Little White Lies

This is a work of fiction. No real people, places or events were used. Copyright ã 2011 Plot Roach.

Little White Lies

By Plot Roach

The pregnant woman sat in a chair and waited for the nurse, cooing to her toddler and laughing with him. She told him to stay still, not wander off, and tried to amuse him with toys to keep him occupied. He made a beeline for some medical equipment and she hauled him back to her seat saying: “Didn’t you listen to Mommy? No touching stuff that doesn’t belong to you.” she tickled him and they giggled together. The nurse entered the room, her face screwed up in anger. She placed the blood pressure cuff on the woman’s arm and huffed.

“I wouldn’t laugh at that if I were you.” the nurse said.

“Excuse me?” the woman asked.

“We’re going to bill you one hundred and fifty dollars for the lamp your son broke.” the nurse said.

“What?”

“When you were here last time, the lamp was broken. We had to get a repairman down here to fix it. It cost us one hundred and fifty dollars. We’ll be sending you the bill.” the nurse said.

The woman thought back to her last appointment, only a few days earlier. Yes, she had moved the lamp out of her son’s hands, but the neck of it had come loose in her hands. The nurse walked in as she set the lamp to rights. Surely, if there had been a problem with the thing they would have called me that day, right? She asked herself. “How was it broken, I put it back together myself?”

“Some of the electrical cords came unplugged and the technician had to put them back together. I told the doctor and he said to bill the patient for the labor. So we’re sending you the bill.” the nurse said.

“A hundred and fifty dollars?”

“Yes.” the nurse said.

“So why do you let kids back here if you have such fragile and expensive equipment?” the woman asked.

“It’s the parents' job to watch their kids.” the nurse said.

“Yes, I understand that. But he’s a toddler and accidents do happen.” the woman explained.

“It doesn’t matter, the bill still needs to be paid.” the nurse said.

“So you’re sending me the bill?” the woman asked.

“Well, no..” the nurse said, pointing her glare to the wall instead of the woman. “The doctor wanted to bill the patient responsible, but I told him that I couldn’t remember who was in the room. So you need to be more careful with your child in the future.” She left the room without another word, while the woman waited for the doctor to come in and examine her.

The good news was that the baby within her was progressing normally. The bad news was that the situation which had previously occurred no longer numbed her but made her angry and sad. When the doctor released her, she left the office with her toddler, still burning with aggression. She walked toward the bus stop, pausing in an alleyway to catch her breath and run over the conversation once again in her head.

Those cords hadn’t come undone, the woman told herself. I’ve had to put things like that together far too many times on my own. And I would have seen loose cords when I was putting it back together. And who keeps that fragile of equipment anywhere it can be easily broken?

The whole altercation seemed odd to her. And the more she thought about it the more she thought that the nurse had been lying. If the lamp really had been broken and the doctor insisted that a patient pay for it, then why would the nurse cover for me? She clearly didn’t like me when she spoke with me earlier, so why jeopardize her job? She asked herself. She felt the baby within her stir as her anger uncurled from her heart and radiated throughout her body. Pain traced itself through the bones of her body and tears formed in her eyes. Why would anyone do that to me? She asked herself. Why would she lie and then try and cover it over, making herself look like the hero? Did she expect me to thank her for her benevolence? The toddler fidgeted next to her, he was hungry. And the whole situation had put her in a bad mood. Her anger making her hungry as well.

She looked to her side and noticed that she had accidentally left her bag behind. “Oh, crap. Now what?” She would have to trudge back the four blocks to the doctor’s office. She was already hurting around the middle from carrying the baby’s extra weight. And now she would have to see that despicable woman again.

And then the nurse turned the corner, the pregnant woman’s bag in her hand. “I know that you take the bus.” she said. “You complain about it often enough. You really need to be more careful with your stuff, or one day your kids will pay the price for it.”

“Are you saying that I’m a bad parent?”

“Well first you let your kid break expensive equipment, then you lose your purse, so…”

“You’re a liar."

“What?”

“You lied, either to me or you boss. But you’re a liar just the same.”

“Excuse me?!”

“You lied at the beginning of our conversation when you said that you would be sending me the bill. And either you lied to your boss about ‘forgetting’ which patient did it, or the lamp was never broken after all and you wanted to put me in my place.”

The nurse scoffed at the accusation and threw the purse at the woman’s feet. “I don’t have to take this crap from someone like you.” she said as she started to walk out of the alley.

“Like me, because I’m poor and need state assistance for insurance? Like me, because I’m a single parent, doing what I can when I can? Or like me, because I make mistakes with my kids while perfect little pieces of crap like you look down on me and judge me because they’ve never walked an inch in my shoes?”

It was about that time that the nurse noticed that the alley was getting darker. And that the noise of the cars from the nearby street had become muted. Then, with horror, she realized that the pregnant woman before her had changed. She seemed to fill the alleyway, the darkness drawing into her like a living cape.

“Or like me, as I am now?” The woman asked, the darkness loomed around her and threatened to choke all light from the alley.

“I won’t say anything, please let me go.” the nurse said, trying to back away without taking her eyes off the once docile mother in front of her.

“I don’t think I can do that.“ The woman said. “You’ve already lied to me too many times today.” The nurse turned to run away, but slipped and fell onto the pavement, scraping one knee through the fabric of her scrubs.

If the woman’s anger hadn’t been enough, the smell of blood and the cries of hunger from her toddler sent her over the edge. “You know, you’re right.” The woman said, her voice the sound of dead leaves rattling on a winter wind. “I do need to be a better mother. And right now my sons need to be fed.”

The nurse was pulled back into the alley by a shadow tendril as strong as steel. The woman made short work of her, feeding the son that stood beside her and the one growing in her belly. She would have to take a later bus, after she cleaned the blood off of herself and her son. But the meal certainly made up for it. Her anger and her sorrow satiated.