Broken Wings (Broken Wings 1)

“It’s not uncommon to see patients with problems like this get this depressed and try to take their own lives.”

“What did she do?”

“She cut her wrists with a ballpoint pen, but fortunately, an attendant was nearby and we were able to prevent serious consequences. At the moment she’s quite withdrawn. It’s not uncommon, given the drugs, the alcohol.”

“Nothing seems to be uncommon,” I commented.

She stared at me a moment and then nodded.

“I’m just trying to prepare you. You don’t look that old,” she said as we continued. “With whom do you live now?”

“I was living with my aunt.”

“Your aunt? But I thought… I mean, as I said, we’ve tried to get her to call us. Does she know you’ve come here?”

“I’m making other living arrangements,” I said quickly, hoping she would stop asking so many questions.

She widened her eyes.

“I see. Okay. We have your mother under twenty-four-hour observation in here,” she said, taking me through another door. We paused in the hallway. “She’s in this room. Don’t be alarmed about how stark it is. With cases like this, we have to limit the patient’s ability to find ways to harm him- or herself.”

A tall black man in an attendant’s uniform peered out of a doorway, holding a cup of coffee.

“How is Mrs. Elder doing?” Doctor Young asked.

“No different. No problem,” he said.

She reached into her pocket and produced a key chain. Then she unlocked the door of Mama’s room and opened it. Mama, in a patient’s light blue gown, was sitting on a bare bed looking at a bare wall. There was no other furniture, not even a chair.

“Charlene?” Doctor Young said. “I have a visitor for you. Someone’s come to see you.”

Mama didn’t turn. She didn’t look as if she had heard.

Doctor Young nodded to me, and I stepped forward.

“Hello, Mama,” I said.

Mama’s eyes fluttered, and then she turned and looked at me, but her expression didn’t change. I saw the bandages on her wrists, but shifted my eyes away quickly. Just the sight of that made my heart thump hard and fast.

“Your daughter has come to see you, Charlene. Isn’t that nice?”

Mama looked at Doctor Young.

“I want a cigarette,” she said as if I came to see her every day and it was nothing unusual.

“Now you know you can’t have cigarettes yet, Charlene. Why don’t you just visit with your daughter now. Have a nice visit, and we’ll be talking again this afternoon.”

Mama pursed her lips the way I knew her to do when she had an angry or unpleasant thought. Then she grunted and turned back to the wall. I looked at Doctor Young, who nodded some encouragement.

“I’ll be right outside,” she said, and left the room, but leaving the door slightly open.

“Hi, Mama,” I said.

“What are you doin‘ here?” she snapped back at me. “This ain’t no place for you, girl.”

“I came to see you. I had to see you, Mama. I was hoping you’d be better and—”

“You got any cigarettes?”