by Teresa Toten
“But you acted like you couldn’t stand the sight of me.”
“Me? I did not…”
“And then there was Tyson, and then you thought I was your brother, for God’s sake! So I told myself it didn’t matter. But it did, Toni.”
“But it wasn’t true! I just got all confused in my search…”
“And then…then there was the old guy.” I felt rather than heard him growl.
“I thought he cared. That finally somebody cared. I was so flattered and thrilled and…stupid,” I mumbled into his chest.
“I was the stupid one, Toni. I should have known better. Everything was too new and overwhelming for you those first few weeks. I couldn’t wrap my head around that because my bruised ego got in the way.” He caressed my cheek. “I should have stepped up, but instead I stepped away. But I’m here now, and I’ll do whatever you need me to do.”
I knew what had to happen. “Let’s go in.”
The doors whooshed open, but this time we stepped through them. Ethan walked right up to the information desk as if he did this sort of thing every day. “Burn unit, please.”
An old biddy at the desk stopped chewing on a Snickers bar long enough to look at him suspiciously. “Family member?”
“Yes, ma’am.” Ethan nodded. “We’re here to see about her mother.”
Well, it was true.
She eyed us both. “Seventh floor. Turn right and keep going until you get to the supervising desk, and one of the nurses will see to you. Do not try going into any of the unit rooms, hear?”
“No, ma’am.” Scary, scary place. “Thank you, ma’am.”
In some ways, it was worse than the prison. All the doors to the rooms were closed, and we couldn’t see anything. But the noises were bad. The sound of machines—compressing, beeping—intruded into the hushed bubble of the ward. Worse were the pitiful, heart-wrenching little moans escaping from some of the closed rooms.
But none of it looked familiar to me.
When we reached the nurses’ station, a formidable-looking nurse greeted us as if were invading sacred ground.
“What are you kids doing here?”
“Please, ma’am,” I started before Ethan could jump in and save me. It was my quest, after all. “I’m looking for some very important information. I believe my mother may have been in this burn unit in 1950.” The nurse tapped her nails against the desk faster and faster, seeming to get more irritated with every word. “Please, I just want—need—some information. I need to know what happened to my mother.”
“Does this look like social services? Who let you up here?”
I felt Ethan tense behind me.
“No, ma’am,” I continued. “But I was here too, and I was released on April 30 to an orphanage, and I have no idea—”
“Listen.” She raised her hand. “For starters, we didn’t even have a burn unit in the fifties. Nobody did. Burns were treated in the general surgical wards, and it was far grimmer than it is now. It’s still no place for a couple of curious kids to be traipsing around.”
It felt like one of the medical machines was sucking all the air out of my lungs. I steadied myself on the counter, trying to gather myself. I read the name tag on her uniform. “Please, Nurse Hamilton.” Individual smells began to invade me. I could pick out the stench of wet bandages and raw tissue through that of Clorox and urine. “I can tell that you’re far too young to have been working here then, but if you could just direct me to a doctor who might have been on the surgical ward at the time, well, he might remember. I know I can’t look at records or anything like that, but please, I need to know what happened to me.”
Nurse Hamilton patted her silver hair, which was every bit as starched as her cap. She looked around as if checking for interlopers. “As it turns out, I was around then. Dr. Marsden, who is the current head of the burn unit, was a resident around that time.”
“That’s great!”
She shook her head. “He’s on vacation for the rest of the month at his cottage. There’s no reaching him, and there’s going to be no nosing through records, if that’s what you’re secretly hoping.”
“Oh, I—”
“So, what is your mother’s name?”
“It is, or was, Halina Royce.”
Did she flinch? She certainly turned away. When she turned back, she sized me up full on.
“Nurse Sanchez is Dr. Marsden’s right arm and was from the beginning.” She sighed heavily at the console in front of her. “She’s on the ward now. We don’t allow them to take vacations at the same time, see?”
I didn’t, but I nodded.
Nurse Hamilton seemed to be having a private conversation with herself while I stood there silently willing her to help me. She sighed again, leaned into the console and pushed a button. “Nurse Sanchez to the front desk. Nurse Sanchez stat.”
Within seconds one of the doors down on the east hall opened and then closed. I heard her before I saw her. It seemed that all the nurses’ shoes either squeaked or creaked. Nurse Sanchez was an explosion wrapped in a white uniform. Her glossy black hair was pulled and pinned to within an inch of its life under her cap, and still rebellious strands escaped. Her complexion was the color of café au lait, her lips were a shade of red that would have made Grady proud, and you could feel the annoyance wafting off her.
“Nurse Hamilton?”
“Nurse Sanchez.” Nurse Hamilton waved her reading glasses in our general direction. “This young woman needs your help. She is looking for information. Burn victims at the beginning of your career. A mother and daughter, March 1950. Perhaps you could direct them to someone.”
Nurse Sanchez turned to me, but her expression didn’t change. I’d never seen eyes that were blacker or more beautiful. “Name?”
“My mother was the burn victim. I just had cuts, glass shards that were—”
“Name?” she repeated.
“Sorry. My mother’s name was—is—Halina Royce. I’m Toni, Antoinette Royce, ma’am.”
The nurses exchanged a long glance.
“Room 2B is free.” Nurse Hamilton nodded. “I’ll have an orderly sent to Mr. Visinsky’s room until you return.” She studied a heavily marked-up floor plan.
Nurse Sanchez turned to us. “Follow me.” Was she less annoyed?
We padded behind her down an endless corridor. Every moan I heard reverberated in my bone marrow; every beep and mechanical hiss vibrated in my gut. Did she know anything? How could she work in this place of pain? How could anyone work here? No wonder she was angry. After going past at least a thousand rooms, we reached a door at the very end of the corridor. She led us into a windowless gray room with four mismatched and randomly placed chairs, a gurgling water cooler and a very large plant that looked like it didn’t care whether it lived or died.
“Sit.”
We sat. “Thank you for seeing us, Nurse Sanchez. I don’t mean to annoy or pester you, but I just need…if you know who took care of us, of me, it would be, well, it’s incredibly important that I figure some things out.”
Nurse Sanchez turned to us. She pulled out a chair and sat directly in front of me. Her dark eyes glistened. “It was me, Antoinette, me. I was your nurse.”
“You? Oh…” And just like that, there it was, the end of my quest.
“I can’t believe that no one told you. Are you sure you’re ready to hear?”
“Yes, ma’am.” I nodded. “Yes, for sure I am.”
But I wasn’t. I was nowhere near ready.
“Rag Doll”
(THE FOUR SEASONS)
“I NEVER THOUGHT I’d see you again.” She shook her head. “But I wondered, we’ve all wondered, what happened to you. Dr. Marsden was the resident on call, and you, Antoinette, were close to being my very first patient. None of us will ever forget.” Nurse Sanchez looked to the gray walls, clearly seeing something other than scuffs and peeling paint. “That old warhorse at the front desk surely remembers. It’s the only reason you weren’t thrown out. But, yes, I w
as your nurse.”
She smiled at me. “You’re beautiful. I can’t see any…”
“No,” I said, “they’re faded and smaller, but they’re all over my body. A couple here.” I pulled down my turtleneck and craned my neck just so.
“You’re so beautiful,” she repeated. “It’s a miracle. If you could have seen yourself, well, good thing you couldn’t. Dr. Marsden did good initial work on you, before the surgeries.” She nodded approvingly.
Surgeries? Plural?
Unlike the rest of the ward, the room we were in wasn’t air-conditioned. Perspiration raced down my back.
“One of the shards struck your spleen. The blood loss was…and, well, of course, your little body was just covered in blood, slick with it. Not your face. Apparently, your mother covered your face with a towel. You almost suffocated.”
She tried to suffocate me too? I couldn’t go there. The air got thicker, making it more difficult to catch a clear breath. “I’d like to know about my mother.”
“What do you know so far?” she whispered. Why was she whispering?
“Nothing!” Did I yell? Ethan put his arm around me. I shook it off and continued yelling. “I don’t know anything! I was taken to an orphanage, and they don’t know or wouldn’t tell and I have these dreams…Is she alive somewhere? I mean, I know you wouldn’t know where, and I don’t want to get you in trouble, but I don’t know anything. Zero, zilch! Please…”
The water cooler came to life, gurgling so aggressively that we all turned to confront it.
“I’m still not entirely sure that I should be the one to…” She turned back to me. “How could they not have told you?”
“Well, they didn’t!” Ethan shot out of his chair. “It’s crazy! She’s been racing around the city, begging for clues, but she doesn’t know hardly anything about herself! And that’s just not right. It’s 1964 not 1864. Could you please just tell her what you know.”
Nurse Sanchez seemed to be collecting herself. She did not look at me. “She died here, Antoinette.”
Died?
“Toni. I’m called Toni,” I said for no good reason. There seemed to be a faint, low buzz in the room.
Died…
My mother had been dead all these years. But I knew that. Really, I did. Deep in the darkest and ugliest part of my secret self—I knew. I always knew. Was that why I never allowed myself to pretend along with the Seven?
“Your mother succumbed to her injuries eight days after she was admitted.” Nurse Sanchez leaned over and rested her arms on her knees. “We didn’t know things back then like we do now, but I believe she wouldn’t have survived her injuries even today, even in the burn unit. It was…she was too…it was over 80 percent of her body.”
Did she try to kill herself? Kill us both? Was that it? My stomach felt like someone was wringing it out like a wet towel. “Did you—did anyone figure out if she was the one who set the fire?”
She turned sharply. “What? No! Oh, dear Lord, no. It was the owner. The police were all over us and her, looking for a statement. They never got it. She couldn’t remember anything, so he was never charged.” The nurse scrubbed her face with her hands. “I don’t think that either of you were supposed to be in the building at the time, but you were sick with a cold, so your mother stayed at home with you. We got that much. He was some small-time punk who owned a couple of buildings. Both of them were torched. The first one was just three weeks before. For the insurance money.” She got up and went to the gurgling water cooler and filled a tiny paper cone with water.
The cone was a thing of wonder. Why didn’t it leak? It was only paper, after all. Why didn’t it leak? The buzzing got louder, or was it a hum?
“No one got hurt in his first fire.” Nurse Sanchez crushed the cup and tossed it clear across the room. It hit the rim of the wastebasket and landed on the floor. No one moved. “We didn’t even get your full names for days after. The identification was in the building. She was just clutching a couple of pieces of paper, and they went to—”
“The orphanage? It must have been the playbill and the menu.”
“Perhaps. Those papers and your release went with you when you left. Your mother wasn’t lucid enough most of the time before she…”
“Died.” I finished for her.
“Yes. It was a hard passing. I’m sorry, Antoinette, Toni, but it was. Nurse Hamilton never saw anything like it, and she was as tough as nails even back then. Your mother wouldn’t let go, despite unbearable pain.” Nurse Sanchez sat down again. “She should have passed that first night. We stopped procedures, but she hung on and on.” Nurse Sanchez clasped her hands. “You have no idea what burn victims go through. But she wanted to pull through for you, Toni. That’s what Nurse Hamilton said. She had her for five shifts straight. The woman is a concrete wall, but there’s none better.”
I yanked my head out of the tunnel it was in. “For me?” But that didn’t make sense.
“She called and cried for you nonstop. They couldn’t calm her unless they knocked her right out, and she hated being knocked out, despite the agony. It tormented everyone on the floor.” Nurse Sanchez stood up again and walked over to the ambivalent plant, eyeing it like it was an intruder.
“The thing is, we were forbidden to bring you into the critical-care unit of the surgical ward. It was absolutely against the rules. Not only that, but you were in bad shape yourself after the surgeries and all that stitching up.” She slid her fingers over the plant’s few decaying leaves. “But it was crippling the floor. Her…situation touched us all. They couldn’t calm her. Your poor mom only got more and more agitated and desperate. They told her, promised her, that you were alive, but it did no good. As soon as she got out from under the latest drug load, she’d cry out for you. It got worse every day, every hour…”
I wrapped my arms around myself and started to rock. None of this made sense. Nurse Sanchez’s story did not line up with any of my own charred memories.
“So one night, Nurse Hamilton and I arranged the whole thing. Dr. Marsden was off duty, and the other resident was too scared of Nurse Hamilton to be a problem. I took you out of your bed, still attached to the IV pole. You really were a wee little thing. Anyway, I brought you and the pole to the surgical ICU window. Nurse Hamilton and an orderly moved her bed around and cranked it up as high as it would go. The pain must have been excruciating, but your mom wouldn’t let them stop.” She turned away from the plant. Tears slid quietly down Nurse Sanchez’s face. “I held you up as high as I could, and you put your bandaged little hands against the window. And…and your mom tried to raise her hand. She looked…it was…” Nurse Sanchez put her head in her hands. “I don’t know how you weren’t terrified at the sight of her, but you didn’t recoil. It was unbelievable. Somehow you knew her, knew it was still your mom under all of that. Oh God, what a sight.”
Ethan, who had been pacing, sat back down.
“You kept calling out, ‘Mommy, mommy,’ and wriggled like the devil trying to get to her. Your mother wasn’t able to smile, but she kept her hand right up and trying to wave, trying to reassure you. I can’t imagine what it cost her. ‘I want to go home, Mommy!’ I can still hear you in my head. She even tried to nod, she really did. And then you cried, and Lord knows we cried right along with you.”
There was a knock on the door, and we all started. Nurse Hamilton stepped inside and then thought better of it. “I just wanted to check in.”
Ethan produced a fairly clean handkerchief and handed it to Nurse Sanchez, who quickly wiped away her tears.
“I see,” sighed Nurse Hamilton. “Does the child remember any of it?”
They turned to me. No, “the child” did not. How could I not? I was wracked with guilt that I didn’t. “No,” I whispered. “I don’t remember.”
Nurse Hamilton nodded. Just before she closed the door again, I heard her say, “Just as well. It’s just as well.”
The interruption gave Nurse Sanchez a moment to compose h
erself. “I brought you back, kicking and screaming.” She smiled at the memory. “Your mother passed that night, as peacefully as she could. She was just waiting. Nurse Hamilton understood that. Your mom just needed to see you, to know that you’d live.” Nurse Sanchez sighed. “Nobody knew, or if they did, they didn’t talk. It stayed a secret. I don’t think I’ve ever done anything as important in all the years since.”
It was a story. Just a story. It was a story about a little girl and her mother and a fire. Like the story Scarlet Sue had told. Now the buzzing was in my head, like an electric wire. Oh sure, it was a tragedy, I got that, but still, it was just a story. It didn’t touch me now, not really. It couldn’t. I might as well have been reading it from one of the professor’s books.
Still, I had questions about this story. I wanted to ask them, but my lips kept getting stuck to my teeth. I had to keep licking them and sliding my tongue around before the words, one by one, broke free.
“But then…see…it doesn’t make sense. I…don’t understand. Why did she try to kill me? She hurt me…the glass. I can remember it piercing. I can hear the glass shattering. I remember that part. That part is true!”
Nurse Sanchez stared at me in stark astonishment. Her hand flew to her chest. “Oh, dear Lord, Toni, no! She only suffered through that hell for you. Your mother saved your life.”
“But the glass shattered and—”
“Because she shattered it to get you out!” Nurse Sanchez gripped the arms of the chair as if to hold it in place. “We knew that from the firemen. They said you were in a basement flat with only a small window at street level, high above the floor. Apparently, the fire started in the furnace room and broke through the walls fast. Your mother kept throwing a toaster at the window until it began to shatter, but it wasn’t fast enough. Toni, she put a towel over your face, got on a chair and used your body to finish the shattering, and then she shoved you through it, all torn up, just before she succumbed to smoke inhalation.”
“Stay still! Tight like a ball!”
I was right. I was wrong.
Ethan walked over to the water cooler and offered Nurse Sanchez another cup of water, which she accepted. “It’s over. Don’t you see, Toni? She did do it—she hurt you.” He said it with a gentleness I didn’t know anyone possessed. “But she did it to get you out.”
