Total pages in book: 116
Estimated words: 110624 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 553(@200wpm)___ 442(@250wpm)___ 369(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 110624 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 553(@200wpm)___ 442(@250wpm)___ 369(@300wpm)
She pointed to bathroom across the hall.
I ran and grabbed a bottle of Bayer that was in the cabinet, rushing back to her and placing one in her mouth in a panic. I opened my water bottle and helped her drink some down.
“Don’t leave me, Nina.”
“I won’t. I’m right here. I’m not going anywhere,” I said holding her hand for about five minutes until the sound of sirens in the distance got closer.
As my father always used to say, “We make plans, and God laughs.” I was heading out for a jog and somehow ended up in the back of an ambulance with a woman whose only words to me prior to today had been, “Go fuck yourself.”
The woman next to me was no longer that miserable person I thought I knew; she was just…scared. Somehow, the man upstairs chose me to hold her hand through it, and I was damn well going to do my job.
“Mrs. Ballsworthy, do you have any family I can call?”
She was still having trouble speaking but managed to say, “My…daughter.”
“Can you tell me her number?”
She slowly threw out the digits in between breaths, and I dialed as she spoke.
A woman picked up. “Hi, my name is Nina Kennedy. Is this Mrs. Ballsworthy’s daughter?
“Yes,” the woman answered.
“I’m her neighbor. Your mother may be having a heart attack. She is okay right now, but we are in the ambulance headed to the Brooklyn Hospital Center.”
The woman said she’d be following us there right away and hung up.
When we got the hospital, they rushed her into the back and asked me to stay in the waiting area. I discovered her name was Laurice.
A beautiful woman with caramel colored skin and long thinly woven braids rushed into the waiting area, and I stood up. “Are you Laurice’s daughter?”
“Yes. Where is my mother?”
“They just took her in and wouldn’t let me go back. They told me to have you wait here and that a doctor would be out with an update.”
She covered her mouth in shock, pacing the floor. “Is she going to be okay?”
“I think so. She was coherent and breathing.”
“How did you find her?”
“I live upstairs. I was going out for a jog and heard her yelling for help.”
“Oh my God,” she said then surprised me when she pulled me in for a hug. “You may have saved her life.”
“Anyone would have done the same thing.”
“Thank you for being so diligent.” She held out her hand. “I’m Daria.”
“Nina. Nice to meet you.”
Several minutes later, a nurse had come out to tell us that Mrs. Ballsworthy was stable but going into the operating room. I insisted on staying with Daria until her mother was out of surgery. I knew I wouldn’t have wanted to be alone in this situation.
A doctor came out about an hour and a half later, and we both stood up. “Hi, I’m Dr. Tuscano. Who’s the daughter?
Daria raised her hand. “I am.”
“Your mother is going to be fine. She had a clogged artery that caused a mild to moderate heart attack. We performed an angioplasty immediately and put in a stent to keep the artery open. You are very lucky that she was found when she was, because the risk of damage to the heart rises significantly if left untreated for more than ninety minutes. In your mother’s case, I think we got her in time for everything to be okay.”
“When can I see her?” she asked.
“Someone will be out in about twenty minutes to let you know when you can go in. She is stable right now in the recovery area.”
“Thank you, doctor. Thank you so much.”
A look of immense relief appeared on Daria’s face, and we hugged each other.
“Nina, you did save my mother’s life.”
“I am just glad I was there.”
We sat back down and she glanced to the side at me. “Had you known my mother before this?”
“You could say I had met her, but didn’t really know her.”
“Did she ever say anything inappropriate to you by any chance?”
I didn’t know if I should tell her the truth under the circumstances, but there was only one answer. “She told me…to go fuck myself…multiple times.”
Daria looked down at the ground and shook her head. “I am so, so sorry. I need to explain her behavior.”
“It’s okay. I knew it was nothing personal. She does it to all of my roommates and some of the neighbors. Why, though?”
“My mother has had these episodes for the past ten years. One minute, she’s fine and the next, she’s swearing at everyone. It’s some sort of post-traumatic reaction. It started after my father was killed. He was walking home from work late at night, and he was robbed and shot to death. They caught the guys. That’s a long story in itself…but that day, my parents had gotten into a terrible fight. The last thing she said to him from the window as he left was ‘Go fuck yourself.’ Nine hours later, the cops had woken us up to say my father had been murdered.”