by Tampa Tyson
“I know you do,” Dad said, “but why are the dogs brought in?”
Dr. Angie stared down at the floor.
“We both know that if it wasn’t for those dogs, the children in the hospital might find it harder to fight. Those dogs can give them something to look forward, something that helps them survive all those painful dreadful days and can help increase their will to live.”
Dr. Angie didn’t look up. “But Gabby’s not like them.”
“Anything can scar a child emotionally, Dr. Angie," Dad said, "that's why it's essential that doctors do everything they can to ensure their patients’ lives remaining as fulfilling as possible...... Here, give me that medicine."
Before I knew it, Dr. Angie and Dad were both standing over me. Dr. Angie seemed a little bit hesitant, but it only took one sentence from Dad to get him to pressure me. “I didn’t get three girlfriends pregnant only to lose all the babies, Gabby,” Dad said.
But it took a whole voicemail from the police station to convince me that life was worth living. And the message was from Kayla. She talked about what she thought about my mother and her mother- who also had been a bit restricted. Then she concluded with the following words. “You know, Gabby, if your Mother doesn’t turn herself around, the enemy's gonna stick a dagger into her heart.”
I opened my mouth and felt the antidote go in. Dr. Angie covered my face with the oxygen mask again, and after only a couple of seconds, the world faded to black. I kept wondering if I'd gone blind and deaf, but then I heard the beeping of the EKG and felt the harsh brightness of the hospital lights against my eyes.
Blinking and soaking up all the energy I could, I opened my eyes. Then I heard something- across the room. It was Dr. Angie. “Tell me, Robert,” he said, “when was the last time you saw Gabby?”
“Friday.” Robert’s voice was like the radio in the car- a radio that your parents kept tuned to the lowest frequency possible. You could barely hear it- all the while wishing that you could just get closer to the knob. But you couldn’t- and your parents kept getting louder.
“Good. And tell me, what was she doing?” Dr. Angie said.
I couldn’t lift myself up even by the bars of my bed. The words had all but blurred into grunts and grumbles, and Dr. Angie kept speaking. I wished he would stop- then maybe I would hear Robert. All I heard was noise.
“Robert stops!” and the noise was getting louder. Dr. Angie was chasing Robert around the room- I mean, I didn’t see him, but I could feel it- their footsteps against the floor, Robert’s grunts, and grumbles- and Dr. Angie begging for him to just stop.
Robert soon had a hand on my bed- and I could feel him kicking the supports that lay beneath me. At that moment, I tilted my head towards him and saw only that he wasn’t looking at me. Dr. Angie came towards me, grabbed the boy, and sent him out of the room.
Then he returned. “Sorry about that boy, Gabby.”
“He’s not really that bad,” Does he always act like this in the hospital? “once you get to know him, that is.”
“I’ve been trying.” The door open and Robert came back in. This time, I noticed he simply sat down, neither speaking nor fussing. He just sat there, still, motionless, like a statue. “But he won’t talk to me. Robert?” he turned to Robert, “see?”
I didn’t understand. Robert had been so talkative back at the construction site.
“I’ve tried everything. Admitting him to the hospital for the night, I’ve tried giving him choices, choices he can only pick from if he speaks, putting him in a room with a therapy dog, but nothing works.”
“Maybe I should talk to him.”
“Gabby, you’re just a patient.” Dr. Angie said.
“But he talks to me,” I said, “hey, Robert, what time is it?”
Robert stood up and tentatively approached me. “It’s twelve o'clock,” he said, “and it’s Sunday, too.”
"Really? I was just about to ask you that. The date I mean."
Robert chuckled. But only for a brief second. He then went quiet and sat back down on the couch. His silence made me feel a bit lonely. “Is there anybody else here?” I asked.
“Your friend Kayla has been waiting all morning for you to wake up,” Dr. Angie said, “she got so worried last night, Nicholas told me, that he had to promise Kayla she’d bring her here this morning to calm her nerves. She’ll be happy to know you’re awake.”
Dr. Angie grabbed Robert’s arm and led him out of the room. He soon returned, with Robert and Kayla behind him. Kayla seemed quiet for a few moments, but then she came up and hugged me. Even though my arm wasn’t in a sling anymore, making it possible for me to hug her back- I had limited energy, so I could only do for a short time.
“Seriously, Gabby, you look like a zombie. And you kinda sound like one too. I mean, it kinda makes sense though, all that poison probably nearly destroyed you.”
"Tell me about it,” Despite feeling much better- my stomach had stopped hurting, the world had stopped spinning- my body still acted as if it was sick. My eyes kept closing on me, my muscles kept aching, and my head kept throbbing, "why did you call me, anyway?"
"We're friends, Gabby. It's what we do." I felt there was a little bit more to it than that. "And your Mom called the police, begging for them to let me call your hospital room number."
“I didn’t think she’d do that,” I said.
“Neither did I,” Kayla said, “after all, she ain’t the kinda person who lets somebody she thinks who’s a bad influence out of jail….”
“Yeah…” my Mom had occasionally told me that she thought Kayla was a bad influence due to all her risk taking, “why didn’t you tell me?”
“Tell you what?”
“Why didn’t you tell me you were on house arrest?”
“Because I didn’t want to,” Kayla replied.
“Why not?”
“I just didn’t, Gabby,” Kayla said, “you probably don’t know, but restraining orders and house arrests can be kinda like traps. Sure, they ain’t like being in a prison cell, where you’re trapped in pretty one place. But they still can be damaging.”
“I’m trapped here for the night, ain’t I?”
“Well, yeah, but it’s not like you have cancer or anything worse. Those kids are often trapped in the hospital much longer. I guess that’s why they like the dogs visiting them- gives them some relief from their ordeal. It’s like an extra visitor is coming.”
“And then I’ll go back home and be stuck in a cast.”
“You don’t realize how lucky you are, Gabby. Believe me, you could have gotten something much worse- than what you got. You should look it up when you get home.”
“I don’t have a computer.”
“I’ll see if I can find you one.”
The door opened, and Dr. Angie stepped back in. Robert, though he still wasn’t speaking, had apparently calmed down enough to come back in. At that time, Dr. Angie decided to bring Kayla out of the room. With a very limited idea of what was going on- I just knew I was stuck here for the night- I couldn’t do much but watch Robert.
Kayla soon entered the room. “What’s the matter with Robert?” I asked.
"Oh, there's nothing wrong with him,” Kayla replied, "he just gets like this sometimes- Some days it's worse than others, and I think this was one of bad days."
“But how did it start?”
"Probably a long time ago, though it was probably triggered last night, the way Nicholas and your Dad brought him here- I ain't totally sure." We both looked over at Robert, who, too me, looked anxious. "Whatever the case, I know he doesn't like doing this, but I know he can't always help it."
"You said something about this being part of his past, right?"
“Yeah. While I was in juvie, Sage kept bragging about how her parents used to wait until this moment to yell at Robert and tell him to shut up. It was at this moment that he would always lose control. Eventually, his parents started threatening him with punishments, and he believed
everything they said. Sage loved to brag how much those punishments worked, how much they quieted Robert.”
At the expense of his emotional health. We both looked over at Robert again, who, to me, looked scared about something. Maybe it was the cup of poisoned hot chocolate he’d given me at the crime scene. “Kayla, I don’t think Robert poisoned that hot chocolate.”
“What makes you say that?”
“It tasted like yours.”
“Oh,” Kayla said, “right.”
“Did you give it to anybody at the juvenile detention center? I mean, didn’t anybody ask you for some of it?”
"No,” Kayla said, "I mean, I wasn't supposed to, but so many people kept begging, the police officers had no choice but to let me make them hot chocolate under heavy supervision to make sure they weren't putting any poison in it."
“But they could have put the chemicals in the hot chocolate once they left the place.”
“Yeah, given how much more rigorous the shipping process has gotten, I doubt that would have happened ‘less the person who poisoned it lived around these parts. And I don’t recall seeing anybody from ‘round these parts there.”
“So why did Nicholas go and get Robert, anyhow? And why were you released?”
“Huh?”
“You’re not wearing an orange jumpsuit. If you were going back to the prison afterward, you’d be wearing an orange jumpsuit, wouldn’t you?”
“I got out on good behavior,” Kayla said, “besides, Nicholas thought that you and Robert would both need me here, given the big ordeal.”
“What ordeal?”
“I thought you knew, Gabby. I’d thought you’d have least suspected it by now, but apparently, the rat poison has affected your bloodstream to the point where you went one step backward in fracture healing.”
“You’ve mean, I’ve gotten worse?”
“Dr. Angie doesn’t think the damage is severe enough to make you wear a plaster cast again, but he will want you to be extra careful.”
“Is that the only reason I’m stuck in the hospital overnight?”
“No, Gabby, you need a blood transfusion.”
Oh. Yeah. Right. I’d lost blood. Why hadn’t I noticed that before? “That’s easy.”
“You have O-positive blood.”
I nearly gasped, but I managed to hold it in. According to one of my biology textbooks, there were four different blood types. O, A, B, and AB. There was also a R+ factor that if not present on the blood cell, would treat all positive blood types as invaders. As it stood, I was only slightly luckier than the patient with O- blood, who wouldn't be able to use my blood.
“Dr. Angie has already tested your parents. They both have A positive blood, so neither of them matches yours.” Great. A ¾ chance of ending up with my parent's blood type, and I got the ¼ chance of getting an O. Maybe I wasn't so lucky as I thought. “So, Dr. Angie has brought both of us here to get tested. If one of us matches and the transfusion is successful, you’ll be able to go home… If not…”
Then I’d be stuck in the hospital longer. “What’s Stephen’s blood type?”
“O Negative,” Kayla said, “but it doesn’t matter, been prohibited from donating blood.”
“Why? Is he sick?”
“Sort… of.” Kayla shrugged. “The thing is, nobody really knows what he has. It’s not highly contagious, though it can be spread from person to person.
“It’s not Ebola, is it?”
“For Heaven’s sakes, Gabby, if it was Ebola, he wouldn’t be able to be out and about. Do know it makes him much more susceptive to getting sick, but it ain't an autoimmune disorder like Dr. Angie has.”
“Is that why Dr. Angie’s bald?”
“Yep, but it’s not contagious... And whatever the case, he’s the only one who knows what Stephen has—”
“And they’ve sworn to secrecy,” Robert interjected.
“It’s confidential information, Robert!” I didn’t feel Kayla was justified in her shouting as Robert quickly retreated to his spot on the couch and quieted himself again. Kayla turned to me, “and we’re not interested in breaking and stealing Stephen’s medical records, now, are we, Gabby?”
I thought about it. Stealing medical records could land us both in juvie, with Kayla having a potentially longer sentence than before. And as I just wanted to get back home and continue investigating, it wasn't something that I wanted to risk either. "I suppose not."
“Good.”
“What ‘bout Sage and Hannah? Have they been tested?”
“They’ve been tested. Yes. And they don’t match.”
“My Mom had A- blood,” Robert said, “my lucky sister got that.”
“That’s no guarantee you two will end up having the same blood types- I mean, you two ain’t identical twins- and you were born at different times.”
“You think I don’t know that?” Robert stood from his chair, “honestly, I hope I have O- negative blood, so my sister can’t donate ‘any of her blood to me.”
“If I’m not mistaken, she’ll use that as another proof to her that you’re useless,” I said.
“She can’t,” Kayla replied, “if he has O-negative blood, he can donate to anybody.”
“Which means he can donate to his sister, and she’ll probably insist on it.”
“Yeah, but if he has O+ blood, he won’t be able to.”
“His parents had A- he won’t get positive from that.”
“Look, let’s just hope he has O- right now. Sure, it’ll make future donating difficult, but at least his sister won’t be able to get him. And he’ll be a master donate.”
"With the unfortunate consequence of being able to donate to his sister." If he had A blood though, he wouldn't be able to donate to me. It felt like no matter which way we went, Robert would remain a victim.
Then the hospital door opened. Dr. Angie stepped in. “Robert,” he said, “the news has come in. You’ve gotten O+ blood.”
Either one of Robert’s parents had inherited A+ blood themselves (Or some other positive blood type) or Robert’s blood cells had gone a cellular mutation giving Robert a positive blood type. But if he could donate to me, that was great. “That’s awesome, Robert,” I said.
"Yeah, it is,” Robert smiled. Clearly, he'd have a slightly easier time getting donations from other people if I wasn't compatible, but we were compatible now. We could both give each other blood, "I won't be able to donate to my sister and she won't be able to donate to me," he paused, "the prick’s painful, though."
Kayla put her hand on Robert’s shoulder. “It only hurts a second,” she said, “do you want me to come with you?”
“Yes,” Robert said, “yes, that’d be nice.” Robert and Kayla both left the hospital room, leaving Dr. Angie to explain some medical terminology and some medical history. He told me that in the past, medical personnel (after using a finger prick to determine iron levels) would draw full pints of blood and test it all at one time. While this had worked great for the patient, as they would only have to be in the hospital for one appointment, it also led to a lot of blood waste if the patient somehow ended up being unable to donate blood.
And given that Robert couldn’t be contacted if his blood didn’t match, this wouldn’t have worked well for him. So, the new testing process, developed late in the 21st century, tested blood types with only a small amount of blood and then if the test was clear, they would take a pint. Because Robert hadn’t been tested before, and he couldn’t be called, the doctor had needed to send a police officer to get him here. Dr. Angie told me that he hoped the combination of my father and Officer Nicholas would keep Robert calm, but instead, the kid freaked out. The only way to calm him was to release Kayla from prison.
“How long until the blood’s drawn?” I asked.
“It’ll take a couple of hours for us to sort out the plasma,” Dr. Angie said, “but given that the procedure itself only takes a few minutes. Robert and Kayla should be able to leave within a few hour
s."
That was not what I'd wanted to hear.
Chapter 17
The sun outside my window, which had just been at its highest point when Kayla had come to see me, now was lowering itself. Dr. Angie entered my room and told me that Robert had completed the donation process. The blood had been sent to the laboratory to sort out the plasma, and then it would be ready for injection. Great, I thought, the sooner that blood is in me, the sooner I can get back home.
Then Dr. Angie told me visiting hours had begun, and that my mother and father would be coming to see me shortly. First, it was Dad. He didn’t say much, just asked me how I was feeling. Same with Mom. Dr. Angie then told Mom that she’d be allowed to see me in the morning if she desired. She told him that was what she wanted.
Then, once we got the news that the plasma had been sorted, Dr. Angie came in with a blood bag and IV line. The IV line as he inserted it into one of my veins pinched me, but then that was gone. However, Dr. Angie stayed with me- until the blood bag emptied. Then he left the room and I thought I was free to fall asleep. But I wasn’t free- Dr. Angie kept coming in every couple of hours, waking me up to monitor my blood levels. The waking’s at night were even more frequent, so frequent I can’t remember how many needles pricks he'd given me.
Finally, he woke me up the next morning about 9:00. "The rat poison's pretty much gone now, Gabby," he said, "its half-life has long since passed and I'm sure your body can deplete the rest by itself."
Initially, I felt a little bit sleepy from the sleep deprivation, but as I woke up, I began to feel better. Dr. Angie ran a couple of final tests, letting me walk around the hospital room. He noticed I was still a little bit weak, but he chalked that up to some after effects and assured me that my immune system would quickly recover. “Just take it easy for the next few days,” he told me before he called Mom in along with a wheelchair, “everything looks good,” he told Mom, “she should be able to go home after she gets her cast replaced- but she’ll need a bit more energy for that- why don’t you take her down to the café?”
“You mean, I’m discharged?” I said.
“Almost.” Dr. Angie clarified.