Chapter 5
THE END.
Accomplishment and happiness surged through Sierra as she wrapped up her third erotic thriller novel under the pen name, Kaitlyn Star. Her middle name and what Pat told her she used to call her grandmother: her shining star.
After the accident and enduring multiple surgeries, her face disfigured, Sierra had lost everything—the man she loved, her daughter, her so called friends and even her father.
She had prayed every night she would not see the morning and every day she laid in her hospital bed, disappointed.
They had brought in a psychiatrist to see her, while the doctors and nurses needed her to start moving so that she could begin her healing process.
She’d no longer given a damn about what would happen to her.
She had almost killed her daughter, and her husband now despised her more than before.
She would just lie there, refusing food and sleeping a lot. The bottle didn’t call to her any longer.
One day, she’d woken to a surprise visitor. Dark brown eyes as big as saucers peered down at her, an immediate fright in her sleep-blurred vision. She opened her mouth to scream.
“Good you are awake finally; I thought I would have to pinch you to get you up.” The person straightened up and after a moment, Sierra had been able to make out the woman’s face.
She was an elderly, dark-skinned Black woman who had her natural grey hair pulled into a small, bushy ponytail.
The black-rimmed glasses were too big for her face and she pushed them up her nose.
She was dressed as if coming from church, wearing a floral dress and white gloves on her hands.
Sierra couldn’t see beyond her abdomen but she guessed the woman was wearing stockings and some sort of patent black shoes.
A matching hat and purse were probably on one of the chairs in the room, or so Sierra had assumed.
“Who are you?” she croaked out, her mouth and throat dry.
“Oh, yes, my name is Patricia, Pat for short. I was your grandmother’s best friend and mistress until she passed away before you were born.
” The woman named Patricia moved away; Sierra caught a whiff of floral perfume.
She heard liquid pouring before Pat held her chin and touched a paper cup to her lips.
She parted them and took slow sips like the doctor and nurses advised her.
When she had her fill, she raised her good hand and tapped Pat on the front of her wrist. Pat set the cup down and stood over her again.
“Why are you here?” Sierra murmured. She shut her eyes for a second; a slight headache was creeping from the back and making its way to the front.
“I’ve come to collect you and take you back home with me, but I can see you are not in any condition to leave the hospital yet. Have you been laying here all this time?” The disappointment in Pat’s voice stung.
“You don’t know me and don’t owe me anything.
I am just fine as I am. Go away and leave me in peace.
” Sierra snapped, closing her eyes again and turning away as much as her body would allow.
Then came a pinch on her arm. Opening her lids again, turning her head slightly, she flashed an annoyed look at the elderly woman.
“No. I promised your grandmother that I would take care and watch over you because she could not, and I can see from your defeated attitude that I got here just in time.” The older woman leaned down and closer this time, her brown eyes with the blue ring of age peering down at her in judgment.
She firmed her lips to keep them from trembling. “I lost my husband and almost my child, I deserve to rot away in peace. You came and saw and now you can—”
“Oh, shut up, enough of the pity party. I can see that you have gotten away with a lot and even in this, as no one is going to fight you, but I will.”
She had only time to gasp before the bed buzzed and tilted up.
“What are you doing?”
“Giving you someone to fight with and someone to fight for.” The woman named Pat then leaned over her and pressed the call button. A nurse came into the room and approached the bed.
The young nurse looked at both inquiringly and approached Sierra on the bed. She gave Sierra a friendly smile. “How are you feeling this morning, Sierra?”
“I am fine, but can you call security and get Patricia escorted out?”
The nurse turned to Patricia. The elderly visitor did not flinch or appear concerned, instead declaring, “I need an orderly to help lift Sierra out of the bed and a wheelchair to push her in.”
The nurse nodded and left the room, not turning back even when Sierra yelled out. Frustrated, Sierra had turned her head and winced, glaring at the woman who simply stared back.
“I don’t know who you think you are but when I speak to my father about this, he will—”
“You will do nothing; you have no one, remember?” Patricia’s voice was not harsh or clipped, just matter-of-fact.
“Everyone has turned their backs on you and rightly so. If I didn’t make that promise to your grandmother, I would have left you here too.
You are a spoiled, entitled, rotten bitch and right now, death is too good for you. ”
The words had pierced her heart like bullets, but Sierra didn’t shout back at the insults, just kept up her tired glare. “Then just leave me to die alone.”
“A promise is a promise, and I don’t break them.” Pat glanced at the door, moving the curtain further to the side. “Ah, here they are, time for you to get up.”
“I don’t—”
But Sierra found out that day and for the remaining time she had with Patricia that the woman was a dragon you didn’t want to cross.
Her head was spinning, and she felt dizzy, her pain was being managed by the drugs from the hospital, but she could still feel the tightness from the stiches on her leg and hip and on her face.
The movement of the wheelchair, as it was being pushed by the orderly, had almost made her vomit but Sierra managed to keep everything down.
Before long, they stopped outside her daughter’s room.
The blinds were open and in that private suite, she could see Kaitlyn asleep, her face pale.
She looked so small in the hospital bed.
In that moment, Sierra had longed to run in and take her in her arms and apologize.
However, she knew she could not and never would be able to.
Beside Kaitlyn was her husband, both of them with a hand under their cheeks, mirroring each other; his other hand blanketed Kaitlyn’s. Sierra smiled, but it quickly faded.
“What am I doing here?” She croaked out, her throat feeling tight; a wheeze soon followed, her breathing not well.
“To see your reason for living and to fight to get back to her.”
“No, it is too late, I promised and like you said, a promise is a promise.”
She heard a hmph behind her; Pat couldn’t argue against her own words.
“You made a promise to him, but what about your daughter?”
“I can’t. I can’t do this to her and him any longer. He is right and they both need me out of their lives. Please take me back to my room.” She tucked her casted arm against her chest and used her good one to move the wheelchair away, but she was not strong enough to move it very far.
She felt her chair swivel to face Pat. “You have a beautiful daughter in there that one day will also need her mother.”
Sierra shook her head, pain radiating down her back and her face where the stiches were tight and pulling.
“She has her father and his family; she has all she needs.” She gritted through her teeth and took a deep breath, trying not to pass out and have Jacob suddenly catch her near their daughter’s room.
“You don’t know that and there will come a day where she will come looking for you. How do you think she will feel if you just gave up and withered away to death? Do you think she will want that? To grow up knowing that? You are selfish; for once, think of someone other than yourself.”
“I am and that is why this is—” She gripped the handle of her wheelchair, emotions swirling through her, frustration at the forefront as she couldn’t get rid of this woman.
She paused because Kaitlyn was awake and watching her through the glass.
Sierra sucked in a breath, waiting to see if her daughter would start crying at the sight of her. But her daughter turned her head to face her better, then gave her a tired smile before shutting her eyes and going back to sleep.
“Come on, we have work to do.” Pat had declared and Sierra didn’t argue because that smile gave her hope. Someday, she would make amends to her daughter, and she deserved to have a mother that would fight for her and that meant fighting for herself too.
The month she started her physio to work on her broken arm and leg and AA meetings was hell, and it was what she deserved in order to get herself on the road to her recovery.