ago, but I assure you we treated your mother with the same high level of care we strive to maintain for all of our patients.”
His words sounded as if he were reading from a script. They did nothing to assuage Tonya’s growing concern.
“I appreciate that,” Tonya said. Yes, she was getting slowly pissed off now. She looked at her mother across the room, who slept on. “What’s her prognosis?”
“We’ll find out when she regains consciousness,” the doctor said. “From the preliminary CAT scans, we were able to ascertain that there was minimal neurological damage. It’s possible that her speech may be affected.”
“What about her vision? Her mind?”
“Again, we won’t know until she comes out of it.”
“How long will that be?”
The doctor shrugged. “Later today, perhaps.”
Tonya stood up and approached her mother’s bedside. The doctor accompanied her, noted momma’s heart rate and pulse. His tone was so matter-of-fact that Tonya could feel her anger vibrating through her again like a revving engine. She tried to remind herself that she couldn’t expect everyone to be as emotional about her mother’s health as she was. Still, it bothered her that he didn’t at least make eye contact with her when he was talking about her mother’s health. He acted as if she were an annoyance keeping him from more important things.
“Don’t worry. Your mother is receiving the very best care possible.”
His back was to her when he spoke, writing notes on her mother’s charts as he checked her vitals. Despite his over-rehearsed words of assurance, his mannerisms and expression were more that of a mechanic checking engine oil than someone with her mother’s life in his hands. It took a great effort for her to dispel the impression that he would have shown greater concern had his patient been White. She didn’t want to start thinking that way. That was how her mother thought and she wasn’t like her mother.
Adelle Smith was still stuck in the past. She saw racism in every shadow. Tonya considered herself open- minded. She’d even dated a few White men before she’d met her husband. She reached out and took her mother’s hand. Tonya gasped and choked back tears, startled by how cold and delicate it was for such a large, robust woman. The skin was as thin as parchment and she could feel the tiny bones beneath. Her mother had always been such a force of nature that it was heartbreaking to see her look so helpless.
Tonya dabbed at the corner of her eyes with her coat sleeve and looked back at the doctor for some type of reassurance. He was whistling to himself as he continued filling out the chart.
Tonya told herself that she should take confidence from the doctor’s lack of alarm. She watched as he opened her mother’s eyelids with his fingers and shined a light on her pupils. They remained fully dilated. The doctor’s expression was impassive.
He smiled at her and patted her on her shoulder as he exited the room. Tonya looked back over at her mother, laboring to breathe despite the oxygen tubes in her nose, her complexion turning grayer by the second. She sat down on the edge of the hospital bed still holding her mother’s tiny hand.
Tonya adjusted her mother’s pillow and bent over and kissed her on the forehead. When the tears finally came they didn’t stop until she fell asleep, curled up beside her mother, listening to her labored breathing.
Chapter Two
The Hospice Nurses of Greater Philadelphia was located in the Historic Germantown section of Philadelphia directly adjacent to Wissahickon and Mount Airy. Natsinet had never been to this part of the city before. The houses were old but beautiful. Colonial mansions stood mere blocks from old brick row homes that once housed soldiers from the Revolutionary War. Even the buildings that had been allowed to deteriorate still held the vestiges of their former beauty. Not like the hastily-built cookie-cutter houses covered in aluminum siding they manufactured today. She could not imagine any of them still standing in a hundred years.
Sugar Maples, River Birch, White Oak and Northern Red Oaks filled with foraging squirrels gathering acorns lined every street, their leaves already turning fire and gold with the season. When she inhaled, Natsinet could smell the leaves and the grass from the freshly cut lawns. It reminded her of the vision she’d had of America before she’d come here. A far cry from the reality she’d discovered.
The building that housed the Hospice Nurses was an old plantation that now served as a nursing home. It was three stories high with fancy cornices and columns, a combination of Georgian architecture and a sort of Italianette country Palazzo complete with a grand arch doorway. The stone veneer was old and crumbling in places. The front of the building was covered in ivy all the way up to the second floor windows. Natsinet paused a moment to marvel at the beauty of the place.
It was quiet and even a bit stern and austere owing to its undoubtedly Quaker heritage; still, it had amazing charm. It was sad to her that such a wonderfully charming building had now been converted into a home where the unwanted came to die.
Natsinet walked up the long driveway to the front porch and rang the doorbell. A woman in an old-fashioned nursing uniform opened the door, white skirt, white stockings, thick heavy-looking white shoes, complete with one of those old nurse’s hats with the black stripe and little wings. The woman looked as old as the building she stood in and just as sturdy. She fit the old plantation as naturally as if she had been installed right along with the oak doors and lead glass windows.
Her hair was white with streaks of blonde still running through it here and there. Her eyes had deep crow’s feet in the corners that had grown over the years and merged with the rest of the wrinkles and hard lines radiating out like spider webs across her face. A pair of wire rimmed spectacles perched precariously on the end of her nose. She looked impossibly ancient, as if she should have been one of the patients rather than a care-giver. She was surely older than many of those she cared for.
“Yes, may I help you?”
Her smile was surprisingly vibrant and friendly. Her eyes smiled with her. Natsinet had not met many friendly people since she’d come to America. Most of the people she’d met in Philadelphia were hostile and guarded at first, as if they were afraid she was going to try to take something from them. Natsinet had learned over the years the knack of getting the distrustful to trust in her, which was difficult since she was not a very warm person herself. She was capable and intelligent, and she’d found that people respected her for that.
“I saw an ad in the Enquirer that said you were looking for hospice nurses?
I brought my resume and references.”
“Oh. Well, come in. Come in.”
The nurse led Natsinet into the vestibule and then down a long hallway. The floors were all maple hardwood shined to a high gloss. The walls were painted antique white and were accented by ornate hand-carved crown molding and chair railing the same color as the floors. All of the woodwork appeared to be part of the original architecture. Natsinet couldn’t imagine where you would find that kind of craftsmanship in America these days.
“My name is Doris. I run this place. I’ve worked here for over fifty years. I was about your age when I started here, fresh out of nursing school.”
“Very pleased to meet you, Doris. My name is Natsinet.”
She shook Doris’s hand and was surprised by the firmness of the handshake. The old nurse peered over her glasses at Natsinet as she returned the handshake.
Natsinet was tall and slender like a supermodel. Her eyes were large and almond shaped, almost slanted, and green as emeralds. Her nose was long and narrow, but her lips were full and her hair was the color of wheat though still thick and wooly. Her skin, however, was as white as buttermilk. Natsinet knew that Doris was trying to figure out what nationality she was.
“That’s an unusual name. What kind of accent is that? I don’t think I’ve ever heard it before.”
“I was born in Eritrea but my mother is American.”
“Eritrea? You mean Ethiopia? I used to send money to Ethiopia years ago.”
“No. Not Ethiopia. Different country. My father was Eritrean. He was a physician. He met my mother while she was in the Peace Corp.”
