Hero

Chapter Two

The Hospice Nurses of Greater Philadelphia was located in the Historic Germantown section of Philadelphia directly adjacent to Wissahickon and Mount Airy. Natsinet had never been to this part of the city before. The houses were old but beautiful. Colonial mansions stood mere blocks from old brick row homes that once housed soldiers from the Revolutionary War. Even the buildings that had been allowed to deteriorate still held the vestiges of their former beauty. Not like the hastily-built cookie-cutter houses covered in aluminum siding they manufactured today. She could not imagine any of them still standing in a hundred years.

Sugar Maples, River Birch, White Oak and Northern Red Oaks filled with foraging squirrels gathering acorns lined every street, their leaves already turning fire and gold with the season. When she inhaled, Natsinet could smell the leaves and the grass from the freshly cut lawns. It reminded her of the vision she’d had of America before she’d come here. A far cry from the reality she’d discovered.

The building that housed the Hospice Nurses was an old plantation that now served as a nursing home. It was three stories high with fancy cornices and columns, a combination of Georgian architecture and a sort of Italianette country Palazzo complete with a grand arch doorway. The stone veneer was old and crumbling in places. The front of the building was covered in ivy all the way up to the second floor windows. Natsinet paused a moment to marvel at the beauty of the place.

It was quiet and even a bit stern and austere owing to its undoubtedly Quaker heritage; still, it had amazing charm. It was sad to her that such a wonderfully charming building had now been converted into a home where the unwanted came to die.

Natsinet walked up the long driveway to the front porch and rang the doorbell. A woman in an old-fashioned nursing uniform opened the door, white skirt, white stockings, thick heavy-looking white shoes, complete with one of those old nurse’s hats with the black stripe and little wings. The woman looked as old as the building she stood in and just as sturdy. She fit the old plantation as naturally as if she had been installed right along with the oak doors and lead glass windows.

Her hair was white with streaks of blonde still running through it here and there. Her eyes had deep crow’s feet in the corners that had grown over the years and merged with the rest of the wrinkles and hard lines radiating out like spider webs across her face. A pair of wire rimmed spectacles perched precariously on the end of her nose. She looked impossibly ancient, as if she should have been one of the patients rather than a care-giver. She was surely older than many of those she cared for.

“Yes, may I help you?”

Her smile was surprisingly vibrant and friendly. Her eyes smiled with her. Natsinet had not met many friendly people since she’d come to America. Most of the people she’d met in Philadelphia were hostile and guarded at first, as if they were afraid she was going to try to take something from them. Natsinet had learned over the years the knack of getting the distrustful to trust in her, which was difficult since she was not a very warm person herself. She was capable and intelligent, and she’d found that people respected her for that.

“I saw an ad in the Enquirer that said you were looking for hospice nurses?

I brought my resume and references.”

“Oh. Well, come in. Come in.”

The nurse led Natsinet into the vestibule and then down a long hallway. The floors were all maple hardwood shined to a high gloss. The walls were painted antique white and were accented by ornate hand-carved crown molding and chair railing the same color as the floors. All of the woodwork appeared to be part of the original architecture. Natsinet couldn’t imagine where you would find that kind of craftsmanship in America these days.

“My name is Doris. I run this place. I’ve worked here for over fifty years. I was about your age when I started here, fresh out of nursing school.”

“Very pleased to meet you, Doris. My name is Natsinet.”

She shook Doris’s hand and was surprised by the firmness of the handshake. The old nurse peered over her glasses at Natsinet as she returned the handshake.

Natsinet was tall and slender like a supermodel. Her eyes were large and almond shaped, almost slanted, and green as emeralds. Her nose was long and narrow, but her lips were full and her hair was the color of wheat though still thick and wooly. Her skin, however, was as white as buttermilk. Natsinet knew that Doris was trying to figure out what nationality she was.

“That’s an unusual name. What kind of accent is that? I don’t think I’ve ever heard it before.”

“I was born in Eritrea but my mother is American.”

“Eritrea? You mean Ethiopia? I used to send money to Ethiopia years ago.”

“No. Not Ethiopia. Different country. My father was Eritrean. He was a physician. He met my mother while she was in the Peace Corp.”

Natsinet tried to hide the irritation in her voice but she hated when people called her Ethiopian. She knew what most Americans thought of when they imagined Ethiopians; emaciated scarecrows with flies on their faces, starving to death and living in filth. Either that or they lumped them in with American Blacks who were little more than beggars and thieves in Natsinet’s view, barely more than the slaves they descended from. She had grown up among the privileged class. Her father was a respected physician in Eritrea and her mother came from an upper-middle class family in America. She’d been educated in European schools and spoke eight different languages. She hated being compared to lower-class American Blacks.

“Your mother was a White woman?”

The old nurse stared at Natsinet as if trying to solve a complicated puzzle.

“Yes.”

“So what do you consider yourself? White or Black?”

“I consider myself Eritrean.”

Natsinet tilted her head up and glared at the old nurse, challenging her to disagree.

“And that’s to say not African American?”

The old nurse peered over her tiny spectacles, smirking at Natsinet, clearly enjoying the exchange.

“No. Not African American. I am bi-racial. My mother was White and my father was Eritrean.”

“Sounds like an African American to me, but you certainly don’t look or talk like any of the ones I know of.”

“Nor would I ever. There is very little African in what you call an African American. My people were never conquered, never enslaved. My mother is from right here in Philadelphia. Her family lives in Chestnut Hill. Her father was a lawyer and a politician, not a crack dealer or a pimp. I am the descendent of doctors and businessmen, not slaves.”

There was a pause as Natsinet continued staring down her nose at the old nurse, her brilliant green eyes hard as chips of glass, waiting for a response. She knew she had said too much, but she also knew that when it came to her feelings about African Americans she could often count on a sympathetic ear among elderly Caucasians. They may not be as vocal as she was, but she knew that most of them felt the same as she. Often they were relieved by the fact that she did not consider herself one.

“Fair enough. So let’s go have a seat so we can take a look at your resume.”

The old nurse led them into a library. The walls were lined with bookshelves made of dark oak. The floors and molding were likewise a deep dark brown that was almost black. Books filled every shelf from floor to ceiling. There were medical books going back two centuries, bibles, almanacs, and works of classic literature; Twain, Dickens, Shakespeare, and Tolstoy.

In the center of the room were several large brown leather chairs. Doris gestured for Natsinet to have a seat in one as she took a seat across from her in another, already leafing through her resume.

“So, you were an ER nurse?”

“Yes, for four…almost five years.”

“This would be quite a change from the emergency room. I’m afraid you might get bored. What made you decide to want to become a hospice nurse and why did you leave the hospital?”

Because of the filth and vermin I had to deal with. Gangbangers coming in every day with stab-wounds and gunshots. We’d patch them up only for them to go out and get shot again or to shoot someone else. Drug addicts having seizures and cardiac arrests. Drunk-drivers killing themselves and anyone else unlucky enough to be on the road with them. Whores with all manner of diseases. Kids neglected by their parents, nearly killing themselves by drinking bleach, or sticking forks in lightsockets, or falling down stairs or in bathtubs after being left alone for hours. We dealt with the scum of the earth in ER and I just got sick of it.

“The ER can be rather intense. These days it’s like being a battlefield nurse. It starts to drain you after a while. I just needed a change…something a little less…intense.”

Doris was scrutinizing her again, staring from her eyes to her mouth as she spoke, looking for the lie in either of them. The old nurse relaxed and looked back at the papers in her lap, apparently satisfied with Natsinet’s explanation.

“You worked as an au-pair for a few years also?”

“Yes. I worked for Dr. and Mrs. Lewzinsky in their home, caring for their three children for four years while I was in nursing school. There’s a letter of recommendation from them in there.”

“I see. You graduated from University of Penn?”

“Yes, I graduated in ninety-nine.”

“So, you went right into the ER after college?”

“I worked in the terminal ward for a few years but then I was transferred down to ER. They were short-staffed down there and I had the educational background for it so I wasn’t given much of a choice.”

“Uh-huh.”

This time Doris didn’t even look up at her. She scanned quickly through the recommendations from her teachers and a few of the doctors she worked under in the ER, along with the one from the Lewzinsky’s, then she placed the resume aside on a nearby end table.

“So you’ve never done elderly care before?”

“Not really. Not unless the terminal ward counts. Most of the patients in there were elderly except the ones who had cancer or AIDS.”

“Well, this won’t be very much different than that except here you will have only one patient at a time that you will be assigned to anywhere from two or three hours a day, to twenty-four hours around the clock, depending on your assignment. We will, of course, teach you everything you need to know before we send you out on an assignment, but with your credentials you should have no problem with any of it.”

“So, when do I start?”

“You just did. We’ll get you a locker for your things and start you right here caring for our patients in the nursing home. We have people coming in every day looking for nurses, so the sooner we can get you into the swing of things, the better.”

Doris stood and led the way down the hall.

“Do you mind if I call you Natty? Natsinet is quite a mouthful.”

Natsinet grimaced but said nothing. There were very few things she minded more than having her name butchered, but she had learned over the years that Americans were fond of abbreviations. It was pointless to fight it. “No problem,” she said.

“Wonderful,” Doris replied. She offered Natsinet what appeared to be her first genuine smile. “Why don’t I show you the rest of the facility then?”