Third Quarter: Evolving Talent Winner
(untitled entry)
by Jennifer Hamner
The face that glared back at me from the mirror wasn’t mine. The blue-gray eyes were surrounded with red and sunken in swollen lids. The lids were fringed with long lashes that lacked the typical coating of black mascara. These eyes I saw looking at me were set in a face puffy and weary, pale and worn. A nose below them seemed disconnected because of its flaring and ruddy color. All these sitting above a mouth with chapped lips on top of a quivering chin.
It would make sense however, that this face did not appear to be mine because of the mirror that reflected its demeanor. It was a slanted mirror framed in chrome and splashed with dried hospital soap. It hovered above a cold white sink in the second floor bathroom of the ICU waiting room. This mirror that I had come to know so well in fifteen hours never saw a happy face, I imagined. This was a mirror that only reflected the sadness associated with knowing what fate lies a few feet away in a private room and surrounded by the same teary-eyed nurses.
I am not alone in this bathroom. Just three feet away in a stall is my daughter, Salena. She is only eleven but just five minutes ago grew to forty. Her face is now different, too. Hers isn’t puffy and tear stained like mine. Instead, it is without the innocent spark that used to live in her round blue eyes. Her smile is forced upon a face that is drawn tight with the clenching of a jaw trying not to tremble. On her head is wrapped a black and white bandana with motorcycles on it. I checked it thoroughly for blood before giving it to her and tying its knot. It will probably never be washed, I thought as I bent down to kiss the top of her head and smelling the scent of the previous wearer. It’s scent was familiar; Camel Cigarettes and sweat.
She had traveled five and half hours to get here from summer camp. It was only her fourth day there and she knew when my dad drove up to get her that something was wrong at home. He didn’t tell her anything specific but when she called me from her cell phone, her voice cracked and tears flowed for the unknown. I couldn’t tell her over the phone. She managed to calm down and take a short nap and then the texting began. As I sat in the little family room across from ICU Room 203, my phone vibrated. We went back and forth texting. Her texts were full of questions and mine were full of half answers. I tried to be hopeful but not misleading.
It is hard to be hopeful in this little room. This is where they put you when there is no hope. In these cramped quarters are no refreshments such as the fresh brewed coffee in the big waiting room just outside the double doors. The only thing to read is the Bible. There are no Woman’s Day or Better Home and Gardens to flip through. There is no television to watch. There is just some generic picture of a meadow hanging on the wall. Instead of chairs, there are 2 loveseats, well worn on the arms. The end tables have boxes of tissues and there is a phone for calling family members, friends, and clergy. This room lacks all hope and I knew when Lauren, the head nurse ushered me into it, that it was over. Pretty soon the little room was filled to the max with close family. Every thirty minutes the nurse and a doctor would come in to give us an update. Each time they entered, they would ask how long it would be before my daughter arrived. Fours hours, three hours, two hours, she’s just an hour away I would say. Nurse Lauren’s face was not her own either. In these few short hours, she had come to know our family and the body that was in room across the hall. She carried in her hand a tattered tissue.
Back and forth I waddled to the restroom. My large belly filled with the life of a little sister for my daughter. Her name will be Marisa. The nurses have been kind to check my blood pressure ever so often because of Marisa. She is under a great deal of stress, they tell me. My worries grow with the thoughts of my children, born and unborn. Salena will be here in twenty minutes so I attempt in the mirror of sadness to cover up my pain with a cold-water splash and lip-gloss. Fumbling in my purse, I find a barrette and manage to pull my messy hair back. The lip gloss doubles as mascara as I try to get some sort of lashes to appear around my eyes.
The waiting room is filled with scores of hopeful people. They have not yet been to my little room through the double doors just a few feet away. The elevators are slow and once on, an elderly couple asked the usual questions of a pregnant woman. When am I due and is it a girl or a boy? Politely I respond without a smile. Finally, I make it to the parking deck where I wait for dad and Salena. In less than ten minutes, they arrive. She is joyful and we unload all her stuff from dad’s car into mine. Dad’s eyes are wet with tears as he hugs Salena and me goodbye. In my mind, I am wondering where to tell her and how. What words will come from my mouth and can I do it without a fountain of tears? Would that be normal to tell her tearless? There is a nice sunny place with a bench just outside the main hospital doors; I think that would be perfect. Instead, I choose three cold concrete steps with a rusty banister outside the maintenance room of parking deck level A.
This conversation I am about to have with my daughter is the hardest thing I can ever imagine having to do. I would rather give a breech birth in the middle of the African jungle with no epidural and have every tooth in my head yanked out with pliers than to have to break the news to Salena that her father is dead. With my arm around her tiny frame, I look at her. Her head hangs low and her feet are turned in, one flip-flop kissing another. She is built like me, thin and lanky but with her daddy’s hair and ears. Her glasses are sitting low on her nose and she doesn’t look at me. I think if she had looked at me at that moment, that I would have had a complete meltdown. Just as I am telling her about the accident and what has happened to her daddy, a couple walks by and overhears. I catch the look on their faces, too. At once, their countenance changes and their faces are not their own anymore. I ask Salena if she wants to see her daddy. She says yes and I then begin to explain that he may not look like himself; that is he swollen and wrapped in many bandages.
Our short trip to the second floor is quiet and zombie like. We step off the elevators and go through the double doors to the hopeless arena called ICU. Room 203 is just a few steps away. She walks in and looks behind the curtain not knowing what she will see. I am relieved that he is not too swollen and the nurses have him sitting up slightly. He is still on the respirator and I have to explain that is just temporary, that her daddy is really gone. His brain doesn’t work anymore, I say. She tenderly gives him a hug and kisses his cheek and tells him she loves him. She does not say goodbye. Nurse Lauren had placed his bandana in his hand and Salena took it gingerly. Both hands were wrapped from being broken and only his fingertips could be seen. She said she needed to use the restroom and so we left him.
In the restroom, I tied the bandana around her head and stared into the mirror as she stood there. She and I were unrecognizably familiar. The faces that stared back at us weren’t our own anymore.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
I was born in Tuscaloosa, AL. and work full time as a Marketing Director for a local contracting company. I enjoy writing, cooking, and painting in my spare time. I am married with 2 children and a cuddly basset hound.
JUDGE’S COMMENTS:
Right from the opening line (the prompt), this story brings us into a world of difference. The narrator-protagonist's face is unfamiliar and unrecognizable, even to herself, just like the story's circumstances. The depiction of "this little room…where they put you when there is no hope" is especially effective in conveying the sense of strangeness and difference. A few suggestions: The story would benefit from a title. At times, the story seems overwritten. Some variation in paragraph length and integration of direct dialogue would also be helpful.
Note: Thank you to the author for permission to continue posting this fine story.