The Accident

by Donna M. Zadunajsky

  “Ben, breakfast,” Kaitlyn said as she appeared in the doorway. Her eyes fell on his chest. She swallowed. “You don’t want it to get cold, do you?”

  He grabbed a pair of boxers from the top and held them up. “Was just going to change first,” he replied.

  “Okay, do you need any help?” she asked.

  He shook his head. “I have to learn to do this on my own.” He could tell she was staring at something on his back and turned his body to face her.

  She blinked then nodded. “Okay, are you sure? I mean with the cast and all, you might have trouble getting them on.” She pointed to the boxers in his hand.

  “I’ll manage,” he said, hoping not to sound unpleasant. “I’ll call you if I need any help.” He waited until she left and went through the other drawers for pants and a shirt. He didn’t like half of the things he found in the drawers but grabbed what he needed and went back into the bathroom. He turned sideways to see if there was something that Kaitlyn saw on his back. Besides a birthmark poking out from the top of his boxers, he didn’t see anything out of the ordinary.

  He changed as quickly as he could without falling and left the bathroom, his heart beating fast. He needed to calm down before he ended up hurting himself. Kaitlyn was placing the remaining plates on the table when he appeared.

  She looked up at him. “That was fast.”

  He pulled out the chair and sat, leaning his crutches beside him. “Looks great,” he said. “Smells great too.” He started eating. He looked up after taking the first bite and caught Kaitlyn staring at him. “Um, did I do something wrong?” he asked with his mouth full.

  She looked at him quizzically, and then shook her head.

  He could see that her eyes were wet, but why? He set his fork down on his plate and grabbed the glass of orange juice, swallowed and asked. “Is everything okay?”

  “I just…I just have never heard you compliment me on my cooking before,” she whispered.

  “I didn’t mean to make you cry,” he said, wanting to get up and comfort her. What kind of man was he to her, to make her cry over something so minor as to praise her on her cooking? “Kaitlyn, I’m sorry.”

  “Please don’t be. It’s the nicest thing you’ve ever said to me,” she whispered, wiping the tears away.

  Inside, his heart broke and he wasn’t sure why. He didn’t remember the man he used to be, and yet, he hated himself for what he had done to her. How could he have inflicted that kind of pain on his own wife? The images in the photos flickered in his mind again and his stomach dropped, filling with disgust. He didn’t deserve to be with her. She was better off without him, and he knew then that he must leave, but how would he drive with his leg in a cast? He’d have to wait until he was better. Five, maybe six weeks until the cast came off. As soon as he was better, then he’d go. Yes, that’s what he’d do. She deserved so much more than an abusive husband. She deserved a man who would love her and was gentle and kind to her.

  31

  Twenty-Eight Years Earlier

  Adanya Moore sat in the chair of the doctor’s office, staring at the pale green walls around her. The color, not something she would have picked for any wall, resembled the way she was feeling. Like shit!

  Her nerves were on edge as she waited to hear the results of her pregnancy test. She was only eighteen and would be graduating high school in two weeks.

  Two weeks!

  And she screwed up her life by getting pregnant. Well, she didn’t know for sure if she were pregnant, that was why she was here, now, sitting in this God-awful green room. If the test came back positive and she were pregnant, it would ruin all her chances of being accepted into the police academy. She dreamed of becoming a policeman ever since she was little. Her father was a police officer, and her father’s father was a police officer, so this was her dream too, and something she had to do. It’s what she was born to do. She would be a damn good woman police officer.

  Adanya sighed.

  She couldn’t be pregnant. Not now. She had years ahead of her to have a baby. Now was not a good time. Once it was confirmed, she’d have to tell Roland Hayes, her boyfriend of three years. He had big plans himself since he got a full scholarship and would be going off to college to one day play in the NBA.

  Roland wanted her to go with him, but she had her own dreams to live. She hadn’t told him yet that she wasn’t going with him away to college. Of course, she knew that they would eventually go their separate ways because she wasn’t leaving her dad and knew that Roland wasn’t coming back once he left the town of Edon. There was nothing left here for him but her. His dad was a raging alcoholic and used to hit Roland but once he grew into a man, his dad knew he didn’t stand a chance against him.

  Adanya had already been crying over the day she’d have to say goodbye to the man who stole her heart. She didn’t want to lose Roland, but there was nothing she could do and had to accept what path God had given her. They were still together as a couple, but she had to toughen her heart because she didn’t want to bawl her eyes out on the day Roland said goodbye and left her and Edon behind.

  She couldn’t tell him about the pregnancy and shatter his dreams. Besides, if she were going to have a baby, she wasn’t going to keep it. There would be no way of raising a baby. She didn’t have a job. No income to pay for the child. She’d seen how much her father struggled being a single parent raising her. She couldn’t do that with this baby. She didn’t want to ask her father for help. “God, he is going to be so disappointed in me,” she mumbled, wiping away the tears sliding down her face. Her father was her world, her strength. “How could I mess up like this?” She’d been taking the pill after Roland and she started dating and became sexually active. Roland also used a condom for the added protection, he’d called it. “So much for that.” So how did this happen?

  Adanya sat up straight when she heard the faint sound of a knock on the door. Sweat rolled down the back of her neck and her heart pounded fast beneath the t-shirt she was wearing. This was it. The moment she was waiting for. The answer that would stop her from living her life. From becoming a great police officer.

  “Adanya?” Dr. Ann Meadde said as she closed the door behind her. “You’re going to be a mom.”

  Adanya swallowed the lump in her throat. She began to feel dizzy. She was going to be a mom. No, no, no. This couldn’t be happening. Everything that she’d worked so hard for was gone in an instant. She wouldn’t be a police officer like her father, a man that she looked up to and adored since she first laid eyes on him.

  “I can’t be,” Adanya whispered as she lifted her head, tears streaking down her face. “Maybe it’s a false positive. Run another test!” she demanded.

  Dr. Meadde said, “I’m so sorry, but you’re going to have a baby. There’s no chance that the test is wrong.”

  “But I was taking the pill and Roland was using a condom. How did this happen?”

  “I can’t answer that. There could be several different reasons. Maybe a broken condom or you didn’t use one once and you don’t remember.” Dr. Meadde said. “Were you sick recently and on antibiotics? The pill doesn’t work when you’re using them.”

  Adanya gasped. “I was sick with a cold two months ago and then I caught the flu.” Her eyes widened, and she shook her head. “It wasn’t the flu, was it? I was experiencing morning sickness. Oh God!” She cried harder, more tears rolling down her face. She was crying so hard that she began to dry heave. This can’t be happening to me, she thought.

  “Breathe, Adanya. Take small, shallow breaths,” Dr. Meadde said as she sat beside her.

  Adanya did what she was told until her body stopped shaking, but the tears still flowed down her cheeks.

  “It’s most likely the case that you didn’t have the flu,” the doctor replied. “I want you to think about what you want to do.” The doctor held out a couple of pamphlets. “Read these over. One is about abortion and the other will help you if you’re looking to have someone adopt your b
aby. Unless you’re keeping it?”

  “No! I can’t keep it. I can’t raise the baby on my own.” Adanya placed her head in her hands as she cried harder. She couldn’t keep the baby. What kind of life could she give him or her? What about the people in town? What would they say if they knew she was pregnant? If she weren’t going to tell Roland, then she’d have to hide the pregnancy from the world. She’d never be able to leave her house.

  “I’m here no matter what you decide. Take a few days and think about things before you make a decision on what to do.”

  Adanya nodded. “Thank you, Dr. Meadde. Can I have a few minutes to freshen up before I leave?”

  “Yes, of course. If you want, you can go out the back. No one will see you there,” Dr. Meadde replied sympathetically before standing and leaving the room.

  “Thank you,” Adanya replied.

  Adanya sat in the small, pale green room. God, what was she going to do? She had to take the doctor’s advice and think about everything before deciding. She didn’t think she could kill the baby. An abortion was out of the question. If she wanted to keep the baby or give it up for adoption, that was what she needed to think about, and as for Roland, she wouldn’t let him give up his dream. In two weeks, they were graduating from high school and Roland was leaving shortly after that. He said that there wasn’t any reason to stay after high school. He wanted out of his father’s house as soon as possible. She was on her own and it was best that he left before he found out that she was having his baby.

  32

  Seven months later, Adanya gave birth to a beautiful baby girl. She weighed seven pounds, three ounces and was nineteen inches long. The baby had taken after Roland, who was six feet eight inches. Her daughter would be tall like Roland or maybe short like Adanya, but she would never know because her mind was made up and she was giving her daughter up for adoption. Adanya asked if she could hold her daughter and say goodbye before they took her away. In the past, this kind of request wasn’t granted, just in case the mother reconsidered and wanted to keep the baby.

  Adanya held her daughter in her arms. She watched the baby’s eyes move as if she were trying to remember all the details of her mother before they parted. Adanya knew that this wasn’t true. Babies didn’t have that kind of memory until they were at least four or five years old. A nurse entered the room. “It’s time to say goodbye, Adanya.”

  Adanya nodded, giving the baby a tiny squeeze into her chest and kissing her on the forehead. “Please forgive me for what I’m about to do, baby girl. I will love you always and forever,” she whispered close to her daughter’s ear. Then she was gone as the elderly nurse took the baby out of the room.

  Adanya arrived home the following day from the hospital. She and her father had chosen to go to a hospital four towns away, just to make sure that no one knew about the pregnancy. For weeks, she stayed in bed, not wanting to do anything but cry for the loss of her daughter. It was as if she couldn’t bear to live another day without her. She had made this choice before the baby was even born, but after holding her and looking into her beautiful brown eyes, she regretted her choice, but would now have to live with it. She knew that it was for the best, and that whoever had her would give her a better life—at least that’s what she told herself. That’s what she hoped.

  At Adanya’s request, her father made sure that the files were sealed, knowing that one day her daughter might come looking for her mother. Or was it that Adanya would go looking for her daughter? Either way, there was no trace of the adoption.

  When she finally was able to get herself out of bed and stop mourning over giving up her daughter, she started exercising to get back in shape for the police academy. She would make this her goal, her life. She had nothing else.

  She wasn’t the only woman, but she was the only black woman who was enrolled. Men treated the women differently, making them feel as if they weren’t good enough to be police officers, but all it did was make Adanya work harder. On her off-time, she was out in the training field running the course until she was able to get herself up the rope and over the wall. She became faster and was able to run through the course without falling or bent over from exhaustion. She made herself tough because she was all she had besides her father. She ran through the course faster than half the men in the academy.

  Adanya graduated at the top of her class and was given two awards, one for her Academic Achievement and the other for being the Top Shooter in her class. Once the ceremony was over she started her career at Edon Police Station where her father worked.

  There wasn’t a day that went by that Adanya didn’t think about her daughter. In fact, when she was out patrolling, she would look at all the babies. More so when the years went by and she knew that her daughter wouldn’t be in a stroller, easier to see from the road. Though she was sure that her daughter was not living in the same town as her. The adoption service, she would have thought, wouldn’t allow for the child to be near the parent that gave them up.

  Another thing that occupied Adanya’s time was searching the papers for Roland’s name. He had left right after high school for college like he said he would. His dream was to one day play in the NBA. She’d followed his life for the first several years. After he finished college, Roland made headline news when he made the cut to play for the Chicago Bulls. She was so proud of him and had no regrets about not telling him of their daughter. Look what he’d become, she would say to herself. You did good not telling him.

  Then two years after that, he was killed in a bus accident as the team drove to Wisconsin for a game. The bus had hit a sheet of ice, causing them to veer off the road and over a bridge. Tragically, there were only four survivors. Roland wasn’t one of them.

  She had kept all the paper clippings in a box hidden in her room. If she would have known what the future held, she would have told Roland about the baby because he was cheated out of a life and knowing his daughter.

  If he had known, would he have stayed? Would he still be alive today? Adanya didn’t know, but she couldn’t change the decision she’d made or bring him back. Roland was dead, and her baby was somewhere in the world without her.

  33

  Five Days After the Accident

  Afternoon

  Leah took Rose by the arm. “Come with me. I need to show you something,” she said as she walked quickly down the hall. Leah scanned her ID card. The doors zipped open and she slipped through the glass sliders, Rose two steps behind her. If she hadn’t talked to Dr. Amal this morning about John Doe, then she wouldn’t have known he was here. She wouldn’t have given Rose back her son.

  Ahead was the coma ward. Leah had only been in this section of the hospital once before and it didn’t look as if it had changed much. The walls were painted a plain eggshell color, no different from most of the walls in the hospital. There were several small rooms that fit two to three beds in each one. There wasn’t a heavy census of coma patients, so finding him wouldn’t be that hard. She went from room to room until she saw him lying there. She walked inside. He hadn’t changed since the last time she’d seen him. When was that, two or three days ago? She couldn’t remember. She walked to the side of the bed. Rose stood behind her.

  “Why are we here?” Rose asked.

  Leah turned around. “Because of him,” she said as she held out the photo of Adam that Rose had given her a few minutes ago. “He was in an accident and was brought here without any identification on him. He became a John Doe. I tried to find a relative, but there was no record in the database at the Franklin Police Department, so the doctor moved him here until we found someone,” she lied. She couldn’t very well tell her that they were taking him off life support. Not yet.

  “I’m not sure what you’re blabbering on about. I just want to find my son, Adam,” Rose retorted.

  Leah could tell that the woman was tired. Exhausted by the lack of sleep, she assumed, as she searched for her son, Adam. Leah handed the photo back to Rose. “That’s why I brought you here
. I found your son.” Leah stepped back so that Rose could see the man in the bed.

  Rose gasped, covering her hand over her mouth. “Adam? This is my Adam?” she questioned.

  “Yes, I believe he is. The photo looks just like him.”

  Rose stepped closer and bent over to touch his face that wasn’t covered by the ventilator. “I don’t know,” Rose said.

  “Don’t know what?”

  “He looks a little different.”

  “Well, there is some swelling still to his face. He has some burns and deep cuts under the bandage, bruising even. He’s bound to look a little different,” Leah said, her gut twisting inside her. Was she wrong and this wasn’t the woman’s son?

  “What’s wrong with him?”

  “I’m afraid that he’s brain-dead.”

  “Brain-dead? As in dead?” Rose croaked.

  Leah nodded. “I’m so sorry. I tried to find you,” she whispered.

  “May I see his lower back?” Rose asked.

  Leah’s forehead creased. “His back?” This was a strange request but maybe Rose had a reason.

  “Yes, if it’s my Adam,” Rose said, “then he’ll have a birthmark on his back near his right buttock.”

  “Yes, of course you can check his back. Which side?”