Dis is not fiction, dis is ree-all

NEW YORK, 16May2009 — The austerity of the waiting room was pierced by two wailing children, “He’s gonna die, he’s gonna die!” Anne hardly knew how to comfort her brother’s children, when inside herself, the panic stricken voice shrieked with them, “He’s gonna die!”

She began the story with a deep breath. Anne has a Caribbean accent, “Dis is not fiction, dis is ree-all.” Today, in McDonald’s, Anne is sitting alone leaning on a scarlet red umbrella at a table littered with little crumbly greasy brown bits. A humid day in May, she is bundled in a baggy full length fuchsia sweater over other layers with her neck wrapped in a cheaply made but lavishly patterned silk scarf. One her few remaining teeth refuses to stay inside her mouth, jutting out at a skewed angle. The darker age spots on her coffee-colored cheek bones frame gentle thoughtful eyes. Her eyes drift out the window to the sunless drab day thick with mist as her memories follow to a another day.

“Eet began on Monday, seven yee-ars ahgo.” Anne had tried to walk out the door a few times already, but she kept forgetting things at home. She did not realize that she would not get to work that day. On her last trip inside, the phone rang through the house.

The voice on the other end said, “Do you know your brother is in the hospital?” Anne’s mind spun and she quickly remembered that her younger brother Andre had gone up to Canada “for a good time” on Friday, but had returned. The voice on the other end told Anne that her brother had slipped down the stairs and crashed to the basement floor, losing consciousness. Anne hung up, called her friend in a daze and asked for a ride to the hospital. Tense silence filled the car, as they made their way to the hospital. The only words that hung in the air were Anne’s directions to the hospital. Only then as her shocked numbness ebbed, did Anne remembered to her horror, “I only have one dollar in my pocket.”

“I have no money, ” she told her friend Sondra. “What am I going to do?” Sondra reassured her telling her not to worry and that she would help. Relieved, Anne walked into the hospital to another shock.

“He had a white bandage wrapped around the top of his head,” Anne demonstrates by a movement that looks like she’s shampooing. But invading the white, was a dark red stain on the right side of his head that was saturating the bandage. All Anne could think was the worst. Laying there was her beloved brother, “A2″, their parents’ nickname — making Anne, “A1.” Her dear brother.

“He was not very expressive, but he never wanted me to suffer. We were always close.” Though sometimes his words were harsh, “Why don’t you fix yourself,” somehow A2 always found a way to help out A1. Whether she needed clothes, food, or way to look special for a celebration, Andre never failed his sister. And now, the older sister in Anne was helpless as her brother lay unconscious in front of her.

The surgeons rushed Andre into the operating room, the MRI had revealed internal bleeding in his brain. They were worried. The atmosphere was heart rending in the waiting room as Andre’s son and daughter, 4 and 8 years old, repeatedly wailed, “Auntie, auntie. He’s gonna die, he’s gonna die.” Paralyzed with fear, they refused to see him. Anne stewed in disbelief when Andre’s wife excused herself from the hospital because she was tired. Anne and Sondra could not bear being in the hospital any longer, and the children were “devastated and impossible to comfort.” They sought refuge in a McDonald’s where Sondra was true to her word and bought food for the children.

Together, they returned to the hospital waiting anxiously. The doctor emerged from operating. Andre would recover. Anne leaped out of her chair and surrounded the doctor in a hug, “Thank you, thank you!” IN the embrace of the ample Caribbean woman, the doctor told Anne, “I did a good job.” He found Andre’s thick skull quite impressive.

For two weeks Andre lay recovering in the hospital. But Anne’s relief darkened to suspicion when the Police Investigators reported their findings. The words were heavy: “Accident suspicious.” Her eyes widen and beads of sweat wet Anne’s forehead as she recalls.

Suddenly she is animated about Andre’s wife, “Her story changed two or three times! First someone asked Andre to get something from the basement. Later, she blamed Andre for being drunk.” Seven years after this, Anne is still thinking about this and worried for her brother, “I’ve said too much, and that’s all I’m going to say.”