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In Good Hands
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In Good Hands
In Good Hands I shifted in my seat in the medical van, feeling edgy and out of sorts —I was on my way to a dialysis treatment. I had barely managed to get my kids, eight-year-old Shanequa and seven-year-old Corey, onto the school bus before the van arrived. I hadn’t even had time for breakfast. And I always eat breakfast.
At the hospital I went up to the dialysis unit. “Marvel, there’s a phone call for you,” said my nurse, Kim. “Ms. Castro?” asked the voice on the other end. “Yes,” I said hesitantly. Did Corey fall off the monkey bars? Is Shanequa feeling sick? “We have a kidney for you.” I sank onto a chair, my head spinning. Is this real? For years I had been on a list to receive a kidney transplant, so long that I’d about given up hope. So many times I’d heard those words in dreams, only to wake up and have to face another dialysis appointment. I’d been going for the treatments three times a week for eight years. The woman continued, “We need you to come to University Hospital right after your treatment. There’s no time to lose.” Then she hung up. At last there was hope! No more dialysis. No more feeling tired all the time. I would be able to look after Shanequa and Corey on my own. We’d moved to Syracuse from Rochester when I divorced my abusive husband. With no family in the area I had to call social-service agencies and leave my kids with strangers whenever complications from my illness landed me in the hospital.
Now for what I hoped would be the last time, I notified Exceptional Family Resources, an organization that places kids temporarily with families in its network. I had used them before. This time, I’d need two weeks to recover. Two weeks of my children being in the hands of strangers. But never again.
“Don’t worry,” Kim assured me as she hooked me up to the dialysis machine. I hardly felt the needles go in, I was so anxious. God, please send someone to take care of my babies, I prayed over and over as the machine whirred and the hours ticked away. Afterward I was rushed to University Hospital and given a stack of papers to fill out. As I signed the last form, a phone call came for me. “Marvel? My name is Debbi Hier. Your children are with me and they’re fine.” “Let me talk to them,” I said. “Mama,” Corey said. “Are you sick again?” “No, Baby, I’m going to be all better now.” “Are you coming back?” he asked. I winced at the doubt in his voice. Does he think I’d leave him alone? “Of course, Corey. So you’d better behave yourself, hear?” Then Shanequa mumbled hello. She gets real quiet when she’s scared. I could picture her big dark eyes peeking out shyly from behind her braids. Debbi came back on the line. “I didn’t have time to pack their clothes,” I said. “Corey acts up when I’m not there . . . ” “I’ll take good care of them, Marvel, I promise. You just get well.” My doctor came in and I said a quick good-bye to Debbi. “When’s the last time you ate?” he asked, checking my pulse. “I haven’t had anything all day,” I remembered. “Good. Then we can operate today. The sooner the better.” The rest of the evening was filled with tests and surgery preparations. Thoughts of Corey and Shanequa pushed everything else out of my mind—even the operation. Please, Lord, I prayed as they wheeled me into surgery, let this be the start of a better life. When I woke up the next morning I didn’t feel any pain. I lay staring at the green zigzags skipping across the monitor. The kids would be getting ready for school by now. What will she pack for their lunches? I wondered. The doctor came in. “Everything went well,” he said with a nod. “When can I go home?” I asked. “Slow down,” he said. “You need a little recovery time. We have to make sure your body doesn’t reject the new kidney.” I tried to rest, but couldn’t stop thinking about the kids. They called that evening. “We’re fine, Mama,” said Shanequa. I was amazed at how much stronger she sounded. “Guess what? Debbi’s got two dogs—Brutus and Lady.” Dogs! Corey was terrified of dogs. Then Corey called out from the background: “They’re so much fun to play with, Mama. I wish you could see them. And Debbi gave us ham and pineapples for dinner!” I felt a pang of hurt. Pineapples and ham? Imagine that! Who was this woman? Debbi got on the line. “Their routine won’t change, except I’ll pick them up and bring them here after school.” She sounded so confident. And why not? She probably had a big house and enough money to spend on special dinners every night. How could she possibly know how hard it was to raise kids on your own? “They’re doing fine, Marvel. My two girls love the company. You just concentrate on getting well. Don’t worry about a thing.” Easy for her to say, I thought. I bet she never had to turn her kids over to strangers. Then a new worry gripped me: What if the kids liked staying with Debbi too much? I knew it was silly, but they hadn’t even asked when I was coming back! The next couple of evenings the kids had more stories about Debbi’s house. I listened patiently, told them to eat well and be good, and hung up with hardly a word to Debbi. The happier the kids sounded, the more miserable I felt. Lord, what’s wrong with me? I lay in bed one afternoon, my mind drifting back to all the nights I had stayed up worrying about how I would put food on the table for the kids, how I would manage to buy them new clothes for school. Now some other woman was dressing them. She doesn’t even know who I am, where I’ve come from . . . A nurse came into the room. “You have a visitor,” she said. “Debbi Hier.”
Now! Here? I grabbed the mirror off the bedside table and smoothed my hair. I sat up straight in bed, trying to look as strong as possible. Debbi walked in, and my eyes immediately focused on her blond hair, falling in neat curls to her shoulders. Then I looked at the rest of her. She was full-figured like me, not tall and slender and intimidating as I’d imagined. Her face had a softness that caught me off guard. “Hello, Marvel,” she said, squeezing my hand. “My kids okay?” “Yes, they’re fine. They’re at school. Since they’re not allowed to visit, I thought I’d come and see how you were doing.” I motioned to the chair near my bed, eyeing her warily. “You look different than I thought you would,” I said. She smiled and handed me get-well cards the kids had made. “The first day they were so down I could hardly get them to talk,” she said. I looked her in the eye. “I know you probably take in lots of kids whose parents don’t want them,” I said. “But Corey and Shanequa aren’t like that. They have a home.” “I know that, Marvel.” The sincerity in her voice was unmistakable. At the end of the week I was released. I couldn’t wait to show the kids their new, healthy mama—one who would always be there, whose arms would never be too tired to hold them. But they would have to stay with Debbi for one more week while I recovered at home. The night before the kids returned, I set to cleaning house. Everything had to be just right. I wanted Debbi to see what a good mom I was. I kept picturing her reaction, how she would look at me in my home with my kids and not be able to find one flaw. The next morning I was too nervous to eat or drink anything. I kept pacing in front of the kitchen window, checking the clock. Then I saw them coming. I threw open the door and Corey and Shanequa bounded up the steps. “Hi, Marvel,” said Debbi from behind them. I wrapped my arms around my babies, letting them wipe away my tears. “Shanequa, Honey, what happened to your hair?” It was pulled up in a ponytail. “I’m sorry, Marvel,” Debbi said, flustered. “I let the braids out to shampoo her hair and I didn’t know how to get it back the way it was. How in the world do you manage to do all those little braids?” “It’s okay,” I said. “I’ll fix it later.” “I’m sorry,” she said again. Some quality in her voice struck me. It was like a bridge across the gap between us. I looked in her eyes. They didn’t have the look of judgment I expected, but instead the same insecurity I had seen in my own in the mirror that morning. She seems nervous too! “Please sit down, Debbi,” I said, pointing to a chair at the kitchen table. Gently, I pulled away from the kids, kissed them both on the forehead and sent them upstairs to play. “I was afraid you wouldn’t like the way I did things,” Debbi began, then looked down. I felt a rush of warmth toward her. “I was a nervous wreck about the kids coming back,” I confessed. “They seemed so . . . happy with you.” “All I tried to do was distract them from how much they missed their mommy,” she said. “They’re great kids. My daughters and I will miss them. I was wondering how you would feel if maybe they came to visit sometime?” I had promised myself never to give my children to anyone else again. Yet for the first time I saw what my kids must have seen in Debbi. She was not a stranger, but a friend God had sent to comfort and love them when they needed it most. “I think they’d like that,” I said, covering her hand with mine. “Maybe I could show you how to braid Shanequa’s hair.” “Really? That would be wonderful, Marvel.” “But only if you promise to fix pineapples and ham.” |
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