Ask Me Why I Hurt

by M. D. Randy Christensen

  “I don’t know. I can just feel it. And I want a full STD screening.”

  “OK.” I opened the cabinet for a disposable gown.

  “Where’s Jan?” she asked. She was so calm.

  “She usually takes the van out on other days,” I said. “It’s not as often anymore we get to go out together, though I miss it. Would you like to wait for her another day?”

  “No. You can do the exam. No other helpers today?”

  “There’s a volunteer outside.” I pulled out the tray and took out a folded paper gown and handed it to her. I got ready to leave the room so she could change. “I can bring her in if you like.”

  She hesitated. “What if I am pregnant?”

  I paused. “Would you like to discuss your options?”

  Her face was still calm. “I think I know my options.”

  “OK. Why don’t you tell me what you would like to do?” I asked gently. I was expecting her to say she wanted an abortion. I was expecting to have her ask for a referral to a clinic, since that was not a service we provided. What I didn’t expect was what she said and the calm, beautiful way she delivered it, after so many years.

  “I want you to help me.”

  I heard a clock ticking. I heard my heart beating, slowly and firmly. Some moments are too profound to be loud. She suddenly looked at the floor, vulnerable emotion sweeping her face for the first time. The real person that was Sugar, lying under all those years of pain, was finally surfacing. The emotions gave a transparency to her skin and eyes I had never seen. She looked at me with what could only be described as a wild emotion. It was something I had never seen before in her face. It was hope. She took a deep breath.

  “Dr. Randy, I don’t want my baby to grow up to be like me.”

  That evening I walked in to find kids screaming joyfully through our house. Amy had some neighbor friends over. Their kids were in school with Janie and Reed. “We went up to Dreamy Draw Park,” Janie shouted at me as the kids ran by pell-mell, being chased by Ginger. She looked regal in her rust-colored shirt, which brought out her burnished hair. “You won’t believe what happened today,” I said.

  I told her about Sugar. Amy looked at me with wide eyes. “Were you able to get her help?”

  “I found her a temporary shelter until she has the baby. Then I called Darlene. She said she would make room at UMOM, even if she had to clear out a broom closet. I’m still worried, though. She has to get through her pregnancy. Anything could happen in the next few months.”

  Amy gave me a huge, hard hug. “She made the first step,” she said. I kissed her. It turned out to be a long kiss.

  “Whoa now,” her friend said, coming into the room. “I’d like to know your secret.” I pulled away. Amy blushed, her cheeks turning red.

  “Yeah, really. Tell us all,” her friend said. “My husband wants to know your secret.”

  “Hey!” her husband said.

  “Beer?” I asked him, and he accepted a cold Budweiser. We sat at the kitchen counter and chatted. He was already planning a Super Bowl party and insisted that Amy and I join them.

  “Maybe” was my answer. I tried to think of the last time I had sat down and watched an entire sports game. The answer had to be since before I started the van. “I’m going to try this year. For sure.”

  “Definitely,” Amy said, giving me a warning look. It was a look that said I needed to make time for a sports game with friends as much as I needed to make time for her. I ate a chip and silently agreed.

  Reed raced in. “Hi, Dad! We went to Dreamy Draw! We got lost.”

  “I’ll get the kids in bed tonight,” I told Amy as we cleaned up later that night. “And how about we have waffles tomorrow morning for breakfast.”

  “Don’t tell me you’re going to cook.”

  “Sure I am. Homemade Eggo waffles. Fresh from the box.”

  She gave me a quick sideways hug, her shoulders shaking with mirth. “At least you know your limits.”

  Several months passed. I drove to our new offices. We had recently moved the offices and the van to new headquarters at UMOM. HomeBase had fallen on hard times with the recession, and it looked as if it might be changing hands. We were thankful that Darlene so kindly offered us office space in her new shelter. Our new offices were white and clean. We had a tiny kitchen and a fridge for lunches. The walls smelled fresh with new paint, and there were no more worries about mold and allergens. Jan, Wendy, and Michelle were overjoyed with the new space.

  I stopped at my own desk. It was crowded with grant applications. A stack of new brochures waited for approval. They were small but professionally glossy. Our mission statement was more to the point: providing health care to homeless youth, the brochure said.

  Already the new shelter seemed like home. I remembered my initial hesitation at working with Darlene. Darlene clearly was a force to be reckoned with.

  It was early, but the sun was hard and bright as I left the offices and cut across the shelter courtyard. Breakfast smells filled the air. I caught home fries and bacon and ham and cheese and fresh homemade flour tortillas. The tortillas smelled so fresh I could almost taste the bubbles and blackened spots. My stomach growled, and my mouth watered. While I wasn’t doing better at eating regular meals, I took comfort in the fact I was getting a bit more sleep.

  A toddler on a Big Wheel whizzed by, his big sister merrily chasing him. There was conversational shouting in Spanish and everywhere the smell of beans put on to simmer. Some of the new rooms had kitchens. I was excited to take the van out for the day. New locations needed to be scouted.

  I almost walked right past Kim. She was sitting in her nursing scrubs at one of the picnic tables with a mom and her baby.

  “You’re up early,” I told Kim. She gave me a funny smile, and I remembered that she probably got up long before dawn to start her clinic.

  Then I did a double take at the woman, who was holding a newborn baby. No, I thought. Yes. It was.

  “Hey, Randy,” Kim said. “I just met this nice young lady. I’ve been talking to her about finishing her education so she can join my nursing program.”

  “Hello. I’m so glad to see you.” My voice was low with emotion.

  Kim gave me a questioning look. I realized that she hadn’t spent enough time on the van to know Sugar. She held her baby almost as a shield. Her curly blond head was lowered so I could see the part. She was acting shy. Out of her element, Sugar didn’t know how to act.

  “You did it,” I said. The overwhelming pride I felt for my patient prevented me from calling her by the name she had had on the streets. Now she wasn’t that name anymore. I had promised myself I would never use her street name, and I had not. But I didn’t know what to call her now.

  There was a long silence as I looked at her. I felt an overwhelming sweep of emotion, and her sudden smile back showed me she felt the same. Kim was looking between the woman and me with concern. The newborn baby on the woman’s chest was small with long legs that moved restlessly. He had a narrow head with a coating of light brown hair. The baby was barely a few weeks old. Suddenly Sugar looked up at me. She still had eyes like a crystal white window. They were still so clear and bright. Maybe they would always be that way.

  “What should I call you?” I asked.

  She put a pacifier in her baby’s mouth and stroked his fine hair. “My name, I guess.”

  I waited for a moment, and she told me her real name. And after so many years with so many visits between us, her name was like a private gift I didn’t want to share with anyone.

  “That’s a nice name.” I sat with them for a few minutes. Obviously still confused about how I knew the young woman but too professional to show it, Kim told me about the nursing program.

  “I think you’ll make a great nurse,” I told her.

  “You think so?” She looked startled.

  “Yes, I do. Really.”

  She cuddled her baby. I wasn’t going to say anything to her about the past. It would be
hard enough for her to deal with it. The last thing she would want was a reminder. It was enough that she was safe. The happiness I felt was deep and powerful, like a current that was pulling me to a brand-new place. The woman once called Sugar was finally off the streets.

  I got up to leave. “All these smells of breakfast are driving me crazy,” I said.

  “How’s Ginger?” she asked.

  “She’s doing well,” I said warmly. “She really adores our kids.”

  “Maybe someday I’ll have a dog too.”

  “I’ll bet you will.”

  The van was parked near the tall gates that led to the outside. The blue sides gleamed. The steps were down. Jan was already on board, stocking the van for the day.

  “Ready?” she asked.

  “Just about.” I went to fold up the steps.

  “Dr. Randy?”

  My old patient once called Sugar was standing at the bottom, as she had so many times before, though now she wouldn’t be climbing the steps to receive medical treatment.

  “Yes?”

  “My sister—do you think we can still find her?”

  I saw the baby nestled on her chest. “I think we can,” I said.

  My mother had continued to struggle with pain following her operation. She was often in the hospital having tests. As before, I felt split in different directions, helping my mother as well as my sister, but I felt I was handling it better now. I also was realizing that I could count on others, like Amy and Stephanie’s husband, Curtis, who remained a rock-solid support.

  I was in my parents’ kitchen in Gilbert, over for Sunday supper, supposedly helping put leftover food away, but really just noshing on the food and hanging out with my mom. She sat on the tall barstool she kept in the middle of the kitchen. She liked to sit there and direct activity. “Stop,” she said, leaning forward and lightly smacking my hand away from the baked pasta. “We haven’t even had dessert yet.”

  I started pulling down dessert plates and opened the cupboard drawer for forks. Mom sat on her stool. Beyond her I could see the wide green expanse of watered lawn behind the house; to one side I could see the neighbors’ horses. From the other room I could hear Dad playing with the kids. They were running around, laughing. I could also hear Stephanie. She was sitting in front of our parents’ computer, talking to Amy. Curtis was someplace out back with their boys. But the happy atmosphere was not to last. My mom had sad news to deliver.

  “Randy, you know I had another biopsy. Well, it looks like the cancer is back.”

  Stunned, I put the forks down.

  We had a family meeting that night. Mom smiled for our kids and Stephanie’s sons. As always she was gentle and warm with the grandkids. But as soon as they ran to play out back while the sun was setting, she broke down a little. She cried while Dad held her on the couch. “The doctors say I can’t handle any more surgery.”

  “What about more chemo?” Amy asked quietly.

  Mom frowned. “I can try, but it doesn’t look good.”

  Dad passed her a tissue. She wiped her face. There was silence in the room. I knew what this meant. My mom was not going to win this war.

  Stephanie sat on the couch, holding in her lap a needlepoint pillow that Mom had made. Curtis had his hand on her knee. Amy was sitting on the other couch, absorbing everyone’s pain, ready to help. I took a breath. If the colon cancer had returned, the survival rate would be very low even with aggressive treatment. I wondered if my mother knew she would likely die. From outside Reed yelled something at Janie. It had to do with lizards.

  Everyone looked at me. For once I didn’t want to be the doctor in the family. Was I supposed to speak the truth? Not here, in front of everyone. That was a conversation I would have to have with Mom in private. “We’ll do our best, Mom,” I said. I looked down and saw I was touching my own wedding ring.

  I felt Amy’s compassionate gaze. Amy was also a doctor. She knew too.

  On the way home from my parents’ I had prepared myself for a breakdown once I was alone. But I was OK. Maybe I wasn’t meant to break down on a regular basis, I thought. If I did, with my work, I would be breaking down all the time. Maybe I was made for this work after all, I thought. Maybe I was getting stronger. It didn’t mean the pain was less. Maybe it just meant I could handle it more.

  “Randy?” It was Amy. “You’ve been sitting in front of your computer for hours. Come to bed.”

  “I’m sorry. I meant to talk to you, I did.”

  She came and stroked my head. “Honey, you don’t have to talk to me all the time. Some of the time is just fine.” She stroked my hair gently, caressing my scalp. When we went to bed, she curled against my back. I still didn’t break down. But the peace I felt gave me the same result.

  It doesn’t matter how many times you say good-bye. It’s never enough. The day after Thanksgiving I stopped by a video rental and got a DVD of Sleeping Beauty. I took it to my mom in hospice. When I was small, growing up in the small town of Kremmling, Colorado, children’s movies rarely played in the town’s only theater. But one day a movie came to town. It was Sleeping Beauty. I begged my mom to take me. “It was the first movie you ever took me to see,” I told her as we watched it by her white hospital bed. “No wonder I’ve always believed in happy endings.” We both cried a little.

  The holidays were coming, but our celebrations felt muted. I spent most of my time with Mom in hospice. On December 16, 2009, she passed away. My dad, Stephanie, and I were by her side at the hospice. She had grown smaller. In her arms, she held some family photos. Two were of her and Dad. The rest were of her grandkids. In one photo Janie and Charlotte and Reed were lying in the grass, laughing. Next to her on the bed stand was an old-fashioned book she had made in my childhood. I opened it. She had taped in every report card, every article about me as an adult. The thick yellow pages felt delicate under my fingers.

  I felt we all were doing OK and handling the loss. At least it seemed so to me. Then, in the days following the funeral, I noticed Reed was taking his stuffed turtle with him everywhere he went. I couldn’t figure it out. “You didn’t take your turtle to school again today, did you?” I asked teasingly one night.

  “Yeah,” he replied, clutching it tight. “We looked for lizards.”

  Amy solved the mystery one night. She showed me a poster that Reed had made at school. “Everyone in his class made a poster about themselves,” Amy said. Reed had drawn his twin sister and Charlotte. There was a blue van, with me standing next to it. There was Amy with her curly hair. Up in the clouds was his grandma Maria. She had angel wings. At the bottom was a green turtle.

  “He told the class his grandma gave him that turtle,” Amy said.

  Not surprisingly, I was back at work within a few days. If there was anything in life that made me feel normal, I thought, it was doing the job I love. As hard as it was, I found solace in caring for the homeless kids.

  Jan and I had had a long day. She hummed as she drove us back to the dock. It was hard to believe she was now sixty. Her teenage kids were now adults. She had recently told me that she wanted to spend her last years before retirement on the van working with the kids. When I thought about her eventually leaving, I felt sad. She and I had started this adventure together, and I couldn’t imagine continuing without her.

  Jan was telling me about procedures for the new clinic at UMOM. “We’re getting it licensed,” she remarked.

  “You’re the expert at licensing,” I said in a praising tone. “We always pass inspections thanks to you.”

  We drove back to the dock in companionable silence. I thought of the dinner I was planning that night with Amy and our children. We were going to grill some hamburgers, and then I was hoping we all could go out together to walk Ginger and look at the stars.

  I looked out the window and saw not street corners and alleys but places where homeless kids might be waiting. Around each corner, I thought, were more kids who needed our help. I was eager to find them.

 
“We’ve been down a long road together, Jan,” I said.

  “Don’t get all sentimental on me,” she said.

  “OK.”

  She tossed me a quick grin. “You’re a good friend.”

  “You too, Jan.”

  14

  BEGINNINGS

  The spring sun filled the bedroom, and I woke up thinking, This is why people live in Arizona. It’s a perfect seventy degrees while other parts of the country are blanketed in snow. It was spring 2010. Then, with a tingle of excitement and wonder, I remembered: It’s been ten years since I started the van. A decade.

  My schedule quickly played through my mind: volunteer breakfast, then an important phone call at 11:00 A.M., then a meeting with the team, and taking the van out to a new location.

  The other day Jan had given me the count. In the last decade, our van had seen close to seven thousand children. It seemed like a miracle. But as much as that was, it still felt like a fraction of the children I wanted to help. There were so many more in Arizona and across the country. Seven thousand, and it seemed I could remember them all, in a parade of smiles and souls and hearts. I thought of the ones I had helped and the ones I had never seen again: Mary, who had written from the university; the last card she said she was going for a master’s degree. Donald, still married and living in Pastor Richardson’s house, having taken over the drywall business. Sugar, moved out of UMOM and doing well on her own with her baby, reunited with her sister, who had grown up in foster care after their mother had been committed. I thought of the ones who had moved on, whom I still longed to hear from. I thought of Nicole with a sharp pang. Part of me still expected to see her in my exam room, waiting for help, still needing help. My grief over her would never fully go away. But of course I couldn’t let it stop me from finding the kids like her, the desperate cases that I hoped I would be able to turn around.

  I got up and dressed. The face that greeted me in the mirror was forty-three. I thought: Remember when you were thirty-three, starting the van? When you couldn’t imagine doing this job for even five years? There were lines worn into my forehead. My once-thick brown hair was mostly gone, and I sported a short, tight haircut, a dramatic change from my younger years, when I wore my hair long. I no longer looked like the bright-eyed young doctor who had marched with determination into his boss’s office to say he should be the one to run a brand-new mobile medical clinic. That doctor had been full of passion and zest and sometimes anger. This doctor was a little travel worn, with more humility and an invaluable library of experiences to draw upon.