by Pepper Pace
Jason was pushing past his mother. She spun around and jerked him by his shirt front. Thin as she was, she could have lifted him from his chair and tossed him against the wall. “Call the fucking ambulance, Jason! NOW!” His eyes met her and he quickly reached for his cell phone. Joyce Hamilton sat on the tub next to Robin. She placed her hand on the damp curls of the young girl’s head.
“Robin.” She rubbed her neck and shoulders and Robin couldn’t believe that she was sitting on the toilet pooping with Jason’s mother rubbing her neck. “It’s okay honey.” A dagger seared her stomach and Robin cried out. She squeezed her eyes closed.
“My stomach…” She moaned. “Please, go away…it’s just my IBS.” She wanted to explain that she cramped like this all of the time with Irritable Bowel Syndrome. The vomiting…well that part wasn’t normal, and the blood in it wasn’t good, but there was no need for an ambulance!
“You’re bleeding internally, why?”
Robin was panting. “Ulcer, but-”
Jason’s mother grimaced. “No way. There is no way that you are vomiting pure blood from an ulcer.”
Jason was talking into the cell phone. He thrust it to his mother. “Mom, here talk to them, they can’t understand me!” He was stuttering and knew that he wasn’t making sense. He quickly grabbed a towel and wet it. Then he wheeled next to Robin and wiped her sweating face. She wanted to tell him that they were blowing this out of proportion. They just needed to let her wipe her bottom in peace and then she’d drive herself to the hospital! But the look on Jason’s face told that he was already convinced of the worst.
“Robin…” He groaned. Oh fuck. Tears sprouted in his eyes. His mother was right, she was bleeding internally and why in the hell had he let her get so distraught?? He watched her body jerk again and her eyes squeeze shut as something hurt her and then a splash in the toilet like pure water. He tried to peek behind her in the bowl. He needed to know if it was blood, but he couldn’t see past her brown bottom.
“Jason.” His mother said calmly. He looked over at her. She was rubbing Robin’s neck and shoulders. “Go out and wait for the ambulance.” He had already begun shaking his head.
“Babyboy, do what I say. I have hands to clean her and I need to get her ready for the ambulance. Do you understand?” He didn’t understand, because he was having a hard time understanding anything right now. There was an ambulance coming. And it was coming for Robin. He had to go outside and wait. His mother needed to clean her. He could hear his mother telling him to go. Go Jason. Go. He wheeled out of the bathroom. It seemed that he was moving so slow even though he was going as fast as he could.
He couldn’t make his muscles move right and he thought; don’t have a seizure. Not now. But it wouldn’t be up to him to decide if, only how severe based on how much he fought against it.
When Jason was gone, Joyce turned on the shower. There was a handheld shower head, not long enough to reach the toilet but if the girl could at least stand up, even if she couldn’t step into the tub, she would spray her bottom clean and mop the floors later. Joyce moved in front of Robin and stooped to grab some toilet tissue.
“Lean forward. I’m going to clean you.” Robin did as she was told, leaning forward in the way that Jason had done for her many times now. Then she felt Jason’s mother cleaning her bottom. She didn’t consider why she didn’t do this herself. She was just so tired all of a sudden. Distantly she thought, ‘I have lost a lot of blood…’
“It’s mostly water, a little blood in it.” Mrs. Hamilton announced. She flushed the toilet. “Robin. I need you to stand up when you’re ready.” Robin barely sensed Mrs. Hamilton removing her legs from her jeans and her panties.
Robin felt numb. There was just too much sensory overload to react. She stood slowly on shaky legs and Mrs. Hamilton helped brace her while she stepped into the shower. She was still wearing shoes and watched as the warm water soaked her socks and sneakers. Robin stared at the water, concentrating on it as Mrs. Hamilton cleaned her. Maybe this wasn’t real. It didn’t feel real; it could be just a dream. Why wasn’t she blacking out? She would have been fainting by now, except the world seemed to be super sharp. She was going to have to stay awake through all of this, and that was a shame.
“Don’t worry if you have to do it in the tub; it’s just little more than water, Babygirl. It won’t hurt anything.” Robin suddenly heard the sharp sound of a siren, off in the distance and getting closer. She felt her body automatically stiffen. She didn’t want to get in the ambulance, she could drive herself to the hospital, or maybe Jason’s mother could.
Mrs. Hamilton helped her step out of the tub and grabbed a large towel to wrap around her waist.
“Can you just take me to the hospital?” She pleaded in desperation.
Joyce gripped her hand in reassurance as she helped her leave the bathroom. She couldn’t even straighten. “No, honey. They’re already here.”
The rest was just a jumble of movement, a blood pressure cuff on her as she was placed on a gurney. She tried to tell them that she could walk to the ambulance. Mrs. Hamilton was trying to hold the towel around her and Jason was trying to get his wheelchair close to her but also keep out of the way of the medics.
Someone put an oxygen mask on her and she couldn’t figure out why, but she did feel a little better after that. The ambulance workers wouldn’t let Jason in the ambulance with his wheelchair and Mrs. Hamilton cursed them so bad that one actually began to tremble and shake. Jason was unwilling to let her go to the hospital alone so he sent his mother to ride in the ambulance with her and said he’d call Link to come get him.
Robin watched this tiredly. Why couldn’t she black out? Her stomach hurt so bad, she had to turn sideways and draw her knees up. The medic shut the doors and she saw Jason watching her, looking so afraid. She wanted to say that she was okay but couldn’t seem to say anything past the oxygen mask. One of the medics reached out and lightly pressed her stomach and she finally found enough breath to cry out.
She saw Jason’s mother smack the back of the medic’s hand like he was a naughty child caught sneaking a cookie. She thought she heard, ‘What the hell is wrong with you?!’ before she finally got her wish and she blacked out.
Chapter 14
Betty Mathena was working the records of her newest client. She didn’t understand how these small, tax exempt organizations ever got past the IRS watchdogs. Most of the time their ledgers didn’t amount to more than a secretary notepad and their receipts were often times impossible to straighten out.
She hummed absently to the Earl Klugh song that was playing on the CD player. Her mind began to wander as she remembered a different day, long ago, when this song played and her husband looked at her with that wicked twinkle in his eye.
‘I’m busy. Don’t even think about it.’ She had sharply said. It was Saturday; a day to listen to jazz and relax. But she had too many cases to work, so instead of snuggling in her husband’s arms, drinking a glass of their favorite Chardonnay, she was trying to right two years of bad bookkeeping.
Then she felt Lawrence’s strong fingers on her neck as he gently massaged her stiff muscles there. He’d always had the most wonderful hands. He was dark and tall 6’3” and so handsome with his short afro and clean shaven face. She had liked him because of his dark skin. She had always favored darker men; maybe because it had been so rough on her being so light skinned. She had always had to prove that she was black; by action and by deed. And Lawrence never seemed to care. He never made her feel that her ivory skin placed her above others, he never marveled at her fine hair and he didn’t find her grey eyes too cold and foreign. Lawrence Mathena had seen the woman beneath the mask that she normally kept in place.
And though she fought it and him for a long time, his calm and matter-of-fact persistence finally broke through. She didn’t want to fall in love. She didn’t want to give anyone that much power over her. But love was not something that she could control.
She reme
mbered that she had closed the file she had been working on, and had silently led her husband to their bedroom where they had made love for the rest of the evening.
Betty blinked and cleared her throat. She frowned as she was brought back to the present and she tapped her retractable pencil against the table top. “This organization is a mess. What a mess.” She tried to think of anything other than her past. She moved over to the disc changer and selected an upbeat song by BeBe and CeCe Winans and then returned to her work.
She continued working past lunch. Now that she lived alone there was no one to stop her from working through the weekend. And because there was no one present, there was no reason not to. She found her mind drifting again, looking forward to her trip with Robin. She knew that she needed a vacation. She knew that she needed to find something to do each weekend other than working on her client’s books and looking forward to Robin’s weekly visit.
She glanced at the phone. She wanted to call her, but had stopped doing that. Robin was busy and she didn’t seem to enjoy talking to her anymore, she just rushed her off the phone so that she could hurry here or hurry there or try to get some sleep so that she could be ready for her next job. Every since their blow out over the whole college thing, Betty had been careful to keep their discussions nag-free. She knew she did it, but couldn’t seem to stop herself. Robin was her only child; the only family that she had left, and she wanted the world for her. But that child just stubbornly dug her heels in and wouldn’t take that first step. She thought by allowing her to struggle, she would finally see how much easier life could be if she would just fortify herself with a good education and get herself a career paying job instead of these low paying, back breaking ones. But Robin didn’t seem to get that lesson. Betty sighed and then the phone did ring and it made her jump and she realized that other than her music, there had been no sound in her home all day…and perhaps for days and days on end.
“Hello.” She said in a clipped tone that was in no way an indication that she was angry, but just her way.
“Is this Robin’s mother?”
Betty frowned, not recognizing the voice. “Yes. Who is this? ”
“Well, this is her boyfriend’s mother. I’m Joyce Hamilton and I wanted to tell you that Robin’s taken ill and has been brought to the hospital.”
Betty Mathena’s heart began to beat rapidly. She was silent as she pieced together the words that she had just heard…her boyfriend’s mother…taken ill…brought to the hospital.
“Robin? Is that who you’re talking about?” This woman must have the wrong number because her daughter did not have a boyfriend.
“I’m calling you from her cellphone.” Betty’s eyes moved to the caller ID and then her body began to shake; her knees practically buckling.
“What--? Is she okay?”
“We just got here. Mrs…can you come?”
“Which hospital?!”
“University.”
“I’m on my way!” Betty Mathena grabbed her purse and tried to think if there was anything else she needed…she was forgetting something-KEYS! She darted to the mantle for her car keys and hurried out the door wondering why she hadn’t asked the woman what was wrong with her baby. And what did she mean that she was her boyfriend’s mother? She could not bear the thought of losing someone else she loved, but already her mind seemed to latch on to that fact; after Robin, there would be no one else. She would be all alone.
***
As soon as the ambulance pulled away, Jason quickly wheeled back into the house, past his neighbors that had gathered around the parking lot, talking in whispers and peering at him. He still had his cell phone in hand and quickly dialed Link.
“Link! I need you to come get me and take me to the hospital!”
Link hesitated. “Top? I can’t understand you, bro. Say it again, slower.”
Jason closed his eyes and counted to three. “Link. Robin is in the hospital and I need you to come take me. They wouldn’t let me ride with her in the back of the ambulance.”
“Robin? I’m on my way.”
Jason wheeled into the bedroom and slipped on a shirt, then he began the process of locating socks and putting on shoes. He wheeled back into the living room and glanced out the window. Where was he?! Then his eyes caught sight of the vomit and his face began to crumble. He cleaned it up with paper towels; his fingers not making the job easy.
Afterwards, he moved his hands through his hair repeatedly and then heard Link’s horn. Jason grabbed his keys and hurried out of the apartment. Thankfully, his crowd of neighbors had gone about their business.
Jason explained what had happened and Link listened with a stricken look on his face as he drove. “I didn’t realize that it had gotten that bad, dude.” Jason frowned and glanced at his best friend. He hadn’t even asked him how he was doing. He’d seen the look on Link’s face after he found out that Patty had left without him. He had hoped that she would be with him.
“How are you?”
“Fine. Why wouldn’t I be?”
“Because I know that you are upset about Patty.”
“Hmmm.” He said angrily. “I’m not a UPSET about Patty. I’m just upset that she just left. I mean, you don’t come with a group and then go off and leave. I guess she doesn’t realize how much she has everyone worried about her. And she hasn’t answered her phone. I just think, she should answer whether she’s pissed or not, just to let a person know she’s not dead in an alley somewhere!”
“So you haven’t talked to her since last night?”
“Isn’t that what I just said?!” He snapped.
“Look, I’ll call her and find out if she’s okay.”
Peter didn’t respond. “Sorry I snapped,” he said softly. “She probably won’t answer. She’ll think I put you up to it.”
Jason dialed Belinda’s number. It went directly to voice mail. “Patty, Robin’s in the hospital. Call me back right now!” He hung up and then looked at his friend. Within thirty seconds the phone began to ring. They both raised their brows.
“Yeah.” Jason said. “An ambulance has taken her to University Hospital and Link and I are on our way there now. Yeah, meet us there. Okay, see you.”
“Fuck.” Peter responded. “Why did you tell her to come?”
“Because she’s Robin’s friend, too.”
A few minutes later Link dropped him off at the emergency entrance and Jason cursed the van’s slow moving wheelchair ramp. It had barely reached the ground before he was wheeling rapidly through the hospital entrance. He was completely incapable of making himself understood to the woman working the front desk, so he was forced to call his Mom to come up front to get him. They were led back to triage where he could barely squeeze his chair into the small area. Robin was lying on a bed hooked to an iv and with an oxygen mask.
His mother had explained that she was awake but they’d given her pain medicine and were preparing to give her an endoscopy to assess the damage. She lifted her head when she saw him and he could see plainly that she wore a look of relief on her tired face. Poor thing; his poor sweet baby. He took her hand.
“Hi Sweetheart.” She squeezed his hand weakly and smiled past the oxygen mask.
She felt a lot better now; after the pain medicine and the talk that she’d had with Mrs. Hamilton. When they arrived. She said she’d call her mom for her but for the life of her, she couldn’t remember mama’s phone number. It was Mrs. H that had gone through her purse for the cell phone and finding the number.
After that Robin just watched as Jason’s mother took over, barking out orders, explaining what she wanted, not allowing them to sit her in a gurney in the hallway while she filled out paperwork. And then while they waited for the Doctor to come in to do their exam she had leaned in close to her and spoke.
“If I did anything to cause this to happen, I’m so sorry, Robin.” The woman had then squeezed her hand. “I see that my son loves you. That’s no exaggeration. I’m so sorry that I jumped to th
e wrong conclusion.” Robin blinked and thought, this was almost worth it if it convinced Mrs. H how they really felt about each other.