Chapter Sixty-Four
Monitors beeping and curtains moving from one side to the other were what caught twelve-year-old Lorna's attention the most as she sat up on the gurney her mother had previously helped her onto the minute a nurse brought them back to the ER department. Lorna squinted her eyes and cupped her hands around them as if they were binoculars, trying to see what was going on outside the sliver of hole between the two curtains which separated her room from the rest. Not much could be seen other than a few sneakers making their way past, and from what she could tell, a rather brisk walk.
She frowned and folded her arms across her heart. Displeased with her current surroundings and rather puzzled as to why her mother insisted on taking her to a hospital. Her head shook distastefully, eyes shifting away from the hole between the two curtains and now focusing on the brown ones of her mom. "Why are we here? I'm not sick or hurt, I don't understand why ya dragged me here, mom," she pointed out in a matter-of-fact tone. Legs now dangling from the edge of the bed which she'd scooted herself to over the past few minutes.
Mrs. Morello instantly caught sight of her trying to remove herself from the bed and quickly acted—standing up from the chair she'd been perched on and walking over to the foot of the bed, scooping the rather small preteen into her arms. She carried her back to the other side, gently laying her onto mattress once more while covering her with the white sheet that was folded down. "Lorna, hon, you need to be checked by a doctor. Remember? We talked about this. I told ya I was gonna take ya to the ER to have you thoroughly looked at. You just stay put, no tryna run away," her voice pleaded, keeping a hand gently over the top of one of her shoulders.
"But why? I'm fine."
However, as she pondered on her mother's words, she felt her eyes significantly widen. A thick swallow and head shake later, Lorna pushed away Mrs. Morello's hand and crouched all the way at the corner of the gurney. She peered at the woman with resentment in her eyes; hurt and disbelief that she would bring her here after she promised Lorna she'd never judge her for the touching incident. That she wasn't disgusted with her or mad at her for it happening. All of that, Lorna now realized, was a lie. A sick, cold, cruel lie. Why else would her mom bring her to the ER if she didn't presently think she was mental? That she made up the entire incident of her demented uncle's behavior. Of course that was the reason she and her mom and an aloof Franny were all sitting in the sterile room waiting for a doctor to confirm Mrs. Morello's suspicions.
Lorna gripped knuckle-paling tightly onto the railing of the gurney her back had presently rested against. "You, you think I'm crazy—that's why ya made me come here. I-I shoulda never told ya about the family reunion and Uncle George. I knew ya wouldn't believe me. He warned me that you would think I'm crazy for telling you and he-he was right," the words started to fumble together once her emotions caught up to her midway through. Tears didn't hesitate to spill from her eyes. She should have listened to her uncle and kept her damn mouth shut. He warned her something like this would happen and clearly he was correct. She gripped tighter on the bed rail, squeezing her eyes shut to halt the tears but to no avail.
"Lorna," Stansie softly called out, moving from her chair a second time and settling herself on the mattress beside her distressed daughter. Her heart felt heavy to absorb the revelation the young girl made; she swallowed uneasily and without a thought encircled her arms securely around Lorna's petite body. "Oh Lorna," she repeated, following it with a tender kiss on the top of her head. A sigh came through her larynx while she cradled her youngest child close to her heart.
Hands combed soothingly through dark brown waves. "My Lorna sweet, that is not even remotely why I brought ya here. I don't think you're crazy; I don't not believe you. I believe ya with my whole heart. I want a doctor to look ya over to make sure that evil uncle of yours didn't hurt you in any permanent ways. I also want ya to talk to a psychiatrist while we're here, hon, because I see you're still not eating a lot. I'm worried about you."
"I don't want a doctor looking at me, mom. You told me no one is allowed to look there."
"I know, baby, and I still mean that. But I'll be here to make sure the doctor doesn't do anything other than check to make sure ya don't got no injuries, okay? We gotta make sure you're not real hurt down there, Lorn, that's why we're here in the hospital. It's safe here. No one will hurt you down there, I promise," Mrs. Morello warmly reassured the young child whom she still cradled in her arms. Lips brushed soothingly atop her head of brown wavy hair. She felt her heart sink at the sensation of Lorna's faint body tremors.
Head shaking quite harshly at the thought of a doctor—presumably a male doctor—looking and possibly even prodding at her private region made her want to throw up right then and there. She couldn't handle a second bout of genital mutilation from another human. Her face lifted from where it previously had been tucked beneath her mother's chin and she stared frantically into Mrs. Morello's eyes. Fingers gripping tightly onto the collar of the shirt around her neck. "What if the doctor's a man? He'll hurt me if he looks down there, mom. I don't want a man doctor looking at my private area. Please mom, please can we go home?"
Taking Lorna's face into her hands, Stansie gazed softly into her eyes and stroked the tips of her fingers along the flesh her hands were resting on. "I'll make sure the doctor is a woman, okay? But, my Lorn, I promise ya not all men are sick like your uncle George is okay? You don't have to be afraid. Your Uncle George is just a nasty person and there are a lot of nasty people in this world. Not all nasty people are men. I just don't want you to be scared at every man ya see, you know? Because it's not normal for anyone to do what he did to you, hon. Normal people don't do that. This is why I think you should talk to someone, honey, it'll help ya."
After a third kiss was soothingly given to her daughter's head, Stansie carefully laid her back onto the bed and tucked the blanket warmly around each side of her. She stood up off the spot she'd been sitting on and started to make her way to her chair from earlier when a sudden wooziness took control of her entire body and without warning she collapsed onto the hard tiled-floor.
Lorna felt her heart-rate instantly start racing and scooted her way to the edge but was halted by her older sister's hand grabbing at her shoulder.
The older brunette peered her over with compassion-filled eyes and carefully used the hand she grasped onto her shoulder with to gently push her right back to where she'd previously been laying. "Don't move, Lorn. I already called out to the nurses, I saw a real weird look in mom's eyes right before she got up. You just lay there. You and I ain't gonna be able to do any good for mom."
Briefly their conversation was interrupted by a few medical personnel entering the room and hurriedly making their way to the passed out Stansie on the floor. They quickly picked her up and did their best to walk her out of the room. One of the female nurses turned towards the daughters and gestured a hand at them, "We'll get your mom taken care of and have some blood work done to see what caused this. I'll be back to update you girls."
Once Lorna and Franny were left alone, Lorna peered wide-eyed across at her. "I-I did that to her, didn't I Fran? I made her faint because I'm so gross…mom hates me, I'm a bad daughta," she cried out, getting more and more hysterical with each second that passed—each word she spoke out.
Franny shook her head, tucking the blanket around her once more the same way she'd observed their mother do only moments before the fainting incident. She ran a hand soothingly through her younger sister's dark waves and leaned down to press a comforting kiss against the flesh of her forehead. "Stop that talk, hon. It's not your fault what happened to mom. The nurse said they'll take some blood and see what the results are," her voice firmly assured the young child, a thumb tucking a loose strand of hair behind one of her ears.
"You're not gross. Mom doesn't think that at all. What happened to ya isn't your fault, do you know that?"
Her eyes peered softly down at the small child, who clearly appeared drained and exhausted. Tears running nonstop down her pale cheeks. She sighed and gave another kiss to her forehead before bringing the sheet up to right below her neck. Satisfied with the placement, Franny sat down in the chair beside the gurney—the same one Mrs. Morello had sat upon—and scooted closer so that she could easily hold one of Lorna's hands in her own.
"Close your eyes, Lorn. You're hysterical and exhausted. Ya need to sleep. Mom and Mikey and me—none a us think you're gross because of what our messed up uncle did to ya, okay? We all love you, hon. The only one who's gross is Uncle George. Now, please, please try to nap. Me and mom know ya ain't been sleeping real good, hon, not since the incident. But this in here is a safe place for ya to sleep, I promise. And I'll be sitting here holding your hand the whole time; I won't let anyone touch ya. Just close your eyes and nap, sweetheart."
The sound of a monitor loudly beeping was the first thing Lorna heard upon regaining awareness. Her mouth felt dry and scratchy and the more she swallowed the worse the sensation got. Eyes squinted, once she'd open them, from the brightness emanating through the room. She turned her head from side to side trying to make sense of her current surroundings. Clearly, she acknowledged mentally, she wasn't in her therapists office anymore. She looked down at her hand and took note of the tape covered IV tube that inserted through a vein inside it. Such a sight baffled her; she lifted her head back up and looked around until her hazy vision caught a glimpse of a familiar silhouette hovering over her.
As soon as Nicky saw her girlfriend's eyes pop open, she frisked her way to her bedside. Lovingly reaching one of her hands down to cup around one of Lorna's. Thumb stroked soothingly over each and every knuckle that split up her fingers from her hand. While she continued the affectionate motion, she peered softly down at the younger teen with her head slightly tilted. "How're ya feeling, babe? You gave me and Dr. Poussey a real scare," she huskily questioned and bent her head down to brush a warm kiss atop one of her temples.
"I'm—I'm sorry, honey," Lorna muttered in a rasped voice from how intensely dry her throat happened to be. She shakily lifted her other hand to frame delicately around one of Nicky's cheeks. Eyes returning her gaze with the utmost compassion and warmth. It tightened a knot in her chest to see the hidden pain in her girlfriend's big precious eyes. She swallowed thickly, drawing tender circles around the flesh of her cheek.
Being apologized to caused her breathing to hitch. Nicky inhaled slowly and deeply before making any movements or saying any other words. Once her lungs filled back up with sufficient air, she cautiously sat down on the edge of the mattress and properly took Lorna's face into her hands. She rested her forehead over the brunette's turning her hand so that her knuckles were very gradually caressing against her pale fleshed cheeks. "You don't need to be sorry, baby. Just tell me how you're feeling now, can ya? Are you any less disoriented?"
Lorna swallowed and the scratchy sensation remained. She sighed defeatedly and shook her head.
"Maybe a nap might help, yeah?" Nicky caressed her knuckles up and down the length of Lorna's cheek, pecking her temple over and over with warm, soft, kisses. Her free arm leisurely wrapped around the brunette's waist which naturally brought her closer to her body and her mouth moved over to rest atop the rim of her ear, "I'll cuddle you, and maybe that'll lull ya back to sleep. You need all the sleep you can get, beautiful. I know for a fact you're not taking care of yourself. You're too busy hurting yourself. I'm not judging you for that, sweetheart, I'm just saying that's what you're more focused on. Do I understand it? Not at all but I'm here to love you and support you, okay? I won't support your self-destructive behaviors but I'll support you with all my love and all of the warmest cuddles I can possibly give ya, doll. You need to be cuddled."
The next time Lorna awoke from her slumber, only an hour afterwards, her brain felt a lot less murky than it previously was. Her vision was almost normal and the dizzy sensation she once had been plagued with long ceased. A soft warmth could be felt coming from underneath her head and when she averted her eyes towards it, she quickly realized the feeling was her girlfriend's chest slowly rising up and down beneath her. She couldn't resist the smile that innately formed from her lips curving upwards. Her hands reached up to frame around Nicky's cheeks.
"Oh, doll, you're awake," Nicky murmured the second their eyes met from Lorna's movements. She used the knuckles of her hand to lovingly push strands of hair out of the other's eyes. "Do ya feel better? Ya had us all so worried, kid."
Lorna brushed the tips of her fingers softly around the flesh of the cheek her hand rested atop and sighed. A neutral sigh. She squinted her eyes at the sound of a monitor beeping and took that as her queue to finally take a look at her surroundings. The beeping, her eyes concluded, came from a heart monitor that connected to her body through a tangle of wires. She bit down uneasily on the side of her mouth and turned her focus away onto the rest of the room. When had she been brought to a hospital? The last thing she remembered was sitting in Doctor Washington's office in the outpatient therapy clinic.
"I'm okay. Confused but okay," she softly assured the older teen, bending down to peck a loving kiss onto her forehead. Her eyes peered puzzlingly into Nicky's, rather unsure of how or why she got to the place she currently happened to be. The more she thought about it the more she had no understanding of how this even occurred. "Why, uh, why am I in the hospital, hon? I don't even know how I got here—weren't we at my therapy appointment?"
"You passed out in my office, Lorna. And you were alarmingly pale to begin with."
Noticing the voice to be different than Nicky's, Lorna swiftly turned her head in direction of where it appeared to come from. When her eyes came in contact with her therapist sitting in a chair, across the room, right beside Franny, the confusion rapidly grew even stronger. Eyebrows arched ponderously over both of her eyes, "I don't really remember passing out. I just know you and Nicky were talking and everything felt real suffocating to me. I just, I don't…it was all too much and it's my fault because I asked for Nicky to be there with me. And, and I did want her to be there but it's just—it really overwhelms me to-to open up around her or anyone, honestly. I just wanna live in a bubble where everything is happy and good."
The latter comment made Nicky reach a hand up to her mouth to keep herself from letting out a chuckle. That couldn't be a truer statement, she thought. At least Lorna was able to admit what they all already knew about her. She didn't want to face hard facts—she kept denying everything because it provided her with that bubble-like feeling, Nicky finally connected the dots. Now she had a better understanding of why Lorna did the things she did—not because she wanted to hurt people, of course Nicky already knew that much, but because she didn't want to feel the pain. A breath of air made its way through her windpipe as she curled a loose piece of hair behind Lorna's ear.
"I'm proud of you for being honest, doll. The rest of us already knew that about ya," she stated in a voice which was only loud enough for the younger teen's ears to hear. Her lips found their way to the crown of Lorna's head and pressed down on it in a warm kiss.
An uncomfortable swallow was taken part in by Lorna. She lifted up slightly, staring down at the other with an incomprehensible expression melded on her face. "Knew what? That I'm a crazy person?"
The sudden change in her demeanor instantly caused Nicky to grow concerned. Her arms tightened around Lorna's waist, gently pulling her back to the spot she'd previously been laying. Another couple of warm kisses were placed atop her head; fingers raked delicately through the dark brown strands of her hair. "I didn't say that, babe," she softly started off, bringing her fingers back up to the top of her head and gently allowing them to massage into her scalp. "I just meant that we all know ya wanna live in a bubble where everything is always peachy and dandy. And honestly, kid, I can't blame ya for that. With everything you've gone through it's understandable ya would rather pretend all is good than be forced to mentally relive all the horrific events, yeah?"
Immediately upon hearing her girlfriend's response Lorna regretted the small outburst she displayed only a few moments prior. She swallowed thickly while nodding her head and reframing her hands around Nicky's soft cheeks, brushing fingertips up and down each one. "Sorry, I didn't meana jump down your throat. I just—I'm still kinda confused and stuff…I feel like I need more coffee or something," her voice murmured in a volume that matched Nicky's.
Hearing Lorna's comment about coffee naturally made Poussey's head shake. The last thing that girl needed was another cup of highly caffeinated coffee. Not after she passed out in her office a few hours ago from—more than likely—lack of food and way too much consumption of caffeine. She held up a hand and waved it in the air to gain the attention of her client. "No, coffee is not what you need. You feel cloudy and confused because you need to eat, Lorna. You are not taking in sufficient calories to keep you from feeling that way."
Nodding in agreement with what the therapist had informed her girlfriend of, Nicky peered sharply into Lorna's eyes and let a finger draw a tender circle around the flesh of her cheek. It was rather easy for her to observe the resistance seeping from the other's brown ones. And innately the realization formed a hefty knot in the pit of her stomach. She couldn't even begin to comprehend what it was like to feel so apprehensive over only hearing someone suggest the notion of consuming food. Nor did she ever want to experience how that might feel.
Lorna bit down on her tongue to keep herself from responding in a snarky manner like she felt the need to do. Despite the want to do so, she knew nothing good would come if she followed through. All it would do was cause tension that really hadn't need to be there, she told herself. Her shoulders lifted up in a slight shrug and a big breath puffed out of her mouth. She settled on not acknowledging the comment altogether after pondering on the matter a few minutes longer.
Instead, she shifted her focus onto her sister who hadn't uttered a word or even moved since she'd been awake she noted. Eyebrows arched thoughtfully atop her brown eyes. "Is, uh, is this the same hospital dad's in, Fran?" The query came through a faintly shaky tone of voice, followed by the slight widening of her eyes. A hard swallow. She rubbed the palms of her hands together uneasily as she waited for a response.
"Huh?" Franny nearly choked the word out, eyebrows furrowing. Her mind had been preoccupied with the fact that her fifteen year old sister was harboring at the brink of possibly suffering from anorexia among everything else they were dealing with. She still struggled to wrap her mind around that—how even she had been oblivious to the signs, she shook her head in shame of herself. It was her job as the older sister to be there and look after Lorna the best she could and she failed her—over and over again.
Watching her closely, Lorna couldn't entirely make out the expression on the older brunette's face. She exhaled strongly while using her hand which hadn't been stroking Nicky's face to mess about with the thick threaded white blanket that covered over her body. "Is this the same hospital dad's in?" Her voice repeated the question a little louder than the first time.
Franny sucked in her bottom lip and gave a curt nod. Not that it mattered, she thought, there wasn't any way she'd allow Mr. Morello near them especially not Lorna. She felt a breath of air escape quite profusely from her lungs and decided to get up out of the chair she'd been sitting on the past couple of hours. Legs cramped from the extended period of inactivity, she instinctively found herself pacing around the room. "Yeah but ya ain't gotta worry about that, hon. It's not like he knows you're here and even if he did, there ain't no way he can find us in the condition he is," she firmly assured the younger girl, though she wasn't sure if she wasn't also trying to assure herself of that.
"Your father's here in this hospital?" Doctor Washington asked with a curved eyebrow as she peered between the sisters. Receiving two nods as confirmation to her inquiry, she switched the position of her legs and nodded herself. "Do you wanna talk about why that is, Lorna? Is this recent that he's in here?"
Lorna squinted her eyes at the therapist unsure of why she was interrogating over the matter. "I—didn't we talk about that the last time we were in your office? Nicky and Franny were there and it was right after my dad… after he ran around the front yard a the house tryna scare me and Nicky with his gun? I remember tellin' you about that or maybe it was Nicky but-but one a us told ya," she held up a hand and recoiled her shoulders in a muted shrug.
"Oh, god, you're right, the two of you did mention the incident to me. I'm sorry, Lorna, I don't know how I forgot. I'm assuming your dad ended up shooting himself instead of either of you, is that why he's in here?"
"No big deal. No, he got a bad liver from all the drinking he did. He might die and—and if dies, it's my fault," Lorna sniffled, shutting her eyes and retracting her other hand from her girlfriend's cheek.
The revelation only brought a troubling expression to Poussey's face. Her eyebrows scrunched up above two squinted eyes which peered the young teen over in concern; she shook her head, not knowing what she possibly could be referring to by saying such a comment. "How is that your fault, Lorna? Your father clearly drank a substance that is known to cause damage to many organs when consumed in extreme quantities in probable extreme quantities. It's no wonder he has a bad liver. You didn't cause his bad liver, why do you think that?"
"I made him drink. He drank too much because of me and now he got a real bad liver and he might die from the liver being bad and that's my fault for making him drink too much. But, but I would rather him die from a bad liver if my mom can come back."
Head shaking at the comment, Doctor Washington bit down on her tongue and reminded herself it wasn't her place to display emotions on the matter. Something she had to do often when it came to her clients and hearing all the traumas and suffering they'd all been put through. She may have been a psychologist but she was still a human. A human with emotions just like everybody else. Yet, because she was a psychologist she had to retain hers from expelling outward—at least if they were more than what would be considered subtle.
She pushed her thoughts and feelings away the best she could in order to refocus her awareness between the pair of brunette sisters. Eyes still slightly squinted as her mind tried to understand why her client was so adamant on the whole liver ordeal being her fault. "And explain to me how a teenage daughter like you could possibly have some kind of force that would make your father drink too much? You can't do that, can you?"
The silence and Lorna's head bowing down was enough confirmation for Poussey to nod her head knowingly and continue with what she was saying. "Exactly, there's no way you had any part in your father's own choice to take in so much alcohol that he's now in liver failure. So you, Lorna, you need to not be blaming yourself for that. You can't control what decisions other people choose to make in their lives, whether it's good or bad. All you can control is what you do and decide to do, right?"
"But I—he—I—" The words fumbled through her lips, she couldn't properly get them fully out. Lorna sighed and turned her head towards Franny, peering her over in a pleading manner. "Tell her…tell her, Franny," she all but begged, desperation trickling from her brown eyes. A gaping wad of saliva was thickly swallowed down.
"Tell her what? I'm not gonna sit here and lie, Lorn. Ya want me to tell her how our piece of shit fatha is tryna manipulate you into giving him a part a your damn liver? How he's usin' that to warp ya into thinking if he dies it's because a you?" Exasperation inflected heavily through her voice, the same with her blue eyes as they pierced intensely into the younger girl's.
What was disclosed to her just now Poussey could hardly believe it. Could hardly comprehend how much shit it would take before her client would crumble completely apart from the weight of every traumatic event that unrelentingly seemed to unfold around her. In the past several years of working with clients, and having seen well over one hundred different ones, Lorna had to be one of the few with the most heartrending circumstances. One of the few who never appeared to catch a break with one tragedy after the last. It was mind boggling to her how one person could suffer through so much and only have been on this planet for not more than fifteen years.
"So, wait, let me see here," Poussey said as she reemerged from her thoughts despite still being rather perturbed. A hand was held out in front of her face, ever-so-slightly moving in a circular pattern as if it would magically help her comprehend what all had just been absorbed by her ears. "Your two's father is in this same hospital with liver failure and he's asking you, Lorna, for you to donate part of yours to him? Is that right?"
Both brunettes' nodded in synchronicity.
Nodding back, Poussey hummed out a breath and repositioned her legs. She couldn't fathom how evil a person had to be to not only abuse their daughter but to then, later, ask that same abused daughter for one of her organs. Her head shook and she sensed the hairs on her arms slightly sticking up at such thought. It made her even more grateful for the father she had been graced with. A true and loving father he was, Mr. Washington.
With her throat cleared, she turned her focus back to the others in the room and sighed. "That might just be the most messed up thing I've ever heard. And I've listened to some dark shit in my six years of working in the social work field." Her head shook once more, this time rather infuriatingly. "You're not even in any shape to be donating a thing to anyone, Lorna."
The conversation was rapidly halted by the door being opened and a nurse entering through. She shifted her eyes onto the patient in the bed, "Miss Morello, your dad's out here and he'd like to see you."