The man meant nothing to her. At least she couldn’t remember him meaning anything. Closing her eyes she focused harder on his features, imprinting them in her mind. Suddenly a flash came through her brain of her being with him in a car and flying down the road and it snowing. Wrinkling her nose she pushed harder, frustrated tears leaking from between her lashes. Remember!
Her breath caught as the scene played on. His hand gripped her thigh. She was saying something but the words wouldn’t come to her. The car had stopped. Why is the car stopping? Fear chilled her and she shivered as he ripped open her jeans, and suddenly her eyes flicked open. A nurse was shaking her arm and looking down at her in alarm.
“Christina! Why are you screaming?”
Christina hadn’t even known she’d been screaming. “I remembered something.”
“What did you remember?”
“I remembered this man’s face, his name was Rand, and we were in a car. He pulled over on the side of the road and he was touching me. I...that’s all.” She shook her head as she struggled to remember more. Hunks of her blonde hair fell around her face and she pushed them back tiredly.
“Write it down and I’ll let the doctor know. Do you think you remember enough that we could get an accurate description and maybe have a guy draw his face? I mean, that’s if you wanted to press charges?”
Christina drew her knees up to her chest and wrapped her arms around her legs. Resting her chin on her knee cap, she nodded. “I want to press charges and I remember his face and first name.”
Within a few hours, a police officer had come and taken down what information she could remember, which wasn’t a lot. The sketch artist had listened as she described the balding, heavy set man. His blue eyes were something she would never forget, small and beady, and the way his lip had curled as he shoved his hand in her panties would haunt the rest of her days. When the sketch artist showed her the drawing, her shakes became unbearable.
“That’s him. I can’t forget that face.”
The police officer standing at the end of the bed nodded sympathetically. “I understand, Christina, we’ll put this face and first name up on the news, and maybe someone who knows him will come forward.”
“Thank you,” she managed to whisper between shivering lips. “I’m so cold.”
A few moments after the police officer left, the nurse came in the room with a heated blanket and Christina gladly took it from her. Her energy felt completely sapped and she lay back against her pillows with a soft sigh. The medicines she had been taking were draining her, but as the doctor reminded her, pregnancy could do the same.
She fell asleep and dozed restlessly the rest of the night. Early in the morning she woke and found it snowing. Christmas Eve had never been less festive than now, when she couldn’t remember who she was and she spent the day alone in the hospital. She spent the day doodling in her journal and pushing against her memories which were still hazy and distant. Waiting was draining, and she napped several times during the day, waking up only long enough to take bites of the food she was brought.
Later that night she dozed and the dreams started again, fuzzy at first, then becoming clearer with each moment that passed. Sitting up in a panic, sweat broke out on her brow and she whispered, “I’m Christina Morgan. I was in that jeep going home to see my family. Why haven’t they been looking for me? Wait, I’m pregnant. Oh God, I’m twelve weeks pregnant.” She began counting on her fingers and nausea skittered up her throat as she put two and two together. “No…”
Grasping the pale pink bucket on the table beside her, she dumped the cheap hospital toiletries out and retched into the bucket. Her shivers overtook her as she puked and with a quivering hand, she put the bucket back on the table. “I have AIDS,” she whispered again. “Where the hell did I get AIDS?” Her mind took her back to previous partners. The only time she had been without a condom was with husband number five. The baby daddy, whose name she couldn’t deal with thinking about just yet, had issues with a small penis and the condom staying put, so perhaps it leaked or fell off. Who knows! She groaned softly and dropped her head in her hands.
Another thought hit her and it chilled her to the core. If I have AIDS, and I got it possibly from husband number five…then Mom has it. And maybe my baby sister too. Oh God.
Grasping the pink bucket again, she jerked it under her mouth to catch the flow of bile coming up her throat. The puke splashed out onto her hospital gown and with a sob, she pushed the call button on the remote dangling off her bed. In moments a nurse was at her door.
“Christina, are you okay?”
“No,” she wailed, “I’m not okay and I never will be again. I need a phone.”
“Who are you gonna call?” the nurse asked, coming forward to take the bucket from her and dump the contents in the toilet before rinsing it and bringing it back.
“My mother.” Christina sighed softly, her shoulders curving in. “My damn mother, the one who isn’t even bothering to look for me.”
“You remember your mother?”
“Yep, I do. I’m Christina Morgan. My family lives outside Oswego. Rand was taking me there the night he molested me. I guess when you find the bastard, maybe you should tell him to get tested for HIV, huh?” A twisted smile crossed her lips and laughter bubbled up out of her throat. She cackled until tears came from her eyes and as she wiped them, she found the nurse had stepped out of the room.
A few minutes later she was back with Dr. Cotter. “Christina, you remember more?” He was quick and to the point as he rushed into the room.
“Yeah, I do,” she stated tiredly, wiping at her eyes again. “I can tell you my phone number, my address, where I go to school, who possibly gave me HIV. I can tell you it all. It’s certainly not a fairy tale, but hey, girls like me don’t get the happily ever after ending, do they?”
Dr. Cotter perched on the edge of the bed. “You can start a new chapter, Christina. AIDS doesn’t have to be a death sentence. People are living longer—”
Christina cut him off and put her hand in the air to stop him. “But it can be a death sentence, to both me and my child. Am I right?”
Dr. Cotter sighed softly and nodded. “It can be. But many people go on to live fairly normal lives.”
“I hope we do. I want to call my mom and I want to go home. No offense, but I don’t want to be stuck in the hospital for Christmas. Can I go?” Christina stared at the doctor hopefully.
“You can go. But, you have to realize the risk you are putting yourself in. It’s cold and flu season, your immune system is down. Some AIDS patients have died from pneumonia. I’ll refer you to a doctor who can help you close by…”
“I’m not going to be staying in New York, at least not for long.”
“Where are you going?” Dr. Cotter’s bushy eyebrow arched up.
“I have to go back to school,” Christina started. “I’m at fuckin’ Yale, Doc. I can’t just...I can’t walk away from Yale, man.” She slumped back against the pillows. “I just can’t.”
“Yale! Wow, that’s a pretty big accomplishment.” He seemed impressed.
“For now I just want to go home.”
“Tell you what. Why don’t I set you up with someone here until you go back to school? Remember that you’re going to be really tired and you have to keep your stress down and your health needs to be top priority. I have hesitated bringing this up to you, but have you thought about getting an abortion?”
Christina turned away and looked out the window, giving herself a moment to collect herself before she answered. “I was pushed into an abortion at fourteen. I know the circumstances aren’t the best, but I am not going to kill another little life because of my mistakes.”
“You had an abortion at fourteen?” Dr. Cotter pressed gently.
Christina turned to face him again. “My stepfather raped me and I got pregnant. I believe he may have been the person to give me HIV.”
“So we’re looking at five years…why didn’t t
hey test you when you had the abortion?” Dr. Cotter hopped off the bed and began to pace the room.
“Hard to get blood testing done when your mama pays two hundred dollars to a back alley chop shop, isn’t it?” Christina’s mouth twisted at the memory. “She couldn’t stand that I got pregnant by him and she didn’t. I will never forget her saying if she couldn’t have his babies, no one could.”
“Jesus Christ,” Dr. Cotter finally whispered. “And you want to go be with her?”
“I have no choice! I can’t stay at Yale during winter break or I would. I can’t afford a hotel either. So to her house I go. Hey, I guess she deserves the right to know she could have HIV too, huh?”
“Ah, I guess she could have it, couldn’t she? How did a girl like—how did you end up in Yale?” He corrected himself quickly.
Christina shrugged and ran a hand through her tangled blonde hair. “No, say it like it is, Doc, how did a girl like me, from the wrong side of the tracks end up in Yale? Well, let me tell you how. It’s because I refused to end up like my mother. Addicted to drugs, screwing anything with a dick, and having one baby after the other. Hah, I guess two out of three ain’t bad, right?”
“I don’t know what to say except that I am sorry. No kid should have to go through what you have.”
“Maybe not, but it made me strong. I got out of my mother’s house once, and I will again. I just need to stay there for a few days until I can get a ticket back to school. I guess I’ll figure money out and stay in a cheapo place for a few days. I’ll be out of her hair forever. I’m sure somehow she’s going to twist it around on me that I gave him HIV, not him giving it to me. None of the men she’s ever fucked have been wrong. Nope. Not even when he was jerking off in front of my baby sister. Not even then. The baby was asking for it.” Christina remarked.
“How can a baby ask for something like that?” Dr. Cotter’s face was a mask of horror. “What a terrible thing to say.”
“Ah, but you don’t know my mother. She stands by her man. Isn’t that some old country song or something? He comes first, before her own children. Always. Oh, he wants to screw her daughter and get her pregnant? Well, okay, but he has to screw her too. Twice as much. She stayed with him for months after the state took us. He was her world. Then he found a hot piece that was twenty-two and took off. She told me she stayed with him because the sex was so good. I gotta say from what I remember, it wasn’t all that. But hey, I guess whatever works, it’s easier for her to stay with a douche than to protect her kid.” Christina railed.
“I’m sorry.”
“Me too. Now how ‘bout that phone, Doc? I have a call to make.” Christina dismissed him with a simple nod of her head and she stared out the window.
The nurse came back with a phone that plugged into the jack and she placed the pale brown phone beside Christina on the bed. “Here you go. Push nine to make a long distance call.”
“Thanks,” Christina muttered as she picked up the receiver and palmed it for a moment. The nurse left the room and she dialed her mother’s cell number, not expecting her to answer.
The phone rang once, twice, and on the third ring her mother’s sleepy voice answered. “Rico, if you’re callin’ about the money, I told you I’d have it on the first. Come on, man, it’s Christmas…I had to get some shit for the kids.”
“No, it’s not your drug dealer, it’s your daughter. You know, the one you didn’t come pick up at the airport. The one who has been sitting here in the hospital for like two weeks now. Thanks a bunch for putting out a missing person’s report.” Anger filled her and her throat tightened until she couldn’t speak.
“Chrissy? What the fuck you talkin’ about? Do you know what time it is?” Kelly’s indignant voice came across the line.
“I don’t really care what time it is, Kelly. I want you to come get me. I’m in Syracuse at the hospital and I just want to come home. Is that too much to ask?” Christina huffed.
“What do you mean you’re at the hospital? And how dare you call and yell at me for not coming to get you. Excuse the hell out of me for, you know, actually having things going on! Oh my God, you’ve always been so needy and expecting everyone to drop everything for you.” Kelly yelled.
“Mom, just come get me,” Christina pleaded, her voice quaking with emotion. “I just need my mom right now. Please.”
“Oh for Chrissakes! On Christmas morning too. I’ll be there as soon as I can, but if I miss Chrysalis opening her presents, we’re gonna have trouble.” Kelly disconnected the call and Christina stared for a moment at the receiver before hanging it up.
She punched the call button on the remote and the nurse came back in. “Everything okay?”
“Not really, but can you tell the doctor to discharge me? My mom is supposed to be coming.”
Chapter Five
Dawn broke cold and clear over the horizon. Christina sat on the edge of her bed in a pair of sweatpants and a sweatshirt that Dr. Cotter had procured from somewhere. She didn’t even want to imagine where the slightly grimy gray sweats had come from. Hospital socks and cheap flip flops from the hospital gift shop adorned her feet. She had a bag with her prescriptions and enough medicine for a few days until she could get to the pharmacy.
The nurse had suggested that she sign up for Medicaid so her medicines would be covered along with her pregnancy, but nothing was possible until she got a new Driver’s License and Social Security Card. She really regretted not signing up for insurance through the college now. She’d been waived since she couldn’t afford tuition, much less insurance. She had no idea where her wallet was, or if sweet Rand had stolen her debit card and wiped out the little money she had in her savings account or not.
Restlessness filled her as she waited and she stood slowly and began to pace the room. What am I gonna do? Her ears perked up as she heard noise coming down the hall.
“Where’s she at? Oh my God, she’s so damn needy! She always has been a pain in the ass, looking for attention.” Kelly’s voice rang out.
“Excuse me, ma’am, can I help you?” the nurse asked as she passed the nurse’s station.
“Ma’am? Honey, this body is not a ma’am. I look better at thirty-five than you ever have, so let’s get that shit straight right now. I’m tanned, tight and right, and you’re sitting here looking like a lump of biscuit dough stuffed in a Dora the Explorer scrub set. So ma’am yourself, sweet cheeks. Now, where’s my pain in the ass first born?” Kelly snapped.
Christina sighed as she shuffled out of her room. “I’m here.”
“She can’t leave just yet,” the nurse started.
Kelly threw up her arms and huffed. “Of course she can’t. Now I have to wait around on your slow ass to get her discharged and I’m gonna miss my baby opening her presents. You people should realize that folks have lives, you know. We do not have all day for you to eat bon bons and lollygag.”
“Ma’am, if you’ll lower your voice, we have patients recuperating,” the nurse stated firmly, her thin lips pressing into an even thinner line.
“Girl, I’m getting ready to haul your ass outside and beat you if you call me ma’am again!” Kelly snapped, her blue eyes flashing with disdain.
The nurse was visibly gritting her teeth, the muscles in her cheeks played as she composed herself. “Miss, can you keep your voice down? The doctor wants to speak with you both before you leave.”
“That’s better! You people need to respect others. God. I need a smoke.” Kelly rummaged in the large plum colored purse slung over her shoulder and pulled a pack of cigarettes out. “Where can I smoke in this joint?”
“We are a smoke free facility. No smoking on the grounds.” The nurse informed her.
“Oh, for Pete’s sakes!” Kelly groaned, opening the purse and tossing the cigarettes back in. Finally she stopped complaining long enough to glance at her daughter and her eyes widened. “Jesus Christ, you look like shit.”
Christina pasted a smile on her face. “And you look the s
ame as always.”
Kelly propped her hands on her leopard print legging clad hips and grinned. “I do look good, don’t I? I’ve been doing this Brazilian butt thing and drinking three cans of Slim Quick a day! That and a pack of Newports keeps this body looking good!”
Christina nodded in disgust and turned back to her room. “I’m going in here.”
Kelly followed behind her and closed the door of the room with a groan. “Ugh, can you believe that little nurse and her attitude? Bitches that ugly should recognize their place! Home girl needs to stop visiting the drive thru and walk a little more!”
“Can you stop? She’s nice.” Christina sighed as she sat back on the edge of the uncomfortable hospital bed.
“Fat girls are always nice, they know they don’t have shit else going for them.” Kelly plopped down on the bed beside her. “Does the window open?”
“I don’t know.” Christina shrugged. “Why?”
“I need a smoke. My nerves are all torn up, you calling all in the middle of the night and shit. Here I am thinking Rico is coming to shoot up my house and instead it’s your whiny ass. Why the hell are you even in here?” Kelly jumped up just as quickly as she had sat down and moved to the window, grinning with glee as it slid open a few inches. She plopped one thin hip up on the window ledge and pulled her cigarettes out. “No one will know if I have a few puffs.”
“They said it’s smoke free here, Mom.”
Kelly rolled her eyes and lit the cigarette that dangled from between her glossy red lips. “Ah, screw ‘em. So you’re never gonna believe what Tony did for me!”
Christina cut her off quickly. “I don’t really care.”
“Well, excuse me! I forgot this is the Christina show. You still never told me why you’re in this godforsaken place.” Kelly’s cheeks sucked in as she inhaled on her cigarette. Turning toward the window, she blew the smoke out of the screen.
“It’s not like you frankly gave me a chance, Mom,” Christina muttered, her voice thick with irritation.
Finding Christina (Wild Rose #2) Page 3