare. It took four tries before she could stop the room from spinning. Sitting on the edge of the bed, she began trying to remove her IV as the door opened.

  “I had a feeling this was coming.” The nurse didn’t reprimand her. Instead, she removed the IV and bandaged the prick site before walking Gabriella to the bathroom to get cleaned up and dressed. Once that was done, she made Gabriella sit in the guest chair and drink several cartons of juice and eat a few crackers.

  “I know you don’t feel like eating, but I can’t let you go if I don’t get anyt
hing in you,” she said, coercing Gabriella when she refused to take the graham crackers.

  After Gabriella successfully ate a few more crackers and drank another carton of juice, the nurse helped her walk a few laps around the room to work out the rubbery feeling in her legs. Gabriella was in a rush to leave, but the nurse wouldn’t have it.

  “Let me do my job so we can get you out of here, okay?” The nurse brushed out Gabriella’s knotted hair before pulling it up under a cap.

  For the next two hours, the nurse came in and out, helping Gabriella with preparations for leaving. Finally, at one in the morning, she ushered Gabriella out the back hospital entrance. As they waited for the cab to arrive, the nurse pulled two prescription bottles out of her coat pocket.

  “I had Dr. Daniels prescribe these for you, and the hospital pharmacy filled them,” she said as she handed them over to Gabriella. “One is Percocet. It’s for pain. Just follow the directions for dosage and time. The other is an antibiotic. You are to start taking it immediately at the first sign of any fever. With so many wounds and with you traveling, your risk for infection is going to be quite high. It’s very important for you to remember this, okay?”

  Tears escaped from the corners of Gabriella’s eyes as she nodded. She thanked the nurse and was surprised when the nurse offered up a tender hug. This woman had been so compassionate that it almost overwhelmed Gabriella. The cabdriver pulled up, and the nurse helped him load the bags into the trunk and Gabriella into the backseat.

  “Remember what I said about the medicines. And I took care of everything, just as I promised you. She will always be taken care of.” The nurse smiled sadly at Gabriella and gave her hand a parting squeeze before closing the cab’s door.

  Gabriella quietly cried as the cab took her to yet another bus station. Her only choice was to disappear, so she decided to keep heading east for the time being. The sympathetic cabdriver stayed with Gabriella, helping her with her luggage, until she successfully boarded her designated bus headed to Tennessee.

  The bus ride was another numb haze for Gabriella. She only took half of a Percocet, trying to keep some wits about her. She was hurting too badly not to take anything. She tried to sleep but only managed a restless doze. The bus rocked too much and the engine was too loud.

  As the day emerged and stretched on, Gabriella thought of the caring nurse and tried without luck to recall her name. This woman had gone above and beyond for Gabriella during the nightmarish past weeks, and she was dumbfounded that she couldn’t remember her name. She thought she could almost make out the typing on the nurse’s name tag. Was it Kelly? No. Her name was Carrie. No, it was Terrie. No . . . Gabriella played the name-the-nurse game almost all the way to Tennessee, giving herself a nasty headache. It was driving her mad not being able to remember it.

  Focus, Leah. In that moment, she decided to leave Gabriella Sadler back in Nebraska, and Leah Allen would be starting her new life today. As she sat in the uncomfortable seat trying to form a plan, she absentmindedly scratched at her eye, wincing when she snagged a stitch. She knew the itching was a sign of healing, but it was about to drive her mad. Her bottom lip pricked into her upper one when she tried to deepen her frown. She attempted to let out a sigh from the aggravation of not being able to successfully frown at her misery. Her tender side pinched in pain with the huff. Anxiety caused her hands to tremble, and the fear of falling completely apart on the cramped bus worried her.

  Before the panic overwhelmed her too much, Leah gathered her purse and slid into the small bathroom on the bus.

  Focus, Leah. Pull it together. She retrieved a moist towelette from the little bag the nurse had filled with pads, lip ointment, and other supplies she said Leah would need. “What is your name?” she whispered to the absent nurse as she unwrapped the towelette and gently wiped it over her face. She then applied some ointment to her mangled lip, realizing it would probably never look right again. But then again, nothing would ever be just right again.

  While she was replacing the bag in her purse, her phone caught her eye. She fished it out, dropped it into the toilet, and flushed. She pulled off her wedding rings and did the same with them. She then pulled out all of her identification cards, along with a clean pad. She unwrapped the pad, placed her driver’s license, credit card, and library card inside, and rewrapped it before tossing it into the waste receptacle. With all that done, she made her way back to her seat. She felt productive and calm. From the back of her wallet, Leah pulled her old expired driver’s license from Nevada and placed it in the designated license spot. She studied the picture of the naive young girl, and she cringed at her distorted reflection in the bus window. Leah looked back down at the photo of her old self and whispered, “I lost you.”

  Leah shook off her despair the best she could and focused on getting her red hair back under the ball cap, which was no easy task with her arm in a cast. She decided that her first priority would be to find a salon that could get rid of her red hair. She knew she should do it herself, but that would be nearly impossible with all of her injuries.

  As Leah exited the bus in the mountains of Chattanooga, Tennessee, she spotted a hair salon in a strip mall right beside the bus station. She gathered her luggage and made her way over to it, only to be disappointed. The salon was filled with only black women. As she turned to leave, someone called out to her.

  “Whatcha need, honey?”

  Leah slowly turned around to find the entire salon staring at her. She knew she looked hideous and very white.

  “Umm . . . I need a haircut and color, but . . .”

  “Well, sit your white butt down in that empty chair and we’ll get started.”

  Leah turned once more and found a woman nearly a foot shorter than her, with intricately braided hair, speaking to her.

  “Umm . . . can you do my kind of hair?”

  “Sure. Why not?” The cute lady laughed as she tied her apron on.

  Leah placed her belongings by the lady’s workstation and eased down into the salon chair. She winced a bit when her tender side brushed against the chair’s armrest. The beautician carefully pulled the cap off of Leah’s head.

  “Ouch!” she snapped, as though the full sight of Leah’s face caused her pain. “Honey, you got any, umm, boo-boos on your scalp?” she asked as she gently looked Leah’s head over.

  Leah felt her cheeks grow warm. “No.”

  “Don’t you worry ’bout a thang, honey. Good ole Gina gonna hook you right up.”

  “Okay.”

  And Gina held to her promise too. She expertly cut away about seven inches of red hair, making it shoulder length. She also matched the rest of Leah’s hair precisely to her blonde roots. The beautician took great care in being gentle with Leah when she rinsed out the color. She then added some curl serum and dried Leah’s hair with a diffuser. The natural blonde curls felt so heavenly that Leah purchased a bottle of the curl serum when she paid her bill. She was surprised when the bill only came to forty-eight dollars. The same services would have cost at least two hundred dollars at her fancy salon back in Washington. Leah was so grateful that she tipped the beautician a hundred dollars.

  Gina called a cab and, in the fading light of day, sat on a bench outside the salon with Leah as she waited. Leah reluctantly put the cap back on her head to conceal some of the carnage of her face. She sat quietly, waiting, sensing the beautician wanted to say something.

  As a white minivan taxi pulled up, Gina lightly placed her hand on Leah’s arm before she could stand. “Honey, you don’t need to be lettin’ no good-for-nothin’ man beat on you like that ever again.”

  Leah lifted her head to meet Gina’s eyes. “I promise. Thank you for taking such good care of me this afternoon.” She tried to give the sweet woman a reassuring smile, but her split lip and swollen eye protested. Humph, I can’t frown or smile. How peculiar.

  Leah boarded the taxicab and asked the driver to take her to the nearest nice hotel. She so badly needed a shower and bed.
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  After paying a sympathetic hotel clerk in cash and signing in under the name Gina Honey, Leah managed to get into her well-appointed suite before completely falling apart. Sobbing, she pulled out some clean clothes from her suitcase and made her way to the bathroom. She set the water to scalding. While she waited for it to heat up, Leah peeled her clothes away and was taken aback by the sickly, rank odor that came from her body. It had been almost a week since she had sufficiently washed. She glanced in the mirror at her broken body as she fumbled to wrap an unused plastic ice-bucket liner around her cast.

  She stayed in the shower for forty minutes, trying to scrub away the dried blood that seemed to be hiding everywhere. She felt so revolting that she thought she might need a gallon of bleach to get the nastiness off. She washed, rinsed, and repeated until the pink water finally became clear. After dressing and scrubbing her teeth, Leah washed down two pain pills with a couple of glasses of water. She then climbed into bed and waited for the medicine to take effect. Every part of her body throbbed, especially her heart.

  After holding it together for the last few days, Leah finally let the walls back down and allowed the grief to overtake her. For all she had endured in the past ten years, the baby had made it all worth it. Her own flesh and blood. Something she knew nothing about but wanted so badly.

  And yet, Leah lay there in a hopeless heap, with no understanding and no escaping the debilitating pain of her broken heart. Her baby was dead, and she took full blame.

  “Please, God,” she cried out. “Please help me.” She lay in the darkness, sobbing. “I’m so lost. Please help me.” She desperately tried to remember some of the Bible verses she had recently memorized. Her mind could only recall part of Jeremiah 17:14, so she began to pray the partial verse. “‘Heal me, Lord, and I will be healed; save me and I will be saved.’” Leah repeated her prayer until the pain medicine finally took her under.