Chapter 3 - The Routine Returns
For the next two weeks, life settled into what I convinced myself was a stable rhythm.
Every Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, I dropped Nell off at school at seven-thirty in the morning, came home to clean the duplex, prepared dinner, and headed to the hospital for my three-to-eleven-thirty shift. April picked Nell up from middle school at three o'clock along with her own children from their respective elementary and preschool campuses.
To show my appreciation for April looking out for us, I transferred an extra $50 into her account that Friday.
"You're a lifesaver, April," I told her over the phone on my break between rounds at the hospital. "Seriously. With everything going on, knowing Nell is safe with family means the world to me."
"Don't worry about it, Jas," April’s voice crackled through the hospital receiver, competing with the distant squeal of a child crying in her background. "Blood takes care of blood. Those suburban retirees think they can buy our loyalty with a grilled cheese sandwich. Nell belongs here with her cousins. She's family."
"How is she doing today?" I asked, leaning against the nurses' station counter, rubbing the ache from my lower back. "She's been so quiet at home."
"Oh, you know twelve-year-olds," April laughed, a raspy, dismissive sound. "All hormones and mood swings. She's fine. She's playing with Max right now. Listen, I gotta run—the stove is boiling over. See you tonight around midnight!"
The line clicked dead before I could reply. I pocketed my phone, reassured. Nell was just sulking about the library. Kids get over things quickly.
Except Nell wasn't getting over it.
At night, when I picked her up from April’s small, cluttered split-level house on Maple Street, Nell was almost always comatose on the threadbare sofa. Her shoes were often still on her feet, her backpack slumped against the coffee table, unopened. April would meet me at the door wearing sweatpants, her hair pulled into an untidy bun, looking frazzled and exhausted.
"She collapsed an hour ago," April would whisper, leaning against the doorframe. "You know how wild Henry and Abby can be. They ran her ragged playing tag in the yard."
"Thanks for everything, April. Really."
I would gently shake Nell awake. She would blink up at me through heavy, bloodshot eyes, stumbling to the car like a sleepwalker. In the passenger seat, she would lean her forehead against the cool glass of the window and fall immediately back to sleep.
By the end of the second week, small red flags began fluttering around the edges of my vision, though I stubbornly looked away.
First, it was the smell. On Wednesday night, Nell’s clothes didn't smell like a house where dinner was cooking; they smelled like burnt fish sticks, stale dish soap, and baby wipes. When I hung up her jacket, I noticed grease stains on the cuffs.
Then came the laundry. Nell came home on Thursday wearing a pair of Abby’s oversized sweatpants because she had apparently spilled juice on her jeans. But when I checked her backpack for the soiled jeans, they weren't there. Instead, tucked into the bottom of her bag, I found three crumpled worksheets from her eighth-grade English class, marked with large red zeros.
My heart seized. *Incomplete.* *Not turned in.* *Missing assignment.*
The next morning, while pouring a bowl of cereal, I set the papers on the kitchen table in front of her.
"Nell, what is this?"
Nell stared down at the red ink. She didn't look surprised or guilty. She just looked hollowed out. The purple smudges beneath her eyes were so pronounced they looked like bruises against her pale skin.
"I didn't finish them," she murmured, staring into her milk.
"Nell, you're in the honors track! You've never missed an assignment in your life. What are you doing at Aunt April's between three-thirty and midnight? That's eight hours! You can't find forty-five minutes to write a two-paragraph summary?"
Nell’s knuckles turned white around her spoon. Her jaw worked back and forth, as if she were chewing on words she was terrified to swallow.
"I tried," she whispered.
"Trying isn't enough," I said, my frustration rising. I worked fifty hours a week on my feet, wiping bedpans and checking vitals, so that she could have an education and a future. "If you don't do your homework, you're going to get kicked out of advanced placement. Is that what you want? To fall behind?"
"No," she said, looking down.
"Then talk to me! What is going on over there?"
Nell took a shuddering breath. She raised her eyes, looking directly at me for the first time in days. "Mom... can I just stay home alone after school? I'm twelve. Other kids in my grade stay home alone. I can lock the doors. I swear I'll do all my homework. Please don't make me go to Aunt April's."
A spike of parental panic hit me. "Stay home alone? For eight hours at night? Absolutely not, Nell! It's not safe. What if there's a fire? What if someone breaks in? April is there to supervise you. She's keeping you safe."
"She's not—" Nell started, her voice suddenly desperate.
"She's not what?"
Nell stopped abruptly. She swallowed hard, her gaze darting toward the floor as if she had just stepped onto thin ice. "Nothing. Never mind."
"Nell, don't play these games with me. Aunt April does everything for us. She took you in without hesitation when I got this hospital shift. You need to show some gratitude and stop making excuses for poor grades. Tonight, you sit at her kitchen table and you finish every single assignment before you play with your cousins. Do you understand me?"
"Yes, Mom," Nell whispered.
I kissed the top of her head before she left for the bus stop, but she didn't lean into the embrace. She stood stiff as a statue. I told myself she was just being dramatic. All pre-teens resented rules. She would thank me later in life for keeping her grounded.
That evening was Thursday, November 14th.
The weather had turned bitterly cold, dropping near freezing, with freezing rain beginning to coat the streets of Pittsburgh in a treacherous sheet of black ice. At the hospital, the emergency room was flooded with trauma cases from multi-car pileups on the parkway.
As a technician, I was run ragged. I shuttled patients to radiology, emptied catheter bags, swapped out soaked bedding, and assisted nurses with emergency sutures. My feet throbbed inside my running shoes. My scrubs were damp with sweat and sanitizer. By ten o'clock, my brain was running on pure adrenaline and cold breakroom coffee.
At 10:35 p.m., the charge nurse tapped me on the shoulder. "Jasmine, line two is for you. Sounds like a kid. She said it was an emergency."
A cold fist clamped around my heart. In the hospital world, "emergency" usually meant blood, sirens, or tragedy. I ripped off my latex gloves, wiped my hands on my pants, and snatched the beige desk phone off the wall.
"Hello? Jasmine here."
On the other end of the line, the background was dead silent. No TV playing. No dogs barking. No sound of April’s chaotic household. Just the faint, rhythmic sound of shallow, terrified breathing.
Then came a tiny, trembling voice that made my blood turn to ice.
"Mom?"
"Nell? Sweetie, what's wrong? Are you okay?"
Nell wasn't just talking quietly; she was whispering into the receiver, her voice pitched so low I had to press the phone hard against my ear to make out the words.
"Mom... am I allowed to leave if the little kids are still asleep?"
The breath evacuated from my lungs. "What? What are you talking about, leave? Leave where?"
May you like
"Aunt April's house," Nell breathed, her voice cracking with terror. "There's... there's a man banging on the back kitchen door, Mom. He’s been kicking it for ten minutes. The glass is rattling. He says he knows she’s in here. But she isn’t here, Mom. She hasn’t been here since five o'clock."
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