“Nobody will touch ‘em,” Mike said, “That’s my word.”
“Thanks.”
“No thang. Give your moms my love.”
“I will. You take care of yourself, Mike. I hope to see you up in the suburbs pretty soon.”
Mike laughed. “You might just.”
Tonya gave him a big hug and almost found herself choking up. She was pretty sure that the next time she saw Big Mike was more likely to be at his funeral than at a neighborhood association meeting. She hated what this neighborhood did to people. She thanked her mother everyday for making sure she escaped it. Tonya only wished she had been as successful at getting her mother out of here as well. For some reason the old woman just refused to leave, along with all the other old folks in the neighborhood. Almost everyone her mom had gone to high school with, gone to college with, attended Civil Rights marches and protests with, got arrested with, were all still right there in the same houses they’d grown up in. Tonya didn’t understand it. As many fond childhood memories as she had growing up in North Philly, she’d sooner move to the Deep South than back to that drug-infested war zone.
Tonya turned and walked back to her car.
Chapter Eight
Natsinet had stood by the living room window, watching through the curtains as Tonya got into her car and drove away.
She surveyed the neighborhood below her quickly, frowning as she did so. What a hellhole. To have accomplished so much in life—setting aside this woman’s criminal past—and to live in such squalor! Natsinet did not understand why somebody of Adelle’s supposed stature would want to live here. It was people like her that made the whole so-called Civil Rights thing a farce. They complained about being mistreated a hundred and forty years after slavery ended, whined about not getting the jobs they felt they deserved, yet they remained in these crime-infested hovels and preyed on each other. If Adelle Smith had really spent so much time helping inner-city youth, not to mention inspiring other Black people to do the same, why was there still so much rampant crime in the older sections of major cities like Philadelphia? Why didn’t these people get off their asses and do something with their lives instead of whining and complaining about not being treated fairly?
Thinking about it, knowing she had to spend the next five days caring for this old, worthless woman was not a good thing.
It was infuriating. These were the same people she’d had to deal with everyday in the ER. They were the same people who’d…
Natsinet stormed away from the windows and paced the living room. Her eyes swept the room, taking in the sofa and easy chair, the TV, the end table with framed photographs and what looked like a trophy. Natsinet picked up the trophy and read the inscription. For significant contributions toward the Civil Rights Movement. The NAACP award.
A police siren warbled from outside, soon joined by another. Probably another homicide. So many goddamn animals in the inner-city, they were like rats crammed in a cage. And when too many rats were in a cage together, they fought and eliminated the weaker. Survival of the fittest.
Good riddance, Natsinet thought as she headed to the master bedroom.
Adelle had been coming to a slow sense of wakefulness the past few minutes and now she opened her eyes. She knew she was in her bedroom, knew Tonya wasn’t here. The last thing Adelle remembered was her conversation with Tonya at the hospital when her daughter told her that she would try to hang around the apartment until she woke up, that she would try to drop in later in the week.
“They’ve got me at these board meetings every day this week and Gerald is teaching class in the evenings,” she’d told her. “I’ll try to bring Tess over some night, but I know the earliest I can get away will probably be Friday.”
Today was, what? Monday? Adelle and Tonya had had that conversation this morning, a nurse had given her something to help her sleep, and the next thing she remembered was Tonya telling her that she would follow the ambulance on the ride to the apartment.
And now she was home.
Somebody was here though, and Adelle tried turning her head to see who it was. Her left side felt completely numb, and it took considerable strain to lift her right arm into a more comfortable position across her abdomen. She was able to shift her head slightly on the pillow and for a minute her vision swam as her eyes adjusted to the dim lighting of the room. A light-skinned Black woman dressed in a nurse’s uniform entered the room and approached her bedside. The home care nurse.
The nurse wouldn’t look at her as she checked her pulse and heartbeat and made notations in a chart. “You had a nice nap?” the nurse asked. “How do you feel?”
Adelle struggled to speak. “…’kay…”
The nurse continued writing in her chart. “Good. I’ll be preparing your dinner in about an hour. Chicken Soup.”
“Pay… per…” Adelle managed to say. The nurse looked at her and Adelle motioned to a notepad and a pen lying on the bureau. “Pen.”
The nurse retrieved the pen and paper and set them on Adelle’s stomach. Adelle gripped the pen and began to write. “I’m sorry my speech is limited. What’s your name?”
“My name is Natsinet Zenawi,” the nurse said.
Adelle smiled. Or tried to, at least. “What a beautiful name,” she wrote. “Let me guess… Ethiopian?”
There was the faintest hint of a frown on the nurse’s face. “No. I am Eritrean. Two separate countries.”
Now it was Adelle’s turn to frown. She wrote again. “I’m sorry. My mistake. So much tragedy has occurred in that country… so many changes—”
“Actually, it doesn’t matter to me where I come from,” the nurse said, overriding Adelle’s train of thought. “I’m here to care for you for the next five days. Is there anything you need?”
Adelle thought about it, trying not to let her dismay show. This woman had a curt edge to her she found disconcerting. She flipped a page up to a new sheet, then wrote, “When does my physical therapy start?”
There was no mistaking that frown now. “Uh uh,” Natsinet said, shaking her head. Her irritation turned swiftly to anger that seemed to come from nowhere. “No, I’m not doing that. It’s not what I signed up for.”
Adelle gave a startled gasp. The doctors and nurses at the hospital told her she would have in-home nursing and physical rehabilitation. Tonya had brought in a combined nurse and physical therapist from Hospice Nursing in Philadelphia—the best in the state. She didn’t understand. “I thought —” She started writing.
“You thought nothing,” Natsinet said, and there was no mistaking the venom in that voice now. “If you’d had an original thought in your wrinkled head, you would have moved out of this hell-hole years ago. I am not providing you with physical therapy. Fuck that and fuck you!”
Adelle gasped again. She couldn’t believe this woman had cursed her. Quickly gaining her composure, she scribbled on the paper. “Fine. Please bring me the phone. I need to make a phone call.”
“And report me? Fuck you again.” And with that Natsinet leaned over the bed, grabbed Adelle beneath her armpits and hauled her out of bed. Adelle gave a mangled yell; her right arm flopped uselessly as she tried to maneuver it to strike at the younger woman, but she was too weak.
“You want physical therapy?” And before she knew it, Natsinet dragged her out of the bed and threw her to the floor. She hit the hardwood floor hard, coming down on her right forearm, hip, and shoulder. A flare of agony stabbed into her right side, and as she tried to struggle into a position to hoist herself up she flopped over on her stomach in a truly helpless position. Help me, she thought, not even aware of the pain that wracked her right side and her wrist.