Welcome to the World, Baby Girl!

Wake Up and Live

New York City

1978

When Dena woke, she wondered where she was. She could not quite figure it out. Then she heard a familiar voice.

“Well, hello there, Miss Hickory Nut.” Dr. Diggers was sitting in the wheelchair by her bed. She smiled. “You sure scared the hell out of a lot of people.”

Dena was groggy. “I did?”

“You did. Do you remember what happened?”

“No … kind of … no.”

“You hemorrhaged and you passed out. Do you remember that?”

Dena was still confused.

“You just go on back to sleep and rest. You are going to be fine.”

Macky and Norma had been packed, waiting for the doctor to tell them they could come, but he asked them to wait a little while longer until she was stronger. Sookie paid no attention to the doctor. The next day her brother, Buck, flew her to New York and when she walked in the room she burst into tears. Dena looked like a ghost. She had lost fifteen pounds in the past few days. After a while, when she had composed herself, Sookie sat by her bed. “Dena … you have just got to get better. If you die on me after I have crossed the Mason-Dixon line to come up here and see you, I’ll just be furious!”

Sookie had cheered her up, but at night when Dena was all alone in her room, she was still filled with that old black dread. Dena knew she could not stay in New York. She had to get out, get as far away from Capello as she could. She needed time and distance to try and figure out what she was going to do. She had to do something or the fear would eventually kill her. Sookie begged her to come back to Selma for a while, but Dena found herself saying the oddest thing, something she had never even thought of saying. “Sookie, that is so sweet. But I really want to go home, can you understand? I really need to go home for a while.”

She asked Dr. Diggers about it and she had agreed. “Dena, I think that’s the best possible thing you could do right now.” And, like a good omen, the next morning a telegram arrived:

YOUR ROOM IS READY. WHEN ARE YOU COMING?

LOVE, NORMA AND MACKY

The day before she was to leave, she heard a knock on her door. Gerry O’Malley came in the room with an enormous bouquet of roses.

“Hi. How are you doing?”

“Hi, come on in. I’m fine. Or nearly fine.”

“I heard you were pretty sick.”

“Yes. I was … but I’m leaving tomorrow, going to Elmwood Springs.”

“Yes, that’s what I heard.” He put the flowers down on a chair.

“Thank you, they’re beautiful. I’ll get a nurse to put them in some water.”

Gerry was happy to see that she looked a hundred percent better than the last time, when she was still unconscious. Color had come back into her cheeks and the sight of her sitting there in bed looking like her old self took his breath away. He was suddenly nervous.

“So, I heard you were pretty sick.”

“ ‘Yes, I was. Bleeding ulcer.”

“That’s what I heard. Elizabeth Diggers said you were really sick.”

“Yes, I was.”

“Well, you look good. How do you feel?”

“Much better.”

“I just dropped by to see how you were doing. When do you think you’re coming back?”

“I don’t know. I’m really not sure.”

“Ah … well. If there’s anything I can do for you while you are gone, just let me know. You have my number. Just call … and, uh, call me and let me know how you are doing. If you think about it. Or call Dr. Diggers. Keep us posted, OK?”

“I will.”

Gerry left the hospital, aching. He knew by looking in her eyes that she was a hundred miles away. He had no idea when he would see her again or if he would ever see her again, and there was not a thing he could do about it. He had the feeling it was hopeless, but so much in love, he still hoped that maybe someday, some year, she might give him another chance.

That night Dena could not sleep. As she lay in the room, waiting for daylight to come, she thought about what Elizabeth Diggers had asked her that first time. Who are you? She thought she had known then. But who was she now? She had no idea. She had lost herself somewhere along the way.

She was like the front of a bombed-out building, still standing but empty inside. All she knew was the truth of what Dr. DeBakey had told her. If she didn’t slow down, she’d be dead. She had come close.

The next morning, good old Buck flew to New York again and picked her up and flew her home. To Elmwood Springs.