Take My Hand(33)

“Grandmama, she . . . she just kind of give up after Mama died. A lot of days, she don’t even get out of bed.”

Erica squeezed her eyes shut. I held the needle right next to her shoulder. When the girls were first brought to the clinic, Erica had been twelve years old and India ten. And no one had ever bothered to ask them if they were even menstruating. I believed that both girls were virgins. But here we were inserting what could be poison into them on the off chance that one of them might become sexual.

Or raped. There it was. The unthinkable word. My hand began to shake.

“Any grown men . . . ever . . . touched or messed with you or your sister?”

“You scaring me, Miss Civil.”

“India can’t talk,” I whispered. “How can we be sure nobody never messed with her?” I held the needle close to her arm.

Erica shook her head and started to cry. “Cause I know, Miss Civil. I wouldn’t let it happen.”

The girl actually believed she could protect her younger sister. She believed she knew everything. But none of us knew. Not even me. Without the ability to vocalize, India was virtually defenseless. And Erica was just a child herself. Ty was right. I hadn’t asked enough questions.

“Shit!” I hissed as I dropped the needle onto the tray and snapped the glove off. I could hear Mrs. Seager talking in the next room, but in my ears her voice sounded like whack wick whack.

India’s eyes widened. Usually when the younger sister met my eye, it was pure adoration. She completely trusted me, and I often found myself fighting back a motherly feeling, which was not at all anything I had ever imagined for myself. I had never longed for children in the way that some little girls did. I did not dream of a wedding or husband. I wanted a career, a mission other than motherhood and wifehood. The choices in those days felt stark to me.

I emptied the needle’s contents into the sink before filling a second syringe with the medication and emptying it into the sink, too.

“Miss Civil?”

“You can’t tell nobody I didn’t give y’all this shot today, hear?” I spoke quickly, hating myself for doubting their innocence and honesty, but also knowing that this decision I was making was potentially disastrous for us all.

Erica nodded.

That day was the beginning for me. I knew that the next step was for me to convince the rest of the nurses to stop giving the drug to anybody at all. Not just minors. An impossible but necessary task.

I picked up my clipboard and wrote in elegant script a chart full of lies.





EIGHTEEN





We can’t anymore,” I told Alicia one afternoon, a week after the girls had visited the clinic. We were in the break room, and it was time to close the place up. I’d cornered her next to the coffeepot.

“Can’t what?”

“Give the patients any more of these shots. I took the Williams sisters off birth control completely.”

She paused. For a moment, I didn’t know what she was going to say. Then she surprised me. “I feel the same way. I haven’t been giving it, either.”

“You haven’t?”

“Child, I put two of my patients on the pill. I just changed it on their chart. Said they wanted to switch.”

“Good idea.”

“But you know it won’t work. Mrs. Seager orders all the meds. Plus, the grown women can remember to take the pill; the younger ones I’m not so sure.”

“Alicia, that’s the thing. My girls ain’t even sexual.”

“Not yet.”

“You sound like the white folks.”

“That’s not fair, and you know it.”

“You’re right. I’m sorry. Have you talked to Ty?”

“Yeah, I talk to him all the time,” she said.

“Seem like y’all talk to each other more than you talk to me.” I wiped the coffee stains from the counter.

“Ty told me he ran into your daddy and told him about the Depo studies.”

“I heard. That boy trying to incite a riot.”

“Ty’s mama supposed to be looking into it, but we haven’t heard nothing from her yet. I think she know some people up in Washington.”

Val entered the room carrying the bucket of cleaning supplies. “What are you two carrying on about over there?”

“I’m trying to convince Civil to let me borrow the extra cap in her bag until I can get a new one. I lost mine.”

I had not even noticed her bare head.

“I’m surprised Mrs. Seager didn’t say anything.” Val took a rag from her bucket and wiped down the table. She was becoming more like a mother to the younger nurses, keeping us in line. I think Mrs. Seager appreciated Val the most because she did some of the management work, freeing Mrs. Seager from the brunt of it.

“I been trying to avoid her, hoping she won’t notice.”

Mrs. Seager stopped in the doorway. “Notice what? That you forgot your cap? If you forget it again, you will receive a demerit. Is that clear?”

“Yes, Mrs. Seager.”

When she was gone, Val pointed at me. “Your fault. If you’d given her your cap when she first asked, she would’ve been wearing one just now.”

“You sure are poking your nose in everybody’s business today,” I said.