Chapter 9: Chapter 9
The sharp and astringent smell of antiseptics and iodine, mixed with the strong smell of medicines filled the air, as Monica was wheeled into the intensive care unit of Majesty Hospital. Nurses in sparkling white dresses paced up and down, edgily and busily, with one bottle of medicine or two, and with syringes in their hands. The doctor was already inside, attending to Monica. His stethoscope was placed on her chest, as the nurses injected her vein with medicines.
Helen sat on the gleaming tile floor of the hospital, sobbing, as the orderlies and Monica’s guards tried to comfort her, and assure her of her daughter’s well-being. Several times, a nurse or two, walked out of the intensive care unit and Helen ran to them to ask about Monica. But the nurses always made things worse and graver with their muted and hazy responses. Sometimes, they did not even speak at all. And it made Helen more restless and shattered, that she imagined the worst. She imagined Monica lying on the bed, dead and stiff and covered with a white cloth. And the doctor with his glass on the bridge of his nose, shuffling out of the intensive care unit, tired and sweating and telling her the usual clichéd and heartrending words: ‘We did our best. Sorry, we lost her. Accept our sympathy.’ If that happened and the doctor say those trite and lame words to her, she would spit on his face and rent all his clothes, she told herself as she rose sharply from the floor. Her hands were on her head, as she went over to the door of the intensive care unit and peered nervously through the hard, whitish glasses.
The young doctor was whispering to the nurses, and Helen’s stomach made a strange, rumbling sound. Her feet grew cold and stiff, as she recalled the incident: Monica reading Melvin’s text, and then screaming and passing out. She still could not piece them together, or make out what had happened. She needed to hear from Monica or see the message herself. But her thoughts were clinging stubbornly to a strange, macabre feeling. Was Melvin dead? That was the worst thing that could shatter her daughter and bring her to this breaking point. But surely, Melvin was not dead. The dead cannot send a text, she reasoned. Was Melvin critically unwell and lying somewhere in a hospital in London? Was it a breakup text from him? But that did not seem likely. As they were both madly in love with each other and were preparing insanely for their dream wedding.
Just then, the door of the intensive care unit clicked open, and the young and light-complexioned doctor came out. Helen broke out of her thoughts and ran to him.
‘It’s OK. She’s out of the woods for now. But she needs love and nothing that will irritate her. She was shocked by something terrible. It was a tailspin. It caused her a deadly high blood pressure. I am sorry, but she has a partial paralysis now,’ the doctor revealed finally. Helen yelped, as tears seeped from her eyes. She imagined her chirpy and healthy daughter lying on the bed all day, or trundled about on a wheelchair because she was now paralyzed.
‘Do you mean to say my daughter is now incapable of eating and bathing on her own? That she’s now an invalid?’ she asked the doctor restively. The doctor shook his head nervously and swallowed spittle. Helen stared into his fair face and watched his Adam’s apple quirk.
‘Do not see it that way. It’s only temporary. You have to be upbeat. These things happen and patients recover fast. She needs love and care, and before long she will make a full recovery. It’s only a partial paralysis. If you keep her happy and she takes proper medications, she’ll be back on her feet in no distant time,’ he said. The doctor held Helen’s hand tenuously and smiled at her warmly. ‘You may see her now,’ he added, as he walked away to the next ward.
Helen traipsed into the intensive care unit and stood beside Monica whose eyes were closed, and whose hand was pierced with a needle. The medicine in the bag hung on the iron-stand was dribbling slowly through the tube and into her daughter’s body. The tears prickling her eyes seeped down her face, and she wiped them slowly with the back of her fist. Her eyes and face had become puffy like dough. She stared at the electrocardiogram balanced on the table and her mind travelled back to what the doctor said that Monica needed love, and she scoffed. The statement sounded annoying, ironic and sarcastic. Why were they at the hospital in the first place? Why was she so sad and why was Monica passing through pain and misery? It was all because Monica had given it out, wholeheartedly and unselfishly; the same thing the doctor said was not only her cure but the elixir to her pain and unhappiness: Love. It was weird how what Monica had the moral justification to loathe was the same thing she desperately needed in order to be happy and fulfilled. Helen shook her head disappointingly and sighed. It was clear to her, that sometimes, we just cannot hate the things we’d love to hate.
Helen came out of the intensive care unit, few minutes later, and gestured at one of the guards to go home and get the things she would need in the hospital and to get Monica’s phone as well. She needed to see the text and have the full grasp of what was really happening. She went back into the intensive care unit, and after praying silently and watching Monica for a long time, her legs became heavy and began to ache. She walked out of the unit and went over to the chair leaning on the wall and rested her head on the smooth wall, as sleep overtook her.
Two hours after the guard returned with a few effects, he handed Monica’s phone to Helen. When Helen looked at the text, what she saw terrified her. It filled her with utter horror at the cruelty and heartlessness of men. Her head twirled like a leaf, swaying in the harmattan breeze, when she read the last lines that were all written in bold letters: ‘IT WAS A GREAT BLESSING AND PLEASURE MEETING YOU. THANK YOU FOR THE GREAT TIME, THE SEX, AND THE MONEY. YOU WERE VERY GENEROUS AND FOOLISH.’ In the first lines, Melvin had told Monica he was already married and had two ‘LOVELY’ kids in London. He had no parents. The ones on the Island in Lagos was a ruse. Helen could not believe it. It was near impossible that Melvin had been fooling her and Monica all along. That he had only been following a script. They had both been under his binding spell. Melvin’s heart was dry, and with not a scintilla of humanity. But what Helen did not understand in the text was the money. Did Monica give him money that she never mentioned to her? If she ever did, then it was clear she had not only been shattered, used and dumped, but she had also been conned. Melvin was nothing short of a heartless conman. And for the second time, Monica had fallen into the wrong hands that have left her high and dry. But only that this time, that it was worst. Richard’s own was even a mild treachery. This one was utterly devastating and unforgivable. It was like going from the frying pan and into the fire.
Helen sat still on the chair, sobbing and pitying her poor little child. She looked up at the ceiling, as if to pierce through it and stare into the large, whitish cloud and ask God why it was all happening to her and her innocent daughter. Why is life so unfair and love so cruel? She shook her head slowly and clasped her hands tightly, praying in her heart, cursing Melvin and hoping that Monica would be whole again. But most importantly, she prayed that she would never lose faith in men and love.
Just then, a nurse walked up to her, as the tears in her eyes splattered on the tile floor.
‘Madam, your daughter is now awake,’ she said softly to her. Helen rose sharply from the chair, wiped her eyes with the back of her fist and rushed inside the intensive care unit to see her suffering and heartbroken daughter.