Chapter 6 We all have skeletons in our closets

 

            Late hours came a upon me as I worked on scrap booking. I don't mean to spend so much time doing something, but my mind keeps racing.

            After work I went to the hospital. They told me they were moving Kiya, and where they were moving her she could only have guests once a week.

            I got in a fight with one of the nurses, and then a doctor. They said that Kiya didn't need to be around too many germs right now. Normally Kiya would have started getting better. Her stay at the hospital has been for almost two weeks and now the doctors and nurses are acting like small germs that cause diarrhea or a cold could kill her.

            The nurses were sympatric and let me talk to Kiya. She was in a clear room of windows, that the only way I could explain it. Off from the corner of the Intensive care unit, Kiya was in a room like cage. Three clear tall walls of plastic cut her off from every one else. There was a door, but the only way I could get near her was the robot like gloves that extended from the wall. The room was as big as the room she had came from, but she was so exposed.

            When the one of nurses took me to see Kiya she told me that Kiya had just fallen asleep. From the tone of her voice I could tell she shouldn't have let me back there.

            Lonely and frightened I stood behind the plastic looking and started crying. The nurse stood beside me, never moving, and looking around as if she was looking for someone who could catch us.

            "Why?" I whispered. "This is so inhuman. What is she, an animal?"

            "It's for her health."

            "Her health? What bull! She has no contact with anyone here." I stopped crying.

            I ended up arguing with the nurse. She told me I was becoming too loud and that I would wake the other patients.

I didn't care, so I kept on. I would ask question she couldn't answer. And with every question my voice became louder thanks to anger. She told me to leave, but I said no. The middle-aged nurse warned me again. Again I wouldn't budge.

              Finally she called the Security. They called Dad. When he came to pick me up, I could see the disappointment in his face. Dad called Mom during her lunch. Mom said since she would home late that Dad should do the punishing. Dad's not one for messing with punishment, he rather Mom do it. Finally He said "No piano for a week." Then went off to write his novel. In five minutes he came back and changed the punishment. "I need the piano to help me out with writers block." He said shamefully. "So I'll take way your TV for a week, and you have... to edit my first chapter."  

              So after dinner I sat at the table going over Dad grammar mistakes while Mom lectured me about respect. I just nodded solemnly. She wasn't really into scolding me either. She was busy try to make candles.

              Last night she got the craft store's credit card and charged sixty dollars on it for the sake of candle making.

            While I changed Dad's spelling mistakes Mom cried in pain.

            "What's wrong?" I asked turning around.

            "I brunt my finger." She mumbled. "That's going to be a third degree easily. I guess tomorrow I'll get some treatment for it." She sighed deeply.

            "Oh Will by the way I found a few pictures." She said walking off. She came back with a pile in her arms. "I wasn't sure if you needed more photos.”

I started looking at them. “Not really, but thanks.” At the middle of the pile was a faded photo of a very skinny girl.

“Who is this Mom?” I asked pulling it out. At first I thought it was Mom’s sister in Vermont. Then I looked closer. The girl was warning the prom dress Mom said she wore to her senior prom.

“Oh that’s me.” She said taking it from me.

“Wow you were skinny.” I said looking at the other photos. The rest were newer. 

Mom took the photo from my hand. Her gaze looked over it slowly. As a final point she threw it away. Before leaving the kitchen she grabbed milk and a snack cake even though we just ate.

            Mom never does like talking about her anorexic years. When the topic goes to an eating disorder she’ll change the topic as soon as possible. One time I asked where what it was to be anorexic and she told me, “It was hard. I hope it never happens to you. That was along time ago, I don’t think about it now.” Then she quickly changed the topic to the grocery list she should write out. Every time she’s reminded she had an eating disorder she would do something afterwards about food, usually she will eat, or make dinner, or count the canned vegetables. Dad says she does this to remind her self that she needs to eat. Apparently even if her disease almost killed her, five years of over exercising and starvation is hard to reverse.

            Because Mom refuses to fill all the blanks in about her past, Dad helped out. Mom was a slightly over weight child in school. Her mom was a health nut who was always try out a new fade or crash diet ‘just to lose five pounds’. Around seventh grade Mom started gaining, until she was about 20 pounds over weight. Her mom pressured her into doing a fade diet, but Mom said “No, that’s dangerous.” Kids would make fun of her because she made really good grades and she was slightly overweight.

She couldn’t take it anymore so she just started a 48 liquid diet in 9^th grade, and that lead to over the top diet that were mostly her not eating for days and exercising for hours. It ended when she was in freshman year of collage. Her mom hospitalized her because she was 5 feet 7 inches and 90 pounds, and that was the turning point. She was so under weight her ovaries were effected, so she became infertile.

Soon after she changed her major from history to medical. Dad and Mom married two years after they graduated from Pennsylvania State. Dad said she was struggling even three years into the marriage. Mom got another psychologist, dietarian, and family doctor. Apparently her mom cut her off from the help she needed after she graduated collage. She said becoming a doctor and seeing about three wasn’t the cheapest life style.   

Then they Mom and Dad stopped with the doctors six months before they got Kiya. To this day she’s fine, but still her memories aren’t that happy.   

 

Author's Note

Forgive me for anything you thought was wrong.