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Show ^3^ black girl had been my fate all right. )g& came, the two Jgirls consulted over my high fever and Kdit called Ben. He got there about the time the taxi did, and he carried me out to it. Even in my semi-conscious state, Ben said, I had resisted with cries of pain when he lifted me with one arm under my ribs. They had been a little worried about me for the next few days while I teetered on the edge of the abyss. Welcome back to the world. Already, he told me, my belongings had been moved out of The Castle and into xffe&ro apartment. With Amelia gone there was plenty of room, andlAmelia's po.yt*\is btlit»i*$ site, s-flll 1,'vtJ Htv-c, still paid half the rent, keeping tha apartment as a front fen, hei- pagento. So when I left the hospital^ I convalesced in ftita1^ bed. Warm, comfortable, rib healing, I lay andywatched the^sun stream in the window, wtfe* nursed me, felt myjt forehead with her cool hand, took my temp, fed me. She slept in the livingroom on the daybed and was gone tcywork in the mornings before I woke up but I found breakfast laid out, I ate and then tottered back to bed to read magazines and paperbacks, things not toqheavy to lift. Lots of naps. And after the day spent alone, I looked forward to feca^s return with an eagerness like a siezure. Weak, alone, I clung to her for support and never wanted to get up. Amelia stopped by to cheer me and to bring food. Ben brought me from the Northwest Side a jar of his mother's chicken soup. Once the woman across the hall, Mrs. Calvin, brought our dinner. John Tobin showed up with 1^« carrying cartons of Chinese food. Sleeping in B £ W ^ « bed made me uncomfortable with him but he went out of his way to reassure me, to tell me that getting well was my only obligation, that there would be plenty of time after that for me to find a permanent place to live. Everyone would help me. Feeling strangely weak and will-less, when alone I thought of all the people carinj for me and I cried freely. With distaste I remembered the nurse who had come into my hospital room one morning, looking rushed, stern, plucking the thermometer out of its glass holder and handing it to me. "Here." |