How Long?

By Devin Jones

One one side of the wall, you hear the breathing of several doctors all sweating and all anxious about who has to go to the waiting room to tell the mother. On the other side of the glass wall, lays a girl on a surgery table, chest open, EKG pulsing. "Beep, beep, beep" Wires and tubes connecting to machines and bags of fluids, keeping Chloe alive. A heart, visible from the outside of the body pumping slowly, her lungs stretching and contracting like the tides on the shore of a beach. Lights in the room all focused on the girl.

Five doctors all walk back into the room. They review the papers they had printed about the girl's condition. The second tallest one, the one with hazel eyes and brown choppy hair, spoke up, "I'll tell the mother. I think she would take it best from me considering our history with one another." As he said this the other four agreed and handed him the documents. His name was Andrew. Dr. Andrew Davis. He walked the long corridor to the waiting room where the mother of Chloe sat in a chair waiting for someone to come talk to her, to tell her her baby would be safe. And as Andrew approached and she looked up at first in relief that someone had finally come, she went cold seeing who's face it was.

The mother's name was Emma Smith. She had dark hair that curled in the way a pig's tail would. Olive skin and eyes the color of dark chocolate. She was tall and average in weight. 32" waist. She was wearing a purple top and black intern skirt, with a white sweater. She worked at the journalism office down on Mays Ave.. She was one of the middle class writers. She didn't get the big stories but she got what she needed to get the job done. But she was now stone cold, no emotion showing. She wanted to hurt the man in front of her, but not until he told her about her daughter.

Andrew and Emma had once been friends. But they had drifted apart in the 8th grade. She had been a horrible friend. She lied, cheated, and manipulated those around her to get whatever she wanted. But she had dated Andrew. They had gone to the same school together in the year from junior high all the way to graduation. They dated under the direct order not to by their parents, but after Andrew broke up with her she started making up stories about what he had said and what he wanted from her. She made his highschool years a living hell. But eventually they went to college and they never heard from one another again. Until today.

"Mrs. Smith, your daughter is alive right now. She is breathing but we have an unsteady pulse. We did some blood work, and found what we were looking for. Your daughter has the right heart for the surgery, but we need a very special blood. She has BQ- blood. 0.003% of people in the world have this blood. However we have a donor in boston that is willing to donate enough blood to continue with the surgery. She will be here by tomorrow evening for she is driving here. I recommend that you go home and get some sleep as it will be very cold and you shouldn't leave your house unattended. Besides, your boy looks quite tired."

Emma got out of the green hospital chair in which she was sitting and then took her boy and then left the hospital without saying a word to the man who was saving her daughter's life.

As she drove home, she felt slightly guilty about what she had said to the doctor, the man saving her little girl, but then again, she wasn't a nice person. She felt like because what she had done, that not something had to equal out the bad of what she just did and that means that something bad will happen to her now. She prayed that her little girl will be okay and that nothing will happen to her or her family. Her son was dyslexic and that was a struggle already on it's own, but then her daughter with severe heart failure due to a weak heart, most likely an inherited trait from Emma's husband.

He had died recently from a heart attack and now Emma was supporting the three of them off of what she got paid at the office. The thing was that the man had been very abusive to Emma. He had beaten her several times, taken advantage of her, and had caused her to go to the hospital three times from hitting her too hard. He deserved to die but still, the kids didn't know that and that caused them to feel sad about when their father had died.