Finding Christina (Wild Rose #2) (2 page)

A dull beeping sound filled her ears, and she wished it would simply stop. But like other annoying things in life, it didn’t quit. It only became louder as she came to awareness. Her body ached and she shivered, fighting off a deep chill that came from somewhere inside. Her tongue stuck to the roof of her mouth and she tried to swallow, but she couldn’t muster up enough saliva to get her aching throat to work. If she’d been thinking clearly, she would have been panicked that she couldn’t see, but for the moment it was welcome, to see nothing, only darkness. She succumbed to the warm darkness pulling her under and for a little while, the dull beeping ceased its incessant hum.

“Can you hear me?” a soft voice called and Christina longed to open her eyes. Her tongue still stuck firmly to the roof of her mouth and she couldn’t open her mouth. “Can you hear me?” the soft voice asked again. Christina wanted to scream,
yes
, but she couldn’t find a way to speak.

Another voice touched her ears. “She was beaten pretty badly.”

Who was?

The first voice responded, “Yes, she was. Poor thing, and left to die on the side of the road. No identification, no nothing. We need to do a rape kit on her.”

“Let’s get her set up for one. Maybe when she wakes up she can tell us who she is, who abused her, and if she wants to press charges. Poor kid. Let’s order up some STD testing too,” the second person murmured.

Christina struggled to understand.
Who was raped? Who was left on the side of the road to die? What the hell is going on? Why isn’t anyone answering me?
Panic filled her as her body was manipulated on the bed and her feet were placed in stirrups. She tried again to speak but no words would come out. Fuzziness overtook her again and she couldn’t fight against the pull anymore.

When she woke the next time, her eyes opened to mere slits, but she could pick out her surroundings in the cool dusk.
I’m in the hospital. Oh my God, were they talking about me being the girl who was beaten and left for dead?
Her pulse skyrocketed as she panicked and she tried to scream, the sound raspy and weak.

Why can’t I open my eyes?
Reaching up with a heavily bandaged hand, she fingered her face slowly, not recognizing the swollen and tender skin she found. Her screams became louder as she probed her face and stared down at her bandaged arm. The sound of her faint screams caught the attention of a nurse passing by, who peeked in the room.

“Miss, calm down, it’s okay.” She could just barely see the woman in the dusk.

“Thirsty,” she garbled out.

“Give me just one minute and I’ll get you some water. I’m going to turn the light on for you.” The sudden brightness made her wince, but she could see the nurse clearly now. She was a petite Hispanic woman wearing bright pink scrubs.

Christina’s mind whirled as she waited for the nurse to return.
I’m in the hospital. I’m bandaged. My face feels like a beach ball. Oh my God, what happened to me?

The nurse returned a few moments later with a small Styrofoam cup filled with water, and Christina tried to take a few sips of the cool water from the proffered straw. Most of the liquid dribbled out of the corner of her mouth, but the few drops she managed to swallow soothed her aching throat. “Where am I?”

“You’re at the hospital,” the nurse replied, smiling tightly as she placed the cup on the wooden table beside the bed. “I’m going to call in the doctor and he will be able to explain things for you.”

“Why am I here?” Christina begged. “Please.”

“I don’t know much about your case, let me get the doctor,” the nurse insisted as she left the room, and Christina fell back against the pillows with a sigh.

A middle-aged man came to the door and peeked in as he knocked. “May I come in?”

“Yes.”

“I’m Dr. Cotter. It is good to see you awake. You’ve been out for a few days now.” He perched on the edge of her bed and smiled gently.

“What happened?”

Dr. Cotter’s brow furrowed slightly before he spoke. “I was hoping you could tell us that. Can you tell me your name?”

“Christina. I know my name is Christina. Everything else is kinda fuzzy.”

“I am glad to be able to put a name in your chart, Christina. Do you have any idea how you ended up here?”

Christina struggled to think, but it felt as though there was a large rock blocking the doorway into her memories. “I can’t. I’m sorry.”

“Don’t apologize, it’s very common for young women in your situation to have trouble remembering. Can you tell me your last name?”

“Women in my situation,” Christina whispered softly as she pushed against the big rock in her brain. “I don’t know my last name!” she finally cried, panic skittering up her throat again. “Why don’t I know my name?”

Dr. Cotter frowned and he hopped off the bed. “Can we get some alprazolam in here?”

“What’s that?” Christina gasped out.

“Xanax. It will help you calm down a little.” He took the pill from the nurse and opened the package, handing the tiny pill to Christina. “Swallow that down with a little water.”

Christina found that sipping water from the straw came easier this time and she swallowed the pill, then leaned back against the pillows. “Why don’t I know my name?” she asked again, her voice shaking.

“You sustained a head injury, there is a chance you have amnesia.” Dr. Cotter sat back on the edge of the bed. “Christina, I need you to listen to me. You were found by an officer out on NY-481, in the middle of the night in the snow. Your clothes were torn and you had been beaten pretty badly. You were in hypothermia and things looked pretty grim for the first twenty-four hours after we got you here. It took us quite some time to get your temperature back up. Luckily you didn’t have any major frostbite, only a couple of spots on your fingers, but they will heal.”

“What’s wrong with my face?” Christina interrupted and reached up to probe her face again.

“You were beaten pretty badly. Your jaw was dislocated and we had to put that back in place, and you lost a couple of teeth.”

Tears filled her eyes and blurred what little she could see. “Oh.”

“Christina, when you got here, we performed a rape kit.”

She swiped at her eyes, dampening her bandage on her hand. “A rape kit?”

“Yes, we usually wait for consent, but we needed to gather evidence before we put in a catheter, just in case you would want to prosecute.”

Christina struggled against the block in her brain again. “I was raped?”

“We are not sure, but we wanted to gather evidence just in case. I will say that based on the way you were found and the way your clothing was ripped, it is likely. There was also some significant bruising around your vagina. That’s usually a telltale sign.”

Christina stared at the doctor for a moment and she swallowed nervously. “I-I don’t know what to say.”

“I’m not finished with what I need to tell you. We normally perform blood work to get a baseline on our patients, and we run a sexually transmitted disease panel most of the time. I don’t know how to say this, but Christina, you are HIV positive.”

Christina choked on her own spit and she coughed and gagged, grasping her ribs as she struggled to breathe. The doctor patted her back and waited for her to finish. “I’m HIV positive?” She finally squeaked out, her voice barely more than a whisper.

“We ran some more tests, to see how your immune system is doing, how your HIV is progressing, and we checked your organs to see if they are doing okay, then finally we checked to see if you had other diseases that are common with HIV.”

Christina nodded woodenly and took a few slow breaths. “Okay, what did they say?”

“Well, there is one more thing.” Dr. Cotter smiled tightly and ran a hand around the back of his neck, as if relieving some tension there.

“Please, tell me,” Christina begged.

“Under some of our routine testing, we check for pregnancy,” he started slowly. “We found you are pregnant.”

“What? I was raped and I’m pregnant that fast?” Christina closed her eyes and sucked in another breath. “That’s not possible.”

“No, Christina, you’ve been here a week. You were pregnant before your incident.”

“Were? I’m not anymore?” Christina sighed in relief. “Well, that’s good, I guess.”

“No, you are still very much pregnant. According to the ultrasound, about eleven weeks along.”

Christina shook her head as she tried to piece together the remnants of her life. “I was most likely raped, I can’t remember who I am, I am HIV positive, and I am pregnant. Is there anything else?”

Dr. Cotter squirmed on the edge of the bed, seeming to be uncomfortable. “Yes, there is something else. Regarding your blood work, Christina, there is something you should know.”

“How bad could it be?”

“Your CD4 count is really low. That is the test that shows your immune system. In patients we look at AIDS when it drops below two-hundred.”

“So, what’s mine?”

“One hundred and ninety.” Dr. Cotter stood from the edge of the bed and paced back and forth at the end of the bed. “It’s definitely not a new infection.”

“What? You’re kidding me. This is not real. I feel okay. I mean, I should feel really bad, right?” Christina reached up to rub at her eyes, hoping it was all a bad dream. “Wake up, Christina, this isn’t real.”

“It depends on the person. I wish I could tell you this was all a bad dream, Christina, I really do.”

“I don’t even know why I would have HIV. Or why I would be pregnant. What does this mean for my baby?” Fear tinged her voice, as she realized the implications of being sick for the life she’d just found out she carried.

“Well, we’re going to need to keep you here for a while until we can make sure you’re healthy enough for transport. We’re going to give you antibiotics to keep you from getting pneumonia, we’ll vaccinate you for the flu, and we will be deciding what the best course of treatment for you both is.”

“I see. What do you mean transport?”

“We’d be possibly looking at some kind of long term care until you could regain your memory and we know where you live, that sort of thing. I’m going to have a social worker come in to talk to you too. I am guaranteeing they will recommend some therapy for you. I know this is a lot to take in, Christina, but we will make it through this. Unless you would catch some kind of secondary infection while your immune system is down, I think you will do fine. Treatment for HIV will need to start soon, and it will reduce your viral load, which is pretty high, and offer the baby some protection.”

“It being a lot to take in, is the statement of the century.” She quipped.

“I’m going to get the medicines started and work on getting a social worker in to you.”

“I’m hungry,” Christina muttered softly as the doctor jotted in the chart.

“Sure, let’s see if we can get you something to eat.” As his hand gently patted her knee, a flicker of a memory shuddered through her consciousness, of a man with large, beefy hands gripping her leg. She opened her mouth to tell him, but Dr. Cotter was long gone.

Shifting in the bed, Christina squeezed her eyes tightly together, pushing against the mental block.
I’m sitting here with AIDS, I am pregnant, and I can’t even remember who I am! Remember, damn you!
Frustrated tears prickled at the corners of her eyes and she buried her swollen face into her bandaged palms and wept.

Over the next week Christina worked with the kind, middle-aged, African American social worker named Hattie, and with each time they talked, more of her memories surfaced. Hattie had suggested she start writing in a journal, snippets of memories, thoughts, fears, and dreams. Hattie assured her over and over that an AIDS diagnosis wasn’t the end of the world, and that with medicine, there was hope for her to live a long life with her child.

Christina struggled with trying to remember who she was and where her place was in this world. The unknown was scarier to her than the things she knew. Her brain took her to dark places. She wondered if she was some kind of prostitute, or if she was a good person. Dr. Cotter had removed the bandages on her hands and she was able to write much better without the thick wrappings.

Dear Diary,

I guess the thing that scares me the most is what ifs. What if I can’t remember who I am? Will I just live the rest of my life not knowing? My kid has to have a last name. What if my husband or boyfriend is out there wondering where I am? Surely I have a boyfriend. I don’t think I’d be the type to just sleep around. Then again, I was in a position I possibly got raped, so I don’t know. That’s the biggest problem. I don’t know who I am. I’m sitting here now twelve weeks pregnant, with AIDS, and I have no clue how I got to this point in my life. It’s a pretty low point, right? All I can remember is being in a dark car and this man with big hands. I don’t know anything else about myself. Just that my name is Christina. Nothing else. Hattie says my memories will come back. Until then maybe I can figure out who I am on my own. Who knew I didn’t like lime gelatin? Not me. Dr. Cotter says my face is almost back to normal, so that’s a good thing, I guess. I don’t know. Maybe we’ll figure it out, right?

Christina

Hattie walked in as she closed the journal. “Good morning, Christina, up writing again?”

“Yeah, Hattie, I’m just struggling trying to piece my life together. Sometimes I think I have a piece almost in place and it all comes undone again.”

“It will come, honey. Just be patient. Sometimes it is the brain’s way of protecting you until you can handle it all.”

“Has anyone put in a police report looking for a girl named Christina?” Hope tinged her voice, even as she knew what the answer would be.

“No, honey, not today. But you know what? Tomorrow is Christmas Eve. I won’t be coming in tomorrow, but I wanted to give you this for your little baby.” Hattie pulled a tiny blue teddy bear from her purse. “Merry Christmas, Christina.”

Sobs wracked her slender frame as she clutched the tiny bear to her chest. “Thank you,” she managed to choke out through her wails. Hattie’s pudgy arms came around her and she took comfort in the embrace.

“I’m gonna go, sweetie. I need to get home…” Christina stared up at the kind woman’s face.

“Don’t let me keep you. Go to your family.” Tears filled her eyes again as Hattie left and she rolled to her side in the hospital bed. Squeezing her eyes shut she begged her brain to remember. Something, anything. A scrap of a memory, a thread of something to hold on to. She sobbed herself to sleep.

When she woke later, a cafeteria worker was smiling softly as she placed a tray of food on a table. “Here you go, honey. Dinner.”

Christina thanked her and tucked into the unappetizing plate of food. The turkey stuck in her throat and the mashed potatoes tasted like wallpaper paste. Pushing the table away, she sighed in disgust. Her palm came to rest on her belly, and she rubbed the barely there pooch absentmindedly as she stared out the window of her room. The sky hung heavy on the horizon and it grew darker with each moment that passed. Flurries struck the window and as though she’d been jolted, she saw a man’s face in her mind.

The man meant nothing to her. At least she couldn’t remember him meaning anything. Closing her eyes she focused harder on his features, imprinting them in her mind. Suddenly a flash came through her brain of her being with him in a car and flying down the road and it snowing. Wrinkling her nose she pushed harder, frustrated tears leaking from between her lashes.
Remember!

Her breath caught as the scene played on. His hand gripped her thigh. She was saying something but the words wouldn’t come to her. The car had stopped.
Why is the car stopping?
Fear chilled her and she shivered as he ripped open her jeans, and suddenly her eyes flicked open. A nurse was shaking her arm and looking down at her in alarm.

“Christina! Why are you screaming?”

Christina hadn’t even known she’d been screaming. “I remembered something.”

“What did you remember?”

“I remembered this man’s face, his name was Rand, and we were in a car. He pulled over on the side of the road and he was touching me. I...that’s all.” She shook her head as she struggled to remember more. Hunks of her blonde hair fell around her face and she pushed them back tiredly.

“Write it down and I’ll let the doctor know. Do you think you remember enough that we could get an accurate description and maybe have a guy draw his face? I mean, that’s if you wanted to press charges?”

Christina drew her knees up to her chest and wrapped her arms around her legs. Resting her chin on her knee cap, she nodded. “I want to press charges and I remember his face and first name.”

Within a few hours, a police officer had come and taken down what information she could remember, which wasn’t a lot. The sketch artist had listened as she described the balding, heavy set man. His blue eyes were something she would never forget, small and beady, and the way his lip had curled as he shoved his hand in her panties would haunt the rest of her days. When the sketch artist showed her the drawing, her shakes became unbearable.

“That’s him. I can’t forget that face.”

The police officer standing at the end of the bed nodded sympathetically. “I understand, Christina, we’ll put this face and first name up on the news, and maybe someone who knows him will come forward.”

“Thank you,” she managed to whisper between shivering lips. “I’m so cold.”

A few moments after the police officer left, the nurse came in the room with a heated blanket and Christina gladly took it from her. Her energy felt completely sapped and she lay back against her pillows with a soft sigh. The medicines she had been taking were draining her, but as the doctor reminded her, pregnancy could do the same.

She fell asleep and dozed restlessly the rest of the night. Early in the morning she woke and found it snowing. Christmas Eve had never been less festive than now, when she couldn’t remember who she was and she spent the day alone in the hospital. She spent the day doodling in her journal and pushing against her memories which were still hazy and distant. Waiting was draining, and she napped several times during the day, waking up only long enough to take bites of the food she was brought.

Later that night she dozed and the dreams started again, fuzzy at first, then becoming clearer with each moment that passed. Sitting up in a panic, sweat broke out on her brow and she whispered, “I’m Christina Morgan. I was in that jeep going home to see my family. Why haven’t they been looking for me? Wait, I’m pregnant. Oh God, I’m twelve weeks pregnant.” She began counting on her fingers and nausea skittered up her throat as she put two and two together. “No…”

Grasping the pale pink bucket on the table beside her, she dumped the cheap hospital toiletries out and retched into the bucket. Her shivers overtook her as she puked and with a quivering hand, she put the bucket back on the table. “I have AIDS,” she whispered again. “Where the hell did I get AIDS?” Her mind took her back to previous partners. The only time she had been without a condom was with husband number five. The baby daddy, whose name she couldn’t deal with thinking about just yet, had issues with a small penis and the condom staying put, so perhaps it leaked or fell off.
Who knows!
She groaned softly and dropped her head in her hands.

Another thought hit her and it chilled her to the core.
If I have AIDS, and I got it possibly from husband number five…then Mom has it. And maybe my baby sister too. Oh God.

Grasping the pink bucket again, she jerked it under her mouth to catch the flow of bile coming up her throat. The puke splashed out onto her hospital gown and with a sob, she pushed the call button on the remote dangling off her bed. In moments a nurse was at her door.

“Christina, are you okay?”

“No,” she wailed, “I’m not okay and I never will be again. I need a phone.”

“Who are you gonna call?” the nurse asked, coming forward to take the bucket from her and dump the contents in the toilet before rinsing it and bringing it back.

“My mother.” Christina sighed softly, her shoulders curving in. “My damn mother, the one who isn’t even bothering to look for me.”

“You remember your mother?”

“Yep, I do. I’m Christina Morgan. My family lives outside Oswego. Rand was taking me there the night he molested me. I guess when you find the bastard, maybe you should tell him to get tested for HIV, huh?” A twisted smile crossed her lips and laughter bubbled up out of her throat. She cackled until tears came from her eyes and as she wiped them, she found the nurse had stepped out of the room.

A few minutes later she was back with Dr. Cotter. “Christina, you remember more?” He was quick and to the point as he rushed into the room.

“Yeah, I do,” she stated tiredly, wiping at her eyes again. “I can tell you my phone number, my address, where I go to school, who possibly gave me HIV. I can tell you it all. It’s certainly not a fairy tale, but hey, girls like me don’t get the happily ever after ending, do they?”

Dr. Cotter perched on the edge of the bed. “You can start a new chapter, Christina. AIDS doesn’t have to be a death sentence. People are living longer—”

Christina cut him off and put her hand in the air to stop him. “But it can be a death sentence, to both me and my child. Am I right?”

Dr. Cotter sighed softly and nodded. “It can be. But many people go on to live fairly normal lives.”

“I hope we do. I want to call my mom and I want to go home. No offense, but I don’t want to be stuck in the hospital for Christmas. Can I go?” Christina stared at the doctor hopefully.

“You can go. But, you have to realize the risk you are putting yourself in. It’s cold and flu season, your immune system is down. Some AIDS patients have died from pneumonia. I’ll refer you to a doctor who can help you close by…”

“I’m not going to be staying in New York, at least not for long.”

“Where are you going?” Dr. Cotter’s bushy eyebrow arched up.

“I have to go back to school,” Christina started. “I’m at fuckin’ Yale, Doc. I can’t just...I can’t walk away from Yale, man.” She slumped back against the pillows. “I just can’t.”

“Yale! Wow, that’s a pretty big accomplishment.” He seemed impressed.

“For now I just want to go home.”

“Tell you what. Why don’t I set you up with someone here until you go back to school? Remember that you’re going to be really tired and you have to keep your stress down and your health needs to be top priority. I have hesitated bringing this up to you, but have you thought about getting an abortion?”

Christina turned away and looked out the window, giving herself a moment to collect herself before she answered. “I was pushed into an abortion at fourteen. I know the circumstances aren’t the best, but I am not going to kill another little life because of my mistakes.”

“You had an abortion at fourteen?” Dr. Cotter pressed gently.

Christina turned to face him again. “My stepfather raped me and I got pregnant. I believe he may have been the person to give me HIV.”

“So we’re looking at five years…why didn’t they test you when you had the abortion?” Dr. Cotter hopped off the bed and began to pace the room.

“Hard to get blood testing done when your mama pays two hundred dollars to a back alley chop shop, isn’t it?” Christina’s mouth twisted at the memory. “She couldn’t stand that I got pregnant by him and she didn’t. I will never forget her saying if she couldn’t have his babies, no one could.”

“Jesus Christ,” Dr. Cotter finally whispered. “And you want to go be with her?”

“I have no choice! I can’t stay at Yale during winter break or I would. I can’t afford a hotel either. So to her house I go. Hey, I guess she deserves the right to know she could have HIV too, huh?”

“Ah, I guess she could have it, couldn’t she? How did a girl like—how did you end up in Yale?” He corrected himself quickly.

Christina shrugged and ran a hand through her tangled blonde hair. “No, say it like it is, Doc, how did a girl like me, from the wrong side of the tracks end up in Yale? Well, let me tell you how. It’s because I refused to end up like my mother. Addicted to drugs, screwing anything with a dick, and having one baby after the other. Hah, I guess two out of three ain’t bad, right?”

“I don’t know what to say except that I am sorry. No kid should have to go through what you have.”

“Maybe not, but it made me strong. I got out of my mother’s house once, and I will again. I just need to stay there for a few days until I can get a ticket back to school. I guess I’ll figure money out and stay in a cheapo place for a few days. I’ll be out of her hair forever. I’m sure somehow she’s going to twist it around on me that I gave him HIV, not him giving it to me. None of the men she’s ever fucked have been wrong. Nope. Not even when he was jerking off in front of my baby sister. Not even then. The baby was asking for it.” Christina remarked.