Tom. Do not get me started on Tom. I like to call Tom a nerd because he likes to work with numbers. I could not tell you what he does for a job. He always says he wants to go to New York and work. He wants to make lots of money working with numbers. I hate numbers. Every time I have an issue with math, Momma calls Wendy and then hands me the phone and I have to explain it to Tom. It was worse when he was over. He would make me show him all my work by breaking down the problem. I do not like numbers.
Tom nodded his head at Wendy like it was some secret code they had. I hated stuff like this. I know I’m only twelve and that makes me still a child, but I think I need to know about Momma. Wendy looks back at me, then runs her hands under her eyes and I hear her take in a deep breath.
“Cara, we have to wait until your Mom is in a room. Where we can see her. Right now the doctors are trying to figure out what is wrong with her. They say that she still has not woken up.” Her voice cracks when she speaks and I can see she is trying hard not to cry.
An hour passes before we see the doctor again. They say something about her having pneumonia. They also mention something about her being in a coma. I don’t get it, not that I don’t know what a coma is, but she just went to sleep and didn’t wake up.
Thirty more minutes pass before a nurse comes to take us to see Momma. She is in her own room and it’s scary when we walk in because they have Momma hooked up to a bunch of noisy machines. There is even a needle in her arm attached to a plastic bag hanging from a pole. I hear the nurse say something to Wendy.
“I can go get that information for you. We left in a hurry so I don’t have that with us, but I know where she keeps the information. Is that okay? I won’t be gone longer than twenty minutes.” Tom speaks and I turn to see a new lady standing in Momma’s room.
I decide I should walk closer to Momma. I grab a chair and pull it next to her bed. The room is cold and before I sit down I grab the blanket in the corner and cover her. She still feels warm when I kiss her cheek. I cannot help my tear that falls onto her face and I quickly wipe it away.
I cannot help the feelings surrounding my heart. Someone seems to have grabbed my heart and is squeezing it. As I sit down in my chair next to Momma I grab her hand and start to cry. I don’t remember the nurse or whoever bringing me a warm blanket and carefully wrapping it around me. I cannot even remember how long it took for me to run out of tears. All I can say is that Momma did not wake up.
I hear Wendy and Tom talking to people who come and go out of the room. I don’t ever see the people coming and going, they’re like a moving blur. I cannot remember how long I sat there staring off into nothing holding Mommas hand.
I can definitely remember hearing when they told us we needed to go.
“No…I’m staying here with Momma. I want to be here when she wakes up. I don’t want to go anywhere but here,” I cry to Wendy and Tom. For the first time in my life I defy an adult. Momma always taught me to respect those that are my elders and this time I don’t care what they have to say. I don’t care if they are right. I am not leaving her.
Wendy looks from me to Tom and whispers something in his ear. She tries to smile at me. I can tell it’s a sad smile.
“Okay Cara, why don’t Tom and I get something to eat, and you can stay? I’ll bring something back and you can stay here.” She again tries to smile at me. I think she is trying her best to comfort me knowing I don’t want her to because it’s not possible to do right now.
“Okay, and thank you Wendy. I just can’t leave. For food, I’m not really hungry, but I will try to eat whatever you bring back.” I try to be polite. That’s what Momma taught me. If you’re nice and polite, people will be nice and polite back. Wendy smiles and grabs Tom’s hand as they walk out of the room.
I don’t know how long I was left alone in the hospital room. I know people came in to check on her. Someone came in and wrapped a new warm blanket around me. This time I think it was a male nurse because I briefly caught him out of the corner of my eye placing a juice box and pudding on the stand near Momma’s bed. I have not touched the treats left for me. I know I’ve been alone for what seems like a long time when I hear someone say something to me.
“Hi, can I sit with you?” I look up to see the male nurse. I know I’m not supposed to talk to strangers so I say nothing to him. “The nurse before me told me that you have not left your mother’s side. I need to have another nurse come in and take some blood from your mother. Can I move your chair a little bit so she can do that?” I look up at him and nod yes. I decide this is probably the best time to go use the bathroom that is connected to the room.
When I finish in the bathroom and open the door, there is an extra chair in the room and another pudding cup. The one he brought before was vanilla. I like vanilla as my yogurt or ice cream, but not as pudding. I know it must look odd that I’m just standing there looking at him without saying anything. My feet somehow decide to move all on their own and I walk over to my empty chair.
When I sit down I notice the blanket’s that were there before and had gone cold are gone and a warm one has taken their place. How long was I in the bathroom? It did not feel like I was gone long, but today has been extremely confusing and just gone by so quickly. When we got here it was sunny and now it’s getting dark outside.
The male nurse looks up at me with his soft green eyes. I don’t know why I noticed his eyes. They look friendly, but what do I know. “By the way my name is Danny. I noticed you probably don’t like vanilla so I got you a chocolate pudding. The nurse should not be long taking care of your mother.” He smiles at me and I take the chocolate pudding cup that he holds out to me.
“Cara…my name is Cara. Is Momma going to be okay?” I begin to cry out of frustration and worry as I fight to open the pudding cup. I’m twelve and should be able to open this, but for some reason I cannot see what I am doing. I don’t hear Danny get up from his seat. I can hardly remember him softly removing my hands to stop me.
“Cara,” he says softly “We are trying our best to take care of your Momma, okay? Here, let me help you.” He opens the pudding cup and hands it back to me. I nod my head to say thank you and we sit there quietly. I cry the entire time I eat. I can’t help it. I have this feeling deep inside my chest that I don’t like. I’m scared Momma’s not okay.
After the other nurse came in and took a lot of blood from Momma, my tears dried up again. Danny told me that he had to get back to work, but if I wanted another pudding cup to find him. I thanked him for the treat, and then Wendy walked into the room with food. I tried to eat the food she brought me, but I just couldn’t stomach it. I knew I should be hungry, but my mind was telling me I wasn’t.
I finally give up trying to eat the food Wendy brought back for me. Pushing it aside, I moved my chair right back to where I was before. I took her hand in mine and laid my head on the bed next to her and remember crying some more. I don’t remember crying myself to sleep. I don’t know how long I slept for, but I woke to the machines going off.
I heard lots of noise as the machines went off and remember Momma’s hand wasn’t as warm as when I had sat down earlier. Wendy pulled me away from the bedside quickly and out of the room as a bunch of doctors and nurses ran in yelling something, “Code Blue!”
Wendy tried to hold me back and I screamed at her. I wanted to be with Momma, I wanted to see. Once we were out of the room, someone closed a curtain blocking the only window and I couldn’t see what they were doing inside. I remember just screaming and fighting with Wendy. Yelling at her to let me see what was happening to Momma. It all happened fast and Wendy let go of me.
I ran into the room and the machines had all stopped making noise. I remember seeing a woman with those flat things in her hands. I cannot remember what the doctor said as he noticed I was standing there. I do remember Danny grabbing me and taking me from the room and dropping to his knees to hug me. I heard Wendy scream for the first time.
“Cara, we tried everything we coul
d,” I could see his eyes fill with tears as he held me in front of him telling me this. I don’t understand. No. This cannot be happening. “Cara you can’t go in there. You do not need to see your mother like this. You don’t need to remember your mother like this.”
Time stops as I get what he is saying. I look at Danny with tears in my eyes. I feel it, not a normal feeling, but I feel it. Whoever or whatever was squeezing my heart took it that day. My heart was taken from me and now it was broken. No, my heart was more than broken. It had been shattered like it was made of glass.
“No!” I screamed at the top of my lungs.
I cannot remember what happened next. Wendy told me I passed out.
All I do remember is Momma went to sleep and I could not wake her up. No one was able to wake Momma up.
Danny told me the next day that God made my Momma an angel in her sleep and that she went to heaven to watch over me.
CHAPTER THREE
Time continued to stand still when Wendy and Tom took me home.
I thought for a moment that we were going to my house, but we didn’t. Tom drove us to their home. When we pulled up into their driveway all I could think about was Momma. What was going to happen to Momma? What was going to happen to me?
Thoughts of screaming at someone, anyone, sounded better than the way I was feeling. How could Momma be gone? The doctors should have been able to help her. She really wasn’t that sick.
Sometimes not knowing all the facts makes what really happened seem far worse than it really was.
Momma had been sick for some time. That and other pieces of information I would learn over the next five years would help me understand. I would be told that Momma got sick the spring I turned twelve. She was tired all the time, something she tried very hard not to show me. Being tired had also made her weaker. This put the pieces of why Wendy and Tom had spent more time at our house. Momma never told me about going to all the doctors. She was smart, making sure that she went to see her doctors while I was at school and she always made sure nothing took longer than school time. That would explain the many days I would get messages in my last class telling me not to walk home from school, that she was there to pick me up.
Tom was the first to go inside the house. I was walking slowly behind Wendy because I didn’t want to be here. I wanted to go home. I had nothing of mine in their house. I was still wearing the same clothes from the day before and don’t get me started on what my long, curly hair looked like.
“Wendy?” My voice cracked as I spoke. I knew I could not cry anymore. If I did they might take me back to the hospital. When we left, Nurse Danny made sure a doctor saw me. They gave some papers to Wendy and Tom, prescriptions to help me. I tried to listen to what the doctor was giving them.
Wendy told them after I freaked out (which I don’t remember that part) about my anxiety. I don’t like that word, anxiety, but Momma did try to get me some help for it. We just slowly worked on it when I had an attack. Wendy was given prescriptions to help me sleep if needed, and another one for anxiety.
Wendy just looked at me with unshed tears. “Yes, Cara.” It was obvious that she didn’t want to talk to me. I don’t think it was because she didn’t want to talk to me, but she didn’t know what to say. She just loved Momma, they were best friends.
“I want to go home and I need my stuff. Wendy…” I started to cry because I wanted Momma, but I knew she was gone. “What’s going to happen to me?” Wendy walked over to me and for the first time pulled me into her arms and hugged me. I just sobbed into her shoulder. My body was shaking as I broke down.
“We will figure that out. Okay, Cara? You’re here with us and that’s all that matters. Tom has to make some calls. You and I can get some of your things from your house, but Cara you will have to come back here.” I just nodded. I understood that we could not stay at my house. I didn’t want to be there without Momma anyways.
After about thirty minutes, we drove over to my house. Luckily, Wendy had a key to let us in. The silence of the house was just creepy. This house was only silent when we were asleep. Momma loved to play music and I did too. We would turn the music up and dance or sometimes we just had the radio on as we cleaned the house. Cleaning and listening to music was fun and time we spent together.
I looked at Wendy as my vision blurred, the unshed tears clouding my eyes. I knew if I blinked they would be let free to burn down my cheeks and I blinked anyways. It was better if I just let them fall. I let out a breath. Wendy started to speak to me. She told me that Tom and she would take care of the house. Right now, all I needed to do was grab anything I wanted and needed.
I headed straight to Momma’s room first and as I pushed the door open, I looked around wondering what I wanted right now. I took her favorite shirt and the pink nightgown Momma would let me borrow. I noticed her silver opal ring next to her bed that fit my pointer finger on my right hand. I made a promise to her, hoping she might hear me, that I would never take the ring off after placing it on my finger.
It felt like she was still here, when I was in her room.
I grabbed a few other items that I wanted and placed them in a bag. The sigh I heard made me jump and I turned to see Wendy.
“Cara, we can come back and go through everything. We’ll save anything you want even if I have to keep them safe somewhere for you. I will not let you lose what is important.” More tears fell. I think that was the first kind words I heard from Wendy.
I tried to smile at her, but with tears falling down my face I couldn’t even force a smile. I just handed her the small bag and left the room. Next was my room. I grabbed my big bag from my closet. I packed clothes, my stuffed bunny, and grabbed my music and books. I even reached under my bed for my special box where I kept all my journals.
Once I had packed everything that was important, I walked into the bathroom and gathered my things from there. I looked in the mirror at myself. The girl looking back at me scared me. My hair was an unruly mess. I carefully pulled out my ponytail and tried to pretty my hair. Then I looked at my face. My eyes were swollen and puffy. No longer did my big blues eyes have the bright color Momma would talk to me about. They seemed to have grayed and the white parts were now pink and red.
It was scary how my cheeks where puffy. I could see tear stains trailing down my face. I took a minute to splash some water on my face. Momma would be mad at me for looking like this. Then again Momma was no longer here to be mad at me. And she would never be mad at me, not really. She would tell me that I had nothing to cry over and that there were more ways to be happy in the world than to be sad.
I remember her once telling me that if you cry, they should always be happy tears. We do not cry over the people we love. If she only knew how much it hurt to lose the only person I loved. And she was the only person who had ever loved me back.
I grabbed a few more things and headed to find Wendy. She was holding an envelope. I never asked her what was in it, the envelope was not important to me. If only I had asked, because later I would find out that what she was holding in that envelope was my entire life.
We drove back to Wendy’s house. The house was nice, not like my house, but nice. Tom came outside and gathered my things from the car. They told me that I was sleeping in the spare room; it was okay and I would have to make do if that was all I had. I liked my room at my home. We painted it pink and purple and Momma put stars on the ceiling. I had the perfect room.
We didn’t talk the rest of the evening.
I got cleaned up and fixed my hair. Well, I tried to fix my hair. Momma didn’t like to cut my hair so it fell almost to my butt and it was thick and curly. She did have the lady thin my hair a little to keep it from tangling badly. I had a routine for my hair, using a special conditioner because shampoo made me get big knots. Momma would use coconut oil to help with the frizz.
I walked down the hall to find Wendy. She was talking to Tom about winter. I think the season winter or someone named Winter. When they saw me the co
nversation stopped. Tom told Wendy that he would pick up dinner and kissed her on the cheek. He walked over to me and patted my shoulder.
“Wendy, I need help with my hair.” I showed her the container of coconut oil and the special pick for my hair. She smiled at me and walked over to the couch. She patted the spot in front of her and I sat down.
We talked a little and she braided my hair into a French braid. Momma always asked Wendy to French braid my hair. She would tell me I looked like a princess. I will always be her princess.
I don’t remember the events that happened over the next few days. Wendy had gone to the school to get my homework from my teachers. They said as long as I finished the work and was getting good grades, my absence would be okay.
Sometimes I was left alone with Wendy and sometimes with Tom. I tried not to listen to them talk about Momma’s funeral that they were planning for the following Saturday. I remember Wendy asking for Momma’s favorite song that was only ours. I told her it was Marvin Gay’s song, ‘Ain’t No Mountain High Enough’. Momma loved playing that song over and over as we danced in the living room.
I never asked about the funeral or who was paying for it. Tom told me that he was going to the house next week to box up all the stuff. I remember getting mad and breaking something but neither of them got mad at me when I stormed out and slammed the door. I spoke very little to them after Momma died, and I knew they worried about me.
I didn’t want to see our stuff in boxes. Tom said I could come with him if I was up for it and we could pack my belongings a little at a time. He told me that they needed to move my room. I freaked when he said that. My emotions were all over the place, and he did his best to calm me down. He explained to me that they would make my room in their house how I wanted it. The only thing I think they wanted was to see me happy. I said I’d like purple walls and relaxed a little bit knowing that I would have all my things.
Forget Cinderella (True Loves Fairytale Book 1) Page 2
