Prologue
"Natasha, where can I go? Where in the world am I not a threat?"
"You're not a threat to me."
"You sure? Even if I didn't just- there isn't a future with me, I can't ever, I can't have this, kids, do the math, I physically can't."
"Neither can I."
One
They beep, the sounds all around me, there are lights up there, lights above my head which have slowly muddied from the classic oblong of fluorescent bar lighting into a rough oval of white after every few ceiling tiles. The tiles themselves are melting into simple patches of grey. The world as I can see it is simply swirls of grey and white. The lights seem to go fuzzy, the screen of my eyes pixelates turning into a tv set with no signal.
Sound is going too. I wonder if I'm wearing my headphones, it sounds like I am; I know I'm not. There are faces in front of my eyes every now and again, looking down at me, shining lights in my face, I try to turn but even the littlest of movements feels like I'm lifting a ten-tonne building. There is a muffled sound, the way music hears if my headphones are only half plugged into my iphone. I'm sure it's Faye but I can't see her, I can't see anything.
I feel weak, so weak. I'm awake, and although I don't remember much I have a feeling that time has passed. It's dark, but there are still lights around me. After a few moments of coherent thought I realise those lights are coming from surrounding machinery. I try to look around but even moving my neck makes me tired and I am filled with the same issues as before. It is so hard, I'm so heavy. Squinting my eyes I am able to see that the room is a single room. Most of my hospital visits mean I'm on my own. My immune system is too bad to risk being on a group ward, I need isolation and the barrier of the double doors to keep me safe.
There's a tv on the wall in the left hand corner of the room. To the right lies a window with the signature cheap plastic hospital blinds shutting out the light. There will be a door to the bathroom somewhere but I can't look. It's too hard, I'm too heavy.
I can see out through the door to my left without having to turn my head. I can see two figures behind the pain of glass between the door and the tv. The observation area.
I know they are women but they couldn't look more different from each other. They are in shadow and using my peripheral vision the figures become even harder to identify. The first one is short and rounder. A larger lady who verges on the edge of clothing you can by in average clothing stores. She has bobbed brown hair and wears glasses with a brown frame. This is Faye. Faye is the kind of Mumsie looking mum that you expect to see with a teenage kid. She is also the kind of person no one would doubt was my foster mum. Faye wasn't her real name, and Anna Kowalski - the name I had been admitted under – wasn't mine. It was all to keep me safe. I was a high priority case apparently. My parents, Faye and Sam were bound by their job to give their own lives if it meant my survival. I was an asset, a pawn in the life of my mother. Yet seeing the shadow beside Faye, the taller and very slender woman with arm muscles which made it hard for her to fit a leather jacket made for the average woman, my heart still began to thump in my chest a little.
Mom was here.
Already my eyes were determining it was time up, time to sleep, time to sub come to whichever illness had put me into hospital this time. I battled them, but – unlike my мамуля - I was no fighter.
"what's the story Faye, is she alright? Is it the sickle cell?"
Мамуля was worried, she had fear in her voice. Not yet I begged my eyes, feeling my body sink lower in the mattress as though it was swimming and only my head remained above water. Мамуля was here, мамуля would guard over me, even if it meant the Earth.