Mary Shaye Dupree held the sleeping girl’s hand while speaking to her softly. She wiped her brow, which was pale and clammy, then pushed aside a stray strand of dark hair as she caressed her cheek. The girl’s face was bony, her lips tight, her thin hair matted to the side on which she slept. Azadeh noted the intravenous line sticking into the child’s left arm and the monitor attached to her middle finger, but she wasn’t certain what they were for.
When the child didn’t wake, Mary leaned across the mattress and kissed her, tucked the soft blanket around her neck, stood, and turned to Azadeh, motioning toward the hall. Closing the bedroom door quietly behind her, she walked with Azadeh into the living room again.
“Her name is Kelly Beth,” Mary said as they sat down. “I adopted her when she was just a toddler, which was some six years ago now.”
“A toddler?” Azadeh wondered.
“I’m sorry—a young child—not a baby, a little older.”
Azadeh nodded, understanding. “She is very sick?”
“Yes. Very sick.” Mary turned her eyes to toward the window. It had started raining and the day had turned gray. “She isn’t going to live, I don’t think. I used to hope. I used to pray. But I don’t think any of it mattered.”
Azadeh studied her hands. “She has a sickness?”
“Cancer. Inoperable bone cancer.”
Cancer. One of the very few English words that Azadeh would have recognized even as a child. It translated to saratân in Farsi. She nodded sadly. It was a dreaded word, a deadly sickness, a sickness that, based on her experience, didn’t offer much hope. When someone got saratân in her small village back in Persia, that person was almost certain to die. No such thing as insurance. No real money to speak of. No good doctors. Those with saratân might die in a short time or a long, they might die in a lot of pain or maybe quickly, but they almost surely wouldn’t live.
“I’m sorry,” she offered quietly.
“We caught it really late,” Mary continued, her voice pained and measured now. “I know that it was my fault. I’ll have to live with that for the rest of my life. But at the time, I just didn’t understand, I didn’t realize, I had never dealt with anything like this before. She hurt all the time, deep in her legs, and I took her to the doctor, but the people down at the clinic, you know, they’re inexperienced and way overworked. It wasn’t their fault. I think they did the best that they could, but by the time I got a referral down to Cook County Hospital, there wasn’t a lot they could do. They tried a few things, some new things, they experimented with some new drugs and procedures, but like I said, we were—you know—way too late to help her. . . .” Mary’s voice trailed off.
Azadeh watched a single tear roll down each of her cheeks, which Mary quickly wiped away. It pained Azadeh to see her suffering, and she instinctively wanted to reach out and take her by the hand.
Someone moved down the hallway outside their front door. The rain dribbled against the kitchen window, trickling down from the fifteen stories overhead. The old refrigerator hummed. But other than that it was silent as Mary stared across the empty space. “I love her,” she finished. “I would have done anything for her. I would do anything now. If there was anything I could do . . . .”
Azadeh reached out and took Mary’s hand, holding it inside her own. “I’m so, so sorry,” she repeated.
Mary coughed, then turned to face her. “The good Lord, He is out there. I have to learn to trust Him. It will all be OK.”
Azadeh nodded back toward the bedroom. “Insha’allah. If it is God’s will.”
Mary nodded. “Insha’allah. God’s will.”
Azadeh was a sensitive girl by nature, and her upbringing had only made her more so. She knew that Mary wanted to talk about her child. “Tell me her name again,” she asked.
“Kelly Beth.”
“Kelly Beth. That is beautiful. If you were to translate my middle name, Ishbel, from Farsi into English it is very close to Elizabeth. Elizabeth and Kelly Beth. Two good names. Very similar.” Azadeh paused a long moment, looking off. “My last name, Pahlavi, goes back many, many generations in Iran. It is royal blood. And my given name, Azadeh, means ‘Freedom is my oath to God.’” She folded her arms, almost defiant, and her eyes flashed. “I have always been very proud of my names,” she said.
Mary smiled and touched her shoulder. “Ishbel is almost the same as Elizabeth?” she asked.
“Yes, very close.”
“That is beautiful.”
Azadeh nodded down the hallway toward the bedroom. “How old is Kelly Beth?”
“Almost ten. She will be ten next month.”
“Then we will celebrate her birthday.”
Mary pressed her lips together. “If she makes it that long.”
“You said that she is—I do not remember the word—she is not your own . . . flesh? Your own child?”
Mary stood and walked into the kitchen. There was a small coffeemaker beside the sink, and she poured herself a cup. “Would you like some?” she asked Azadeh as she lifted the half-empty pot.
“No, thank you.”
“You do not like coffee?”
“Not American coffee. It is too weak. Like water. We have a much stronger drink. I miss it. It is good. But,” she laughed a little, “very bad for you, I think. It stains our teeth and makes us, ah, quick to temper. I am glad to be away from it, I think.”
Mary brought her cup back and sat on the couch, folding her legs underneath her to keep her feet warm. “I adopted Kelly Beth when she was just a child. Her father had abandoned her before she was even born. Her parents never married. Her mother was strung out. Do you know what that means, Azadeh?”
Azadeh shook her head.
“Oh, that is so beautiful,” Mary laughed with delight. “You don’t know what strung out even means. You’ve never had to fight it. You’ve never had to watch what it can do to those around you. That is very good, Azadeh.” She reached toward the young woman and patted her knee. “We want to keep it that way, girl. We’re going to keep it that way.”
Mary leaned back against the couch and sipped the warm coffee. “Strung out is when you have ruined your life on hard drugs. Heroin. Cocaine. You know about them?”
Azadeh squinted as she thought. “No,” she finally said.
“That’s all right, baby, we can talk about that later. Let’s just say that Kelly Beth’s mother wasn’t able to take care of her anymore. She didn’t want her baby, at least not sufficient to keep herself healthy enough to care for her. I had a chance to take Kelly Beth and help her. It was supposed to be only for a couple of weeks, a couple of months at the longest, but it went on and on, and it ended up that I was able to adopt her, you know, make her my child.”
Azadeh nodded.
“Her mother is dead now,” Mary concluded. “No one knows about her father. No one even knows who he is.”
“I understand,” Azadeh answered. But the truth was she didn’t. It was all so strange. So different. There was much to learn in this new country, and she felt lost and insecure.
For a moment she almost wished she were back in Khorramshahr. It had been hard there, but she had understood it, unlike so much of this new home.