Somewhat Saved (33 page)

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Authors: Pat G'Orge-Walker

BOOK: Somewhat Saved
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It was Chandler who'd finally gotten Zipporah to stop sobbing. She'd cried so loud he was afraid security would call the police. Zipporah had thrown things and when there was nothing left to toss, she'd thrown herself on the floor and pounded it.
When he'd first tried to hold her to keep her from harming herself, she'd clawed at him. He had two long nail slashes he hoped would heal without scarring.
Zipporah had rocked and cried on the floor for at least five minutes if not longer. He watched her the entire time and couldn't figure out how she'd not hurt herself. He decided to leave her like that until he could figure something out.
It was he who'd made the calls to Bea and Sasha. He'd seen no reason to involve Sister Betty. Obviously, Bea and Sasha had, because Sister Betty arrived half dressed in the hotel lobby with them.
Since Jasper was dead, Chandler hadn't rushed. Before calling Mothers Blister and Pray Onn, he'd called the hospital and arranged for them not to remove Jasper's body until his daughter arrived. They'd agreed to wait.
As soon as they'd stopped at a red light Chandler turned around to check on Zipporah and the other women. She looked like a zombie with her eyes still glassy and fixed. Bea, Sasha, and Sister Betty sat on both sides of her. “Is she okay?”
“She will be,” Sasha replied.
Chandler watched as the old women piled their hands atop Zipporah's hand to comfort her. It seemed an odd thought, but he found himself comparing her to a painting he'd once seen. It was of the Hindu goddess Saraswati, playing a sitar with several pairs of hands that protruded from her body.
The path to the ICU seemed awkward. There was a supply cabinet overflowing with yellow and blue gowns and a shelf containing paper shoes. The sign read that they were to don them whether or not they were there to see a patient. They didn't and no one stopped or chastised them.
Jasper's room seemed a long way off. It hadn't seemed that far earlier. “Have you waited long?” The question came from out of nowhere. Everyone turned around to meet the voice except Zipporah. She had to be steered.
“Miss Moses, I'm sorry for your loss.” The woman kept speaking as if she'd met them all before. “Let's sit down.” She pointed to a small room that had a desk and several chairs.
Ms. Diaz was one of the hospital's social workers who dealt with bereavement cases. She appeared to be in her mid- to late forties and wore long dreadlocks pulled back into a ponytail that peeked out from the center of a huge head wrap. Her rimless glasses perched upon a short, cinnamon-colored and freckled stubby nose.
Miss Diaz sat and waited for Chandler and the other women to sit as well. Zipporah, her eyes red and swollen, was seated next to him. “Again, please accept our condolences.” She immediately adopted a motherly demeanor as she turned and addressed Zipporah. She pulled several forms from her folder and handed them to Chandler, thinking he was Zipporah's husband.
The meeting with Miss Diaz didn't last too long. She gave permission for Zipporah, and the others if they'd wanted, about five to ten minutes to find closure with the deceased. And then she'd need information as to what was to happen with the body. Neither Zipporah nor the others had a clue as to how his remains would be disposed of.
“Mr. Epps had a stage-four lung cancer that had apparently spread to other parts of the body rather quickly. We haven't had an autopsy, naturally, since he only died earlier this evening. However, according to the medical charts he also had congestive heart disease. If one thing hadn't killed him the other did.” She flipped through the file, removed her glasses and quickly read one of the pages. “Apparently, Mr. Epps's attorney faxed over some instructions. We'd notified all interested parties about the same time but I hadn't realized someone, other than his immediate family, had responded so quickly.”
Miss Diaz, seeing how distraught Zipporah remained, handed several sheets of paper to Chandler. “I must return to my office on the second floor, social services division. If you should need me before I return, just call.” She handed Chandler her business card and explained the next steps he should take.
Every word Miss Diaz had spoken sounded like background noise to Zipporah. If she didn't wake from this nightmare, she would scream. Zipporah didn't notice when Miss Diaz had stopped talking. She barely remembered Bea and Chandler literally lifting her from the chair and walking her to Jasper's hospital room.
Chandler walked away and returned moments later to give Zipporah a cup of water. He watched her sip from the plastic cup and then took her hand and squeezed it.
All the while neither Sister Betty nor Sasha had said a word. If Chandler or Bea noticed that Sister Betty and Sasha held hands as they walked, they said nothing.
Sasha and Sister Betty were praying. They dropped back a little from the others as they walked to Jasper's room. It was Sasha who had suggested they pray. Sister Betty agreed and together the most unlikely of old church women walked together, praying their most unselfish of prayers. They were praying for Zipporah.
Again, they thought about how Zipporah had been in their lives barely a week. And already she'd become the common thread that wove the blanket of love now covering them.
Although she'd drunk the water and walked down the corridor, her mind was still clouded. Standing in front of Jasper's hospital room, Zipporah began to mutter, showing that she was beginning to come around. She then stood for a few moments, staring at the door to the outer room, as though it should open automatically.
“You want me to go inside with you?” Chandler asked. He'd never been comfortable with the dead and funerals were occasions he tried to avoid when he could. And yet, he'd have gone in her place had she asked him.
“I'll do it,” Zipporah said before entering cautiously into the small preparation area that led into Jasper's room.
Zipporah was surprised at how quickly she'd calmed down. There was no reason to continue the self-exiled state her mind had escaped to a short time ago. She'd accepted her father's death, in her own way, but among all the questions she needed answered, suddenly only strange ones entered her mind.
Was she supposed to put on one of the sterile yellow gauze gowns still clinging to the hook? Did she need to wear the plastic gloves? Looking through the narrow venetian blinds that covered the door window into his room, she could see his outline. What was she supposed to do while looking at the body of the man she'd just discovered was her father? What could they have shared in less than twenty-four hours that would offer her the peace she needed?
Zipporah decided that she would put on everything she'd worn earlier when she'd seen her father for the first time. She didn't know why but she closed the venetian blinds completely once she entered Jasper's room.
The first thing she noticed was the sounds. There were none. No beeps, no whirring, no alarms, no bells or whistles. Nothing but complete silence occupied a room where life once had. In fact, all the equipment that had struggled against all odds to keep him alive was already gone.
Zipporah cautiously crept to the side of the bed, as if she'd wake him if she didn't. Someone had already wrapped a sheet tightly around him as though they'd tucked in a sleeping child. The sheet also covered his head, leaving only his face exposed.
Zipporah reached for a nearby chair and sat down by his bed. There was a small space by his knee where the sheet hadn't been tucked in tight, so she reached over and pushed it in.
Zipporah fought the urge to cry. Jasper had a sheet covering him in his death. Where were the sheets she needed in her life?
All the things she'd wanted to come back to say to him suddenly began to flood from her mouth. They weren't as much angry words as they were just questions. She didn't expect answers but she had to ask anyway.
“Jasper,”
Zipporah whispered as though she'd only wanted him to hear,
“you have a sheet covering you, but over the years whenever the internal need for your paternal covers arose, there were none to cover me, no fitted sheet of fatherly love, no flat sheets of warmth, and no blanket of protection and respect.”
 
 
Zipporah rose from her seat and leaned in closer to Jasper. She gently poked at one cheek and noticed, for the first time, that his mouth was still wide open. He looked like he wanted to answer, and Zipporah found herself shushing him so she could continue.
 
 
“I was left to lie naked on this worldly bed covered instead with a fitted sheet of secondhand love, often bought on sale and overpriced. I needed it, so I paid using my body as currency.”
 
 
“Visiting hours in the ICU unit will be over in ten minutes.” It was the announcement over the loudspeaker that again dictated how much time she had to spend with Jasper. Once more, she was at time's mercy. Zipporah strolled to the foot of Jasper's bed, finding another small place where the sheet had not been properly tucked in.
She continued speaking, fighting to keep deep-rooted anger from turning her sharp words of reproach into knives,
“I had to settle for the flat sheets of warmth. They, too, often came with a price far beyond my means. It was a mental struggle, Jasper. But I worked through a hellish existence every day to pay for it. I fought with every fiber I had to keep it, though I knew its fabric consisted of never-meant-to-be-kept promises and unreliable threads of moral heat.”
 
 
Zipporah surrendered to the anger.
“That's right, Jasper. Your little girl might as well have been a whore, because I was tossing it out the front and back door just to hear the word
love
.”
 
 
Zipporah pounded the bed, just barely missing one of Jasper's elbows, which lay crosswise over his chest. There was no stopping her. By then she didn't care who heard her outside or inside that room, she wanted Jasper to know what his negligence had done to her.
“Knowing I had no blanket of protection and respect of my own, when the harsh cold winters of truth came, I needed and accepted sold as is, discounted protection and respect.”
She stopped and pointed at him, adding,
“Did you know its warranties often expired before the dawn came?”
She circled the bed and checked for any signs of the sheet becoming undone before continuing.
“Miss Diaz, she's the social worker here at the hospital, Jasper, in case the two of you hadn't met. Anyway, she says that around the same time I fainted back at the hotel, you'd suffered a massive heart attack and died.”
 
 
Zipporah didn't mean to do it but suddenly she put her hands on Jasper and started shaking him, almost violently.
“Were you thinking of me? Did you somehow get a clue how totally uncovered I was?”
Zipporah's body froze. What had she done? Her shaking Jasper had caused the sheet to become undone and his arms now lay by his sides.
“Oh, God, I'm so sorry.”
She wasn't so concerned with stopping the tears that were surely coming as she was with apologizing to her father. Zipporah cradled Jasper's head, feeling the softness of his hair, now lying exposed where the sheet had fallen away.

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