“Have anything in your pockets?”
“Only this.”
Diane pulled out a small leather card case with her drivers license, one credit card, two fifty-dollar bills, and a small picture of Ariel. After spending years traveling, she developed a habit of carrying important identification on her person, not in a place that was easy to get separated from.
“That’s fine.” He motioned her in.
Inside, Frank was trying to find out what was going on. Star and a nurse’s aide were both talking at the same time. Star’s black hair, which was short in the family photograph, was almost to her shoulders and fringed on the ends. The blond streak that had framed her face was now a purple-fuchsia and had grown out to the ends. Her pixie face was as pale as the pillowcase, even in anger, and her dark brown eyes were made to look even larger by the dark circles underlining them. Star looked small in the hospital bed and pitiful with bandages on both her wrists, halfway up her forearms. Restraints on her upper arms fastened her to the bed.
“I rang for the nurse over an hour ago. You can’t tie me to the bed and leave me here without any bathroom breaks.”
The nurse’s aide, a woman in her mid-forties dressed in a stained white pantsuit, looked as if she were trying to stare Frank down.
She turned to Star. “There’s a lot of sick people on this floor. We don’t have time to run to you every five minutes.”
“Wouldn’t it have been easier to let her go to the bathroom than change her sheets?” Frank was having a hard time remaining calm and polite.
“She can hold it until we have time to get to it.”
The stubborn set of the woman’s face angered Diane. This was a health-care worker, for heaven’s sake.
“Are you aware,” said Diane, “that ‘holding it,’ as you put it, can lead to a bladder infection?”
“No worse than she deserves,” muttered the woman so low that Diane almost didn’t catch it.
Frank shot out of the room so suddenly that it startled even Diane. The woman looked at the door, then at Diane, a stubborn frown setting around her mouth. “Where’s he going?”
“I imagine to the head nurse or to the hospital administrators.”
As the woman started out the door, Diane called after her, “Star needs help,” but the aide didn’t look back.
Diane walked out the door to the policeman, who spoke before Diane had a chance to say anything. “I just guard the door-I don’t change bedpans.”
“Of course you don’t,” said Diane with her best sweet voice. “And you shouldn’t have to. But I need you to undo her restraints so she can go to the bathroom and clean up.”
He sighed and rose, putting his book down again. Diane noticed it was a Western. He stepped into the room long enough to unlock the restraints. Diane thanked him and helped Star out of bed. There was a large wet place on the sheets and the back of her gown.
“So you’re Uncle Frank’s girlfriend,” said Star as she went into the bathroom.
“We date,” said Diane.
“Are you sleeping with him?”
“None of your business,” said Diane pleasantly and heard Star give a faint laugh.
“I’m going to take a shower,” she said.
“Should you get your bandages wet?” asked Diane.
“I’ll just turn on the shower and rinse off my body. I won’t get them wet. God forbid that bitch should have to change them for me.”
“You have some more pajamas?”
“In the dresser drawer. Some underwear too.”
Diane was glad that Star was concerned with cleanliness and dignity. People in despair give up their pride first-“pride goeth before the fall,” a meaning of the aphorism that made more sense to Diane than the one more often attributed to it.
Of course, Star might not have meant her injuries to be life threatening. She could have only wanted to get out of jail or to get attention. But Diane noted that her bandages covered half of her forearm, a serious sign. Often people bent on suicide slit their wrists lengthwise up the arm, along the vein, to insure a bleed out. That looked like what Star did.
Diane retrieved a pair of cotton pajamas and panties and stood outside the door. An orderly entered with clean sheets and began stripping the bed. Diane watched him take off the soiled sheets, clean the plastic mattress cover and remake the bed. He worked quickly and said nothing, merely nodding at Diane on the way out. By the time he finished, Star was ready for her clothes and reached out the door for them.
When Frank arrived, Diane had Star tucked into a clean bed and the policeman reentered to lock her restraints.
“Why don’t you leave those off, as long as we’re here?” asked Frank.
“They told me not to,” he said and went back to his post.
Frank shook his head. “When this is over. .” He was interrupted by a nurse entering the room.
Diane expected another angry nurse, but this woman was friendly. Slim, in her early thirties, with light brown skin and short hair, she looked efficient and spoke to Star like she cared. Her name tag said LORAINE WASHINGTON, and she was a registered nurse, not an aide.
“How are you feeling?” she asked as she took Star’s blood pressure and pulse.
“I’m okay,” said Star.
“Your blood pressure’s a little low.” The RN took her temperature. “And you’re a little hot. The next time you have to go, I want you to collect some urine for me.” She set a specimen cup on the nightstand.
“I’m OK, really,” said Star. “It’s just that when I have to go, I have to go.”
“How many times have you been kept waiting?”
Star shrugged. “Just in the evenings. That nurse doesn’t like me. In the daytime, or when Uncle Frank is here, things are all right.”
“They’ll be all right from now on. I want you to drink lots of water.”
“That’ll just make things worse.”
“No, it’ll make things better.”
“Then you think you can talk that policeman into coming in every thirty minutes and giving me a sip?” Star tried to lift her arms against the restraints.
Nurse Washington smiled. “I see what you mean. Someone will come and check on you more often and give you a drink. Do you like juice?”
“Orange juice.”
“How about cranberry?”
“I don’t know.”
“I’ll see you get some of that too. It’ll be good for your bladder.” She patted her arm and left.
“Well, Uncle Frank, you must have ripped somebody a new one.”
“I had some words with a few people. I don’t think this was the first complaint about that particular aide.” He reached over and grasped her foot through the covers and shook it. “You doing OK?”
“Sure. I did a number on my arms and they hurt and itch like hell, I’ve just peed all over myself, my family is dead and the whole world thinks I killed them.”
“Not the whole world,” said Frank.
“They said they was going to try me as an adult. All my life people’s been telling me I’m just a kid, and now they decide I’m an adult because that makes me in worse trouble.”
“I doubt it will even get to trial. We’ll find out who really did it before then,” said Frank with such conviction that Diane believed him.
“Will it matter?” said Star. “They’ll still be dead, and people like that bitch nurse will still believe I did it.”
“It turns out that the nurse’s aide is a friend of Crystal’s,” said Frank. “I thought I’d seen her before.”
Star rolled her eyes. “That explains a lot-for starters, why she’s as dumb as dirt.”
