Mama B - A Time to Dance (Book 2) by Michelle Stimpson

kiss my grits!” Her countenance was wild with anger.
    Libby tried to
calm her with a soothing tone. “Henrietta, you’ve got to give your stomach a
chance to revive. Maybe tomorrow, they’ll start you off slow with Jell-o.”
    Henrietta looked
past Libby’s shoulder and bugged her eyes out at me. “What you got this white
woman in here for?”
    “Oh, please,”
Libby coaxed, “I’m not just some white woman. I’ve been knowing you for years.
You know who I am, right?”
    “Yeah, I know
you Libby. But you still white as a lily, Libby. Always have been, always will
be.”
    One thing was
for sure, Henrietta hadn’t lost her way with words.
    Libby took a
step around me and sat in the visitor’s chair.
    “Now, Henrietta,
you got to stop this foolishness,” I advised. “We’re all here because we love
you and we want to see you get better. You got to stop being so mean.”
    The nurse got my
attention by putting an arm on my shoulder and whispered, “It’s okay. She
doesn’t mean what she says. She’s irritable and confused, as many patients are
under these circumstances. She probably won’t remember much of what happened
right before the coma or much of what she says today, either. See, look. She’s
asleep already.”
    In just a few
seconds’ time, Henrietta had slipped back to sleep. Her mouth slacked open, her
breathing deep. I never knew a person could go from sixty to zero that quickly.
    “Is this normal,
too?” I asked the nurse.
    “Well,
technically, she’s still in the coma. She’ll probably sleep twenty-two to
twenty-three hours a day, similar to a newborn. Her body is repairing and
rebuilding itself. In a couple of days, she’ll be up more until, finally, she’s
back to her regular schedule. She’s very lucky. She wasn’t unconscious long,
and we were able to bring her sugar down from fourteen hundred steadily.”
    “Fourteen
hundred!” I exclaimed, which caused Henrietta to stir.
    “Cut down all
that racket!” she fussed. Almost instantly, she dropped her head back in slumber.
    I whispered,
“She’s not lucky, she’s a miracle!”
    The nurse
nodded, then left the room.
    I tiptoed over
to Libby to make sure she’d heard what I heard. “Sister, do you realize how
high her sugar was?”
    Libby shook her
head. “Not really, but I’m sure it ain’t supposed to be that high.”
    I smacked my
lips. “Let me put it to you like this. I know from dealing with Albert, if your
sugar is three hundred, you supposed to call the doctor. If it gets up to five
hundred, you supposed to call 9-1-1.  I imagine at fourteen hundred, you
supposed to be near-bout dead!”
    “Praise God,”
Libby squealed.
    Me and Libby
locked elbows and did our holy dance together. She and I been doin’ the dance
since we started going to the weight control class. Whenever they would announce
how many pounds me and her lost, we’d dance before God. And every since then,
we praise Him like that when He comes through for us. Long as we’ve been
friends, and as good as He is, we done had plenty to dance about.
     
    Frank dropped by between patients later
on and told me, Ophelia, and Libby it would probably be a few more days before
Henrietta could go home. Just depended on how she bounced back. And even then,
she might need dialysis after all the trauma to her kidneys—we just had
to wait and see.
    Of course, me
and Ophelia knew there was a possibility Henrietta might not have no place to
come home to. I left the hospital with Ophelia so she and I could drop by the
studio to get the flyer, then to the place that might be able to help Henrietta
keep her house.
    We filled out
some forms to the best of our ability, but seeing as neither Henrietta nor
anyone from her family was with us, we didn’t get very far. “I’ll be back
tomorrow with her daughter,” Ophelia promised.
    The young man
who attended to us seemed very hopeful about the possibility of intervening
with the county tax assessor. Once we got back in