I cherish the knowledge of western medicine and Europe’s clinical treatments, but if I have to fill out another chart for Dymeka, I am going to scream.
I know I shouldn’t be filling out his charts for him, but he truly is no use with papers. I am so limited in my abilities as well. Playing politics with a director who does not like foreigners and probably female doctors, I can barely help any of the patients.
I am ready to discard these aliases and run. I know Dymeka will agree in a heartbeat. This time we do not run out of fear. We run because this life does not suit us. We have taken everything we could learn from these clinical doctors’ lives, but that is all. We are not clinical doctors. We are healers. We should go out and heal.
Chapter 35
Esmeralda
I heard the doorbell ring somewhere in my subconscious. I was exhausted. I’d spent several hours crying, hadn’t fallen asleep until well after midnight.
I remembered thinking, Who the hell is coming to visit at this hour?
But I’d fallen back to sleep before the Westminster Quarters had stopped playing. I’d forgotten about the early morning visitor when my eyes cracked open again. There was more natural light in my room this time. I heard my mom’s voice coming from the first floor. Aunt Dinah occasionally spoke too, breaking up the tinkling soprano that was my mom’s idle chatter.
To say I felt like shit would be an understatement. Worse of all, my knee was throbbing. It took me longer than I cared to admit to sit up and throw my legs over the side of my bed.
A small papier-mâché toilet was waiting for me, standing like a sentry in front of my bedroom door.
I stared at it, my sleepy brain trying to figure out what the hell it was doing there. At first I thought it was a prank, something Hunter had brought from Boston that was meant to be a subliminal message to me.
“Good morning! You’ve flushed your life down the toilet. You’re a loser! Have a nice day.”
But that wasn’t like Hunter. He would’ve waited to give me something like this on my birthday or Christmas morning so he could sit there and watch me unwrap his clever little present. Then he could say the words to my face.
My mom wasn’t subtle. If she wanted to convey a message, she would’ve written me a note saying exactly what she wanted me to know, with a few hearts drawn along the bottom. And there was just no way Aunt Dinah had gotten this for me.
Which left only one other person: Charlie.
My heart constricted. The pain cleared the remaining sleep haze from my thoughts. I hopped forward on my good foot and bent over to gingerly pick up the toilet. When could he have left this and why? What was he trying to tell me?
I stumbled back to my bed and sat down to inspect the toilet further. While some papier-mâché projects were made out of newspaper clippings, this was made entirely out of neon yellow sticky notes. It was perfectly constructed; there weren’t any wrinkles or tears or thick globs of paste anywhere. The same three sentences were written on each note. I brought the toilet closer to my face and squinted to make out the words.
“I ain’t some girl. I’m Esmer.”
“What kind of name is that?”
“The name a couple of gypsies thought would be wicked pissah.”
Our first conversation. Held in the guys’ bathroom at Green Bay Community. He’d remembered it word for word. I gritted my teeth against the emotion building around my throat. Setting the toilet on my bedside table, I got up again. He couldn’t honestly think I’d forgive him that easily. I let Marty get away with treating me like shit for years. I wasn’t going to take that from Charlie too.
I grabbed my crutches and limped toward the door, blinking back new tears. I poked my head out to be sure the hallway was clear and the bathroom was unoccupied. I didn’t feel like running into Hunter before I was fully dressed and heavily caffeinated. Thankfully, I didn’t catch a single glimpse of my stepdad. I hurried across the hall.
A tiny easel sat on the sink next to the tap. It was kind of hard to miss. Aunt Dinah’s guest bathroom color scheme was white and brown. This perfect miniature replica of an easel was made of square wooden craft sticks which had been glued together with a hot glue gun. Where the canvas would’ve been on a regular sized easel was a pad of more neon yellow stickys.
Heat raced up the sides of my face. How’d he convince Aunt Dinah to let him come up here and leave these?
I was so mad I almost flushed the stupid thing down the toilet. But there was that same emotion clogging my throat, the one that felt suspiciously like homesickness. Deciding I’d wash away my anger and residual sadness, I leaned my crutches against the wall. But after I pulled the shower curtain aside, I jerked back and almost fell flat on my ass.
A metallic, cartoon-like version of a taco, spray painted yellow sat innocently on the tub floor.
Grumbling to myself, I took it out of the tub and set it on the toilet seat. I stood under the steaming hot water for a long time, reminding myself again and again that I couldn’t forgive him yet. I had to let him stew at least through the weekend because he had to understand. What he did was not okay and couldn’t happen again if this relationship was going to last. By the time I sat down in the damn stair chair, my resolve was renewed.
I smiled at my mom and Aunt Dinah, who sat at the table finishing up their breakfast. My mom was already dressed for the
