Storms 01 - Family Storms

nor was there a nurse tending to me. People were rushing around. No one spoke to me. Another pair of paramedics wheeled in another gurney, and I thought,
Maybe that’s Mama,
but itturned out to be an elderly man with oxygen leads in his nostrils. His eyes were wide, as wide as those of someone who saw his own impending death. They pushed him past me without even looking at me, but it frightened me.
    “Mama!” I cried. I waited, but either no one heard me or no one had time to answer. There was little I could do but lie there and wait. My arms, shoulders, legs, and neck were throbbing so much I felt I had turned into a drum. My ears were filled with the beat of my heart and the chugging of my blood through my veins.
    When I saw a nurse hurrying up the corridor, I called to her as loudly as I could. She paused, but before I could tell her anything or ask her anything, she said, “Someone will be with you soon. Be patient.”
    Don’t you mean “be a patient”?
I was the one who felt drunk now, not Mama.
    I closed my eyes and tried to remember exactly what had happened. It had all happened so quickly. Mama was rushing through the rain as if she had an appointment. I ran behind her and kept calling to her. I was only a few inches away when I heard the sound of tires squealing. Right now, I could visualize the front of an automobile but little more.
    Where was Mama now? Why had I been left in a hallway? Who had put me here? Who was looking after me? When I tried to lift my head, the whole corridor spun, and I was nauseated immediately. I kept my eyes closed and waited until the dizziness subsided, and then I opened my eyes slowly and took a deep breath. There was nothing I could do but wait.
    Finally, I felt myself moving and looked down towardmy feet to see a different nurse pushing the gurney. She looked younger than the first nurse and had a shock of brown hair drifting out from under her cap and down over her right eye. As she pushed my gurney, she blew the loose strands away from her eye.
    “What’s happening to me?” I asked.
    “You’re going to X-ray,” she said.
    “Just relax.”
    “Where’s my mother?”
    “You’re going to X-ray.”
    Didn’t she understand my question?
    “My mother,” I said.
    “Relax,” she told me.
    “We’re having a bad night here. We’re doing our best to get to everyone as quickly as we possibly can. I’ve got to get you processed before I see about anyone or anything else.”
    Processed?
What did that mean? With all that ached on me, it was hard to keep talking, keep asking questions, and she didn’t seem to want to talk much, either.
    I felt myself being navigated through the corridor to an elevator. When I was in it, I hoped she would tell me more now that we were away from all the bedlam, but there was another nurse in the elevator, and they started to have a conversation over me as if I weren’t even there. I heard them complaining about some doctor who hadn’t shown up and another nurse who was always late.
    “Like any of us want to be here on time?” my nurse said.
    When the elevator door opened, the other nurse helped wheel me out and then went off in another direction. Outside radiology, there were two other gurneys lined up, one with a young man with a bloodstained face and a heavilybandaged arm and the other with an elderly African American woman. A younger African American woman stood beside her, holding her hand.
    “Just try to relax,” my nurse said again, and put a clipboard at my feet. “Someone will be out to get you soon.”
    “What about my mother?” I asked.
    She walked off without replying. I began to wonder if anyone could hear me. Maybe I thought I was talking but I wasn’t. The younger African American woman looked at me and smiled. The X-ray room door opened, and another patient was wheeled out in a wheelchair. He was an elderly man in a shirt and tie, wearing a blue cap with white letters that spelled “U.S.S. Enterprise.” He looked perfectly healthy, even bored. A male nurse pulled the gurney with the young man into the radiology suite.
    “Not much longer now,” the younger woman told the older one.
    “You hope,” the older woman said. “You’ll be on social security, too, by the time we get outta here.”
    The younger woman laughed. Then she looked at me again. “What happened to you, honey?”
    “We were hit by a car,” I said. “My mother and me, but I don’t know where my mother is.”
    “Downstairs waiting,