Healing Ruby: A Novel

by Jennifer H. Westall

  “Baby needs to nurse,” Hannah said weakly.

  “What can I do?” I asked.

  “Help me sit up.”

  I put my arms underneath her and tried to pull her up as gently as I could. She cried out, which sent the baby to crying as well. Samuel popped his head over the seat. “What happened?”

  “Nothing,” I said. “She’s all right.”

  I settled her against my shoulder and pulled the blanket down far enough to allow her to feed the baby. Then I helped her adjust him so he was beneath her breast. She did the best she could with her good arm, but she was too weak to hold him in place. So I helped cradle him against her.

  “Miss Ruby?” Samuel said. I looked up at him, and he was staring down at the back seat with wide eyes. “Should Mama still be bleeding all over like that?”

  I followed his gaze and saw what was horrifying him. The part of the blanket underneath Hannah was drenched in dark red blood. I tried not to gasp. “Matthew, we have got to hurry,” I said as calmly as I could manage.

  “I’m doing my best here,” he said.

  I knew he was, but I was having a hard time controlling my fear. Seemed like we were never going to get there, especially when we had to stop altogether so Matthew could move a large limb out of the road. I prayed the whole way, asking God to clear our path, both the debris on the road and the resistance I was sure we’d meet at the hospital.

  When we finally pulled in, the place was in chaos. Cars were parked in all kinds of various positions, and people were doing their best to get the injured inside the doors. Matthew stopped the car on the street, and I took the baby in my arms again. As Matthew ducked into the back seat to gather Hannah in his arms, our eyes met, and again I saw the doubt behind them.

  “You ready?” he asked.

  I nodded.

  I told Samuel to keep his blanket wrapped around him, pulled high around his head so no one would notice him. We made our way to the front door, Matthew carrying Hannah, Samuel and me behind him. Hannah wasn’t even crying out anymore, which worried me beyond words. She just hung limp in Matthew’s arms. The doors were propped open, so we walked inside and straight to a haggard-looking young lady seated at the main desk.

  “This woman needs help immediately,” Matthew said. “She just gave birth, her arm’s shattered, and she’s losing a lot of blood.”

  I stepped beside Matthew and pushed Samuel behind us. The lady barely glanced up at us, but pointed to a hallway that was already full of moaning, injured bodies. “Find a bed if you can, and a doctor will get to her as soon as possible.”

  We headed in the direction she’d sent us, and I breathed a sigh of relief. But that quickly evaporated when we couldn’t find an empty bed. We looked in every room, but each one was already crowded with people, some in beds, others seated on the floor. I knew the longer we wandered the hallway, the more likely someone would notice Samuel, so I prayed God would help us find a bed. We finally located one inside a room near the back of the hospital. All the other beds were occupied and surrounded by concerned loved ones. I grimaced as I noticed an older lady nearby bleeding terribly from her head. She looked like she’d been scalped.

  Matthew laid Hannah on the bed and threw the bloodiest blanket into the corner. Then he used the remaining blanket to cover her. I paced beside them with the baby in my arms, praying he wouldn’t start screaming. Samuel took a seat on the floor between the bed and the wall, and cradled his arm up to his chest. I helped him pull the blanket up around his head and face.

  “You all right?” I asked him. He had to be in so much pain.

  He nodded. “Too many white folks round here. This ain’t gone be good. I don’t think they gone help us, Miss Ruby.”

  I didn’t know what to say, so I glanced over at Matthew. He leaned on his hands onto the bed and let out an exhausted sigh.

  “Thank you,” I said.

  He looked up at me with a grim smile. “Don’t thank me yet.” Then he pushed away from the bed and headed toward the door. “I’ll see if I can fetch a doctor, but don’t get your hopes up.”

  Seemed like Matthew was gone forever. I paced beside Hannah’s bed, watching her life drain from her body. I knelt down in front of Samuel. “Can you hold the baby for a little while?” He nodded, and I placed the bundle in his good arm.

  I turned back to Hannah, pushing her hair away from her face. She’d passed out, or gone to sleep maybe. At least she wasn’t screaming. I couldn’t decide what was worse, letting her slip into unconsciousness or attracting attention by keeping her awake.

  I took another look around the room. There were five other beds with only a few feet separating us. The bed closest to us, right behind where I was standing over Hannah, had a little girl sitting up crying. She was only about eight or nine maybe. I couldn’t see what was wrong with her. I wondered where her parents were.

  Each bed was playing out its own nightmare for the people involved, and they seemed completely unaware of the state of anyone else around them. I turned to the little girl and asked her if her parents were around. She shook her head and continued to sob. She was filthy from head to foot, and her tears had streaked tiny rivulets through the mud caked on her cheeks.

  “Are you hurt?” I asked.

  She shook her head again.

  I wanted to comfort her, wanted to find her parents so she could be looked after, but I was afraid of calling any unwanted attention to Hannah. So I returned to our corner of the room and prayed that she’d be all right. I lifted Hannah’s good arm and checked her pulse. It was weakening. We were running out of time, and I couldn’t do a thing.

  Lord, you’re going to have to do something here, I prayed. Please, help us. Don’t let Hannah die.

  A few minutes later, Matthew came back, followed by a doctor and three nurses. They all looked like they’d been tossed around in their own tornado of sorts. My hope rose, till I saw the look on Matthew’s face.

  “What is it?” I asked.

  “They’re completely overrun. It’s awful. People coming in from all over the county. Sounds like the whole state’s been hit hard. I ain’t never heard of so many tornadoes in one day.”

  I motioned toward Hannah. “Are they going to help us?”

  He looked over his shoulder at the doctor and nurses making their way around the room. “I don’t know. Didn’t say she was colored. Just tried to light a fire under ’em to get some help back here.”

  One of the nurses, a young woman who didn’t seem too sure of what she was doing, stopped at the little girl next to us and asked her about her injuries and parents. She got the same responses I did, and she seemed to look as torn as I’d felt. “I’ll get you some help soon as I can,” the nurse said.

  Then she stepped over to us. “What do we have here?”

  “This is Hannah,” I said, my voice tightening with my nerves. “She was pregnant, and got thrown by one of the twisters. Her left arm’s shattered, and she went into labor before we could get here. I delivered the baby, and he seems to be doing fine. But she’s still bleeding real bad.”

  The nurse stepped past me and took a look at Hannah. She immediately jumped back and gasped. Our eyes met, and I saw genuine fear. Then she turned and darted away. I looked over at Matthew. He set his jaw as he watched the nurse run to the doctor. She spoke quietly to him, then pointed at us. The doctor, a gray-haired man with a great big mustache, frowned over at us. He walked over to the bed and looked all of us over before addressing Matthew.

  “You’ll have to take the Negro woman elsewhere. Don’t treat their kind here.”

  “Couldn’t you just look at her?” Matthew said. “Just get her stable and we’ll take her to a colored hospital as soon as she can travel.”

  “Sorry, young man. We don’t have the facilities or equipment to handle separate operating rooms and such. And it’s against the law to put ’em in the same place as white folks. Not trying to be cruel. Just the way it is.”

  I was about through w
ith everyone I met being so hardhearted and foolish. I put my finger in that doctor’s face and did my best not to shout the roof off the place. “You are a doctor, and she is a patient! She is the kindest, most gentle creature I know, and she’s about to die for no good reason other than the color of her skin! Do you even understand how ridiculous that is?”

  Matthew pulled my arm to try to get me to hush, but I shrugged him off. I wanted to keep letting that doctor have everything I could give him, but my anger seemed to have stolen all my thoughts. It didn’t matter anyway. The doctor barely looked at me. He just continued talking to Matthew like I wasn’t even there.

  “Look, I can’t do anything right now,” he said. “Even if I let you stay here, I can’t treat her until I treat all these other folks first.”

  I imagined Matthew decking this man like he’d done Chester. But he spoke like he was as calm as a gentle breeze, which only infuriated me more. “Then we’ll wait right here till someone can help us. Can you at least take a quick look at her and tell us what we can do to help?”

  He scrunched up his mustache and for the first time, actually looked at Hannah. “I can tell you this much. She isn’t going to make it no matter where you take her.”

  I rushed to the end of the bed where he was standing and had to stop myself from tackling him. “You didn’t even examine her! What kind of doctor are you?”

  That seemed to finally make him aware of my presence. He looked down at me with utter contempt. “Young lady, I’ve been operating on people long before you were even a thought in your mother’s head. I know death when I see it.”

  My heart just about stopped. “No,” I said. “She can’t die. You have to do something.”

  He didn’t say another word. Just turned and walked out of the room. Matthew took my hand and pulled me into him. I heaved all my anguish into his chest, nearly choking on my sorrow.

  “This can’t be happening,” I said. “Not to Hannah. Not after everything she’s been through.”

  “Ain’t nothing more you can do, Ruby. She’s in God’s hands.”

  I closed my eyes, and prayed with all I had in me.

  Lord, there has to be a reason for all this, for everything we’ve been through this year. I know you brought me to Hannah and Samuel. I know you meant it for their good, and for mine. I trust you, and I’m letting go of all this fear inside me. If you truly mean for me to be an instrument of your healing, I’m ready. I know I can’t do anything to save Hannah, but you can. Whatever you want from me, I’ll do it. I give you everything I have, my present, my future, my everything.

  In that moment, the whole room went still, like time froze. All the commotion went silent, even Matthew’s heart. All I heard was my name, a soft whisper that surrounded me and comforted me.

  “Ruby…now.”

  The sounds of the room came rushing back, the little girl whimpering, the old lady moaning, and Matthew’s heart against my ear. I pulled away from him and wiped my face. How was I supposed to do this with so many people around? I looked over at Samuel on the floor with the baby still in his lap. They were both asleep. So I turned to Matthew.

  “Can you go see if you can get any kind of supplies from somewhere? Bandages, a gown of some kind, and clean rags? Maybe we can help her.”

  “I’ll do what I can.”

  As he left, I focused my attention on Hannah, dropping my head and praying once again for guidance. My heart slowed, my hands steadied, and I took in a long, deep breath that released all the fear I’d been holding onto. I pulled the blanket away, taking in with my eyes every gash on her body until I reached her legs. Blood had pooled beneath her, and it was starting to congeal, even as more slipped out of her. Then I looked at Hannah’s beautiful face and lifted her hand into mine. Words began to flow out of me, even before I’d formed them in my mind. I didn’t know where they were coming from, Scriptures I’d read long ago maybe. And all the while this incredible presence filled up the air around me, bathed me in light and wonder.

  I didn’t dare open my eyes. I was afraid the whole experience would evaporate as soon as I did. After a few moments, the presence faded and the light dimmed, but the joy inside me remained. I opened my eyes and looked down on Hannah, wondering what to expect. She looked the same. The bone in her elbow still protruded from the skin. The gashes along her arms and abdomen were still as deep as they’d been before. But no blood was seeping out. I glanced down between her legs, but it was hard to tell if she’d stopped bleeding there. Even so, I knew. God had somehow stopped her blood loss.

  Suddenly I felt someone beside me, and I jumped. It was Matthew, holding a pile of clean sheets and bandages in his arms. He looked at me queerly, the color drained from his face.

  “What were you just doing?” he asked.

  I grabbed some clean cloth from his arms. “Praying. And God heard me, just like he heard Asa the night you were healed! Matthew, look!” I dampened the cloth in a pail on a nearby table. Then I wiped away the dried blood from Hannah’s arms. “It’s stopped!”

  He stared at me like I’d gone mad. “What are you talking about? What does this have to do with the night I was…”

  “Can’t you see?” I said, continuing to clean her wounds. “Just look!”

  I lifted her hips and yanked the bloody sheet out from under her, replacing it with a clean one. Matthew didn’t hardly moving a muscle. I wiped Hannah’s legs down, then grabbed the pile of sheets from his arms. I rifled through them till I found a gown, and I draped it over her. He stepped beside her and stared at the clean sheet beneath her legs.

  “She ain’t bleeding,” he mumbled.

  After I got her covered up, I grabbed him by the arms, ready to celebrate the incredible miracle we’d just witnessed. But when I stopped and looked at him, really looked closely, I could see he wasn’t happy.

  “What’s wrong?” I asked.

  He stepped back from me and fell into a chair, lowering his voice to a strained whisper. “I don’t know. What just happened here? Are you saying that you, you prayed or something, and just stopped her from bleeding?”

  “Yes!”

  “And that night, at my house? You and your uncle prayed for me and that stopped my lungs from bleeding?”

  “Well, yes,” I said. “I thought you knew that.”

  “I knew people were praying for me, and I knew God healed me. But I didn’t know you…that this…this can’t be real. I mean, I don’t believe in that stuff, Ruby.”

  “Healing?”

  “No, of course I believe that God heals people. Just…not like that.”

  “Like what?”

  He stood and shook his head like there were spiderwebs in it. He looked at Hannah again, then at me. “This don’t feel right, Ruby. People don’t run around magically stopping someone from bleeding.”

  “What are you saying?”

  “I don’t know what your uncle’s been teaching you, but this is like some kind of sorcery or something.”

  I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. “Sorcery? Are you serious? You think I’m some kind of witch or something?”

  “No!” His face reddened, and he rubbed his brow. “You know I don’t think that.”

  “I don’t know what you think, but I can see it’s not good.” My stomach knotted as I realized he couldn’t even look at me. “Matthew, I swear. There’s nothing wrong with the miracle that just happened here. Why can’t you be happy?”

  “Look, I ain’t been too sure about all this from the beginning. I never thought you should’ve been down in them woods. But I care for you, and I couldn’t stand the thought of you getting hurt. So I helped you every way I knew how. But what am I supposed to do with this? It’s like I don’t know you at all.”

  I suddenly felt a little dizzy, so I sat down in the chair he’d vacated. Surely this wasn’t happening, not when I should’ve been so full of joy. Being with Matthew so often over the past few months had become so easy I hadn’t even recognized the hope sneaking up o
n me again. Not until that moment, when he’d crushed it once more. I looked up at the uncertainty in his face, and dread filled my chest like lead.

  “You know me,” I said. “I’m the same girl you’ve been spending every Sunday with for the last three months. The same one you love to fight with, the same one that drives you crazy cause I do everything my own way. I’m the same girl that cleaned up your room every day as you coughed the very life out of you. I’ve cared for you, trusted you, and I…” My throat nearly closed up on me, and I thought for a second that I should just stop talking before I said too much, but that had never really been my way of doing things. “Matthew… I love you.”

  He closed his eyes, brought his hands to his face, and let out a long, deflated sigh.

  “Ruby.”

  He said my name so quietly, so gently, that I knew he was about to break my heart. And I couldn’t stand to listen to one minute of him trying to soften it for me. “Look,” I said, “I know you don’t feel that way about me. Don’t worry about trying to say it all nice. I can see where you’re taking this conversation, so you don’t have to spell it out for me. Just go.”

  He didn’t move.

  “Please go. I’ll stay with Hannah.”

  “How will you get home?” he asked.

  “That’s none of your concern.” He started to argue, but I cut him off. “I can take care of myself. Just go home and check on your family.”

  He shoved his hands in his pockets, frowned at me, and then turned for the door. I’d made up my mind that I was never going to cry over him again, and I’d meant it. So I went to Hannah’s side and took her hand in mine again, lacing my fingers with hers. The contrast of her dark skin next to mine sent my thoughts to Samuel and his precious little brother. What kind of world were they going to face, with nowhere to belong? Some part of me felt connected to them, cause I knew I’d never again really belong anywhere either. I understood now why Asa made such a fuss about keeping his gift a secret. And I’d carry this secret to my grave.