Desperate

Amari

“Mom! Mom!” I frantically shake my fragile, sickly parent. 

My brain is screaming this can’t be happening. I can’t lose her, I just can’t. 

“Mom!” I shout in horror when I see no signs of life in her. The machines are beeping nonstop, raising my worst nightmare. 

“Please wait outside, Miss Brown,” Nurse Smith says and gentle leads me out while the medical team close the curtains behind us. 

“Lord please save my mom. I will do anything,” I murmur a prayer in my heart. 

Nurse Smith heads back into the intensive care unit, leaving me pacing outside. 

It’s twenty minutes later when I am startled by someone touching my shoulder. 

“Miss Brown.”

My heart starts pounding when I see the doctor. I can’t tell from his expression whether he has good or bad news for me. 

“How…how is she, Doc?” I stammer. 

He lets out a sigh. “We have managed to resuscitate her, but her condition is getting worse. She needs the operation.”

I let out a loud sigh. My mother is still alive. 

“I know, Doc. I am trying to get the money.”

I have tried to sell our apartment, but the location is making it impossible for the potential buyers. My uncle is the only other option I have left. 

He looks sympathetically at me. He has been my mother’s cardiologist for five years now. We have sold everything my uncle did not steal from us to pay for her treatment. There is nothing left to sell and mom still needs the operation to hopefully fix her problem. 

A few minutes later, I get out of the cab and walk into my uncle’s million dollars mansion. The maids give me the sympathetic look before informing me that he and Ella are in the study. I brace myself for a flood of insults and humiliation when I hear them talking way before I get near the door.

“I am not marrying him, Daddy! No way!”

Ella does not sound happy. I wonder what is upsetting my spoiled brat of a cousin.

“I know that this sucks, Sweetheart, but we have a binding contract with the Lord’s,” my uncle responds gently.

“That was before they lost everything, and Nathan became a disgusting poor cripple. I am not marrying a cripple. I will be a laughingstock!”

“I know, Angel, but we will look unreliable in the business world if we back off the agreement now. No one will trust us. We must fulfil our end of bargain,” my uncle urges his frantic daughter.

I make the connections. The former millionaire, Nathan Lord recently had a car accident that left him paralyzed. His businesses have also recently been liquidated. The media says he is now poor and homeless. He is meant to marry my cousin tomorrow, but it seems she no longer wants to wed him.

“But Daddy, how can I spend the rest of my life with a freak?”

I take a deep breath before knocking and brace myself for another disappointment. My uncle and his family are the cruelest and unsympathetic people I know. I would never come here if I was not desperate, but my mother’s life is more important than my pride.

“Great, the peasant is back,” Ella sneers when I walk in. I can’t help noticing that her attire alone could pay for half of my mother’s bills.

“Here to beg for money to save your mother again?” she adds.

I don’t respond to her but turn to my father’s brother instead. He used to be very nice to us before father died. We trusted him so much and let him handle our company, only to lose everything to him. I am hoping to reason with his conscious to at least save my mother.

“The doctors say she now needs an urgent operation. Uncle, please help me this one time and you will never see me again.”

“That is not my problem. People die all the time. It’s time for your mother.”

His word cut deeply into my soul. He really does not care if my mother dies. I go on my knees and beg as I have done several times before. I have nowhere else to go now. No bank will lend half a million to an unemployed recently qualified nurse.

“Uncle please. You are the only relative I have.”

“Relative, of course. You are a Brown. Pathetic and disgusting, but a Brown nonetheless.”

I turn to look at Ella. She is suddenly very excited. I have been at the receiving end of her cruelty to know that is never a good thing. This girl thrives in seeing others suffer. She tags on her father’s arm with sparkling eyes. Definitely not good.

“Daddy, the contract does not specify that it has to be me,” she tells her father, who studies me for a second.

“You will marry Nathan Lord in Ella’s place tomorrow and I will pay for your mother’s operation.”

I look at my uncle in disbelief.

“Marry? I don’t want to get married!”

Marriage is the last thing in my mind, let alone an arranged one.

He spreads his hands and shrugs his shoulders.

“Then I can’t help you. You should start preparing for your mother’s funeral,” he says carelessly.

“Uncle,” I call to him softly, my heart breaking. He used to be my favorite person in the entire world, even my father used to complain about it. I still can’t believe how the loving, compassionate uncle who use to dot over me became this ruthless and cold.

Ella rolls her eyes. “Don’t beg, its nauseating. Marry Nathan and you will save your mother.”

“Bu…but you love Nathan,” I stutter, still trying to understand. She has never pretended to be nice to me, but she and Nathan were inseparable at school. She fought any girl who tried to flirt with him.

“Love? Seriously? You think I can love a cripple?” she asks me with so much disgust while I look at her shocked. I knew that she was superficial and materialistic, but I never thought she would abandon the man she loved since primary school just because he was disabled.

“He is disabled, but still the same man.”

“Then you marry him, Mother Terresa and save your mother,” she says uninterestedly while my phone rings.

I move towards the window to answer it when I notice the hospital number.

“Hello?”

“Miss Brown, it is Doctor Hall.”

“Ye…yes Doc.”

I can’t help but freak out. It’s usually the nurses who call me with the updates. It’s never good news when the doctor does.

“Your mother crashed…”

My whole-body trembles uncontrollable. I use both my hands to hold on to the phone. My mother’s heart cannot take anymore strain on it.

“… but we managed to resuscitate her. She is now on a ventilator. I am afraid it is not looking good.”

I let out a sigh. It does not sound good, but she is still alive. I don’t know what I would do if I lost her. I have not gotten over the tragic loss of my father. I just can’t lose my mother.

“I am working on getting the money, Doc,” I mumble with a shaky voice and hear him sigh.

“I know that it is a lot of money. You don’t have much time.”

I read between the lines and know that unless I get that money soon, I will lose my mother. I will be all alone in this world.

I end the call to find my uncle, his wife and daughter staring at me. I did not even notice my evil aunt walk in. I am certain that they heard the conversation, yet I don’t see any sympathy on their faces.

“It looks like mommy dearest is dying,” Ella sneers. I can’t help wondering how on earth did I get so unlucky to share DNA with these people.

“I will marry him, please pay for the operation now.”

My uncle laughs. “So, you can run afterwards. Do you think we are fools? No, you marry Nathan first and we pay after.”

“I will never go back on my word. I can even sign a contract, please uncle.”

Surely my mother will need care after her operation. How could he even think I will run?

“Marry first, money after,” his wife repeats with an irritated voice, and I know that begging will be futile.

“Okay, but I need the assurance that you will pay for the operation.”

Twenty minutes later I sit in the intensive care unit holding my mother’s hand. Strong antiseptic smell, beeping machines, and a death’s shadow not so hidden. I have gotten used to this place. Mother has lost so much weight. She looks so pale and fragile, its heartbreaking. I impatiently wipe away my tears. I must be strong for my mother. She can’t hear me cry. I can do that at home. I take a deep breath and squeeze her hand.

“Mom, I got the money. You will finally have your operation. Just hold on until tomorrow, okay?”

Nurse Smith flashes me a sympathetic smile. I know every single one of the nurses now. She is the kindest of them all. She always tells me about job opportunities in different hospitals. It is how I manage to pay my rent, electricity bills and buy food, but I have not been lucky with a permanent position yet.

She pulls me to the side when I leave.

“I heard what you said. It is a lot of money.”

I let out a sigh and tell her about how I secured the money.

She shakes her head, disgusted at my manipulative uncle and his family.

“Your mother is blessed to have a daughter like you.”

‘Believe me, I am the lucky one. That woman is my world,” I tell her before heading home.