Marsha
I opened my eyes to a blinding light. “I think she’s awake! Ma’am can you hear me? You had life threatening internal bleeding we have to…”
Nevaeh
My head was pounding. As I attempted to blink the pain away I realized that I was lying down. I can’t believe that it was all a dream. A feeling of relief came over me as my mind wrapped around the fact that my family was safe, for now.
I rolled over and my face planted itself right into a metal bar. “What the heck,” I said aloud as I looked around the room. Junior was sitting in a chair across from my bed, he came over when he heard me speak. I gazed at him with questioning eyes.
“You passed out while you were walking beside mom’s gurney. She’s up in surgery, Sasha is waiting outside of the operating room.”
It wasn’t a dream. Junior’s hands were still stained in blood like I remembered them. I told him to wash his hands off in the sink as I got off of the bed.
I didn’t realize that I was hooked up to an IV and monitors until they ripped from my skin. A nurse came running into the room as blood dripped down my arm. I covered up the fresh hole in my arm and listened to the nurse as she criticized me. “You know you really should be getting more fluids, it’s not just your life that you’re responsible for now.”
“What?!”
Why did Junior lie to me? Why would he not tell me that she died? Tears rushed from my eyes while a million thoughts rushed through my mind. Foster care, separation, funeral, murder, court, jail… I fell back to the bed as I shot my eyes at Junior. “Why wouldn’t you tell me that she was dead?” I realized then that he was just as shocked as I was, his body was shaking uncontrollably, he didn’t know.
Junior
I could lose my whole family tonight. If my mom dies we’ll go to foster care. No one is going to want to take in three non-babies, we’d all be separated. Not that it would matter anyway. Even if we were together, Nevaeh would never speak to me again and once Sasha found out what I did, I’d be completely alone.
I heard Nevaeh slam her head on something just as that thought left my mind. I went over and got her up to speed on what was going on. It was hard to focus on what I was saying with those stupid machines going off. Right before I made an attempt to silence them myself, a nurse walked in. She was talking to Nevaeh like I wasn’t even in the room, not acknowledging my presence at all. “…it’s not just your life that you’re responsible for now,” she commented.
What was that supposed to mean? I looked to the ground as understanding came to me. My mom was dead. This was it, there was no turning back. I killed my mother. Me, her baby boy. Sorrow filled my soul as I took deep breathes and rocked back and forth. This can’t be happening. I don’t believe her, Sasha would have come down and told us. Someone would have said something.
My agony turned to rage as I thought about how this heartless woman just came in here and told us this horrible news so non-chalantly. Like my mom was a dog in the street. She didn’t even have the courtesy of saying that she died, just automatically assumed that we’d understand by her saying that Nevaeh was now responsible for us. How dare she disrespect my mom like that. How dare she disrespect us like that. I moved with conviction towards the nurse as Nevaeh yelled at me. “Why the fuck would you tell us like that?” I screamed at her. “You think that just because we look poor that we don’t have any feelings?”
Nevaeh grabbed me before I could reach her. “No, no let me go!” I insisted as all of my power left me and I folded into my sister’s arms. “I can’t believe I did this,” I sobbed quietly into Nevaeh’s shoulder. “I can’t believe I did this.”
Sasha
They’ve been in there for a long time. Isn’t someone supposed to come out and tell me how the surgery is going? That’s what always happens in the movies. At least that’s what they do when the surgery is going good.
A chill went up my spine. It was as if I didn’t even know that it was cold in this gloomy hospital until that moment. Or maybe it wasn’t cold in the hospital. Didn’t that guy in The Sixth Sense say that it got cold whenever a dead person was around. Maybe it was my mom’s spirit coming to tell me good bye.
My imagination ran wild until the door of the operating room swung open.