by Lia Kane
“But what if there’s just one God, one heaven, and everyone is just confused about what to believe?” Naz asked.
Claudia shrugged. “Anything is possible. Life is full of ‘what ifs,’ Naz.”
“Like what if my dad is just mixed up?” Naz asked softly. She rested her elbows on the table and cupped her chin in her hands. “Everything he taught me all my life sounded right. That God is loving and merciful, and has a plan for our lives, and has prepared a place for all of us in heaven. And that God wants us to love our neighbors, too. But all of that changed when the VAM virus came into the world. He doesn’t talk about God’s love anymore. All he talks about is VAM, and how God hates it.”
“You don’t think he’s right, do you?” I asked her.
Naz stared at me. “I don’t really know. He said that people were turning away from God, and that’s why God was sending VAM as a plague.”
“He’s wrong,” I said, resting a hand on her shoulder. “VAM is not a plague, it’s just a disease.”
“Well, the Bible says that people who drink blood should be cut off from society,” she said. “I mean, look at us here in this house that’s far away from Blue Sky. Dr. Miles told me that we can’t tell anyone where we are, because people want to kill us. So we are kind of cut off from society.”
“But that’s because of what man has done, not God. And it won’t be like this forever,” Claudia insisted. “Once the police catch whoever set the fire, that person or people won’t be a danger to us anymore.”
“Even so,” Naz said with a frown, “what’s supposed to happen when I grow up and can live on my own? I always wanted to have a husband and kids someday. I can’t have that now. I can’t even have a boyfriend because I might give him VAM, and it would be wrong to keep spreading this disease. So we are cut off from society. I’m even cut off from my own family.”
“That’s not your fault, honey,” I insisted. “Maybe your dad is just angry now, but will snap out of it someday.”
“I wish he would, and soon, because I really miss him and my brothers,” Naz said, her eyes tearing up. “I don’t mean to be ungrateful. It’s really gorgeous here, and I love my new room and all, but honestly, I just want to go back home to my family.”
“Have you tried to contact him since you left home?” Claudia asked.
Naz shook her head. “No. And I didn’t leave home by choice. My dad kicked me out. I wouldn’t know what to say to him, anyway.”
“Do you still believe in God?” I asked.
“Of course I do,” said Naz, fingering the small golden cross hanging around her neck. “I have all of my life. I’m not going to stop now.”
“Good,” I told her. “I admire that you’re holding onto your faith. Maybe if you pray about everything, it will help you find some peace.”
Naz nodded. “You’re right,” she said. “I’ve been so stressed out about everything that I haven’t taken time to do that. In fact – I should just go say my prayers right now.”
“Say one for me,” Claudia said.
“I will,” Naz told her. “And one for you too, Miss Rand.” She hopped up from the table, pausing to hug me.
“Poor thing,” Claudia shook her head woefully as Naz disappeared up the steps. “She’s having a real spiritual crisis. What do you do when you’re raised by a family of Bible thumpers and they suddenly turn their backs on you? I guess it would make you question and doubt a lot of things.”
I sighed and rolled my eyes. “I wouldn’t worry too much about her spiritual crisis. It will quickly pass, and in five minutes, it will be a boy crisis.”
Claudia laughed. “Oh, to be a teenager again.”
“I’ve got to figure out what to do with her now. I did promise to help her, but I’m not sure what to do. She’s not technically an orphan, since she’s still got a living, breathing parent. Just because Reverend Bill kicked her out doesn’t mean that she can become a ward of the state and get a pint of whole blood every day on the house. She’s supposed to be in school right now, too. This is going to be a nightmare to figure out.”
“Maybe not,” said Claudia. “Parents are still responsible for their children, so Reverend Bill can’t just kick her out without providing for her. Maybe he would relinquish custody of her to the state and pay child support to the orphanage to help pay for her blood.”
I shook my head. “Bad idea. That man is crazy, and is so full of hatred that I wouldn’t put it past him to harm his own daughter. Trying to stick him for child support wouldn’t do anything but make him madder.”
“Hmmmm,” Claudia murmured as she steepled her fingers and tucked them under her chin, deep in thought. “What about this? Write a proposal to the board of directors for a student helper – an intern or something like that. Sarah and I could both attest to the fact that we’re overwhelmed and could use some extra help. There would be no pay for the position, but room and board would be offered as compensation. We could homeschool her, and feed her with whatever leftovers we have from the children’s blood bags.”
“That’s a great idea. Oh, speaking of blood – did Lucy bring a shipment this morning? I’m starving.”
“Unfortunately, no,” Claudia frowned. “There’s some kind of problem at the blood bank. Lucy is there now, trying to figure out what’s going on.”
“Not good. So no one’s been fed yet?”
“Not yet. I’ve left the babies sleeping since they’ll be hungry as soon as they wake up, and they’ll be screaming if there’s nothing to feed them.”
“Is there anything left over from last night?”
“Nothing edible. Once Lucy adds the vitamin and mineral supplements, and the growth hormones, it has to be immediately consumed, or else all of the extra stuff breaks down the anticoagulants and it turns into jelly. Not that I’ve ever tried it, but it sounds nasty. Blech.” She poked her tongue out of her mouth and winced with disgust. “Anyway, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go peek in on the little ones and make sure everyone’s still sleeping soundly.”
After Claudia left, I took my cell phone out of my pocket and checked to see if I had enough minutes for a call. I was starting to miss Victor and wanted to hear his voice. I dialed his number.
“Hello?”
“Victor, it’s me, Jerrika.”
“Jerrika, where are you? I got an e-mail from Agnes yesterday stating that everyone had been moved to a new location, but it didn’t say where.”
“Don’t worry, everything’s fine. We’re all fine,” I said, avoiding his question. “I’m sorry I didn’t call you yesterday to let you know, but things were chaotic with having to move everyone around once again. I just wanted to thank you for everything you’ve done for us. You’ve been a godsend.”
“It’s my pleasure,” Victor assured me. “I’m just so glad to hear from you now. Are you free this evening? Can I see you?”
“No,” I said a little too quickly. “I wish I could, but I can’t.”
“Where are you?”
I hesitated. “I’m sorry, but I can’t tell you. I promised to keep it a secret. Everyone is concerned for our safety. You understand, don’t you?”
“Of course,” he said, but sounded disappointed. “Have you given any more thought to what I said the other night?”
“You mean…”
“That I won’t be scared away,” he said. “I heard you loud and clear – you have VAM, and I’m ok with that. It doesn’t matter to me, Jerrika.”
“I don’t understand. It matters to everyone else.”
“I’m not everyone else,” he said softly. “I’m someone who cares about you and would like to be a part of your life.”
“Well… that scares me, Victor.”
“Why?”
“I wish I knew. I appreciate everything you’ve done for me and the orphanage. I really, really do. I just can’t be anything more than your friend right now.”
He paused again. “I understand,” he said. “I just wish I could change y
our mind. If you need anything at all from me, I’m still here for you, Jerrika.”
“Thank you, Victor.”
“I mean it. Please call me if there’s anything at all I can do for you.”
“I will. I need to go now. Bye.”
• • •
I cringed when the front door opened and Paul stepped through it. I hadn’t wanted him to come home from a long day at work and find that all hell had broken loose in his house, but there was little that I could do about it.
Lucy hadn’t been able to secure a shipment of blood that morning, and ended up at war with the blood bank administrator and staff for the better part of the day. She had called to give us updates, but not much had changed since that morning.
All of the standing prescriptions for everyone at the orphanage – both staff and children – had completely disappeared from their computer system, so a technician had been called out to the blood bank to dig deep into the electronic guts of their recordkeeping. After hours of troubleshooting, our prescriptions still couldn’t be located. Oddly enough, ours appeared to be the only ones missing.
Lucy suggested that duplicate prescriptions be issued immediately. The administrator wouldn’t allow it, explaining that if the original prescriptions were recovered while duplicate prescriptions were added for me, Sarah and the eight children, the would blood bank would risk getting flagged for fraud and would be subject to investigation.
Lucy also swore that she had called Paul’s office multiple times to ask for help with an emergency solution, but Trish had repeatedly told her that he was busy with a patient and couldn’t be disturbed.
In the meantime, Claudia had drawn a pint of her own blood, and Sarah and I had done our best to ration it among the children. It had been no more effective at soothing their hunger than a six-pack of Lance crackers would have been for a hungry crowd of eight VAM-Negative children.
When Paul arrived home, the babies were screaming, the school-age crowd had been sent to their rooms for fighting, Naz was pacing the floor with alarm, Claudia was on mandated rest in an armchair to recover from giving blood, and Sarah and I were struggling, quite ineffectively, to keep order in the house. I wondered if he was sorry yet that he had allowed us to bring such distress to his tranquil home.
I was in tears as I explained to him that none of us had fed in almost 24 hours, and no one could figure out why our standing prescriptions had disappeared from the blood bank. He seemed surprised when I told him that Lucy had tried to reach him for help. He swore that he hadn’t heard anything about it.
Without being asked, Paul found a blood draw kit in the kitchen and drew a pint, overfilling the bag. He gave it to Sarah to divide it up among the children as best she could. Then he reached for another bag.
“You can’t,” I told him. “Two pints in one day is too much.”
He pierced his arm with the needle anyway. “I’ll be fine,” he insisted.
I watched as he bled himself into the bag, pumping his fist to speed the process along.
“You really do love these children, don’t you?” I asked.
His eyes met mine. “Of course I do. They’ve all been my patients since they were born. I would do anything to keep them safe.”
My heart melted as he spoke, and I knew he meant every word. I owed him an apology for the way I had treated him the night before. “Paul, I –”
He stood up before I could finish my sentence and pulled the needle from his vein. He handed me the second bag of his blood. “Get this to the kids right now,” he said in a hurried panic. He grabbed his car keys from the counter and headed for the door.
“Where are you going?” I asked.
“I’m heading back into Blue Sky to go to the blood bank.”
“Isn’t it closed now?”
“I’ll break in if I have to.”
“Paul! That’s insane. You could get arrested!”
“And you could die if you go another 24 hours without feeding. I’m going to do whatever it takes to come back with blood. In the meantime, you need to get everyone to bed. Now. Everyone needs to minimize their energy expenditures so that you don’t –”
“In English,” I reminded him.
“Just get everyone to bed. Now.”
And he was gone.
• • •
Claudia recruited Naz’s help in the nursery, and together, they rocked all of the crying babies to sleep. I helped Sarah put the school-age kids to bed. She hovered in between the twin beds of Jermaine and Jervonne’s shared room, saying goodnight prayers and sharing a quick bedtime story.
I tucked Haley in first. Her normal sweet self had been replaced by a cranky, hungry crybaby. I asked if she wanted to say a prayer or tell me a bedtime story, to which she responded by kicking me in my side and screaming at me to get out of her room.
I was thankful to find Jonathan in a better mood. I perched on his bed while he watched me through his big, sad sparkly eyes.
“Miss Jerrika?” he asked.
“Yes, sweetie?”
“Is everything going to be okay? Are we going to have blood tomorrow?”
“Sure,” I promised. “Everything will be okay. Can I ask you something now?”
“Yeah… what is it?”
“I heard there have been some fights lately. Can you tell me what that’s all about?”
He looked embarrassed. “I fought with Haley yesterday,” he confessed. “She was annoying me, and I just kind of snapped. I didn’t even know why, but I jumped on her and held her down. When I saw how scared she looked, I felt bad. So I stopped and I told her I was sorry.”
“Well that was very grownup of you.”
“I still got in trouble anyway. Miss Sarah made me sit in time out for 15 minutes.”
“Well, 15 minutes isn’t quite so bad. I’m sure it would have been a lot worse, had you not stopped yourself and apologized to Haley. Anyway, tell me about the one that happened today.”
Jonathan covered his face with his hands. “I said a bad word, Miss Jerrika.”
“What word did you say?”
He hesitated. “Bastard.”
“And why did you say it?”
“Jermaine called me a baby, and it made me mad. So I said ‘I’m not a baby. I’m almost seven years old, you bastard.’ Then he slapped me, and I pushed him, and he hit me back.”
My hand flew up to my mouth to stop myself from laughing out loud. Once I regained my composure, I feigned a serious look. “Where did you hear that word?”
“On TV while we were at the Holiday Inn.”
“And do you know what it means?”
He shook his head.
“A bastard is someone who doesn’t have a father, or someone whose parents aren’t married.”
“Well Jermaine doesn’t have a father. He doesn’t have any parents at all, so that means he really is a bastard.”
“But it’s not a nice word to use. Words can be weapons, Jonathan. They can hurt people, just like pushing or slapping or just plain being mean. So I don’t want to hear about you calling anyone else that word, or any other word that you know is ugly, ever again. Okay?”
“Okay.”
“Did you apologize to him?”
“Yes, and Miss Sarah made him apologize to me too for hitting me, but not for calling me a baby. Can you tell Jermaine not to call me a baby? Because that hurt my feelings too.”
I smiled at him. “I sure will. And I know how you feel.”
He frowned. “How?”
“Well, you know I’m the new boss of Hope House, right?”
“Yeah.”
“It’s weird being the boss when the people I work with are older than me. And my own boss is a lot older than me, too. She calls me ‘dear’ sometimes. Which makes me feel like a little kid.”
“But you’re not a kid anymore. You’re a grownup.”
“I know. I’m not a little kid any more than you’re a baby. But do you think it would be a good idea for me to hit my b
oss and call her a bastard?”
Jonathan laughed. “No. You’d probably get fired.”
“You bet your little vampy fanny I would. Why don’t you tell me a better way of handling it the next time my boss calls me ‘dear’ and it makes me feel like a little kid?”
“Just tell her how you feel,” he said.
I smiled at him. “That’s a very smart idea. And should Jermaine call you a baby again, will you promise to handle it the same way?”
He nodded. “Yeah, I will.”
“Good. Now you get to sleep and have sweet dreams about waking up to a great big cup full of blood. Like a Seven-Eleven Big Gulp.”
Jonathan hugged me and we laughed.
“Good night, Jonathan.”
“Good night, Miss Jerrika.”
• • •
By nightfall, my stomach was rumbling angrily. I was so hungry I was dizzy. I could hear my heart thumping loudly in my ears, with an occasional irregular beat breaking up the steadiness of its rhythm. I sat by the window in the kitchen, staring blankly out over the lake and trying to stay calm.
I couldn’t stop thinking about what Victor had said to me.
If you need anything at all from me, I’m still here for you, Jerrika.
I needed blood, and Victor was just a phone call away. I had promised Paul I wouldn’t tell anyone where we were. But Paul himself had said that this was a life or death situation, hadn’t he? And he promised that he would fix this. He would be back with blood from the blood bank, even if he had to break in to get it. Where was he? He had left nearly two hours ago.
I needed to feed and couldn’t wait any longer.
I reached for my phone and dialed Victor. He answered on the second ring.
“Jerrika?”
“Victor,” I said, “I need help.”
“What’s wrong?”
“I need blood. I haven’t fed since yesterday. I’m too weak. There was a problem today and we couldn’t get blood from the blood bank. I’m getting sick, Victor…”
“Maybe you should call 911,” he said with concern.
“It won’t do any good. They can’t bring me blood.”