Belle's Story

Chapter Fourteen

As promised, I stayed in the room while Belle napped. I moved from my little wooded chair by the bed to the more comfortable recliner in the corner. Reading two papers made my eyelids heavy and before I realized it, I was deep in dreamland. I was in what appeared to be Nazi Germany, ducking from the shelling falling around me. The air was thick with smoke from the fires caused by bombs and grenades, and I was having a difficult time seeing. A convoy of army tanks with swastika flags broke through the haze and motored toward me with alarming speed. I fell to the ground and into a fetal position, sure that the tanks would roll over me. But, they just stormed right past me. The last tank was pulling my mother's wheelchair. The chair was empty. Where was Mom? I cried out for her, running to and fro. Suddenly, an air raid sounded and I woke, but the noise, which was actually an alarm, didn't stop. As I adjusted my eyes to being awake, I saw my grandmother reaching for her call button.

"Oh, Deborah. You're awake."

I blinked hard, trying to bring myself back to consciousness. "What time is it?"

Before Belle could answer my question, a nurse's voice came through the intercom. Belle asked the nurse to come turn off the IV alarm.

"That noise is really annoying," I sputtered. I scanned the walls for a clock and then remembered I was wearing a watch. "Jesus Christ! It's eleven o'clock."

"You must have been tired, dear. You slept a long time."

"Yeah, I must have been wiped. Shouldn't you be sleeping too?"

"I woke up for dinner, then I read a little and watched some television. I decided to wait for you to get up before going back to bed."

As if on cue, I let a yawn escape.

Belle asked, really insisted, that I spend the night at the hospital.

I wasn't sure about sleeping in a chair, but it did recline and I was still dead beat. It didn't take much convincing for me to agree.

                After listening to the pump's blaring for five minutes, a nurse came in with a plastic bag filled with fluid. She replaced the empty bag and looked over at my chair. I couldn't quite make out her expression. It wasn't really a belligerent look, but it certainly wasn't welcoming.

                "Deborah, this is my nurse. What is your name darling?"

                "Clarissa," she replied. She was a wiry African American woman in her mid forties. She had sharp, boney elbows and eyes that betrayed an air of burned out bitterness.

                "Yes well," my grandmother spoke with a Russian charm tinged with just the right hint of condescension, a hint only audible to an ear trained in Bellisms. Although this was not a tone she ever took with me, I had heard her use it with strangers when trying to get her way. If this tact didn't work, her gracious demeanor could turn viciously condescending in a nano-second. "Can you please bring my granddaughter a blanket, no two blankets, these things are paper thin, and a pillow. She'll be spending the night."

                Clarissa hesitated, a fatal flaw.

                "Did you hear me dear? I know I am old and sickly and my voice doesn't project well." Belle's voice was a strong as I had heard it in five days. This was a dramatic shift from the frail women of a few hours earlier. The challenge in front of her certainly brought out the lioness I had grown to love, respect, and fear.

                "Mrs. Kimmelfield, visiting hours ended at nine. It's after eleven. Actually, I was gonna ask her to leave."

                Belle pounced. "You are a nurse, correct?" She didn't wait for an answer. "And, as such, you care about your patient's well being. I am sure you don't want me worrying about Deborah out and about at this hour. You can see she's exhausted. And, we both know this city isn't at it's safest after dark. As tired as she is..."