Disclaimer: All characters
involved are owned by someone who ain't me…
Set sometime after "Witch
Hunt"
Part II
Two hours earlier
It
was a familiar situation.
Or
so I thought.
She'd
arrived at the hospital a few hours earlier, clutching the life-less body of
her child, blue, frozen from a long night on the Chicago streets. Once the baby
had been taken from her she had become violent, lashing out at the nurses who
tried to comfort her, screaming for the child she knew in her heart she had
lost. In one such attack on a nurse she'd fallen and cut her head severely on
the side of her gurney, causing her to be restrained, tied to her bed so she
couldn't lash out, couldn't run, couldn't move.
They
had called for a psych. consult almost the moment she'd been brought in, I
hadn't been able to she her straight away, the unaccountability of my job
meaning I could be any place in the hospital when I was needed the most. I
can't remember who I was seeing at the time, it could have the been the old
lady who wandered into one of the wards and climbed into a free bed, or the man
who thought he was a direct descendant of Jesus, we see so many, I don't
remember.
When
I arrived in the ER the girl was hysterical, screaming for her child, thrashing
about on her bed in an effort to loosen the restraints, all of which we
designed not to do so. Two guards were posted outside the door of her private
room, her actions earlier causing them to be wary of her around other patients.
The
guards parted as I walked toward them, recognising me as a doctor, knowing my
face, one smiled flirtatiously and opened the door for me, not knowing. And why
should he? I asked myself as I stepped through the door, closing it behind me,
not everyone knew.
The
scene before me was one I had experienced many times before, a male doctor I
was unfamiliar with sat peacefully on the only spare bad in the room, paperwork
spread out in front of him. He looked up as I entered and nodded his
acknowledgment, going back to his work when he received one in return.
The
other side pf the room was a different story, I'm not sure I understood how the
doctor could carry on with his work amid all this noise, the hysterical cries
for a dead child, the raw torment of a mother caught up in loss. I was
surprised to see how young she was, only about 15, dark hair caught up in
ringlets around a coco-coloured face, dark eyes large and wide, terrified. When
see saw me she calmed slightly, ceasing her cries, knowing someone was
eventually listening.
"Where
is she?" Her voice has an African lilt to it, an accent picked up from living
with African parents, or in an African neighbourhood. Everything else about her
was American, the dark denim of her jacket over a bright pink halter-neck and
the popular scuffed white trainers on the end of matching dark denim jeans.
Everything about her screamed "teenager", nothing hinted at "mother".
Weighing
my options I decided it best to ignore the question, not wanting to risk more
distress. Slowly I moved across the room, taking a seat in the plastic chair
next to her bed
"Do
you know where you are?" I asked slowly, my voice as calming as I could get it
"Of
course I know where I am you stupid bitch! I'm in hospital…against my will.
They took away my daughter and strapped me up good." To punctuate her words she
pulled at her restraints, rattling them against the metal of the beside "What
have you done with her? Where is she? Chellise!" She began calling her
daughters name over and over, the distress in her voice rising with every
agonising call.
There
was nothing I could do but let her carry on calling, calmly I sat back in my
chair, hoping she would wear herself out, knowing she couldn't go on forever.
I
was right. Two minutes later she lay her head back down on the pillow,
exhausted. I tried again
"Can
you tell me your name?"
"My
name? What's that got to do with anything, I just want my daughter back"
"We'll
talk about that later," I said gently, sidestepping the important question
"First I need to know your name"
There
was a long pause before she responded.
"Kasie,
my name's Kasie" She said finally, contempt in her voice. Smiling gently I
scrawled the name on the chart in front of me, not pushing for a second name,
knowing I wouldn't get it.
"Hi
Kasie, my names Kim" I said gently, soothingly, hoping to calm her, gain her trust
"So how old are you Kasie?" I seemed to be getting somewhere; she was much
calmer now, willing to cooperate
"'a'teen"
she drawled, I raised an eyebrow, not buying it "'kay, I'm sixteen…" she
mumbled something that I didn't catch; I didn't ask what she said, choosing to
ignore it, it was better that way.
"And
how old's Chellise?" I was careful in broaching the subject of her child,
knowing it would cause more distress, hoping to lower her into the topic gently
"She's
only tiny, not even six months old"
There
was a long silence in which I knew she wanted to say more. After a long time
she did
"When
can I see her again?" her voice was much calmer now, she had obviously decided
she was getting nowhere with me using violence. Again I sidestepped the question,
not wanting to get too deep too soon, but I knew I wouldn't be able to avoid it
for long
"Where
do you live Kasie?"
She was quiet for a long time. I sat and watched her, the
room silent but for our breathing and the occasional rustle of paper as the doctor
in the corner turned his page.
"We ain't got no home," She paused "Its just me an' Chellise,
and we do fine, we don't need no one else" There were tears in her eyes now,
fat, painful tears welling up beneath hazel irises, wide and innocent with grief
and sorrow. "Where is she?? Where's my little girl?" Her voice was almost a
whisper, raspy with tears, she knew the answer to her question already, but she
needed to ask it one more time.
I
took a deep breath, knowing I could skirt the subject no longer, owing it to
this girl, this child, to tell her what happened to her daughter.
"Kasie,
when you brought Chellise in, she was very cold, it's not good for such a young
baby to spend such a long time outdoors, especially in winter. Kasie, the
doctors, they tried everything they could, but there was no chance of saving
her…I'm sorry…she died not long ago" There was a long pause, in which I could
barely breathe. In the years I'd been doing this job I still found it
impossible to weigh a patients reaction to news such as this, news that would
shatter a persons life forever.
To
be told that the person they love most in the world has been taken from them,
to know they will never see that person again, never hold them in their arms,
never be close to them, is a feeling I could never come close to imagining,
it's a feeling I never like to witness, and would hope never to feel myself.
I
braced myself for a reaction, any reaction. A cry, a scream, anything. Nothing
came; instead she kept her face turned to the wall, her body raked with
hysterical sobs. For the moment there was nothing more I could do, I stood
slowly, lying a hand against hers where it was secured to the bed, before
padding gently across the room.
"Give
her a few minutes then I think you can take off the restraints" I whispered to
the doctor in the corner "she's calmed a lot now, I'll be back later on to see
how she's doing"
He
nodded in agreement and watched as I turned and left the room.
The
next hour was a blur of faces -patients, doctors, nurses. Another case with a
mixed up old lady, this time who'd wandered into the paediatric ward hoping to
find her son, who'd died twenty years earlier, the resemblance between this
case and my last spurred me all the more to go back to her, back to the ER,
where I knew I wanted to be anyway.
I'd
spent the last few weeks deliberately taking very opportunity to see the ER, to
see Kerry again, spend a few precious moments with her between patients. It was
a hard routine to get out of, one I didn't want to break. Over the last few
days I'd come to realise that the way she had acted in front of Romano,
although hard to forgive, could be easily forgotten. I hated to be apart from
her, I had even decided to talk to her that day, make it right between us, make
us "us" again.
I
never managed to.
The
restraints were gone when I next entered Kasie's room, she was stood beside her
bed, roughly pulling on her shoes which, I suppose, at some point must have
been removed for her to get onto the bed. She was still crying, sobbing gently
from beneath a bowed head, the end of a stitched cut clearly visible beneath
the hairline.
"Kasie?"
A single word caused her to look up
"I'm
going now, ain't no reason for me to stay" roughly she pushed past me, walking
deliberately down the hallway toward the exit. I followed on behind obediently,
knowing if she left now she would never come back, and I hadn't begun to talk
her through her experience.
"Don't
you think you should stay?" I called out to her, the people around me diffusing
into the background, shadows of people, to get in my way, to step around
"Why?"
she didn't turn round
"We
have a lot to talk about"
Finally
I was close enough to touch her, I reached out a hand and placed it gently on
her shoulder, hoping to turn her towards me, but she just shrugged me off. I
tried again, this time she stopped, confronting me, face close to mine, making
me jump.
"So
wot we got to talk about then? I lost my baby, that's all there is to it, the
doctor said I could go, so I'm goin'"
"Who?
Who said you could go?"
"Like
I said a doctor, funny lookin' one, a woman, short, walked with a limp" She
turned around again heading toward the exit. For a moment I didn't follow,
digesting the information she had given me, before running to catch up with
her, through the doors and into the parking bay.
"Why is you followin' me anyways? You don't care, no one in
this shit-hole cares" I was astounded by the way she reverted back to the
feelings she had reflected the first time I spoke to her, I thought we had come
so far, I thought I had gained her trust, obviously I had been mistaken
"Kasie its me, Kim, of course I care, I care that you lost
your child, the most precious thing in the world to you, and I care that your
hurting now…" I trailed off; it was obvious she wasn't listening to me. We'd
been conducting the conversation as she hurried away from me down the street,
past stores and houses I'd never seen before, it was when I said this that she
finally stopped and turned again, looking me straight in the face
"I don't believe you" She obviously had been listening "I'm
nothin' to you, you don't care about me, or Chellise, I'm just another patient
on your list, a little name to tick off when you're done, a full bed that needs
to be emptied, I'm nothin'" The last few words she screamed in my face, I
winced at her tone of voice, seeing the truth reflected in many of her words
"Kasie you aren't nothing," I called back as she began to
walk away form me again, moving a slight distance away from me before stopping
once again, "Kasie, you're just hurting, and I can imagine how that feels"
"Oh? Can you? Can you really? Do you know how it feels to be
taken from the one person you ever really loved, the one thing that made you
feel complete? Happy? I don't think you can really know that" She paused, her
eyes were filled with pain, the agony of her words "You know how I see it?" She
asked slowly, I dropped my head, unable to keep her icy glare any longer "How I
see it is, I came in here this morning with my little girl in my arms, my
little Chellise, and she was all mine ya'know? It was just her an' me, and we
didn't need no one, not anyone or anything. An' look at me now, now she's gone,
and I'll never see her again" She began to sob "And who do I have to thank for
that?"
There was a long silence in which I held my breath. A
peculiar feeling took hold of my chest, closing its long talons around my
heart, holding it in its icy grasp.
Fear.
The
cold, raw kind of fear that came with knowing something that was about to
happen, something you had no power to stop, something that would change your
world forever.
Slowly I raised my head to meet her gaze once again, catching
her eyes, as in one fluid movement she pulled the revolver from her pocket and
aimed it at my chest
"You"
A
single bullet of a word, said with such misguided hatred, in conjunction with a
single bullet.
The
last word I ever heard.
