“I’ll take the flu medicine, too,” I bargained.
She still had her stethoscope on, one earpiece popped out, so she could talk to me. I could see she was wavering.
“I’ve never been vaccinated,” I said, finally using the one thing that made most doctors look like they wanted to run from the room. It usually got me whatever medication I wanted, too, because I could have just about anything, and that included all the nasty things that vaccines were supposed to protect a person from contracting.
It was a lie. My mother vaccinated me, even insisting I get the HPV vaccine against cervical cancer. What a waste. I wasn’t letting anyone close enough to give me chocolate on Valentine’s day, forget our naked bodies pressed together and spreading my possibly defective genes.
“Make sure you complete the entire course,” the doctor said, typing a quick note and printing my script to pick up at the front.
I didn’t thank her, coughing a little more so I could exit the room as soon as possible.
The pharmacist didn’t give me any trouble. He did raise an eyebrow at my request for the drug dispensing information to be given in Chinese, which I excused as necessary for my adoptive parents to understand. I could have Googled it, but so could he and it would be one less thing for me to do.
Baby was gassed up from Jackson, so I was able to drive over to the Changs' apartment right away. It was still plenty light out, which made me more comfortable. The building the Changs lived in was in the bad part of the city. Real life gangsters were just like in the movies, doing crap at night that usually involved drinking, drugs or girls, and sleeping it off half the day. People don’t get shot by gangsters at nine in the morning for a reason.
I had a bit of a deal with the gang of this turf, anyway. By deal, I meant, I paid the money Ms. Chang gave me to the skinny Asian guy three doors down from her. He had sleeve tattoos on both his arms and pockmarks on his cheeks from bad childhood acne, or whatever, but he looked sketchy enough that I handed that money envelope over without complaint. I never asked what it was for but then, it was obvious.
This wasn’t what the counsellor had intended me to be doing for coping. Talk therapy was for planners, not doers. I was more the kind of person that would chew my leg off rather than be chained by expectations, as was my mother, so I knew she would understand although I never told my family about these visits.
I parked next to the dumpster in the last visitor spot left, squeezing Baby beside a big truck that took one and a half spots. It would be easy to remember where I parked. The garbage stank, but the ground around it was clean for a dumpster. Ironically, this was probably less dirty than the hallways in the apartment building.
Ms. Chang answered the door before I could even knock. It spooked me when she did that, but I knew she was waiting for me. If I didn’t come, she would have eventually had to call for an ambulance they couldn’t afford.
We walked together to Ai Lung’s room.
I’m not a doctor. I didn’t even graduate high school, seeing no point in higher education when I could be in Ai Lung’s situation in another couple of decades. Heck, most student loans would take that long to pay off nowadays. I just knew more than most other people about the slow, painful and terminal condition that left Ai Lung trapped in this tiny, smothering apartment for the last few years of her life.
What you don’t know can hurt you.
Ms. Chang handed me the flashcards. They had Chinese on them, but I made them, so I knew all the translations, which I had painfully looked up on Google.
I flashed fever.
Ms. Chang flashed yes.
I flashed cough.
Ms. Chang flashed yes.
It was as I suspected when Ms. Chang had texted me. She texted in Chinese with a cheap, throw away phone I got her last year, so I had to rely on the translation from Google, which didn’t do so well when there were sentences.
Try telling a sixty-year-old Cantonese-speaking lady how to text one-word and two-word combinations. She always used sentences, just like she tried to talk to me in sentences that were impossible to decode without a real, live translator. I made the flashcards out of desperation, but the idea had been brilliant.
You need surprisingly few words to communicate sometimes.
I let my backpack slip off my shoulders. I grabbed the antibiotics out of my purse and handed Ms. Chang the dispensing instructions.
Ms. Chang flashed me yes again.
I opened the bedroom door to peek in on Ai Lung. Ms. Chang had blankets piled on either side of her daughter’s body to keep her somewhat restrained.
“Hiya,” I said to Ai Lung. She grunted back.
We turned around and went to the kitchen and I got out two spoons and a small, china bowl. It was probably meant for condiments, but this was the perfect size for the medicine mixture I was going to make. I crushed the big tablets between the spoons and added some honey, stirring the mixture all together. Honey was the one thing Ai Lung could handle well, easier for her to swallow.
I heard a thump come from the bedroom.
Even fevered and sweating, she was still thrashing up a storm her sick body couldn’t afford. The last six months, she had lost progressively more weight, struggling to eat without choking and her sleep broken up by constant, involuntary movements like restless legs on steroids. She was wasting away.
Imagine having a seizure, like a grand mal, everything shaking, eyes rolling up in your head, complete loss of control of your body. Now do it over and over, all day and all night. Unlike epilepsy, there was no medication to stop Ai Lung’s muscles from contracting.
There was another thump and then a knocking sound. They came from opposite sides of the apartment.
Ms. Chang grabbed the medicine bowl. She nodded her head at the front door.
She didn’t know anyone. Mr. Chang had left them a couple of years ago and sent a monthly check. Ms. Chang didn’t like to leave the house since she had gone out grocery shopping last year and found Ai Lung on the floor, knocked unconscious with a bleeding gash on her head when she fell out of bed. All of Ai Lung’s nice friends never visited because they cared too much to watch as Ai Lung thrashed, dying slowly and miserably. I helped because I never let caring get in the way of doing the hard things that needed to be done.
I guess I wasn’t a ‘nice friend’ but I would let Ai Lung bleed every drop of kindness I had left if it eased her pain and softened the blow of her death for her mother.
I tried to flash the no card to Ms. Chang to refuse to answer the knock on the door, but by the time I flipped through the pile to get it, she was halfway down the hall to bring the medicine to her daughter.
I really had to look up agoraphobia in Cantonese.
The knocking persisted and got louder. I think a kick was thrown in.
Seriously?
The Changs had nothing to steal. I had nothing to steal.
Did bill collectors kick down doors? I could see Ms. Chang falling behind on payments, but I thought collections usually called to harass you. Of course, Ms. Chang didn’t have a phone other than the one I gave her, and I only paid for texting.
I probably should have looked through the peephole. It’s just, what if someone pokes your eye out on the other side. I know, there’s glass on both sides preventing anything going through the door and into your eyes but think about it. Imagine it, just once, your eye pierced like a toothpick through a grape.
I may not really be agoraphobic, but I still had my irrational fears.
“What do you want?” I said as I opened the door as far as the chain would allow.
Ms. Chang may be politer when she answered her door. Too bad, she had sent me because she didn’t want to deal with whoever was on the other side. This was me dealing with it.
A barrage of Chinese hit me. All I could tell you was male.
I started second guessing if Ms. Chang had friends. He kicked the door, testing the chain, and I decided Ms. Chang didn’t need friends like him, anyway.
“Go away,” I yelled over the Chinese.
Either he didn’t understand English, or he understood too well because the door was rattled on its frame with the next kick.
I banged the door shut and turned the deadbolt between kicks.
Ms. Chang never came out of the bedroom.
“I’m going to call 911,” I shouted through the door.
My heart was thumping so hard in my chest that I’m sure he could hear through the door, too. The kicking stopped for a moment and I turned to go to the bedroom.
He was still there, standing, no, hovering is a better word or maybe looming, right by the door. There’s this extra sense that is beyond your eyes, ears and nose that tells you when danger is lurking, waiting for you. The bad guy was going to wait out there until I finally left, and then he was going to pounce. There was only one real way out given how many stories up the Changs lived.
The door had a deadbolt and a chain. Everything in this building may be as cheap as possible, but fire regulations made that door its own force of nature. He was not getting through it, at least, not without making enough noise that I would have time to call 911 as I’d threatened.
The only thing holding me back from calling for help now was knowing I would never see the Changs again if I did it. My parents didn’t know where I was or what I was doing. My brothers would breathe down my neck after insisting they accompany me if they knew I was visiting the bad side of town alone. Then, the twins would tell our parents, and everyone would try to protect me, surrounding me with their love and choking off any freedom I had now.
I love my family. I just couldn’t live with them. We stuck to dinners on the weekends, football games for Jackson and movie nights with Matthew, and my own key so I could sneak back home in the middle of the night if I wanted to check on my mother. She never woke up and I was very quiet.
Trust me, it’s not as creepy as it sounds. Think more Love You Forever corny than a stalker.
Abandoning my door side guard, I figured it was time to find Ms. Chang. I brought the flashcards.
Ai Lung was sitting up in the bed. More pillows and blankets were propping her up, although as I entered, one of the pillows went flying off the side. Ms. Chang was spooning the honey mixture over and over, catching it as it dripped out and scraping it off Ai Lung’s chin to bring it back to her mouth. She couldn’t keep her mouth open long, but Ms. Chang was experienced enough to know when to push and when to pull back, avoiding hitting her daughter’s teeth with the spoon.
Ms. Chang said something to me in Cantonese.
I held up the flashcard for not understanding. Ai Lung would have called it the stupid card and told me to take up a Cantonese language course instead of wasting my time as a lab rat searching for an elusive cure. She wasn’t the type to buy lottery tickets. I missed her sharp wit.
Ms. Chang pointed at the bed and I put all the flashcards down for her to pick from once she put the bowl aside.
The banging on the door started back up.
Ai Lung’s eyes rolled in her head. It wasn’t a seizure, although another person witnessing it could be forgiven for thinking so as she thrashed, too. She was afraid.
Ms. Chang picked the money card.
We used that card when Ms. Chang needed a little cash to get by until the next payment from her ex-husband. Usually, it was twenty dollars and it got them some rice and Ai Lung’s favourite caramel flan pudding. This time, I didn’t think spotting them a twenty was going to do it.
Ms. Chang left the room.
I went over to the bowl and saw that Ai Lung had taken everything. I touched her sweaty forehead, noting the fever without needing a thermometer. We could try getting some ibuprofen into her, but the antibiotics were the most important. I would tell Ms. Chang to try again in an hour.
“Let’s get some rest,” I said to Ai Lung.
Ai Lung thrashed.
“Don’t worry, I’ll kick their asses for you,” I said.
Ai Lung had once told me she went to the support group not for herself but for her mother, and she had suckered me into a promise to take care of Ms. Chang when she got too sick to care for her mother. I knew then what kept Ai Lung fighting and it had given a hopeless illness a new path. I couldn’t change the ending for my own mother, but I would choose how we walked there and drag both our feet a little longer.
Loosening up the pillow and blanket barriers, I helped Ai Lung flop down onto the mattress. I only put a light sheet over her fevered body. She looked at me with worry and fear.
“Just rest,” I told her.
She thrashed about, but that didn’t mean my words lacked comfort. Her body wouldn’t allow her to lie still and rest, which was one of the most brutal aspects of it. Every conscious choice was taken away at the end, even the choice to give up.
To sleep, perchance to dream...
I suddenly flashed back to another voice, dark and whispered in my ear while his big body hugged me too tightly in front of my brothers, telling me to dream of him. Shakespeare sure didn’t mean the kind of dreams Dain had been suggesting.
Why did I think about the freaks from Friday right now?
It was too little sleep.
Ms. Chang came back, interrupting my musings as I finished tucking Ai Lung in as tightly as her thrashing would allow.
She handed me an envelope. There was a big number written on it with zeros that were crossed off, and then, some stuff in Chinese.
It was the monthly gangster envelope, but it looked awfully thin. I opened it and there were some ones and a five.
I had peeked before. Usually, there were some twenties here.
I picked up the money flashcard.
Ms. Chang shook her head no.
I picked up all the flashcards and carried them out to the kitchen with the measly money envelope. I grabbed my backpack from where I had dropped it to get the medicine out and dug out my wallet. I had sixty dollars and I hadn’t done any groceries shopping myself yet this week, but I knew I could steal whatever food I needed from home. Heck, my mother would probably cancel her book club night with her friends if I said I wanted to cook up a storm making food ahead for the week, a mother-daughter bonding thing.
Ms. Chang eyed that sixty dollars like the last glass of water in the Sahara.
I tried to hand it to her, there had to be some other way to handle these gangsters, but she shook her head.
The rice cooker on the counter was open and empty. I don’t think I’ve ever seen it empty. Ms. Chang always had some rice sitting on warm and something in the fridge she could fry up, even if I came over in the middle of the night due to an emergency with Ai Lung.
I handed Ms. Chang one twenty and stuffed the rest in the envelope. My parents had given me a credit card. My stepfather was rich, like really rich. The kind of rich parent that insisted his step-daughter had a platinum card for just in case, and then, didn’t know I had never used it because someone else took care of paying the bills.
I would buy rice with the card.
It was a relatively quiet interval by the apartment door as I headed over with the slightly more stuffed envelope. Every so often, the gangster on the other side had kicked it to remind us he was waiting, impatiently. If he didn’t have steel-toed boots, he was going to be feeling that tomorrow.
Ms. Chang stayed behind in the kitchen, wringing her hands. The simple gesture of unease was so disconcerting.
I was going to rip this punk a new asshole.
Grabbing my phone from my backpack and slipping it into my back pocket of my jeans, I slid the deadbolt open first. There was some shuffling noise outside the door as if somebody had gotten up from sitting on the floor or leaning against the wall outside.
“I’m coming out,” I said. I let the door close behind me on its self-closing hinges.
It was, not surprisingly, the Changs’ neighbour three doors down. He was wearing a white tank that showed off some scars on his upper arms I hadn’t noticed before and smoke
d a cigarette in the hallway. His eyes went straight to the envelope.
Usually, our interactions didn’t involve words. I handed him money envelopes and he opened and closed his apartment door. It was why I hadn’t recognized his voice.
He said something. It wasn’t English, and it sounded angry. The words got louder and there were a lot more of them as he started counting, and that didn’t take long.
I held my empty hands out, palms up. That was it. Kaput. I had nothing more.
The hallway reeked of his cigarette. I saw a few crushed butts on the cheap carpet indicating he was a chain smoker and he might have been out here longer than I realized. Ms. Chang and I had been busy with her severely ill daughter, but a guy that was forcing protection money from them wouldn’t care. He had to support his lung cancer habit somehow. I looked up and down the hallway quickly, hoping to spot witnesses, if not genuine help. This might get ugly.
A flash of red hair caught my eyes just before the gangster grabbed my shirt and slammed me against the door. If his kicking had made it rattle, then my body hitting it threatened to really test its mettle. Fire doors are not meant to be used against battering rams.
It hurt a lot. I’m short and a bit plump, call it curvy if you want to be generous, but no amount of cushioning was going to make the door softer.
“Ouch, fuck,” I said.
He pulled a knife.
I shut up.
He held his knife in the vicinity of my neck and chest.
I’m not brave or stupid. “Please, I’m sorry,” I begged. I didn’t mention the money again.
The redhead I spotted earlier loomed over the gangster’s shoulder.
It was him. My attempted kidnapper and now my saviour, I hoped.
“Eloden!” I shouted. He may have red hair and green eyes suddenly, but his features were unmistakable. I had been up close and personal with them on Friday while in his arms, multiple times. He must have had a wig and contacts last time for his cosplay.
Where were his scary friends?
The gangster didn’t loosen his hold on my shirt, but he did turn his neck to look behind him. His knife hand followed a little, scraping along my collarbone as the sharp blade bled me. It was a minuscule wound, like something a thorn would do when picking roses, but it stung. My first thought, strangely enough, was to wonder how dirty his knife might be given his appearance.
No Faerie Tale Love (Faerie Series Book 1) Page 5