by Yamaya Cruz
My mommy always warned me to stay out of his way, but a small part of me wanted to know why he didn’t like me. Was he sorry that I was born? One day, I came home from school and saw him sitting on the sofa alone. He was flipping through the channels, and I thought to myself, okay, this is your moment, ask him why he does not love you? I swallowed back a knot of fear. This was absolutely insane; it seemed that this man was my flesh and blood and for some odd reason, I was terrified of him. This couldn’t be right. I took a small step forward, but then paused when the phone rang. My dad quickly picked it up and nestled it to his ear.
“How many times did I tell you not to call here at this time?”
“We’ve been through this a thousand times. Yes, she’s my wife, but she’s only living here with me because she doesn’t have anywhere else to go.”
“There’s nothing between us. I ain’t even sure if those damn kids are mine.”
“The woman is fucking nuts. I hate having her here, especially after all the stories I done heard about her. Trust me; I would do anything to make her ass go bye bye. Her and her bad ass kids.”
“Hey, I didn’t make a commitment to anybody; I just told her that she could stay for a little while, that’s all.”
“Well, the bitch belongs in a nuthouse, and it won’t be long before she gets there.”
“The kids? I don’t know what’s going to happen to them. Shit! They ain’t my problem. I got enough to worry about.”
My lower lip started to quiver. At the moment I just wished that I could disappear. It seemed that time had stopped. I was still careful to be very quiet. I couldn’t let him see me. Slowly, I turned around and tiptoed out the door. I was sure to close it carefully. My feet were on autopilot. I started to trot slowly and then my legs began to move more quickly. I started to run with my arms and legs swinging wildly like a horse that had gone astray. I ran full force into the woods as thickets and twigs slapped against my face. But I didn’t feel any pain. My feet went into overdrive and I sprinted like an athlete running a hundred meter dash, jumping over fallen logs like an Olympian gold medalist. He didn’t care about me. He didn’t think that I was his daughter. The thoughts went around and around in my mind like a giant Farris wheel. He didn’t love me. He was putting on an act, pretending that he cared. He didn’t want us around. He didn’t love us.
My heart was pounding, almost out of my chest. I was sweating and tresses of hair stuck to my face and neck. I started to shed my clothing, my scarf, my hat, my winter coat, and my sweater. I didn’t need them anymore. I didn’t need anything anymore. I started to cascade downhill; my feet moved so fast that I thought that they were going to detach from my body and run all on their own. Blindly, I crossed a four-lane highway. I heard tires squeal and horns honk. One man with chubby cheeks and a receding hairline rolled his window down and cursed at me. “What are you, crazy? Get off the fucking road.”
There was so much ruckus. I was confused, like a deer befuddled by the noise and car lights. I didn’t know which way to run to find safety. So I ping ponged back and forth, twisting and turning, dodging oncoming cars like a piñata on a string. I jumped, and felt the wind from the speed of a car that was right behind me. I fell forward and slid hard on the pavement. The concrete peeled off the top layer of my skin. I tried to get up and move out of the way, but then I felt a sharp pain rise up from my right leg. I looked down and saw that it was bloody and tender. The pain took my breath away, I gasped, holding my leg and working hard to digest the pain. Cars stopped. Doors flung open.
“Oh my God! There’s a young girl on the road!”
“Did you hit her? I don’t know, at least I didn’t think that I did.”
“Are you alright?”
I closed my eyes. Tears were burning behind my lids. I squeezed tight and tried hard to hold them back. How could I tell them that I wasn’t all right? I was in pain, and I didn’t want to feel pain, not ever again. I started to sob uncontrollably. The ground felt cold and rock hard, like my heart.
“Don’t worry, we called for help, everything is going to be okay.”
I heard the sound of sirens. Good, hopefully, someone would be able to stop the pain. I needed them to stop the pain.
I remember a whole gaggle of people around me, asking me questions. What was my name? Where was my mommy and how could they contact her? Then, there was blackness. I woke up in a hospital.
Everything was white, my eyeballs stung from the beseeching light. I was wearing a paper-thin nightgown. The sheets were white, and they were pulled all the way up to my chin. I wiggled my left leg and then my right. I froze and looked down with surprise when I could not feel my toes. I tried to lift it. It felt heavy, like it had been wrapped in a cast of cement. The curtain pulled back and an elderly woman stepped in. She had dark skin with grey hair that poked out of her bonnet. She smiled at me, then turned around and closed the curtain.
“How are you feeling?” she asked, walking closer to me holding a clipboard.
I shrugged my shoulders. I had just woken up, and I really wasn’t sure how I was feeling. I didn’t feel any physical pain, so I guess that was good. I tried to sit up, but found it hard to adjust my leg with the caste on it.
“Easy now.” The woman said as she leaned in closer to help me sit up. She gently lifted me from under my shoulders into an upright position. I was amazed by how strong she was.
“Thank you.” I heard myself say.
“Sweetie, you don’t got to thank me; this is what I am here for.”
I tried to smile, but couldn’t. The woman reached behind me and started to adjust my pillows.
“Now, how’s that?” she asked, smiling at me again. Her smile was wide with a whole bunch of gum showing. She had pearly white teeth. I wondered if they were all hers.
“Better,” I said.
“Better than what, lying on the concrete?” I placed my hands in my lap and focused all of my attention there. For some reason, I felt ashamed, embarrassed by my behavior. She probably thought that I was a wild child and that I put my parents through hell. I really wasn’t all that bad; at least I didn’t think so. For some odd reason, I needed her to like me. I didn’t really know why. She reached over and placed her hands under my chin and lifted my head up.
“You’re such a beautiful girl; you should never put your head down.” She said this with her eyes sparkling.
“I can’t help it.” I choked.
“What? Of course you can. You got a lot more power than you give yourself credit for.”
“I might have power, but I ain’t got my daddy’s love,” I said. I didn’t think that I would be in a mood to open up to anybody, especially a stranger, but I felt like someone needed to know what I was going through.
She leaned back, like a queen who had just been affronted. “Stop talking nonsense, you got so much love,” she said placing her hands on her hips.
“No I don’t, at least not from my daddy. I overheard him talking on the phone and…” My voice started to crack. I couldn’t finish.
“Look at me,” she demanded while sitting on the edge of the bed.
“You’re sad because you’ve been lied to. There ain’t no conditions on love.”
“Then why does he treat me like I don’t even exist,” I said choking on my tears.
The woman sighed and continued. “Nelly, you ever hear the story about the polar bear?”
“The polar bear?” I was a little confused. I didn’t understand what a polar bear had to do with my daddy not loving me. I paused. She knew my name. How did she know my name? She looked at the clipboard, silly. But then how did she know that people called me Nelly? There’s no way she could have known that. Who was this woman? Before I got a chance to ask she started yapping away about this polar bear.
“There was a family of polar bears who hibernated in the winter and came out to find food in the spring.”
I shrugged by shoulders; I honestly didn’t care about the polar bears. I cared more abou
t my daddy rejecting me.
“Well, one season when they woke up they saw that all of the ice around them had melted away. At first, they worked together to try and find food, but found that it was way too difficult to swim in the large pools of water with small cubs.”
I looked back at her; for some odd reason, she was holding my interest.
“They were all starving because they hadn’t eaten anything all season, but the rising temperatures made it difficult for them to find seals. Do you know what happened?”
I shook my head.
“The family of polar bears broke apart. The momma bear stayed to protect the cubs, but the papa bear went off to fend for his own.” I inhaled deeply, my heart started to throb from pain. I could relate to this story.
“Well, he didn’t find any seals. He swam and swam, until he reached a point of exhaustion. Then, out of pure hunger and desperation, he tried to attack a baby walrus.”
Our eyes met, and I didn’t drop mine.
“He couldn’t even come close to that baby walrus because all of the big walruses came to protect him and killed him for trying to attack their young.”
“What happened to the momma and her cubs?” I asked.
“The momma and the cubs survived because they stayed together, but it was difficult for them to get by, without the protection of the papa bear.”
I ripped my eyes away and focused again on my hands in my lap.
“Nelly, they survived because they understand the power of family, of staying together for protection and support. The papa bear lost his way, and eventually, he paid the price.”
I still wasn’t getting it. She looked at me and leaned over and gently kissed my forehead.
“The papa bear thought that love was conditional and limited, and so he gave up on the very thing that he needed most to survive.”
“Love.” I replied slowly. She shook her head.
“Don’t ever stop believing in the power of the family and don’t ever lose your way,” she said pointing her forefinger, and then she was gone. Just like that.
I blinked a couple of times. I heard the tittering of voices and laughter on the other side of me. There was a huge blue curtain with giant size ringlets that was wrapped around my resting station. I tried to move, but my body stiffened from a shard of pain that sliced through my lower leg and calf.
“Hey, you want to take it easy. Try and keep the leg still until Dr.
Vaskin comes in to put the cast on.”
“What? I thought my leg was already in a cast?”
The nurse just stopped and looked at me, like I had two heads. Then, he just stood there, motionless. He looked confused. He was a short stumpy man with big clown feet and huge Dumbo like ears.
“No, Dr. Vaskin will be here right after I take your vitals,” he said while clumsily rolling over a blood pressure machine. He pulled out the thermostat and hurriedly placed it into my mouth and under my tongue before I got a chance to say anything. Just then, a man in his early forties walked in. He was holding a silver clipboard and flipping through the pages.
“Nelandez Reyes,” he said as he walked over to a computer that was nestled in the corner of the room. He placed his hand over the mouse as he scanned over some dark skeletal images. His eyes jumped back and forth from the screen to the clipboard. He took his pen out of his front pocket and began jotting down some notes.
“It looks like you have a comminuted fracture in your lower right leg. If you look here you can see where the bone has been completely shattered,” he said while pointing to a dark area on the computer screen. He drew back and examined the image as if it were a modern-day masterpiece. The nurse pulled the thermostat out of my mouth and discarded the plastic cover in the trashcan.
“Where’s the other lady?” I asked. Dr. Vaskin turned around. He and the nurse exchanged clandestine looks, like two secret agents on a top-secret mission. They knew something that I didn’t know. Were they holding information back from me? Dr. Vaskin raised his eyebrows, rippling the age lines in his forehead.
“What other woman?” Dr. Vaskin asked.
“An elderly Elack woman. She helped me to adjust my cast. She told me the story about the polar bears.”
Dr. Vaskin sent another look to the nurse, who in turn rolled his eyes and proceeded to wrap a blood pressure cuff around my arm. I looked at him; he worked hard to avoid my gaze. I could only imagine what he was thinking. I ain’t getting involved in this shit. I don’t get paid to babysit and deal with psychos. There was a long silence, almost like they were both waiting it out to see who would answer me first. Dr. Vaskin, the higher paid of the two cleared his throat and began to speak.
“Mr. Johnson is the only nurse assigned to this hall,” he said while adjusting his eyeglasses and then looking back at his clipboard. There was a long empty silence. Then, an explosion of laughter erupted from the family who was on the other side of me. I heard the beats from the heart pressure monitor; Nurse Johnson kept his eyes on the machine as he squeezed the valve. My right arm swelled up like a helium balloon. Someone’s cell phone rang. I looked over and saw Dr. Vaskin pull the little gadget out of his back pocket. He checked the number on the front before he excused himself and walked into the hallway.
“She was here,” I said, trying to convince both Mr. Johnson and myself that I wasn’t seeing things, imagining things. No! She was real. I needed her to be real. Nurse Johnson got up and rolled the machine over to the corner, walked over to the sink and proceeded to wash his hands.
He turned around and faked a smile. “There’s a recreation room. It’s filled with video games, arts and crafts and even movies. Do you like movies, Nelandez?”
I shook my head. I was confused. I wasn’t getting the answers that I needed.
“Where’s the woman? I want to see her.” I demanded. I was even a little surprised by the tone of my voice. I got no answer. Frustrated, I screamed.
“Where is she?”
Dr. Vaskin walked back into the room. Alarmed, he looked over at Nurse Johnson before he asked.
“Is everything alright?” he asked Mr. Johnson, who was hovering in the corner.
There was no more laughter coming from the other side. I could imagine the family keeping silent with their ears perked like a deer in the forest, working hard to overhear the crazy girl with the broken leg and split mind. I tried hard to fight back the whirlpool of emotions inside of me. I felt like the pain was exacerbating my fear, causing my temper to explode like bolts of lightning. My fist clenched; my ears burned and turned bright red. I bit down hard on my lower lip until I felt the warm, salty taste of blood.
“What’s going on? I heard Mr. Johnson say.
“I don’t know, I think that she’s having some kind of hallucination. Quick! Call Dr. Ontarian.” Dr. Vaskin said with a sense of urgency.
“Who?” Mr. Johnson said.
“Dr. Ontarian, the child psychologist.” He snapped.
“Don’t come near me you fucking cock-sucker. You faggot son of a bitch, don’t touch me.” I screamed in a voice that was a couple of octaves above a soprano. Dr. Vaskin continued to move forward.
“Stay away from me?” My voice was loud and vibrated throughout the room and the hallway. I felt big hands, encased with latex gloves as they jimmied my arm out. I couldn’t move. I couldn’t talk.
“Do it. Now!” Dr. Vaskin quipped.
They pierced my arm with a large needle. My head fell back onto the pillow. My mouth felt dry. I felt like someone had dropped an atom bomb into it. My mouth began to fizzle and fuzz like a glass of Alka-Seltzer. I could feel the vapors traveling through my body, intoxicating my mind, numbing my spirit.
“Nelandez.” There was a woman’s voice but it sounded so far away.
“I’m Dr. Ontarian and have given you an injection. It’s going to make you sleepy. Don’t try and fight it, just doze off and everything will be okay,” she said.
I tried to look at her, but everything was so blurry. I trie
d to talk to tell her that all I wanted was to see the woman again, but there was too much saliva and the words just gargled in my mouth. I rolled my eyes back into my head. I couldn’t fight it anymore. I closed my lids and fell off to sleep.
~ ~ ~
Chapter Four
Piss, Piss, Piss.” I opened a lazy eye to see that the elderly woman was standing over me again. I was so happy to see her again.
“Where did you go? I asked.
“Shush. Keep your voice down,” she said as she pulled back the covers. “I didn’t go anywhere. I‘m always going to be here for you,” she said. I could feel her warmth and her smile in the night.
“What’s going on?” I whispered, sitting up and rubbing the sleep out of my eyes.
“We got to get you out of here; you belong with your family,” she said rolling over a wheelchair.
“I can’t leave here by myself.” I protested.
“You’re not by yourself, honey; you’re family is here with you,” she said. I didn’t move. I was still a little weary about leaving the hospital with a broken leg.
“Home is where you belong. I promise you, Nelly, everything is going to be okay,” she said smiling. I could see her teeth in the night. I shook my head, for some reason, I trusted her. I tried to sit up and climb into the wheelchair. My arms felt like they were laced with jam. She reached over and lifted me out of the bed and gently placed me into the wheelchair. Wow! This woman had some unbelievable strength.
“How did you do that?” I asked while I watched her adjust my feet plates on the chair.
“Do what?” she said while looking up at me.
“The wheelchair thing.”
Her smile faded, and she stood up, spun me around and started to wheel me out of the room.
“Like I said, we got more power than what we give ourselves credit for.”
The rest of the night was foggy. It was almost like I blacked out. However, I do remember getting into my father’s pickup truck. Ali and Mom were in the front seat. I maneuvered my leg, and Ali laughed as I did all these acrobatic moves to sit comfortably. My mom giggled and my daddy looked at me with a half-smile. When we got to the house, my dad and brother lifted me up and carried me up the stairs. I laughed and acted like a diva, barking out demands as they maneuvered my little body up the stairs and into my bedroom. I like this, being the center of attention.
