Anita Rose, Part III

I know, finally!

Anita Rose, part III
by Jill C.

My throat is sore, and I would like to go back to sleep. But no, I have to sit on a hard folding chair and stare around the circle of girls, waiting for someone to say something. That someone will not be me.

My throat hurts with every breath and swallow. I can still feel the feeding tube taped to my cheek and forced into my nasal cavity before snaking down my throat. I can still feel it, even though it got taken out yesterday. They made my throat hurt, and now they want me to eat. And talk.

I sit curled on the plasticky fake leather of the chair beside my bed. The tape on my cheek has left an angry red mark, and I push my face hard into the cool upholstery. I want it to make the redness go away, but I know that it will only make it worse.

Tennis shoes are tapping down the hall outside my room. Quick, purposeful taps of lithe, fit nurses, not the measured sounds, usually accompanied by humming, that meant that Momma Betty was making her way down the hall. I want to be home. Not here. Anywhere but here.

Someone knocks on the door. "Anita," a muffled female voice says before the door is pushed open.
"Anita," the pale brunette nurse says again. I look up at her; she is doubly blurry because of my lack of glasses and the fact that my eyes were recently shoved into my knees. "Time for group, sweetie." She looks around my room, taking in the mess of clothes strewn across the bed. "Did the dresser spit them all back out?" she asks, trying to amuse me. I just shake my head.

She looks at me again, this time seeing that I'm still wearing pajamas. "Come on, let's get dressed," she says. She tosses me a pair of jeans and a soft yellow sweatshirt. She turns away and begins to fold my clothes as I dress. When I finish, she is holding my hairbrush. "Here, let me fix your hair." I take a step toward her, and she immediately repositions herself behind me. She tugs softly on my coarse black curls. A moment later, my hair is neatly gathered in a loose braid down my back. Then she hands me my glasses. This nurse who knows me only as fifteen, female, anorexic has fixed my hair for me. Momma Betty, my foster mother, never did as much.

The nurse leads me down the hall to the sitting room where a few other too-thin girls are gathered on their hard folding chairs. I take my seat and look down at the scraped linoleum floor. I don't want to see them, and I don't want them to see me. I don't want to be involved in this fake family that will dissipate as soon as I'm "cured".

I think back to my own family. Dylan said he would call me, said he would call every day. Nothing. No calls for me. No calls from anyone. Cleavland probably didn't know that I was gone. Rosie probably doesn't either; she was still laying on the kitchen floor when Momma Betty drove me to the hospital. I wonder if anyone really misses me.

Here I get offered ice cream with every meal. I am told that it's okay if I don't want to talk during therapy, that I can draw a picture instead. I get my hair fixed by a strange nurse. But I'm here because I'm bad. And I want to go home.

One of the doctors comes into the sitting room. Everyone sits up a little straighter, waiting to be asked to speak. I slump down further. I would rather go back to bed.
"Good morning," the short haired, blond doctor says. She has a bit of an accent. German, maybe? Or Russian? I like to listen to this doctor talk. She sounds very happy all the time. The muddled "Good morning" echoes back from the other girls, all of them sounding sad and wistful.

A tall, black nurse that looks like a basketball player enters the sitting room. "'Scuse me, doc," she says before looking at me, "Anita, sweetheart? You've got a phone call."
I stand up, knowing that all eyes are on me. I don't want to see it, so I push my glasses up on top of my head. I follow the nurse to a small office where the phone sits on the table next to the receiver. "I'll wait right outside," she says, smiling. Then she shuts me in.

I tentatively reach for the phone. "Hello," I say roughly. My throat is still sore, and I haven't used my voice much in the four days that I've been here.
"'Nita?" It's Dylan. He's finally called.
"Hi, Dylan."
"'Nita, are you okay?" His voice sounds strained. Like he's been crying.
"I'm okay."
"That's good." He sniffs loudly.

"What's up?" I ask, trying to keep my voice from sounding too gravely.
"'Nita," he starts, "'Nita, Rosie... Rosie's dead."

"What?" I gasp, my heart in my painful throat.
Dylan's voice breaks into sobs. "She's dead. The ambulance just took her away and she was dead."

"What happened?" I whisper.
"They said she...she just...didn't breathe. When she was sleeping. She just...stopped breathing...because she's...she's so... And didn't wake up." The last sentence is a wail.

"Who said--" I start, but I can't finish.
"The ambulance people," Dylan answers, "They were here for a long time. And the Social Workers. The police, too. To make sure Momma Betty didn't do it." Sobs fill my ear again.

"Dylan, where are you right now?" I ask, now aware of the full situation.
"At Bob and Kathy's," he says, naming our next door neighbors.
"And Sam and Jared too?"
"Yeah."

"Dylan, I'm gonna be home real soon, okay?"
"Okay. Bye, 'Nita." He hangs up.

I put the phone back on the receiver. Then I bury my face in my hands. I know what had gone unsaid. Sleep apnea had claimed Rosie because of her obesity. Something so easily reversed, yet something that she was powerless to stop. Like me. Just like me.

I push open the office door. The black nurse is gone, the brunette who fixed my hair in her place. "When can I go home?" I ask. It's the first full sentence I've spoken to the people here.

"That's up to you," she says, "Are you going to get better?"
I start to nod, but I change my mind. "Yes," I say, "I am."
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And.......Done! I think I have a bit of an obsession with irony.

Artwork (really?)

I very rarely draw, but I was messing around with gel pens a few days ago and came out with this. Ten bonus points if you can identify the subject. (Athatra, my love, you're disqualified because I already told you). :)

Anita Rose: Part II

Anita Rose
by Jill C.

I can't sleep. I rarely can sleep. It's been this way all my life. I used to have nightmares about when I lived with my real mother, but they've mostly gone away. I don't think about her hitting me anymore. I think mostly about myself.

I can't sleep. I run the fingers of my right hand down the long scar on my left forearm. I put it there two years ago. I had been grasping for control, of myself, of anything. The pain had been too much; I could never have done it again. My excuse to Momma Betty about shaving the coarse black hair off my arms was only good once as well.

I really can't sleep. I lay flat on my back, the tattered shorts of my pajamas sit on my skeletal hip bones, the waistband stretched taught a full inch from the skin of my stomach. I slide my hand into the gap and pinch just below my navel. Skin stretches up between my fingers easily. Fat. Yuck.

I push myself out of bed and look in the mirror. In the dark and without my glasses, it looks like my pale blue pajamas are floating on their own; my dark tan skin has completely disappeared into the gloom. The image is disconcerting, and the dizziness that came on when I got out of bed suddenly takes hold. I stumble and hold my abdomen, nauseous and seeing stars. God, I'm hungry. I had a few bites of meatloaf at dinner, that should have held me over through the night. Momma Betty had sighed when she saw my nearly full plate next to the sink, but she didn't say anything. She knew meatloaf was my least favorite meal.

The thought of dinner brought something else to my mind. Momma Betty had been standing at the sink, washing dishes, when Rosie had wrapped her pudgy arms around Momma's legs.
"Sweet girl," Momma Betty had said. Rosie beamed, and gave her another squeeze, bumping into the garbage can on the other side of Momma's knees. When Rosie relinquished her grip, her fat fist was stuffed with the meatloaf Momma Betty had scraped from my plate into the garbage just a moment before.

My stomach twists, and sick hunger fills me again. I ease to my bedroom door and peer down the dark hall. No lights, not even streaming from under Momma Betty's bedroom door. Everyone is asleep. I begin to walk down the pitch black hall towards the kitchen, when suddenly there is the sound of a seal being broken and light floods the hall. I squint, and make out the silhouette of Rosie's fat body in front of the open refrigerator.

She turns her head owlishly to look at me, not moving her body at all. She clutches at a large blue sausage shaped thing. I take a step closer, and I can make out the image of the Pillsbury dough boy on the roll of pre-made cookie dough.

"What're you doing," Rosie says in her bland voice. She's been living her for almost a week and I still haven't gotten used to her disconcerting way of talking.

"I'm hungry," I reply.

"You're never hungry." This is true, or at least what I tell everyone. Rosie lets the refrigerator door close, then brings the tube of dough to her mouth. She bites off the sealed end, then squeezes the sweet goo into her mouth. She offers the tube to me. I take it, but don't eat.

"Why do you do that?" I ask. We have all so far avoided saying anything about Rosie's obvious obesity, but I am suddenly too curious to be polite. "You're already so-- I mean..." I trail off.

Rosie smacks the food around her wet, fat mouth. "I know," she says thickly, "I know I'm fat. I just can't help it." Tears well around her deep set eyes. "I never have enough. I want more. I can't sleep, and I want more." Rosie's nose and eyes are streaming.

I look down at the cookie dough in my hands. Thick drops of saliva cling to the blue plastic from where Rosie's mouth touched it. I clamp my mouth around the tube and use my teeth to force the dough up into my mouth. I swallow immediately, and I feel chocolate chips scraping my throat on the way down. I squeeze more dough into my mouth, then shove the tube back into Rosie's eager hands. Tears fill my eyes as well.

We are opposites, yet the same. We both want, crave, but not the thing. The control. The power. We take turns shoving the raw dough down our throats until it is gone. Then we cry. We sit on the kitchen floor and let tears stream down our cheeks, weeping for what we've done, what we want, what is.

Rosie finally falls asleep, curled on the rug in front of the refrigerator. I think of putting her back in her improvised sun porch of a bedroom, but I can't move her bulk. So I leave her and head back to my own room. The faint tinge of dawn glows behind the blinds on my window. Cleavland will be home soon, and Momma Betty will be up to make breakfast. I laugh a little when I think of Momma finding Rosie sleeping in the kitchen.

The laugh hurts my stomach; it's so full, and stretched tighter than it has been in years. Disgust grips me. How could I have done that? How stupid! You're stupid. You're fat...

And then I'm in the bathroom kneeling in front of the toilet, so sickened by what I've done that I don't even have to stick my finger down my throat to purge myself. I'm ill again and again, until I begin to see stars. I lay my head on the edge of the toilet seat and close my eyes.

Tennis shoes are clapping down the wood floor of the hallway. The bathroom door is pushed open, and it collides with my leg. I groan in pain, but whether it's from my leg or my stomach, I can't tell. I see Momma Betty's long red bathrobe out of the corner of my eye. I hear her sigh, then feel a gentle hand on my back.

"Oh, 'Nita, baby, I don't know if I can take this anymore."
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