All For Anna (23 page)

There were a few
doctors who took extra liberty with their Halloween garb, but for the most
part, the staff’s festiveness entailed funky headbands, face paint, and
Halloween printed scrubs.

I wore simple black cat
ears and drew on whiskers with black eyeliner. Though the day had been very
busy with dislocated shoulders via bounce houses and allergic reactions to
cupcakes with mystery ingredients, it would be nothing compared to the night
shift. The staff nearly doubled by five o’ clock and the waiting room began to
fill with many strange looking characters—and not just strange due to costume
choice.

People were odd on this
holiday. Unusual and unappealing stunts were often tried, tested, and proved
harmful on this day. The difficult part was that Halloween messed with the most
important sense a nurse had: the ability to visually assess a patient’s need
and distress level. On this night, that sense was blinded by fake blood,
painted scars, and layers of makeup and clothing (or sometimes no clothing). 

Kai had sent me a text
earlier in the day asking me to be
careful of the crazies
and to call
him before I left work. I smiled at his thoughtfulness. He was one person who
truly knew the freaky details that often went along with a shift worked on Halloween
night.

I had already seen
several emergency vehicles come through. At this point, their loads were mostly
drunken high school students, but there was also a group of pumpkin smashers
who’d been brought in as well. Apparently, their last house didn’t go as
planned. A group of black ninjas had jumped out and retaliated on them by way
of BB guns. Guess that was the last house with smashed pumpkins on that
particular street.

The floor was frantic
by nine. I still had three hours left. At least my remaining time would go by
quickly. I made a note to tell Kai about my glass half-full mentality.

Hey, maybe I am a
positive person after all
.

I laughed out loud.

After releasing my last
patient--a man hit in the face with a baseball bat at a haunted corn maze—I walked
to room 104. I checked the chart briefly on the outside of the door and knocked
twice as I entered. My eyes widened. There on the hospital bed was a beautiful
blond lady bug—no older than eight.

A worried father stood
by her side.

“Hi there, you must be
Mallory...is that right?” I asked, walking closer to the small girl.

“Yes,” the young girl
said, holding her left arm against her body.

“Do you know how much
longer we will need to wait for the doctor?” the father asked. He pressed his
fingers to his temples, and then stared at me for an answer.

“It should just be a
few minutes more, Mr.-”

“Brown, David Brown.”
He looked at his daughter.

“Okay. Well, let me
just get some information and I can make sure to get it to the doctor as
quickly as possible. Mallory was hit by a vehicle tonight?” I asked.

My heart rate
quickened. The little girl moaned in pain. I fixed my eyes on Mr. Brown, but he
wasn’t the one to answer.

“I was running...to see
my friend Lauren.” Mallory answered. Her sweet voice was soft, but strained.
Her face twisted in pain.

My chest felt like it
was twisting, too.

This reaction was
unfamiliar to me. I was good at my job. I was good at being a professional.

I was even better at
being numb.

“We were in a busy
trick-or-treating neighborhood. Kids were on both sides of the street, but
there were also cars driving kids to each block. It all happened so fast. One
minute she was in front of me...the next she was crossing the street to walk
with Lauren. The car came out of nowhere,” Mr. Brown said. His face was full of
guilt.

I swallowed hard. I
knew that look.

I took a deep breath,
turning my body away from Mallory completely. A burning sensation simmered in
the depths of my core, threatening my ability to focus. I only needed to think
about the facts, nothing else.

This is not like Anna.

Logically I knew that,
but logic had lied to me before.

Logic had told me the
storm wasn’t that bad.

Logic had told me not
to turn back.

Logic had killed Anna.

I shook my head to
clear my thoughts again. “Can you explain to me where she was hit? Do you have
an idea of how fast the car was going?” I asked.

“It couldn’t have been
more than ten miles per hour. She hit the bumper on the driver’s side...and
rolled onto the hood before she was thrown down on the road. She landed on her
left arm and hip,” Mr. Brown said, moving to touch his daughter’s hair.

My eyes followed him
and the movement. Suddenly, I was seeing the hair of a very different little
girl. It was an image I wouldn’t soon forget, one that had been permanently
stamped in my mind’s eye.

I blinked several
times.

Mallory was in focus
again, moaning in pain.

I swallowed down the
thick ball of molasses that had formed in my throat. My hands started to shake.
Somehow though, I found the words to speak, “I’m going to see what I can bring
her for the pain. I’ll be right back to examine her and get the doctor.”

I left the room,
pulling the heavy door closed behind me. My breathing was heavy as I clutched
my hand over my heart and closed my eyes. I just needed a moment to calm the
panic inside me. The thought of easing the child’s discomfort propelled me
forward through the hall.

Get a grip!

You can’t lose it, not
here.

After many deep breaths
and pep talks, I returned to administer her IV. She was frightened, crying as
she pulled her good arm away from me. I leaned down next to her. A shiver raced
through me as I took in the fragility of her body. She stopped crying as her
eyes met mine.

“I know a trick, can I
tell you about it?” I asked her.

She nodded, shifting
her body a tad closer to me.

“If you sing the
alphabet song and close your eyes real tight, I can be done with this part by
the time you get to the end of the song.”

Her eyes held no
suspicion in them as she stared at me.

“Okay,” she whispered.

Mr. Brown smiled at me
from the corner of the room. Mallory gave me her right arm, willingly. The
gesture caused my heart to ache as I held her tiny wrist in my hand.

Then she started to
sing; I had never heard a sweeter voice.

The only thing that kept
me sane in that moment was the fact that I would do anything to ease the pain
of this child. She trusted me…I couldn’t let her down.

When the needle poked
through her skin on the letter “H”, she squeezed her eyes shut a little
tighter, but by the time “W” came around, her IV was secured. She smiled at me
as I laid her arm down gently.

I knew by the swelling
of her left arm, that her wrist was probably fractured. There was a lot of
swelling near the joint of her elbow, too. Peeling back the layers of her lady
bug bloomers, her hip was a tie-dye of purples and blues. Hematoma was likely.
Though she would be able to walk, it would be months before the deep bruise
would heal completely.

Elvis
—or Doctor Hernandez as
I knew him—came in just minutes later. He confirmed that she would need x-rays
along with an MRI. Mr. Brown gasped when he heard that surgery would be the
most probable outcome tonight after they confirmed the lab results. Dr.
Hernandez then explained that the elbow was a very sensitive area to operate
on. Even with the most skilled surgeon, a full range of motion was difficult to
guarantee.

Mr. Brown looked like
he was going to pass out from the news.

“I...I need to make a
phone call, please. Her mom is out of town. We have split custody and she needs
to know what’s going on here tonight,” Mr. Brown said.

Dr. Hernandez looked at
me. “Can you stay with her a minute while he steps out?”

“Sure,” I said,
instantly feeling sick to my stomach. I needed to
get out
of this
room—not babysit. I pulled up a chair to her bedside as Mr. Brown stepped out
into the hallway.

Mallory seemed
completely relaxed now. Her medicine had kicked in and she was no longer
moaning, even though her injuries were still very apparent. She turned her head
to look at me.

“My mom’s never missed
Halloween before. We always did trick-or-treating together,” Mallory said. The
tears in her eyes made me want to touch her head, the way I had seen her father
do only minutes before. 

But I couldn’t do that.

Touching was the
opposite
of numbing.

I pushed the desire
away.

“I like your costume
choice. I always liked bugs,” I said.

Mallory’s eyes lit up, her
tears momentarily forgotten.

“You do? Daddy says I’m
a tomboy ‘cause I love bugs—all bugs.”

“I guess I was, too. I
liked to collect bugs when I was your age. My sister always thought it was so
weird, but I loved to make them special habitats in jars and things, and to learn
what they ate and how they lived.”

She smiled
thoughtfully. I noticed then that she was shivering, most likely from the cold
liquid pumping through her IV. I stood and carefully pulled another blanket
over her.

“Do you like to read
about them?” I asked, distracting myself from her nearness.

“Yes, I love to read! I
got some big picture books on bugs and reptiles for my birthday last month.”

It was then the lab
tech opened the door to take her away. A part of me was relieved. Dr. Brown had
just ended his call as the tech began to roll her out the door. He was careful
not to bump her arm or hip. I followed them out, about to turn in the opposite
direction, when I saw her reach back to me.

 “Don’t you get to come
with me?” she asked.

There was something
desperate in her eyes—a pleading. I felt all the air rush out of my lungs.

She wants me to go with
her?

Before I could answer,
Dr. Hernandez answered for me. He told me to go ahead with her and that he
would let Nurse Holt know. Mallory grabbed a hold of my finger then, her tiny
hand gripping around it tightly.

I looked down at it. 

I was no longer numb.

Touching had won.

**********

It was almost midnight
when her surgery was confirmed. Though I knew she would be well taken care of
by the fourth-floor nursing staff, she refused to let go of my finger. I didn’t
argue. We traveled that way through the halls, in the elevator, and into the
room that she would recover in post-surgery.

Finally though, it was
time.

I felt her tense.
“You’ll do great Mallory. You’ll sleep the whole time and when you wake up
you’ll have a really cool cast. All your friends will get to sign it when you
go back to school.”

“Will you sign it?” she
asked.

Another stabbing pain
tore through my heart at the sincerity of her question. Tomorrow was my day
off, but I couldn’t say no. Nothing would have made me say
no
.

“I’ll come back and
sign it tomorrow.”

“Promise?” she asked.

“I promise,” I said.
She squeezed my finger one last time before dropping her hand. I watched her
dad kiss her face and reassure her again.

Then, she was rolled
into surgery.

Mr. Brown was speaking
to me—thanking me I think—but I couldn’t hear him. All I could hear were the
sweet words of a precious little girl. A little girl who reminded me so much of
the one child I would never get a chance to hear.

**********

As I pulled into the
driveway my phone rang.

“Hello?”

“Hey, gorgeous…where ya
at?” Kai asked, yawning.

“Hey, I actually just
pulled up to Stacie’s house. I’m sorry I forgot to call you, I stayed late
tonight,” I said.

“That’s alright, I’m
just glad you made it home okay. It’s brutal out there tonight—accidents are everywhere,”
Kai said.

I exhaled, thinking
about his statement.

Was that what they said
the night of my accident? The night of the bad storm? Was I just another
accident—another sad statistic of a fatal car crash?

“You there, Tori?”

“Yeah, I’m here. I’m just
really tired. It was a long night…I think I just need to get to bed.”

The clock on my dash
read 1:30am.