Familiar Strangers
- Sheri McGuinn
- Feb 2
- 5 min read
I peeked through the lashes of one eye while the nurse talked with a stranger. I’d been playing possum ever since I woke up in the hospital.
“Is she unconscious?” The stranger wore a business suit, nicer than most caseworkers wore--a lawyer maybe? Her stiff posture was topped by square shoulders and a weathered face made more severe by the pull of silver hair tightly skinned back.
“No, there’s no concussion,” the nurse replied softly. I recognized her voice. “She’s been sleeping most of the time. It’s a side effect of the medication the doctor ordered.”
“Since Friday night?” an incredulous, condemning voice barked. “She’ll get addicted.”
“Oh no, they’re careful…”
The commanding voice cut her off. “It’s to stop immediately.”
“The doctor would have to change the orders. I’ll let him know your concern.”
“Get him now.” That was more of a snap.
“I’ll see what I can do.” The nurse scurried out of the room.
The old woman turned to look at me. “So, you’re awake.”
I let my eye drop shut and held still.
“No point in pretending anymore. At least they haven’t doped you up as much as they thought they had. They probably would have given you more if they’d known you had your senses about you. Good job fooling them.”
I snuck another look through my lashes, both eyes this time.
“They say you were hysterical when you got here—their excuse for drugging you. They’re already telling me you’ll need extensive counseling to deal with the trauma…Do you want counseling?”
I shook my head slightly. I’d heard them discussing the accident, what I’d seen and how I’d kept screaming. I didn’t want to talk about it. That’s what counseling was, it was talking about things you didn’t want to talk about.
“So open your eyes and let them see you’re sad, but tell them you don’t remember what you saw. They’ll call it a blessing and leave you alone.”
My eyes flew open.
I wasn’t about to tell anyone, but I remembered everything that happened Friday night. Dad saw flashing lights behind us and tried to lose them. He missed a curve. The truck flew, then the nose dropped and we slammed into a tree. Neither of them was wearing a seatbelt. Mom always made me use mine, though. It nearly strangled me, but I didn’t go flying like they did. There was so much blood. I started screaming and didn’t stop until a man in the ambulance stuck me with a needle and sleep took me.
I woke up in this bed but didn’t let them know. I wanted to be alone with my grief. I’d done my mourning and silent crying late at night between the regular bed checks. I was mostly done with that. I’d even begun to adjust to the idea of foster care. “Who are you?” I demanded.
“Your Grandmother Smith, your mother’s mother. You never saw a picture?”
I shook my head and asked suspiciously, “Why are you here?”
“I’m all you’ve got, kiddo, your only surviving relative, it seems. At least the only one in a position to take care of you.”
Uncle Joey was doing twenty in the pen. He was funny before he got locked up. I would have liked living with him. I didn’t know any other relatives and we moved a lot so there weren’t any close friends, either.
“I have to go live with you?” The little I’d heard of Mom’s mom hadn’t been pleasant.
“I’m as excited as you are,” she replied. “Lord knows how you’ve been brought up so far. How old are you, anyway?”
“Eleven. And a half.”
“Have you been in school at least?”
“Home-schooled.”
“Right.” She spit the word out, sure I didn’t know anything.
“I’m not dumb. I read a lot.”
“What do you read?”
I read anything I can get my hands on, including volumes on organic gardening and Mother Earth News and survival books, but I picked some things I figured she’d think were normal. “I’ve read all the Harry Potter books, and The Hunger Games, and lots of old books, like Little House on the Prairie, when I was little, and Black Beauty.”
“What about math, history, science?” she demanded.
“I’m good with numbers, and I know a lot about plants and things, and some about astronomy.”
Mom would get a spurt of enthusiasm for my education and borrow books from the library and we’d learn about one thing or another until we were both bored with it. One place we lived I had a friend who went to real school, but Dad said teachers were too nosy and we’d move again soon, anyway.
“Well, I suppose that’s good enough for your age. Thank God you’re not any older.” She paused and puckered up her face and looked hard into me. “Do you steal?”
“No.” I knew why she was asking. “Mom never stole, either. She taught me it was bad karma to do people wrong that way.”
Her mouth twisted like a smile but pained. “But she stayed with your father.”
“He stole to take care of us.” It was a knee-jerk reply born of the many times my mother had justified our means of survival while holding me to a different set of rules.
The soft-spoken nurse came back with the doctor before I could say more. That was just as well. Mom wouldn’t want this mean old woman to know everything I might have blurted out.
“You’re awake!” The nurse smiled.
The doctor came over and took my wrist in his hand as he looked at the monitors. “You’re doing fine. Any pain?”
“No, sir.”
“She doesn’t remember anything since Friday afternoon.”
I started a mental notebook then, and the first note was how smoothly this judgmental old woman could lie.
“Did you tell her about…?” The doctor let the question float into space.
They couldn’t even come out and say it in front of me. My parents were both dead. I was the first one to know; my eyes were wide open as we crashed. But these people were afraid to talk to me about it.
The old woman didn’t say anything, she passed it to me with a nod.
I’d had three days to mourn. If I made it easier on them, maybe they’d let me go sooner. The place stank of medicine and sick people. “My grandmother’s come to take me home with her.” I managed to direct a wistful smile in her direction.
The nurse blinked back tears and the doctor patted my arm softly. My grandmother stood behind them, a familiar stranger. Her mouth turned up slightly at one corner.
I’d done well.
©2024 Sheri McGuinn
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