Needy Little Things(61)

She smiles, clearly pleased with herself. “Yes, Sariyah. My door is always open.”

I grab Santa Bag and leave her office. It might earn me another call home, but I stop resisting the urge to fulfill needs. I don’t want to fight.

Deck of cards. Peppermint. Watch. Teddy bear. Magnet.



* * *



“Jo?” It’s oddly quiet when I enter the apartment after school. No cartoons or video games going, no microwave beeping or chip bags crinkling. “Josiah?” I cross the living room and peek out the window that overlooks the neglected basketball court—cracked concrete, two rusty hoops with no nets. Sometimes he and his friends play kickball out there, but not today. I check his room, the bathroom, and my room before cracking open Mama’s door.

“Mama, where’s Josiah?”

“What?” she mumbles.

“Josiah. Your son. Where is he?”

She sits up and squints at the alarm clock on her end table. “Where’s my phone?”

I spot it at the foot of her bed and pick it up. There are several missed calls from the elementary school and two from Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta. She has the number for the blood disorder center saved. “Mama, I think he’s at the hospital. I thought you were going to put my number down as an alternate!” The rooms grows hot and I can hear the blood whooshing in my ears. I pat my pockets for my own phone, scared I missed something, but I had it in my hand all the way home. Nothing.

Mama, alert now, slips into her house shoes, grabs the keys from her end table, and snatches her phone from me. “Come on.”

We run out to the car and she speeds for the hospital, voicemails playing through the car Bluetooth.

“Mrs. Bryant, this is Nurse Monica St. Clair from Pine Brook Elementary School. I’m calling because your son Josiah is in quite a bit of pain this afternoon. I gave him the medicine on file this morning, but I have it in my notes here to call you if it doesn’t provide him with any relief. Give me a call back when you get this, please.”

Pain. It’s a part of life for people with sickle cell. Jojo has a high tolerance for it and, unlike me, he’s actually good at school and hates missing class. If he went to the nurse, he must have been hurting badly. My head fills with all the worst-case scenarios. Blood vessel blockages cause the pain. What if he had a stroke? “Mama what—”

She shushes me so we can hear the next voicemail, whipping the car in and out of traffic.

“Mrs. Bryant, this is Nurse St. Clair again and I’m growing quite concerned.” She pauses to comfort a crying Josiah in the background. Both our hearts audibly shatter. Two hearts that were holding so much worry, the car is immediately flooded with palpable distress. I crack my window to stop us from drowning in it. Mama skips to the next message.

“He’s okay” is the first thing out of Dr. Kumjari’s mouth. The plug has been pulled from the drain. The elephant lifted off my chest. “The school told me they were having trouble reaching you and I know you’ll be in a panic when you get these messages, but he’s okay.” Dr. Kumjari is not Josiah’s doctor, but she’s a friend of Mama’s. “My shift just ended. I’ll stay with him until you get here.”

Mama repeatedly forces the heel of her palm into the steering wheel when the traffic comes to a halt. The streets and interstates passing through Atlanta become soul-sucking demons between the hours of four and seven each weekday. Mama can barely keep her grip on her phone as she picks it up to call Dr. Kumjari back.

The line rings only once.

“Hi, Maggie. Are you on your way?”

“Yes. How is he?”

“He’s with the doctors now. Severe pain crisis. They’ll likely transfuse him.”

“Do they know what caused his count to drop so low? Acute chest? Splenic sequestration? Talk to me.”

Mama goes into nurse mode—a job that a former version of her loved into the ground. She and Dr. Kumjari swap medical terms back and forth. I know them all. These are words I’ve known since I was nine years old. But I don’t want to hear them right now. Over Bluetooth. On the interstate. I shove some earplugs in my ears and let the needs of the people in the cars around us take over my thoughts. Usually I hate this. The staticky way needs come in and out while driving. But it’s okay today. It’s exactly what I need to survive the rest of the ride to the hospital.

Baseball. Chopsticks. Speaker. Sponge. If Jojo were here. If I could hear him. Blood.





CHAPTER 26





Mama and I move through the halls of the hospital on autopilot and without speaking. Dr. Kumjari stands in the hall outside room 310. No words are exchanged. Only thankful and reassuring glances.

Mama reaches Jojo’s side first and lays five wet kisses on his forehead. “Hi, baby.”

“Hello, Mrs. Bryant, Sariyah.” Dr. Inglewood, Jojo’s hematologist, enters the room along with Dr. Kumjari, who goes over to hold Mama’s hand.

I pull up a chair next to Jojo. “I can’t believe you used your phone to text me about zoo camp, but not an actual emergency.”

His mouth twitches into the smallest, sleepiest smile.

“Will you do an MRI?” Mama asks his doctor. “I’ve been reading about silent strokes.”

“We’re going to cross our t’s and dot our i’s, but we need to get him some blood first.”