Looking for Jane (10)
“Just drive!” Nancy shouts at him.
He shakes his head and speeds away from the curb without signaling.
In the back seat, Nancy gives Clara another small shake, smacks her cheek as forcefully as she dares without hurting her. “Clara, stay with me. Just stay with me. Stay with me.”
* * *
Nancy has never sat in a hospital waiting room alone before. She’s waited with her mother during her Grandmama’s many illnesses in recent years, but sitting in a waiting room with your parent is entirely different. There’s someone older and wiser to be the point of contact for the doctor, someone to get you a cup of tea and tell you it’s going to be okay. Tapping her rain boot on the tile floor and biting her nails nearly to the quick, Nancy suddenly feels far more adult than she ever has before. She’s responsible for someone here. She’s the point of contact.
Nancy arrived at the emergency room with Clara half-conscious and hanging off her shoulder as blood dripped onto the white tile floor beneath their feet. Nancy kept her mouth shut as much as possible with the triage nurse. Her mother—a woman with an impeccable sense of etiquette which she carried with her like a piece of heavy luggage when she immigrated to Canada—has always taught Nancy to mind her own business, reciting her favourite idiom ad nauseam: “Just keep yourself to yourself.” Why Nancy arrived at the hospital doors with Clara half-conscious and bleeding isn’t anyone’s damn business. Their job is to treat their patient. But on the other hand, this isn’t some innocent heart attack or unlucky car accident. Clara’s injuries are the result of something illegal. As she thinks about the possible implications, Nancy’s heart hammers somewhere in the region of her tonsils.
She looks down now and notes the bloodstains on the calves of her jeans. She’ll have to wash them in the bathtub tonight before her parents see them. She hopes her mother won’t be waiting up for her. A moment later, her stomach flutters as the doctor bursts through the swinging doors. He’s tall, with a dark buzz cut and a face like a thunderstorm.
“You! Girl!” he barks in Nancy’s direction. Half a dozen other people in the waiting room look up in mild alarm.
“Y-yes?” Nancy says.
“Come with me.” He beckons with an imperious hand, and she follows him back through the swinging doors into the bowels of the emergency room, the place you only go to if someone you love is really in trouble. Apparently, Clara is.
“You need to start talking about what happened to your friend,” the doctor demands. “You barely said a word when the triage nurse asked you what was wrong. You just said she’s bleeding a lot, which she is. She’s hemorrhaging, actually. It’s really bad.” He crosses his arms. “Start talking.”
Nancy’s tempted to, she really is. Clara is in serious condition, but that’s nothing compared to the trouble they’re going to be in if she confesses that Clara underwent an illegal back-alley abortion.
“Is she… is she going to make it?” Nancy parries the doctor’s question with one of her own.
“I think so, yes. But barely. We need to know exactly what’s going on so we can treat her fully. She’s unconscious now and can’t tell us anything. We’re transfusing her. She lost a lot of blood. A lot of blood.”
“So, she’s going to survive.”
He shakes his head, and for a moment Nancy fears the worst. A rush of cold hits her veins before she realizes he’s judging their behaviour, not Clara’s fate. “Yes. She will.”
“Okay. Thank you.” Thank God.
“But you want to know what I think?” He steps closer to Nancy. He smells like rubbing alcohol and pine aftershave. “I think she had a little problem and the two of you decided you’d take care of it yourselves. Is that what happened?”
Nancy freezes, fighting the shiver she can feel rising in her body. “No.”
“No?”
“No. I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“I’ve been around a long time,” the doctor says, “and you know what? When we get girls in here hemorrhaging, it’s because they attempted an abortion and perforated an organ. This kind of shit not only kills babies, it kills women, too. That’s why it’s illegal.”
Nancy can feel the anger coming off his body. “We didn’t attempt any abortion.”
Half true.
“Well, I happen to think you did.”
He stares her down, and they end up in a stalemate. She’s not going to say any more, and he knows it.
“This is the end of my shift, but you better be prepared to answer some questions for the doctor that’s relieving me. Because I can tell you one thing: If she suspects the same thing I do, she’s going to be calling the police before she even thinks about discharging your friend. You can go ahead and lie to them and see how far that gets you.” He points to a small observation room to Nancy’s left. “Sit,” he orders. “And wait for my colleague to come talk to you.”
Nancy doesn’t even think about arguing. She steps into the room, settles herself down on the chair, and waits. The pure white panic she felt when she saw all the blood on the subway seat dissipated somewhat once they took Clara into the emergency room, but it’s rising again now. She’s tapping her foot incessantly.