Conyer stood there a moment silently, thinking that when she had turned to face him, she wanted to speak. Not only did she not speak. Not only did she lie there glaring at him. She now crossed her arms over her blanket-covered midriff. She did this deliberately, knowing that it would add a no-nonsense seriousness to her demeanor.
Seeing her arms crossed over her chest, however, disarmed him for a moment. He saw her nail wraps, the very ones she and her roommate were admiring earlier when he’d come by and watched from the hall. He couldn’t help himself from smiling when he saw them so close. They were ballet shoes. Ballet shoes! Of course, they were ballet shoes! What else would they be?! She’s a ballerina!
Never taking his eyes off her nails, he delayed his real mission, and spoke something personal to her, never wondering if it would be a welcomed compliment or not.
“Oh, your nails have ballet shoes on them! I like them!” He paused, then looked up in her eyes, and said yet again, “I really like your nails.”
Wrong thing to do!
Never taking her eyes off his, she suddenly reached down with great deliberation and began clawing at the corners of each wrap. It took her no more than thirty seconds to rip every last one off and throw them all around her on her bed’s surface.
Conyer stood transfixed through the whole process. He couldn’t believe she was tearing off the beautiful nail wraps… just to make a point!
With the obvious question of why in his eyes, he said only one word. “Giselle.”
With a controlled but starchy voice, she made one last comment before turning her back on him again.
“I will ask you one more time nicely… Please leave!”
As Conyer turned and left her room, he didn’t see the flood of tears that she couldn’t control, and the two anguished questions that softly escaped her lips.
“Jesus, why did You let this happen?! Why did You betray me like this?!”
*****
Remembering her promise to Doris to call her after she left the hospital, Awsty pulled over to the side of the street, grabbed her iPhone from off the front passenger seat, and speed dialed Doris.
“Hi, Aws. Thanks for calling me back.”
“Sure. What’s up?”
“Well, after you left the hospital, the wheels fell off. I don’t even know where to begin to tell you.”
“Well, just start at the beginning, I guess.”
“Ok. So… when you left Giselle and me, everything was ok for a while. We were laughing and admiring our nail wraps. She shared a lot about herself and what’s going on in her life. Then we’d admire our nail wraps again. It was just a lot of fun. I got to know quite a bit about her, and we both just loved our wraps!”
Giggling a bit, Awsty responded. “Yeah. Ok. I get the idea. You both love the wraps.”
“No, I said we loved the wraps. As in past tense.”
“What do you mean? Did someone say they didn’t like them and you both decided you don’t like them anymore either? Tell me you both didn’t just take them off.”
“No, actually. I do still love mine.”
“Dors, I’m having to work too hard here. Just tell me what happened.”
“Ok… I decided sometime after you left that I should really be doing more walking, ‘cause I need to get my strength back. So, I decided I’d walk around the unit once. The whole circle. I knew it’d take me a while, but I also knew if I didn’t prove I could navigate on my own, they might decide to keep me longer.”
Doris stopped talking for a few seconds, in case Awsty wanted to say something, or ask a question. When she heard only silence on the other end of the phone, she continued.
“I was gone quite a while, ‘cause I walk at a snail’s pace. But, when I was coming back and just a couple of doors from our room, I could already hear Giselle crying. It was that kind with the quick intakes of breath, like she was almost hysterical or something.
“So, I walked as fast as I could to the door. And, when I looked in, Giselle was almost hysterically sobbing. And… on the bed all around her were her ripped-off nail wraps. That was bad enough, but when I saw the blood on her blanket, I couldn’t figure out what in the world had happened while I was in the halls walking.”
“And?” Awsty prompted.
“Turns out the guy that’s responsible for all her injuries came to the room today while I was gone. She says he forced his way into the room, acting like they were all buddy-buddy, and wouldn’t leave. She says it’s like he won’t even acknowledge this whole thing was all his fault. That because of him, she’ll never dance again.”
“Dors, what happened with the wraps?”
“Well, she says that part was her fault, but he instigated it. She says that after all he’s done to hurt her, he had the nerve to tell her the ballet-slipper wraps looked nice. She says he told her a couple times. And, he still wouldn’t leave. She says there was nothing she could do, and she was so angry that she just ripped them all off right then, while he stood there and watched. She says at the moment she did it, she felt like it was the only power she wielded over him. And, one of them she ripped at so hard that she ripped the whole nail off all the way back to the quick. From all the blood, you’d think someone had stabbed her or something.”
“Ok. Give her your phone, and let me talk to her.”
“I’m out in the hall. When I checked caller ID and saw it was you, I came out here so we could talk privately.”
“Oh. Well, when we’re through, go back in and tell her I have all kinds of other wraps and I’ll come back either tomorrow or the next day and she can pick out a different set.
“Sounds more like a temper tantrum on her part, but maybe I’m missing something, since I wasn’t there. Man… what did that guy do to her?! I even asked her what he’d done to hurt her so badly, and why hadn’t she didn’t call the police at that time, but she just cried harder and shook her head repeatedly. It must have been really awful, ‘cause she didn’t want to tell me.
“Her whole world has been turned upside down though, that’s for sure, so I guess I feel like I need to be patient with her.
“Just tell her I’ll come back and re-do with a different set. She looked at a couple other sets a lot. Maybe she can wear one of those instead.”
“Awsty, now I remember why I just love you so much. You are so sweet to do that for her.”
“Well, do you remember me when I first came to Open Door? Everyone there was so patient and sweet to me. I learned from watching you all what being a Christ-follower was really all about. Maybe the Lord is giving me this opportunity to minister to her like all of you did to me.”
There was a small lull of silence.
“Aws, the real reason I asked you to call me back is to get your counsel on something, though.”
“Really? Sure. What is it?”
Doris was feeling rather weak by now and looked around the hall to see if she could locate a chair or bench. Fortunately, she saw one just a couple doors away, so she walked over to it and slowly sat, wincing at the pain that still surrounded the surgical wound.
“Well, I’ve had a lot of time to talk with Giselle and she’s in a whole lot worse mess than I even realized.
“She not only doesn’t have a car anymore, but she also has no job, and nowhere to live.”
“Ooo… Doris, you’re not suggesting she come to live with you, are you? You don’t know enough about her, do you? Is she a Christian? How will she pay for her share of rent and food? And…”
“Hold on,” Doris said, before Awsty could go on.
“I’m not suggesting she live with me permanently. I just thought that she could stay with me a couple of weeks or so until she gets her act together and figures out what to do now that dancing is out of the forecast.”
“Dors, you can’t afford that, can you? I mean, she’ll be stuck at the apartment, no car, and she has to eat, you know. You can’t afford to double your grocery bill and utilities. I just can’t see how this would work out.?
??
Doris never let a breath’s time lapse before jumping back in.
“Ok, first off, it’s just a couple of weeks. And, I have to pay rent anyway, so that isn’t an added cost. And if the way she eats here is any indication, I’ll be spending a maximum of fifty cents more weekly than I do now.”
Awsty shook her head and grinned at Doris’ comment. She knew Doris was making the point that Giselle probably ate like a bird to be so tiny.
“I know she doesn’t have a car, but they have this new invention called a telephone,” Giselle continued.
Awsty giggled again. Doris could turn almost all situations into a comedy. At least in the way she verbalized them.
“She can use the apartment landline and start making job inquiries, and find out what to do about a replacement car. If she has any errands to run, I can take her after work, or even during my work lunch break.”
“Speaking of which. You need someone to take care of you until you go back to work. Not the other way around. When are you planning to go back to work?”
“I’m going back around Wednesday.”
“Oh, Dors, that’s too soon, isn’t it?”
“No, I need to get back. Pastor Johnston called me yesterday. You know what an encourager he is. But, he said he misses me terribly and wants me to hurry up and come back to work.”
“He sure is a precious man, isn’t he? Well, I suppose, on the other hand, it could be a good thing having her with you a couple of weeks. She can help you with meals and cleaning, so you don’t have to do all the work. And, if she’s home anyway, maybe you could get her to help with the laundry. I guess you can tell her you’ll supply the quarters if she’ll do the actual laundry duties.”
“Yeah, I didn’t even think about the advantages of having her. I was thinking of helping her. But, she could really be of help to me while she’s there. In fact, I could present it to her that it would really be a service to me if she comes back to the apartment with me a couple of weeks while she’s making plans.”
Awsty cautiously gave her an “ok” from her perspective, under one condition.
“While she’s with you, you allow Mason and me to chip in financially.”
“Uh-uh. No way! Don’t even go there!”
“Dors…” Awsty broke in. “Mason and I would like to minister to Giselle during this time, too. But, if you don’t allow us this privilege, I don’t see how that would happen.
“She’s got a huge burden to bear right now and it will probably be quite some time before she’s on her feet. If her family isn’t here, she has no friends here, how will she ever make it through this?”
“I didn’t think of it like that, but you’re right. She needs help from every source that’s willing. Ok… thank you for the financial help while she stays with me, and thank you for being a good friend… and a wise one. I love you!”
“I love you back. Listen. One more thing before I go. When you get out, I’m coming a couple of days after work and help you get things set up for the two of you. I’ll help clean some, and help you get your kitchen pantry and fridge stocked.
“Listen…gotta go. Knowing Mason, he’ll be standing in the driveway waiting for me. Ooo.. how I love that man! Bye, Dors.”
“Bye, Aws.”
It was settled. Doris was going to invite Giselle to come live with her for a couple of weeks during her transition back into the “non-dancing” world. It would be days probably before Giselle would even be released. It would give Doris time to build some strength and get the apartment guest-ready.
Chapter 8
The day was warm and sunny. Unusual for late autumn. But, with the sun shining in her hospital window, Giselle opened her puffy eyes, created by all the tears she’d shed during the night, when she should have been gaining some restorative sleep. The horror of her situation and her dismal life prospects with no dancing were keeping her both awake and tearful almost all the time.
Giselle looked in the direction of the warmth source. Although she lay in the bed furthest away from the windows, the sun was already shining in enough that it had crawled more than half way into the room and reached half the length of her body. She pulled herself closer to that edge of the bed to hopefully gain a bit more desired body heat.
As Giselle lay there, she allowed her gaze to roam over to the now-empty bed where Doris had spent her post-surgical time. Doris had vacated both the room and the premises earlier, Although Giselle knew that after her release she would be staying for a small amount of time with Doris while she tried to get her life back in some semblance of order, she was now quite literally alone, and the sole resident of room 512.
She was doing everything she was supposed to. She was eating the disgusting food that was brought her at each mealtime. Or, at least she was giving it a good attempt. Some foods were edible, others just made her gag.
As she thought about it now though, she was somewhat confused about the whole ‘food thing.’ Some days the meals were gross beyond words, then other times a fantastic cheeseburger and fries or cheese pizza and milkshake would arrive. When she asked any staff present in her room how the meals could so radically vary in both type and ‘deliciousness,’ no one seemed to know how it could happen. Not that they lied, but they had been instructed to not give Giselle the information that it was Conyer Whitefield who was bringing those meals to her.
Conyer always seemed to arrive within minutes before meal delivery in that hall. He would remove the food on Giselle’s tray, and replace it with whatever he brought. Or leave the food that the hospital served, removing only the dessert they included, and replacing it with something like a hot fudge sundae.
Her physical therapy sessions were getting slightly easier daily as she ate her ‘special foods’ and moved around. Taking daily walks around the halls were good for her, but even though she did them, she was embarrassed by the staff and visitors that ogled her while she was learning to master her crutches. It wasn’t that she minded people looking at her. Heaven knows they had done that all the time while she was dancing, whether in school, or at school performances. But this was different. Everyone looked at her with pity, rather than the admiration she had become used to.
Giselle had tried a couple of times to walk without the crutches assisting her, but each time one leg or the other gave out on her, so she no longer even tried. She had admitted to herself that it was going to be a long time before she reached anything even near normal again.
So it was that morning, with a depressing resolve to accept her temporary limitations, she slowly swung her legs over the edge of the bed, grabbed the crutches and slowly and agonizingly headed out her hospital room. Fortunately there were few people in the hall. Mostly there were staff and doctors, all of which were running around at a bustling pace, that day ignoring her altogether.
Passing a room just four doors from her own, she heard the raised voice of a young girl.
“Excuse me…”
Giselle assumed the young girl was calling someone else, so she continued to walk. But, before she could even clear the doorway as she slowly walked down the hall, the girl called again.
“Excuse me!” This time it had been a little louder. Giselle couldn’t keep from turning her head and looking into the room. The little girl was looking right at her.
“Were you talking to me?” Giselle asked softly, removing one hand from the crutch hand-hold and pointing to herself.
“Yes. I could use a little help. Could you get one of the nurses to come here?”
“Of course, but you know that you have a button there you can push to get someone to come and help you.”
“I know,” the girl said, looking down at the floor, “but I dropped it and I can’t get out of bed to get it.”
That was the first time Giselle actually looked at the girl. Not just a casual glance, but really looked at her. She felt a sweeping wave of nausea course through her when she saw that the little girl had two casts, one on each leg. Giselle’s firs
t impression was that something was terribly awry, not including the casts themselves. One cast seemed to be considerably shorter than the other. Why is that one so short and the other one…? The question was never completed, as reality dawned on her. One of the child’s legs was apparently amputated, or she had been born with it like that. Either way, Giselle was sickened to the core of her being.
Trying to maintain a smile, anemic though it was, Giselle maneuvered herself into the room, where the young girl was housed in a single-occupancy room. When she arrived next to the girl’s bed, she laid one crutch on the floor and used the other to brace herself as best she could while bending down to pick up the call button. Unfortunately, her balance was precarious at best, and Giselle managed to splat right there on the floor. And, no matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t seem to get up. Apparently, however, the little girl thought she had fallen on purpose to make her laugh, so laugh she did. First, it was a slight giggle, but the more Giselle struggled to get up and couldn’t, the more the little girl’s giggles turned into serious laughter. By the time Giselle actually arose from the floor, she was at a crossroads. She didn’t know if she should get mad at the girl for laughing at her, or should giggle a bit herself, letting the little girl know that she could see the humor in it all.
Looking, however, into the face of this child who was so disadvantaged, she decided to act as though she’d done it on purpose. So, now sitting in the chair beside the bed, having already attached the call button to the safety bars on the side of the bed, she joined the girl in a bit of silly laughing.
“Did you see how goofy I looked when I fell?”
“Yeah. I didn’t know if I should laugh, but I just couldn’t help myself.”
“I know what you mean. I couldn’t see myself, but I could feel my legs and arms going in different directions. I know I looked crazy! You have to promise you won’t tell anybody.”
“Oh, I promise.”
“Pinky-swear?”
“Pinky-swear. What’s that?”
Giselle leaned close to the little girl.