Still Breathing

by Rita Michaels

  “I’ve been busy lately.”

  “We could drop by. Without Hunter of course.”

  “My schedule is tight. I’ll let you know when am free.”

  “When would that be?”

  “I don’t know. I’m not sure when, but I’ll let you know.”

  “Okay,” Flo said with reluctance. “Call me when you’re free, will you?”

  “Um,” Bri said, do you know what hospital Hunter’s admitted in?”

  “St Mary’s, why?” Bri gasped.

  “Just asking,” Bri said, before dropping the call. She got to work and hurried to her workplace washroom, shut the door and pondered.

  The body on the stretcher was Hunter. That was a problem.

  She’d wanted to avoid anyone from school, but with Hunter in the same hospital as her daughter, there was no avoiding bumping into students she knew from school, and Flo and Casey were inevitable. They would visit. He was their friend after all. And there was nothing she could do about it.

  “Hey, Flo,” Bri said. She’d had pondered hard before placing the call. “When did you and Casey plan on visiting Hunter?”

  There was a pause.

  “Don’t tell me you want to see him.”

  “It’s just to wish him a quick recovery.”

  “I could do that for you.”

  “Why are you acting strange?” Bri asked.

  “Because you are my friend, and I know how he treated you in the past.”

  “That was the past.”

  “Are you still in love with him? Especially after telling you he impregnated another girl?”

  “I’m just trying to be civil,” Bri said, shaking her head. “Is there a fixed date?” she prodded.

  “None, yet,” Flo said, a little hasty. “If there is, I’ll let you know since you are bent on having your baby early.” Bri shuddered at that remark.

  “Just call, or send a text so I can book the day off work.”

  Bri heard a long sigh from the other end of the line.

  “Will do,” Flo finally said. Bri smiled.

  If she knew the day the girls would visit, she could see her daughter earlier, or later in the day after they had left. That was her reason for asking for the time and date to see Hunter.

  If she were to see Hunter, she would do it alone. Without the girls knowing.

  But it was difficult to locate Hunter at the hospital. She didn’t want to write down her name as his visitor and didn’t want him to know she was there to see him, so she sent him an anonymous Get Well Soon card.

  A few days after Hunter was admitted, he got discharged. A few weeks after, Bri took her baby home.

  15

  ⸙

  She wiped the sweat from her brow for the umpteenth time. It was scorching hot.

  “Have you any idea what the temperature is?” Bri said to her aunt sitting idle in a chair.

  “Whatever the temperature, it's hot enough to bake a piece of bread.”

  “I've already given Sasha three baths and it's the middle of the day. Could we turn up the air-conditioning a little bit?”

  Her aunt looked the other way.

  “Our light bill is increasing by the day,” she said without a glance at Bri.

  “How much is it? I could make monthly payments if I knew the due date.”

  “It's not necessary.”

  “Why? At least I should carry some weight around here. You've been nothing but good and accepting of me. You help me with Sasha when am on the computer doing my assignments and trying to put my life together….”

  “I know, and that's what an aunt should do, but…” she sighed as if the words were too heavy to pronounce. Bri watched.

  “We are living on borrowed time here. This house isn't mine anymore.”

  “How?” Bri said, shocked. “I thought…”

  “I lost my job a few weeks to your moving in with me. I didn't know how to tell you to find some other place to live knowing you were expecting and your mother threw you out of her life.”

  Surprised and shocked, like a zombie, Bri rose from her seat.

  “I'm so sorry,” she said before wrapping her arms around her aunt. Her eyes brimmed with tears.

  “It's okay,” her aunt said. She seemed to accept her fate, or, perhaps, had cried over it out of Bri's hearing until there were no more tears to shed for the only piece of property she ever owned.

  “You should've told me.”

  “Then what?”

  “I would’ve been persistent in paying half of the mortgage.”

  “With what? With your minimum wage payment?”

  “At least it would've helped somewhat.”

  Her aunt kept silent.

  “We could still keep the house.”

  “I already filled for bankruptcy.”

  “O my God.”

  This reaction here was exactly why I kept it from you. You don't need to worry about my problems.

  “They are mine now because soon Sasha and I would have no roof over our heads. Do we have enough time?”

  “To do what?”

  “Find another accommodation for us?” Bri said. Her aunt smiled.

  “Don't worry about me.” Bri turned a deaf ear to her and picked up her phone.

  “We could afford a one room apartment, till I find another job.”

  “We could shop for a place for you and Sasha to live.”

  “What about you? I can't leave you homeless by yourself.”

  “I'd be leaving with someone I just met.”

  This took Bri by surprise. She never knew her aunt dated and was planning to move in with the man she just met. Curious and willing to dig deeper, Bri asked.

  “Who is this man you are planning to move in with?”

  She smiled, looked at Bri as if saying brace up for this.

  “He's my son.”

  “What! You have a son?”

  She nodded without a word.

  “But, I thought you said you ….”

  “I remember what I said.” Her aunt interjected, leaving Bri to wonder how many lies her aunt had told her, and how many secrets she kept.

  “I didn't want him then,” Bri heard her aunt say as she broke into her train of thought. “I was as young as you… even younger. I was twelve years old.”

  “I’m speechless,” Bri managed to say.

  “That was why I never judged you.”

  “Does mom know about it?” Bri wanted to know.

  “Yes. And she talked me into adoption.”

  “Just like she did me, but I refused.”

  “Mhmm. That hurt her feelings.” Her aunt said. Bri wanted to know more, but her aunt wouldn't go any further with the discussion about her past.

  “No need digging up dirt from my past,” She said.

  Bri wanted to remind her that her son was part of the past 'dirt' she didn't want to be dug up, but let it slide.

  “I'd like to meet him someday,” Bri said, pretending to be enthusiastic and happy for her. Then I'll get the secret past she's hiding from me, Bri thought.

  16

  ⸙

  Time flew by like lightning, but every day Bri was reminded of the future she had to face as a single mom.

  Daily she rose, bathed, clothed and fed Sasha and then took her to a daycare nearby before thinking about the hectic day ahead.

  She had enrolled online for her GED and was on the course of completing it. Her job in the restaurant became history after renting a one-bedroom apartment. She now worked in a factory where the pay was on par with her growing needs.

  Flo and Casey had long ceased communicating with her frequently upon hearing of her secret birth.

  Sasha had turned five months, five speedy months, and was a happy baby. She smiled and giggled all the time, and was friendly to everyone who cared to carry or ruffle her hair same color as her mom.

  “She's my miracle baby,” Bri often heard herself say to anyone who stopped to smile or play with Sasha.

 
; Although, she would say to people what it was like being a teen mom: “if I had a younger sister, I would advise her to wait until the right time,” she never regretted not accepting her mother's option to place her daughter for adoption; her precious daughter who brought sunshine into her life.

  She never told anyone the circumstances surrounding her new life as a single mom because she wouldn’t want to be tagged a victim. She blamed herself partly for what happened to her. She visited Hunter, not the other way around.

  Once, when she felt the need to reach out for help, after drying up her account from paying her first and last rent, as was the requirement, she had reached out to Hunter for assistance, but he wouldn’t answer her call. Desperate, she had called Flo to help reach him, or his mother.

  “I'm sorry I can't help you,” she had said, leaving Bri floored. “The woman who spoke to you was a total stranger acting as his mom. He fooled you.”

  “How did you know that?” Bri said, barely able to contain herself.

  “He boasted about it to his friends.” Bri heard her sigh at the other end of the line. “Casey told me, and Bri, Hunter might not be the father of your baby.”

  Bri remembered wanting to pull Flo through the tiny speaker of her phone and choke her.

  “Flo,” she said after letting her best friend’s unsavory word sink in. “You just called me a whore, and my daughter a bastard.”

  “No, no. I'm sorry if it came across that way, but it was what I was told. And please, don't ask me who told me because I won’t give you the name.”

  “Don’t bother. I already know who it is.”

  “Please don’t ask her. I swore not to tell you.”

  “Can I ask you a question?” Bri said.

  “No. No more, Bri. I can see how this is hurting you.”

  “Is Casey dating Hunter?” Flo seemed to have frozen on a spot. She let out a loud sigh.

  “Thanks for letting me know,” Bri said and hung up.

  It was the last she heard from Flo. And she didn’t bother to call Casey to confirm. It was true Casey always wanted Hunter. Even the blind could see how she touched him on his thigh while talking to him in Bri's presence.

  But Bri had taken it as Casey being friendly with her boyfriend.

  17

  ⸙

  The sound of thunder crashing outside her window woke her up, before the cries of Sasha mixed with it.

  She jumped out of her single mattress bed, knocking her phone down which fell with a thud and rushed to Sasha. She scooped her out of her bed. Her forehead wrinkled. Instinctively, she yanked Sasha's yellow, knitted cover off her, throwing it on the ground.

  Her temperature had risen above what it initially was an hour prior. She ran to the washroom, Sasha crooked in her arm and yanked her little towel off the shower curtain railing where she had hung it to dry after giving her a night bath.

  Having wet it with cool water, she began to touch her temple with it. Sasha shivered and whimpered from the cold, but Bri continued, her brow furrowed, her heart beating.

  She was alone.

  She searched around for nothing specifically, swung around, and then headed back to her bedroom that she shared with Sasha.

  It was two in the morning. Too early to awaken her sleeping aunt now living with her boyfriend.

  Bri had found that out on her own. He was a much younger man. Probably the reason her aunt felt ashamed to present him as her lover.

  On one of his visits to the house Bri once shared with her aunt, while her aunt had excused herself to get something from her bedroom, Bri had hurriedly asked the questions that nearly bore holes on her tongue. How old was he? How come there wasn’t any resemblance? What was his story?

  And Mark, Bri observed, had no problem spilling the beans. He was only interested in her because she was into him, and he wanted to know what it felt like dating older women. You stinker, Bri had thought of the man.

  In the past, Bri would caution her aunt against this traveler who only came into her life to play guest for a while and then leave, but since knowing her aunt had no problems keeping secrets from her, she kept mom.

  “911,” Bri thought before searching for her phone. She remembered hearing something drop. With Sasha still in her arm, she stooped low, searching for the phone until she found it lying on the floor.” Sasha cried as Bri bent over.

  She pushed 911 and waited. After what seemed like an eternity, through the howling wind, and flapping leaves as they sway to the direction of the wind, Bri followed as an EMT held her baby in his arms.

  Bri shivered from the cold and rain drops hitting her skin. She didn’t have time to change from her sleepwear to something more presentable. Even if she did, she wouldn’t care. All she wanted was to get her sick baby into the safe hands of the doctor and nurses of St Mary Hospital.

  “She has a strep B bacteria infection,” the doctor said.

  “How is she doing?” Bri said.

  “Better than when she came, but she's still under close observation.”

  Bri swallowed. “Thank you,” she said, and then made a mental note to call in sick at work.

  “You are welcome,” the doctor said before excusing himself. Bri saw a reflection of herself on the glass separating the nurse's station from the prying eyes of the emergency patients sitting not too far away.

  She reached for her hair and cringed from the mass of disheveled hair sitting on her head. She glanced around hoping no one was watching and began to comb through her hair with her fingers.

  Each stroke hit a lump of tangled hair. The useless extension in her hair decided to wrap around itself.

  Nothing beats your natural hair she thought, and then glanced up at an Indian couple who came rushing in, their child, a three- year -old obviously in distress.

  His parents spoke rapidly in their native dialect. Bri glanced from the couple to the confused male nurse to the wailing child, for once getting lost in the whole fiasco.

  Frustrated, the nurse beckoned to another nurse to seek any Indian employee present to solve the mystery behind the child's restlessness, and the couple's agitation.

  Before the nurse disappeared from sight, as the others had, Bri asked the one question on her mind.

  “Can I see my daughter? Her name is Sasha.”

  “I'll be right back.” The nurse walked swiftly away as if in a rush to get something more important done.

  Bri spotted another nurse probably in her mid-twenties. She rose and hurried toward her but before getting closer to the nurse, she noticed the nurse took a quick glance at her beeper and ran toward a particular door.

  Whoever's admitted behind that door must be in distress, Bri thought before turning around toward the nurse's station.

  “Hi,” she said, trying to draw the one nurse at the desk's attention.

  “Hi,” the nurse replied before throwing a quick glance at her.

  “I just want to see my baby. I brought her in this morning….” She stopped all motions and looked at Bri. Bri was thankful for that.

  “Sasha?”

  “Yes. That's her. I would like to….”

  The nurse rose. In her hand was a stethoscope.

  “I'm actually working on her right now….”

  “Working on her? But the doctor said she was stable and….”

  “There has been a slight change since the doctor spoke to you, “she said, walking away. Bri followed. Although she had been told to sit and wait for a further update on Sasha, Bri strutted along.

  Her brow creased as the nurse headed toward the door. Knowing Bri was adamant, she half walked half ran the rest of the way. Bri gasped as she watched the nurse open the dreaded door and shut it behind her.

  She stood in disbelief. What's happening? She had seen about three nurses run to the same room she now believed Sasha was in.

  She headed to the door and listened. She could barely make out what was going on. Her clouded mind made it even more difficult to think.

  Two long
minutes without the door opening, Bri slowly opened the door, and then froze. On the bed laid the tiny frame of Sasha. She was quiet. Eyes closed.

  18

  ⸙

  Bri ran her eyes from her baby's feet to her chest and lingered there. She watched. A lump formed in her throat. Tears welled in her eyes. Sasha’s chest should be heaving up and down but it wasn't.

  Like a zombie, she walked toward her baby lying peacefully. At this time, the nurses turned toward her.

  “How's she?” Bri said in a barely audible voice.

  One of the nurses put her arms around Bri.

  “I’m sorry. She's gone.”

  “No!” Bri screamed and fell to the ground.

  The nurse whose arms were around Bri shuddered from the unexpected impact of her scream. She bent over, and then, went on her knees, hugging and talking to Bri.”

  “I'm so sorry,” she said.

  Bri rose and then picked up her lifeless baby. “Please, bring her back to me. Please. She's all I have.”

  The nurses, unsure on how to console her, stood. One of them turned the other way and wiped a tear or two.

  “Do something before it's too late,” Bri cried. She placed her head on Sasha's chest, listening for a heartbeat. Then, she parted her lips, breathing into her.

  She knew CPR. She had trained on giving CPR to babies. Since her baby was born a preemie, she'd learned so much about keeping her safe and alive. But, right now, even her breath couldn’t save her child.

  “Help me, please! Don’t let her go.”

  One of the nurses spread her arms to take the baby from her. Bri glanced at her, her face soaked with tears.

  “You'll help me, won't you?” the nurse glanced at the others, turned to Bri and nodded yes.

  “But first, you have to hand her to me.”

  “No,” Bri said. “Do it right here. Let her hear my voice, and feel my warmth”

  “But we need to lay her on a flat surface to resuscitate her,” one of the nurses lied.

  “Okay. Here.” Bri handed them her baby. “Please, be gentle with her. She was a preemie.”