WE WENT INTO the emergency entrance by mistake and got yelled at by everyone. Hospitals are very, very scary places.
And they stink.
And I wanted to run.
And Ethan wouldn’t let me.
After we got thrown out of emergency, we walked all the way around to the other side, to the main entrance. That looked even scarier than the emergency entrance. I didn’t want to go in.
“It’ll be okay. I’ll be with you.”
My heart was pounding and my head was buzzing. “Sorry, I don’t know why I’m so scared. It’s crazy. I’m ready to find out whatever I need to find out. Really, I am. I don’t know what’s the matter with me.”
We were on the outside of doors that whooshed open and shut all by themselves. Okay, not all by themselves. Apparently, you had to stand in a certain spot and then they just opened and shut by themselves. We made that discovery when we figured out that where we were standing was causing all the whooshing. Weird, scary, scary place.
Ethan pulled me away from the crazy doors. “Toni, look, are you maybe remembering stuff from when you were three, from when they brought you here, and, well, they wouldn’t be good memories, right?”
“No.” I started vibrating. “No, I don’t remember anything.” But that was a lie. It was like scenes from a movie started playing in my head the moment I stepped into emergency. All that screaming, the pain, so much screaming. Was that me?
“Mommy, I want my Mommy! MOMMY!”
“Hold her down.”
“Mommy!”
“Restrain her, damn it! IV fluids stat! We have to extract this…”
“MOMMY!”
“Ketamine stat.”
“Why would I call out for her?”
Ethan drew me closer. “What? You do remember something, don’t you?”
“Ethan, I was screaming for my mother. My mother, for God’s sake! It hurt so bad. Glass shards stuck all over me, blood everywhere. Doctors and nurses rushing all around, poking me, yelling. But why would I call out for her? She’s the one that hurt me. I remember that clearly now. It’s not a dream.”
“I don’t know, Toni.” He put his arms around me. We must’ve looked like a grieving couple. I didn’t stop shaking even as he held me. “We don’t have to do this.” He kissed the top of my head.
“And you wouldn’t think worse of me?”
He kissed my forehead. “Look, I’m a goner. I was the moment I saw you mooning over Ian Tyson’s playbill outside the club.”
I smacked him.
“But you acted like you couldn’t stand the sight of me.”
“Me? I did not…”
“And then there was Tyson, and then you thought I was your brother, for God’s sake! So I told myself it didn’t matter. But it did, Toni.”
“But it wasn’t true! I just got all confused in my search…”
“And then…then there was the old guy.” I felt rather than heard him growl.
“I thought he cared. That finally somebody cared. I was so flattered and thrilled and…stupid,” I mumbled into his chest.
“I was the stupid one, Toni. I should have known better. Everything was too new and overwhelming for you those first few weeks. I couldn’t wrap my head around that because my bruised ego got in the way.” He caressed my cheek. “I should have stepped up, but instead I stepped away. But I’m here now, and I’ll do whatever you need me to do.”
I knew what had to happen. “Let’s go in.”
The doors whooshed open, but this time we stepped through them. Ethan walked right up to the information desk as if he did this sort of thing every day. “Burn unit, please.”
An old biddy at the desk stopped chewing on a Snickers bar long enough to look at him suspiciously. “Family member?”
“Yes, ma’am.” Ethan nodded. “We’re here to see about her mother.”
Well, it was true.
She eyed us both. “Seventh floor. Turn right and keep going until you get to the supervising desk, and one of the nurses will see to you. Do not try going into any of the unit rooms, hear?”
“No, ma’am.” Scary, scary place. “Thank you, ma’am.”
In some ways, it was worse than the prison. All the doors to the rooms were closed, and we couldn’t see anything. But the noises were bad. The sound of machines—compressing, beeping—intruded into the hushed bubble of the ward. Worse were the pitiful, heart-wrenching little moans escaping from some of the closed rooms.
But none of it looked familiar to me.
When we reached the nurses’ station, a formidable-looking nurse greeted us as if were invading sacred ground.
“What are you kids doing here?”
“Please, ma’am,” I started before Ethan could jump in and save me. It was my quest, after all. “I’m looking for some very important information. I believe my mother may have been in this burn unit in 1950.” The nurse tapped her nails against the desk faster and faster, seeming to get more irritated with every word. “Please, I just want—need—some information. I need to know what happened to my mother.”
“Does this look like social services? Who let you up here?”
I felt Ethan tense behind me.
“No, ma’am,” I continued. “But I was here too, and I was released on April 30 to an orphanage, and I have no idea—”
“Listen.” She raised her hand. “For starters, we didn’t even have a burn unit in the fifties. Nobody did. Burns were treated in the general surgical wards, and it was far grimmer than it is now. It’s still no place for a couple of curious kids to be traipsing around.”
It felt like one of the medical machines was sucking all the air out of my lungs. I steadied myself on the counter, trying to gather myself. I read the name tag on her uniform. “Please, Nurse Hamilton.” Individual smells began to invade me. I could pick out the stench of wet bandages and raw tissue through that of Clorox and urine. “I can tell that you’re far too young to have been working here then, but if you could just direct me to a doctor who might have been on the surgical ward at the time, well, he might remember. I know I can’t look at records or anything like that, but please, I need to know what happened to me.”
Nurse Hamilton patted her silver hair, which was every bit as starched as her cap. She looked around as if checking for interlopers. “As it turns out, I was around then. Dr. Marsden, who is the current head of the burn unit, was a resident around that time.”
“That’s great!”
She shook her head. “He’s on vacation for the rest of the month at his cottage. There’s no reaching him, and there’s going to be no nosing through records, if that’s what you’re secretly hoping.”
“Oh, I—”
“So, what is your mother’s name?”
“It is, or was, Halina Royce.”
Did she flinch? She certainly turned away. When she turned back, she sized me up full on.
“Nurse Sanchez is Dr. Marsden’s right arm and was from the beginning.” She sighed heavily at the console in front of her. “She’s on the ward now. We don’t allow them to take vacations at the same time, see?”
I didn’t, but I nodded.
Nurse Hamilton seemed to be having a private conversation with herself while I stood there silently willing her to help me. She sighed again, leaned into the console and pushed a button. “Nurse Sanchez to the front desk. Nurse Sanchez stat.”
Within seconds one of the doors down on the east hall opened and then closed. I heard her before I saw her. It seemed that all the nurses’ shoes either squeaked or creaked. Nurse Sanchez was an explosion wrapped in a white uniform. Her glossy black hair was pulled and pinned to within an inch of its life under her cap, and still rebellious strands escaped. Her complexion was the color of café au lait, her lips were a shade of red that would have made Grady proud, and you could feel the annoyance wafting off her.
“Nurse Hamilton?”
“Nurse Sanchez.” Nurse Hamilton waved her reading glasses in our general direction. “This young woman needs your help. She is looking for information. Burn victims at the beginning of your career. A mother and daughter, March 1950. Perhaps you could direct them to someone.”
Nurse Sanchez turned to me, but her expression didn’t change. I’d never seen eyes that were blacker or more beautiful. “Name?”
“My mother was the burn victim. I just had cuts, glass shards that were—”
“Name?” she repeated.
“Sorry. My mother’s name was—is—Halina Royce. I’m Toni, Antoinette Royce, ma’am.”
The nurses exchanged a long glance.
“Room 2B is free.” Nurse Hamilton nodded. “I’ll have an orderly sent to Mr. Visinsky’s room until you return.” She studied a heavily marked-up floor plan.
Nurse Sanchez turned to us. “Follow me.” Was she less annoyed?
We padded behind her down an endless corridor. Every moan I heard reverberated in my bone marrow; every beep and mechanical hiss vibrated in my gut. Did she know anything? How could she work in this place of pain? How could anyone work here? No wonder she was angry. After going past at least a thousand rooms, we reached a door at the very end of the corridor. She led us into a windowless gray room with four mismatched and randomly placed chairs, a gurgling water cooler and a very large plant that looked like it didn’t care whether it lived or died.
“Sit.”
We sat. “Thank you for seeing us, Nurse Sanchez. I don’t mean to annoy or pester you, but I just need…if you know who took care of us, of me, it would be, well, it’s incredibly important that I figure some things out.”
Nurse Sanchez turned to us. She pulled out a chair and sat directly in front of me. Her dark eyes glistened. “It was me, Antoinette, me. I was your nurse.”
“You? Oh…” And just like that, there it was, the end of my quest.
“I can’t believe that no one told you. Are you sure you’re ready to hear?”
“Yes, ma’am.” I nodded. “Yes, for sure I am.”
But I wasn’t. I was nowhere near ready.