it without wanting to scream. I figure it’s kind of like every other injury I’ve ever received. You take the first twenty-four hours and go easy on it, then start to use it a little more every day until its back to normal.” Zeke handed me the piece of paper with the doctor’s instructions. I folded them up and put them in my pocket.
“Nadine, I couldn’t help but notice the big round scar on your leg when you were dressing. What’s that from?” Zeke asked as he walked back to the kitchen to check on the bacon sizzling on the stove. He turned to look at me through the bar.
“Tiger attack,” I sighed, it would have to be explained. Anthony gave a snort, he already knew the story.
“Uh, do I want to hear this?” Zeke asked.
“Probably not. You can’t seem to mix gross stories and food.” I responded.
“Good thing I’m not eating then.”
“Fine,” I sighed, feeling tired and hungry. “I was working for an animal rescue center during the summer when I was in high school. My job was to make sure the habitats were free of trash and stuff. I had someone else with me and was cleaning out the tiger enclosure. The person with me was supposed to watch the tiger, let me know if he was getting too interested in us, so we could leave. I found a dead bird, flipped it over to pick it up and found maggots on it. I kind of freaked out, forgot where I was and took off running. I ran right towards the tiger, which was on the other side of the habitat. My running got it very interested in me and my fear peaked it even further. The person with me was also slacking just a bit. Anyway, I got close and he pounced; latched on to my thigh with his jaws and yanked. Luckily for me, he just tore away the skin and some muscle instead of dragging me. It left a ragged circle where he liberated a hunk of my leg. What I remember most is that it hurt, what I remember the least is how I got out of the tiger cage.”
“That would…” Zeke thought for a moment, I knew he was groping for the right word. Everyone groped for a word to describe it. “Huh, I don’t know what to say to that.” He gave a small laugh. “What happened to the tiger?”
“Nothing, they wanted to put him down, but I did everything in my power to keep that from happening. In the end, a sign was hung up and a new enclosure built to ensure that the tiger was cordoned off when people were in his pen. I felt bad for the tiger, it wasn’t his fault.”
I ate my food quietly. When I finished, Anthony carried me up the stairs. I tucked myself into bed and closed my eyes. My limbs were still sore, but I was too tired to notice.
Melina Visits
Raucous laughter emanated from the downstairs, wrenching me from the narcotic-induced dreams I was having. I wasn’t sure being woken up was a bad thing. I was sure that the laughter was, it belonged to my mother.
Dragging myself from bed, I looked at my pajamas. They covered all the important bits. They’d do to go downstairs and kick my mother out of my house. Of course, I wouldn’t actually kick her out, that was impossible, but I would fantasize about it. The fantasy was always better than the reality anyway.
I limp-skipped to the top of the stairs. Once there, I just stared. Normally, I’d sit on my butt and just scoot down the stairs. However, my arm was also injured, so that didn’t seem like an option. That left two options; limp skipping down them or yelling for help. I really didn’t want to yell for help, but I figured I’d be back in the hospital if I attempted the other.
“Uh, could someone come get me?” I yelled down the stairs. Zeke appeared at the bottom. “Someone with more muscle?” Zeke was thin and muscular. Anthony was wide and muscular. Considering the feat included stairs, I wanted wide and muscular.
“I can carry you down a flight of steps,” Zeke frowned at me.
“I’m sure you can, but I’m already injured so why take chances?” I asked. Zeke shook his head and walked up the stairs. He grabbed me, sweeping me off my feet, pivoted like a dancer, and we headed down the stairs. I closed my eyes for the adventure, not wanting to see the hardwood floor rushing up at me when we fell. With one movement, my feet were on the floor.
“See?” Zeke put me down on the floor without injury.
“Well, I’m shocked,” I admitted. My mother was cooking. This was a really bad sign. My mother only cooked when she was up to something.
“Nadine,” she cooed at me. I felt like throwing up, and I didn’t think it was the narcotics or the pain.
“Mom, what are you doing?”
“Cooking,” she spread her arms wide. “Alex and Sebastian are on their way. You girls have really gotten yourselves into a mess this time.” I looked at Anthony. Anthony would not meet my gaze.
“We usually eat junk food and pizza on football days,” I told her.
“I’m making pizza,” she answered. It didn’t smell like pizza. “Oh my goodness!” She suddenly shouted.
“What?” We all three turned and started looking around for some type of danger.
“Nadine Duscha Daniels! How could you?” She scolded me while walking towards me.
“I didn’t do anything!” I defended myself, not sure what I was being accused of.
“You introduced him as your roommate!” My mother looked like she was going to cry. I was still confused.
“He is my roommate!” I looked at Zeke for help. He suddenly paled.
“You and your roommate wear matching wedding rings?” She snapped, grabbing my hand. I had forgotten all about the wedding ring. I was in trouble, thankfully, I was bringing Zeke with me.
“I can explain,” I started.
“I can’t believe you eloped!” She did start crying now. “Your grandfather will be so disappointed. And what about the rest of us? We didn’t get to see you walk down the aisle or anything. Does Alex know about this? She does, doesn’t she? She probably got to attend.” My grandfather was a priest in the Russian Orthodox Church. He’d become a priest after leaving Russia. My grandmother had already died and he said he would never find another woman to love like her, so he took orders instead. My family might have a few crazy genes.
“Mom, I’m not married, this was just put on so that Zeke could sleep in my hospital room.” I pulled at the ring, but it wouldn’t come off.
“Are you ashamed because you eloped?” She narrowed her eyes at me. “We can make this right. I’ll call your grandfather, and we’ll make all the arrangements for a ceremony. No one has to know that you eloped.”
“I’m not ashamed of eloping,” I tried not to shout at her and took a deep breath to continue. In my family, eloping was probably the way to go.
“Is it because he’s black?” My mother attempted to whisper this, but the cosmonauts on Sputnik could have heard her.
“What?” I stared at her. I didn’t know how to answer that. She was Russian, there weren’t a lot of black men in Russia. There also wasn’t many that were Tahitian American, but she had lived in the US for the last forty years. We hadn’t been raised in a house that acknowledged race, so I wasn’t sure why she thought this was the problem.
“Love is love,” she started.
“No, mom, it’s not because he’s black!” I did shout this. “It’s because we did not get married. He really is my roommate.”
“Oh no,” she frowned at me, “you’re the reason he got divorced, aren’t you? You were the other woman. It started out as innocent flirting at work, then it became more serious and you started having an affair, didn’t you? Are you pregnant? Is that why he left his wife?”
“What?” My mouth fell open, unable to imagine how she had made this leap of logic. Anthony was on his phone. I had a feeling he was texting someone. I wanted to plead for help, but I knew that would get me nowhere.
“Nadine,” my mother took my hand. “You don’t look pregnant, but we’ll have to rush the wedding to make sure you’re not showing when we do the ceremony.”
“I’m not pregnant!” I shouted at her.
“He just
left his wife for you?” She asked, her face an unreadable mask all of a sudden.
“No, mom, he didn’t leave his wife for me.”
“Technically, my wife kicked me out because she was having an affair,” Zeke said. “I don’t blame her, I was rarely home, we grew apart, and she fell in love with someone else.”
“That’s so sad,” my mother’s face turned sad again. “Then you found my Nadine.” Zeke didn’t say a word.
“Melina, listen to me very closely,” I said. She was still holding my hand and the smile was back. “I am not pregnant. Zeke and I did not elope. We are not married. He is renting a room from me.”
“How dare you call me Melina; I am your mother young lady.”
“That’s what you took from that statement?” I jerked my hand away and limped over to the wall. Leaning up against it, I texted Ivan. Ivan sent me a crying, laughing face emoticon back while my mother went on and on about arranging the ceremony.
“So you finally told your mother!” Alex shouted as she walked into the house. I wanted to kill her. She wandered into the room, Sebastian behind her, both were smiling.
“Tell her I didn’t elope,” I told Alex.
“Your mess.” Alex’s eyes were wet looking. She had recently laughed until she cried. I knew exactly who Anthony had been texting. I was going to kill them all. I turned to Zeke for help. Zeke’s composure had returned. He relaxed against the back of the couch, and I was pretty sure he