and started. . . running around with bad influences and I was one
hundred percent of it, hundred and five.
She let out a laugh that raised the hair on the back of my neck.
“Wanna hear something confidential of stuff you people like to
hear? He was the one gave me that book about that bitch from New
Jersey. That was his Mother’s Day gift to me, okay? All wrapped up in
a little box with ribbons and the word Mom on it. In printing, cause he couldn’t do cursive, never mastered it-even his printing was all
crooked, like a first-graders. He hadn’t given me a present for years,
not since he stopped bringing home his shop projects. But there it was, little gift-wrapped package, and inside this little used paperback
book on dead babies. I nearly threw up, but I read it anyway. Trying
to see if there was something I’d missed. That he was trying to tell
me something I wasn’t getting. But there wasn’t. It was just plain
ugly. She was a monster. No real nurse. And one thing I know-one
thing I’ve worked into my own head, without experts is that she has
nothing to do with me, okay? She and me didn’t even live on the same
planet. I make kids feel better. I’m good at that. And I never hurt
them, okay? Never. And I’m gonna keep helping them the rest of my
natural life.”
“Can I go now?” she said. “I’d like to wash my face.”
Unable to think of a reason to keep her there, I said, “Sure.”
She righted her cap. “Listen, I don’t need any more grief, okay?
The main thing is for Cassie to get better. Not that. . .” She
colored and began walking to the door.
“Not that I can do any good in that department?” I said.
“I meant, not that it’s gonna be easy. If you’re the one ends up
diagnosing her, hats off to you.”
“What do you think about the fact that the doctors can’t find
anything?”
Her hand rested on the doorknob. “Doctors can’t find lots of things.
If patients knew how much guessing goes on, they’d.
She stopped. “I keep on, I’m gonna get myself in trouble again.”
“Why are you so certain it’s organic?”
“Because what else could it be? These aren’t abuses. Cindy’s one of
the best mothers I’ve ever seen, and Dr. Jones is a real gentleman. And despite who they are, you’d never know it, because they don’t lord
it over anyone, okay? That’s real class, far as I’m concerned. Go out
and see for yourself they love that little girl. It’s just a matter of
time.
“Before what?”
“Before someone figures out what’s wrong. I’ve seen it lots of
times.
Doctors can’t figure things out so they call it psychosomatic.
Then poof, all of a sudden someone finds something that hasn’t been
looked for before and you’ve got yourselfa new disease. They call that
medical progress.”
“What do you call it?”
She stared at me. I call it progress She walked away and I stayed
behind, thinking. I’d gotten her to talk but had I learned anything?
My thoughts shifted to the cruel gift her son had given her. Pure
spite? Or had he been telling her something?
Had she told me about it as part of a game? Told me just what she
wanted me to know?
I stayed with it a while and came up with nothing. Cleared my head and
walked to 505W Cassie sat propped up in bed, wearing red floral pajamas
with white collar and cuffs. Her cheeks were raspberry-pink and her
hair was gathered in a topknot tied with a white bow. The I.V had been
disconnected and it stood in the corner, like a metal scarecrow.
Depleted glucose bags hung from the arms. The only evidence her veins
had been punctured was a small round Band-Aid atop one hand and the
yellow Betadine stain below it. Her eyes glistened as they followed
me.
Cindy sat near her on the bed, spoon-feeding her cereal. She wore a
SAVE THE OCEANS T-shirt over a denim skirt and sandals.
Dolphins cavorted across her bustline. She and Cassie looked more