Storms 01 - Family Storms

times for surgeries.”
    “Four times?”
    She laughed. “I’m not supposed to talk out of school, but yes, she had a full face-lift, work on her rear end, breast implants, and a bit of a tummy tuck, not to mention her lips.”
    “All at once?”
    “No,” she said, laughing again. “But all of it over four years, I think. I don’t want to tell you how much it all cost.”
    “You know why she’s doing all this for me?” I asked.
    “I know she does a great deal of work for different charities. I think that’s very nice of her. There are lots of very rich people who don’t do anything for anyone else.” She smiled and started to eat again.
    “I’m not a charity case,” I said.
    “Oh?”
    For a moment, I wondered if I should say anything. Maybe it would make Mrs. March angry and she would stop doing nice things for me, but then I thought about Mama lying in a morgue and lost any hesitation.
    “Her daughter killed my mother and did this to me,” I said. “She said she was high on Ecstasy.”
    She stopped eating. And for a few moments, she looked as if she should be the one in the hospital bed, not me.

4
People with Influence
    I knew Jackie was thinking how much more horrible this was because I was a homeless child without anyone to care for me, and therefore I had to appreciate what Mrs. March was willing to give me and do for me. Another child who had a family would probably tell her to go to hell with her daughter.
    “Well,” she said after a few moments to gather her thoughts, “you just take whatever she gives you. You deserve it and more. Maybe her husband is afraid some alert attorney will come see you and get you to sue the Marches. A lot of money could be held in trust for you to have when you’re eighteen. I bet that would bring your father back.”
    “Would it?”
    “I imagine so. Of course, he might be returning just to get his hands on the money. How long has he been away?”
    “Three years,” I said.
    “Three years? Has he called you often?”
    “Never.”
    “Not even written or sent you things?”
    “We don’t even know where he really is.”
    “Well, don’t you worry about it. Your first job is to get better.”
    “Maybe he’ll come back when he hears what happened.”
    “He might not find out about it. I always read the newspaper from beginning to end, and I didn’t see anything about this accident. I’m not surprised that the Marches were able to keep it out of the news, though,” she added. “They are what you call ‘people with influence.’”
    She didn’t have to convince me of that. Look at what Mrs. March had gotten done for me in so short a time.
    After I finished eating, I began to look through the magazines and books. Most of it was what I would read when I could get my hands on it. I hadn’t seen any of the movies she bought for me, and I had never had a DVD machine you could hold in your lap. Jackie checked my blood pressure and temperature and then sat and read some of my magazines, too.
    We spent the next two days like this. Mrs. March didn’t return during those days, but I knew she called often to speak with Jackie. The nurse who came when Jackie left was older and less talkative, at least with me. She spent most of the night talking with other nurses. I guessed Jackie was right. I really didn’t need the second nurse, because I slept through most of the night. I did look forward to seeing Jackie first thing in the morning.
    Either because she really enjoyed talking about her family and her life or because she was just trying to keep me from thinking about things, Jackie told me all about herbrothers and sisters, her parents, how she became a nurse, and her one disappointing love affair. She rattled on about her taste in music and things she loved to eat. It seemed there wasn’t anything she didn’t like. I enjoyed listening to her talk about her family. I imagined myself a part of it.
    What was a family, anyway? Could just a mother and a daughter be considered a family, or did you have to have a father, too, not to mention at least one brother or sister? A house or an apartment didn’t seem like much without a family living in it. When Jackie described her house, especially when all of her brothers and sisters had lived in it, I felt as though the house was alive, a warm place that embraced them and kept them happy and safe. How far that was from the cold apartment we had lived in and that small hotel room. How could I call either one a