arm, jerked it out straight and jabbed the needle into the vein on the inside of her elbow in one swift move.
“Naaaaa! Naaarrrgh!” Adelle tried to grab the woman’s wrist with her good hand but it too felt weak and helpless. She tried to swing her fist at her and received a hard smack across the face for her efforts that made her vision cloud and her pulse race dangerously high. She was suddenly afraid of having another stroke.
The nurse swatted Adelle’s hand away and pushed the plunger down on the syringe. Moments later Adelle felt a warmth spreading up her arm, then she began to feel dizzy. She pulled the straightened bobby pin out of her hair and jabbed it at Natsinet but the woman was no longer sitting on her bed and the pin stabbed into thin air then tumbled from her fingers onto the floor. There was a satisfied look on the nurse’s face that convinced Adelle that she would probably not be waking up. She said a silent prayer for her daughter as she drifted away. And a wish that Natsinet would be made to pay for her death.
Sunlight pierced between the blinds on the windows, illuminating the bits of dust in the air, making them look almost beautiful. Adelle could tell by the angle the sun struck her windowsill that it was past eight o’clock in the morning. She normally woke up no later than six am. She’d overslept.
Adelle tried to rise and was momentarily confused when her left arm refused to cooperate; it felt as if it weren’t even attached to her, as if she’d fallen asleep on it and squashed all the blood out of it. Only there wasn’t that pins and needles sensation she normally got when she slept wrong, this was just numbness and weakness as if there were no strength at all in her muscles. She tried to push herself up with her right arm and pain shot through her shoulder, collapsing her back down to the bed.
Then she slowly remembered where she was, what had happened to her. The hospital, the ambulance, and then waking up with that psychotic nurse. Her cheek hurt where the nurse had struck her and her right shoulder cried out in pain. She was in danger. More danger than she had ever been in on the streets, or even back during the civil rights marches confronting police officers with attack dogs, clubs, and guns. This woman was in her own home and for the first time in her life, Adelle was practically helpless. There was nowhere for her to go, nothing she could do.
When the nurse injected her last night Adelle had been sure she’d been poisoned.
She looked over on the nightstand and instinctively reached for the phone to call her daughter. The phone was gone. Ripped out of the wall. Adelle vaguely remembered the nurse throwing the phone across the room last night in her rage. It would be no use to her anyway. Her tongue still lolled uselessly in her mouth and her jaw on the left side hung down, the muscles unresponsive. She wasn’t sure how she’d even manage to chew her food without it spilling out of her mouth, let alone tell anyone what was going on, even if she had a phone.
Natsinet bounded into the room bubbling with enthusiasm as she brought Adelle her breakfast. “Good morning, Mrs. Smith. How are we this morning?”
Adelle’s eyes narrowed in suspicion as she looked from Natsinet to the plate of warm oatmeal she held. The Nurse’s demeanor had completely changed. The woman she met yesterday had been sullen and dangerous like a viper coiled and waiting to strike. There’d been no warmth in her at all. Seeing the woman flitting about opening the drapes and smiling ear to ear was disconcerting. It made Adelle even more convinced that the woman was crazy.
“I know I came down a bit hard on you yesterday and I apologize. It seems I’m going to be with you for quite a while. The doctor says that it could be six weeks, six months, or even six years before you regain your strength. Something else my agency forgot to tell me about, like the fact that your speech was impaired and that you were more than just slightly paralyzed on your left side. They said you can use a walker to get around. Can you?’
Adelle shook her head slowly, still staring at the woman perplexed, trying to figure out if she was serious.
“That’s what I thought.”
Adelle noticed just the slightest glimmer of anger flash in the nurse’s eyes before she pulled her mask back into place.
“We might as well learn to get along, then. I’ll help you get back up on your feet, because the sooner I do that, the sooner I can get out of this hell-hole. You wanted physical therapy? Well, you’re going to get it. I warn you, though. I’m not going to take it easy on you. The doctor said that you’ll be able to walk using a walker in six to eight weeks with intensive physical therapy. He gave me a whole series of exercises he wants me to put you through three times a week, but I’m thinking more like twice a day. I don’t have time to waste while you lie around in bed all day. And I’m adding a few exercises of my own as well.”
Adelle didn’t like the sound of that at all. She motioned for a pen and paper. Natsinet reached into a drawer by the nightstand and handed them to her.
“When did the doctor come?” she wrote.
“While you were sleeping. I gave you a mild sedative after you passed out so that you could get a good rest, and then I called the doctor. I told him about how you’d fallen out of bed. That old bastard had the nerve to look at me like it was
Adelle shook her head.
“Or maybe it is. Maybe your stroke was the result of poor circulation, arteries clogged with fat from not exercising and eating fried chicken and pork. In which case your clumsiness
Adelle shook her head vehemently and scribbled furiously in her pad. “Your fault! I didn’t fall. You pushed me! You hit me!!!”
Natsinet snatched the pad out of Adelle’s hand and tore it to shreds. Adelle winced, afraid the woman would strike her again.
“I told you not to spread lies! How are we going to get along if you keep lying like that?”
Adelle stared at the woman, trying to figure out if she was really crazy, if she really didn’t remember punching her in the face and yanking her out of her bed onto the floor. There was a smirk on the nurse’s face. That told Adelle all she needed to know. The woman wasn’t crazy, at least not that way. She remembered everything she’d done to her. She was just playing with her, enjoying the power she held over her, trying to mess with Adelle’s mind. No, not crazy. Evil.
“Oh, your daughter stopped by also, but you were sleeping and I told her it was best not to disturb you. Too bad you missed her. She said she’ll be back to visit again this weekend. She’s got some big project she’s working on at her job. But she promised to call every day to check on your progress. I’ll make sure to keep her well informed.”
When the nurse smiled it looked to Adelle like one of those vampires in the horror movies baring her fangs. Natsinet dipped a spoon into the oatmeal and shoved it into Adelle’s mouth, pushing it all the way to the back of her mouth. The warm lump clogged her throat. Adelle almost suffocated as she tried to force her partially paralyzed mouth to chew before she gagged on the food. As soon as she swallowed and sucked in a big lungful of air another thick spoonful was jammed into her mouth.
Adelle gagged and choked several times as Natsinet continued to shovel the tasteless gruel into her mouth. When Adelle wretched and regurgitated most of what she had eaten, the nurse stormed angrily out of the room. It was several hours before she returned and by then the room smelled rancid, sickening sweet from the putrefying vomit.
“It smells like a pigsty in here!” Natsinet announced, curling up her nose and covering it with her sleeve. “I guess I’d better clean you up a bit before we begin physical therapy.”
Natsinet grabbed the soiled sheets and jerked hard, dumping Adelle onto the floor again. Ignoring Adelle as the old woman rolled back and forth on the floor moaning in pain, Natsinet stripped the bed and left the room to toss the bedding into the washing machine down the hall.
Adelle tried to crawl. Her shoulder was screaming in pain but she ignored it. Her right leg felt strong but, with
