Theresa — Chapter 49
The Story So Far (TGF subscribers can read earlier installments): Terri (Theresa) is a post-op transsexual and aspiring actress in her twenties. Her early teen years are related in Juliet (the first volume of this trilogy) and her late teen years are presented in the second volume, Barbara. (Search The Library for Hebe Dotson to read Juliet and Barbara.) She has a boyfriend (Eddie Roberts) and is the biological father of a daughter, Jessica. She also has two implacable opponents — her in-laws, Mr. and Mrs. Norris, who are attempting to gain custody of Terri’s daughter (their granddaughter). As Chapter 48 ends, Terri has collapsed while trying to get her unconscious in-laws out of a garage filled with carbon monoxide fumes.
This had to be the strangest day of my life. So far.
I tried to open my eyes, but they seemed to be glued shut. Was I dead? Perhaps, but probably not. More likely, I was in a hospital. After all, I had heard sirens just before I lost consciousness — there was a good chance that they’d been the result of my 911 call.
But it was so quiet now. Perhaps I was dead. Maybe I should try harder to get an eye open. The left one didn’t plan to open again, ever, but the right one was making an effort. It finally succeeded in producing a narrow slit of vision and I found myself staring at…another eyeball, no more than six inches from my face.
The silence shattered. “MOMMY’S AWAKE!” Jessie shouted. She and her eye vanished from my tiny field of vision and I heard her feet clattering across the room.
***
“You’re here for observation only,” the nurse explained. “It will probably be another hour or two before the doctors finish running their tests and let you go, but they’re just being cautious. All the test results have been favorable so far. How are you feeling?”
“A little weak in the knees,” I said. “I don’t think I can walk. And I have a very unpleasant headache.”
“We can help those rubbery legs. We’ll have some lunch for you in about half an hour.”
“Rubbery chicken? Or one of those wonderful meals in a plastic bag, with the cute little tube to my arm?”
“No, we’ll have real food for you –“ real hospital food, that is. You can build up your strength by sawing on your lunch steak special with your nice little plastic utensils.”
“Sounds wonderful.”
“Doesn’t it? Your headache should clear up pretty soon, and then you’ll be almost as good as new. It’s a good thing your fiance was able to pull you out of the garage before you took in any more carbon monoxide, or your headache might be even worse.”
“My fiance? Eddie pulled me out? I thought it was the paramedics.”
“No, not Eddie — he got Mrs. Norris out. It was someone named Brad who rescued you.”
“Brad? He’s not my fiance!”
“He said he was. You have two fiances?”
“I don’t have any!” I said. “That was just a ruse Eddie used to get into another hospital so he could see me, a few months ago.”
“Well, neither Eddie nor Brad needed ruses. They were both admitted for observation, after the paramedics got them out. They’re sharing a room down the hall — just for observation — and probably swapping stories about their mutual fiancee.”
“What about Mr. and Mrs. Norris?” I asked.
“They’re doing fine, even though they got more carbon monoxide than the rest of you did. Let’s see if I have this straight. You got Mr. Norris out by driving his car through the garage door. Then you collapsed while trying to pull Mrs. Norris out. Brad came along then and got you out. Eddie was right behind Brad, and he rescued Mrs. Norris before the monoxide got him. The rescue squad arrived just as Brad went down and just before Eddie joined him. So, we had five carbon monoxide customers this morning – I think we’ll probably give you a group rate.”
“And everyone’s all right?”
“As far as I know, pending more test results. And Miss Jessie here is best of all. You told her to stay on the front steps, and she did. That stuff would have been really too much for small lungs to handle.” She smiled at Jessie and ruffled her hair. Jessie smiled back happily. “Now, I have to go down the hall for a few minutes to check on your fiances. I’ve made Jessie my official assistant, and maybe you can get her to hold an ice pack on your forehead. I told her she could stay with you as long as she kept herself useful — and quiet.”
Jessie scrambled up on the bed beside me and took the ice pack from the nurse. “I’ll hold this for you, Mommy. I want to stay here with you.”
***
A few minutes later, I heard a gentle tapping on the door to my room. I sent Assistant Nurse Jessie to see who was there, and she admitted Gramma Norris, who was overflowing with gratitude, contrition, and apologies. Mr. Norris was still being observed.
“He should have opened the garage door before he started the engine,” Mrs. Norris explained to me. “But he started the engine first and then he had a seizure and fainted.”
“A seizure?” I asked.
“Yes. It was his second. He had another one about three years ago. The doctors couldn’t find anything wrong then, but I think they’ll have to take a closer look at him this time.”
“I think so too,” I said.
“You know, what I don’t understand is why you risked your life to save us. If someone had treated me the way Herb and I treated you, I might possibly have called 911, but nothing more than that. I might not even have done that much. You could have solved all your problems by just taking Jessie home with you and telling everyone that we’d had a change of heart and given her back to you.”
“That thought did cross my mind,” I said, “but only for a moment. Jessie loves both of you so much — I just couldn’t let anything happen to her Gramma and Grampa.”
“Well, bless you for that, dear, and for all you’ve done to raise our wonderful granddaughter. We’re going to drop our custody suit, and then I hope we can start over again and build the loving relationship that we should have had all along.”
“Oh, yes!” I opened my arms and she embraced me and kissed my cheek.
That fence was definitely mended.
***
Mrs. Norris had been gone for about ten minutes when I heard another tentative tapping on my door. I sent Jessie to see who was there this time. She opened the door and Chris Riordan and Jim Walters walked in.
“Chris! Jim! What are you two doing here?” I gasped.
Chris rushed to my bedside and hugged me. “We happened to be in the neighborhood,” she said, “and we heard the hospital was giving group rates for carbon monoxide poisoning. The air was so foul on the highway that we thought a little oxygen might help.”
“Come off it, Riordan! It’s nice to have visitors, but how did you know I was here?”
“Your fiance told us.”
“Eddie?”
“No, Brad.”
“He’s not my fiance!”
“Is Eddie?”
“No. I don’t think so.”
“Well, then…”
“Chris, enough of this inane banter. How did you get here?”
Chris bestowed a Jessie-grade pout on me. “Oh, all right. Brad is rewriting his novel. He talked to Jim, and then me, about you. He realized that his portrayal of you was completely wrong and he wanted to get it right — just as an act of penance, not to produce a best-seller. He wanted to learn more about you, but he decided he couldn’t approach you directly. He’s been following you around.”
“And you didn’t tell me?”
“I didn’t know until this morning. Anyway, he waited at a bus stop across from your apartment until he saw you come out.”
“I didn’t see him.”
“He had some kind of cockamamie disguise — a false beard and a wig, or something like that. He followed you to the subway and got on the same car. He got off when you did and followed you to the Port Authority Terminal. He waited in line right behind you and heard you ask for a ticket to Levittown, so he bought one too. He followed you to the bus platform and onto the bus, got off when you did, and trailed you here, keeping a hundred feet or so behind you. When you stopped in front of the Norris house, he went into a phone booth with a view of you and the house, and he called Jim to let him know where he was. He saw you talking to Jessie, and then he watched you go to the garage and look in the window. You ran back to the front door and rushed into the house. A minute or two later, he heard a crash and saw the Norris car come through the garage door, with an unconscious man behind the wheel and you in the passenger seat. At that point, he gave Jim the address and went off to help you. Jim has a new car …”
“A new car?”
“Well, a new used car. I’d just arrived at his place — I had the day off and we were going for a ride in the country. So we went to Levittown instead.”
***
Another knock on the door was followed by the grand entrance of my two pseudo-fiances. The March of the Fiances. Didn’t Richard Rodgers write something like that for The King and I? They looked at me and — in well-rehearsed unison — said, “Terri, will you marry me?”
I stared at them in something close to horror. Were they out of their minds? This was the most surreal piece of a totally bizarre day. “No!” I shouted. “Go away!” I pulled my blankets over my head. Was this all part of some crazy dream? Had my entire life since my fourteenth birthday been a dream? I heard retreating footsteps and a closing door, and everything was quiet again. I was utterly exhausted, and I fell asleep.
To be continued
Category: Fiction