10
Niya
For the past two nights, Jazzy and I had suffered through sleeping in hospital chairs, twisting our torsos like gymnasts, hoping to settle upon a comfortable position. That never happened. And Big’s room was cold despite the three blankets each the nurses had given us.
Big went in and out of consciousness. When she was awake, she recognized us. We saw it in the way her eyes scrunched in the corners, like she was trying to smile. But almost as soon as she started coming back, she’d slip into another deep round of slumber.
Now it was Monday morning. A weekday. Time for people to get back into a regular routine and start taking care of business. Not that Jazzy or I were much a part of “regular” life, seeing as we didn’t have regular jobs or school.
It was kind of weird, when I thought about it. Was this the way I wanted to live the rest of my life, with no difference between a Saturday and Monday? Nothing to do all day except watch television, play games on my phone, and scroll through social media posts? When I was in high school, I liked the idea of doing nothing all day. But now that I’d been doing it for almost 10 years, it was...boring.
I hated to admit it to myself, but I liked being out of the house for a few days, even if it was because Big had this “heart event.” This morning, we showered in Big’s bathroom and gobbled down a couple of dried-out muffins from the cafeteria, despite the inconvenience, I welcomed my temporary “home”. There was always something different going on, something happening. So far, the hospital had been a bustle of nurses and doctors and a hot-bodied technician who came in to run some kind of test on Big. Jazzy had flirted with him for a few minutes before they exchanged numbers. She’d been texting him off and on for about 24 hours now.
I rolled my eyes knowing that wouldn’t last. Jazzy was dead set on finding a real life hero like the ones she read about in her ever-present stack of novels, and she had yet to find him. I’d told her many times to come back to reality but she was too caught up in her book boyfriends to pay me any mind. That didn’t stop me from teasing her.
“Looks like you’ve made a new friend,” I drawled out. “Got you adoctorwith bulging biceps.”
Jazzy blushed. “If you must know, Pratchett is a sonographer,” she corrected me. Her eyes were zoned in on her phone as she tapped away at the keys. “And he’s sleeping at the moment so you can quit your antics.”
I stretched. “Who you texting then?”
“Cousin Glory Jean. She and Poochie are parking. They should be here in a minute.”
I shook my head. “Oh my gosh. Why did you even tell them? Now they gonna come in here with their ratchet behavior.”
“Bigistheir cousin. They should know what’s going on.”
I pressed, “Where’s Glory Jean gonna stay while she’s here?”
“I guess somewhere in the hospital. Pratchett said he could probably bring in one more chair if we’d like.”
One more chair wasn’t going to help the situation. Cousin Glory Jean was...well...Cousin Glory Jean. And that still didn’t account for where Poochie, her daughter, would sit.
“What kind of a name isPratchettanyway?” I asked her. “Sounds like a fancy golf club case.”
“It was his great grandfather’s name,” Jazzy rattled off as though she’d known this fact all her life. “They’re from California.”
“People aren’tfromCalifornia. People mightmovethere, but pretty much everybody in California claims another state,” I told her, not to be outdone by her knowledge of Pratchett, who was probably lying about his background. I’d bet twenty dollars if I had it, he was from some podunk town in Alabama or Louisiana, trying to sound like he hadn’t grown up in the hood.
“Knock, knock,” a young, female voice called as the door to Big’s room opened.
Both Jazzy and I sat up. Big opened her eyes and turned her head to face the door.
“Hello, Ms. Thompson and family. My name is Kirstie. I’ll be your nurse for the day.” She turned her back to us, her long Senegalese twists swinging as she moved. Kirstie erased the name of the previous night’s nurse and wrote her own in the appropriate spot on the dry erase board.
I couldn’t speak for Jazzy, but I was sitting there in shock. We’d seen nothing but middle-aged white women come in claiming to be nurses.
Kirstie was black, and she couldn’t have been more than 25 years old. She looked like someone who could have been one of our friends with her thick, filled-in eyebrows, gold hoop earrings, and a cross tattooed on the back of her left hand.
She smiled at us showing bright white teeth. “You must be her granddaughters.”
My twin did the honors. “Yeah. I’m Jazzy. This is my sister, Niya.”
Kirstie shook our hands. “It’s nice to meet you both.” She walked toward the sink near Big’s bed and washed her hands. Then Kirstie checked Big’s monitors. She recorded something on the computer and asked, “Has she eaten today?”
“A little,” I replied.
“That’s normal, given her condition. But if you two could get her to eat half of her breakfast, that would be great.” Kirstie finished up her typing and then asked, “Do you have any questions?”
