by Lindsay Griffiths
The energy in the room reached from wall to wall, ceiling to floor. So many bodies in this confined space meant sweat and anxiety. The hospital waiting room was now a mourning room, a room of asking questions, of cussing, of wailing, of pestering, “Any news?” The rush had come as suddenly and unexpectedly as a heart attack, had frazzled the hospital staff as instantly as a lightning strike. One moment the place was empty, and the next, the small bodies of children, dead and alive, came rolling in, terrified parents and teachers at their heels.
Patricia hid in an adjoining hallway with her back pressed against the wall. She couldn’t see the pandemonium, but she could hear it. Her scrubs clung to her skin like plastic wrap, nervous sweat an adhesive. She considered the daunting task of showing her face to the ravenous crowd, hungry for answers, and knew she preferred to be anywhere but here. Trembling down to her fingertips, she asked herself why she had ever decided to become a nurse in the first place. When she immigrated in 1997, she had gone the route of many other Jamaican women in the US – healthcare. Nursing school was arduous, but she made it through. The N-CLEX exam was arduous, but she made it through. But this present moment turned her knees to mush and pushed her heartbeat to a fierce gallop. There was a pulsing, horrific feeling at the pit of her stomach, or perhaps the pit of her womb. She feared that this busy day at the hospital was more than just a busy day at the hospital.
“Patricia, what are you standing around here for?” Carl stopped short beside her, wiped
his clammy palms down the thighs of his scrubs, and stared into Patricia’s face, questioning.
“I, uh,” but she wasn’t allowed to finish.
“We’ve got a next-level disaster going on in the emergency room. This is no time to freeze up, Pat.” With no more time to waste, Carl sped away into the waiting room, exclaiming to himself, “What kind of madman shoots kids? Kids!” Patricia heard the commotion of anxious people swarming him with questions. She imagined their fingers reaching out, clawing at his clothes, at his nametag, calling him by name in hopes of currying favor.
Patricia was not afraid to talk to parents; she had done that many times before. She was afraid to recognize parents. She was afraid to see Mrs. Parsard, Sabina’s mom, whom she had encountered at the recital, or Mr. Chisholm, Tommy’s dad, whom she had chatted with after soccer practice. She dreaded the possibility of stepping out into that room and looking straight into the eyes of Principal Altruda, the quirky woman whom she had met after Donnie fought at school. “Bastard,” Donnie had said to her after the meeting, avoiding Patricia’s eyes, “he called me a bastard ‘cause dad’s gone.” She had looked at the bruises on his skin and responded, “Your father was a bastard. You’re just fine.” She had given him a stern but loving expression in pure Jamaican mother fashion, and then they had moved on. “Go clean your room.” “Yes, mommy.”
Now she was imagining the worst and couldn’t stomach the thought. If she vomited now, she wouldn’t have been the first that day. The sterile smell of citrusy orange peeled through the air from down the hallway, some ineffective cleaning product that only worsened nausea. Suddenly, two doctors flew past her from down the hall. One caught sight of her and threw his indignant hands up as he kept hurrying past. “Useless fucking nurses,” he muttered. The harsh words stung, but they rung with truth just then. She had to face the music, in this case the dissonant cacophony of grief; she had to sing that I’m Sorry Sonata with weeping parents and dance the We Don’t Know Waltz with others. And in the midst of it all, she may just have to perform a never-ending solo in an empty house for the rest of her life. She straightened up and stepped out into the crowded waiting room.
