Then Adelle had another thought that halted her breath and chilled the blood in her veins: Unless she kills me before I can tell anyone. Who would know if she made it look like an accident or natural causes?
Adelle looked at the woman’s soulless eyes and there was nothing in them that gave any indication of compassion or humanity. She might as well have been looking into the eyes of a shark or some predatory reptile.
She’s going to kill me.
Adelle was as sure of it now as she’d ever been about anything in her life. This woman was going to murder her and Adelle had no idea why.
The nurse stomped out of the room leaving Adelle alone with her fear.
Oh my God. What do I do?
The realization of what had just happened and what was likely to happen during the next five days left Adelle stunned. She stared straight ahead at the open bedroom door that might as well have been locked and guarded for all the use it was to her, at the window less than six feet away from where she was lying, also no use to her. Even if she could get to it she would not be able to call for help. Her words were still all garbled and she could barely speak above a whisper.
Adelle looked frantically around the room, for some type of weapon or something she could use to call for help. There was a framed picture of her standing on the steps of the Washington Monument with Huey P. Newton on one side of her and Eldridge Cleaver and Bobby Seale on the other. She was dressed in a black beret, a black leather jacket, and dark sunglasses, her afro spanning from shoulder to shoulder. She was raising one black gloved fist into the air in the “Power to The People” salute while Bobby Seale gave one of his fiery speeches. What the picture didn’t show were the battalions of police in riot gear directly across from them preparing to bust their heads. Adelle had been young and fearless then. The frame was made out of pewter. If she could somehow get to it she was confident that even in her weakened state, she could brain that psychotic nurse with it.
On another wall was a picture of her with her late husband, Walt. He was in a business suit and they were at a conference in New York hosted by Betty Shabazz, Malcolm X’s widow. He had been such a handsome man then. Tall and strong with a big barrel chest and thick arms. She’d always felt so safe in his arms. She wished that he were here now to protect her, but he’d long ago fallen victim to the streets. He’d gotten hooked on heroin during his tour in Vietnam like so many of the young men from her generation. He’d OD’d not long after Tonya was born. Now Adelle was alone except for her daughter and she would not be back to see her for at least another twenty-four hours, maybe even a few days. She doubted Tonya would be calling anytime soon either, because she knew that Adelle was having difficulty speaking and even if she did, Adelle was sure the nurse would intercept it. That meant that at least for the next twenty-four hours she was all on her own.
Adelle pulled a bobby pin out of her hair. It wasn’t much of a weapon, but it was something. She bent it and then raised it to her lips and began trying to gnaw off the little rubber bulbs on the ends of the metal pin. Her jaw muscles wouldn’t work right so it took her almost twenty minutes to finally get the rubber off. She was sweating and tired by the time she’d managed to chew off the ends and straighten it out. She hid it back in her hair and felt only slightly safer. She continued looking around the room for something else she could use. Everything was too far away from her, impossible to get to. She remembered Tonya telling her she’d moved her guns and wished now she hadn’t done so.
Five days until the next nurse came. Adelle wasn’t sure she could make it. Her only hope was that her daughter would check on her soon. Adelle wasn’t afraid of the nurse’s threat of retaliation. Once Tonya got wind of what was going on, this woman would be in jail, if not in the hospital herself. Tonya had grown up on these streets as well, and no matter how much she’d gotten used to her cushy life in the suburbs, when she got mad all the street came right back to the surface. Adelle smiled as she thought of what Tonya could do to Natsinet. It was her only comfort in what she knew would be a long night.
Natsinet came back into the room with a syringe and Adelle’s eyes widened as the nurse grabbed her left arm, jerked it out straight and jabbed the needle into the vein on the inside of her elbow in one swift move.
“Naaaaa! Naaarrrgh!” Adelle tried to grab the woman’s wrist with her good hand but it too felt weak and helpless. She tried to swing her fist at her and received a hard smack across the face for her efforts that made her vision cloud and her pulse race dangerously high. She was suddenly afraid of having another stroke.
The nurse swatted Adelle’s hand away and pushed the plunger down on the syringe. Moments later Adelle felt a warmth spreading up her arm, then she began to feel dizzy. She pulled the straightened bobby pin out of her hair and jabbed it at Natsinet but the woman was no longer sitting on her bed and the pin stabbed into thin air then tumbled from her fingers onto the floor. There was a satisfied look on the nurse’s face that convinced Adelle that she would probably not be waking up. She said a silent prayer for her daughter as she drifted away. And a wish that Natsinet would be made to pay for her death.
Sunlight pierced between the blinds on the windows, illuminating the bits of dust in the air, making them look almost beautiful. Adelle could tell by the angle the sun struck her windowsill that it was past eight o’clock in the morning. She normally woke up no later than six am. She’d overslept.
Adelle tried to rise and was momentarily confused when her left arm refused to cooperate; it felt as if it weren’t even attached to her, as if she’d fallen asleep on it and squashed all the blood out of it. Only there wasn’t that pins and needles sensation she normally got when she slept wrong, this was just numbness and weakness as if there were no strength at all in her muscles. She tried to push herself up with her right arm and pain shot through her shoulder, collapsing her back down to the bed.
What the hell is wrong with me?
Then she slowly remembered where she was, what had happened to her. The hospital, the ambulance, and then waking up with that psychotic nurse. Her cheek hurt where the nurse had struck her and her right shoulder cried out in pain. She was in danger. More danger than she had ever been in on the streets, or even back during the civil rights marches confronting police officers with attack dogs, clubs, and guns. This woman was in her own home and for the first time in her life, Adelle was practically helpless. There was nowhere for her to go, nothing she could do.
At least I’m still alive.
When the nurse injected her last night Adelle had been sure she’d been poisoned.
She looked over on the nightstand and instinctively reached for the phone to call her daughter. The phone was gone. Ripped out of the wall. Adelle vaguely remembered the nurse throwing the phone across the room last night in her rage. It would be no use to her anyway. Her tongue still lolled uselessly in her mouth and her jaw on the left side hung down, the muscles unresponsive. She wasn’t sure how she’d even manage to chew her food without it spilling out of her mouth, let alone tell anyone what was going on, even if she had a phone.
Natsinet bounded into the room bubbling with enthusiasm as she brought Adelle her breakfast. “Good morning, Mrs. Smith. How are we this morning?”
Adelle’s eyes narrowed in suspicion as she looked from Natsinet to the plate of warm oatmeal she held. The Nurse’s demeanor had completely changed. The woman she met yesterday had been sullen and dangerous like a viper coiled and waiting to strike. There’d been no warmth in her at all. Seeing the woman flitting about opening the drapes and smiling ear to ear was disconcerting. It made Adelle even more convinced that the woman was crazy.