Her Steady Hand

They looked like the average family as they walked through the emergency department’s double doors. After I learned their story, I wondered if the 19-year-old mother, Jacqueline played along with this fantasy in her mind. I wondered if she didn’t mind people assuming her clean-cut, handsome case-worker was her husband, assuming her children were from the same man, assuming she had a home and real family.
Jacqueline clutched her 4-year-old daughter Maria’s hand in her own and pushed the stroller with her toddler daughter, while the Department of Children and Family Services case worker held Maria’s sleeping twin brother. Jacqueline appeared strong, if not defiant, as she walked past the nurse’s station back to wait in the exam room.
The day shift nurse leaned close to my ear and whispered, “That is the mom.” I nodded. I quickly learned that Jacqueline had brought her daughter, Maria, to the ED for sores on Maria’s bottom and the case was soon becoming a SCAN (Suspected Child Abuse or Neglect) case rather than a innocuous check-up. The young, homeless mother Jacqueline fit the description as both “hardened” with the staff and her children and “needy”.
Within minutes of seven-o-clock shift change, Jacqueline was at the nurse’s station asking for snacks and plastic spoons for her twins’ pudding. Her low cut blouse, tight capri pants, and black flip flops did little to create a maternal image. She smiled tightly as I said I would be in the room shortly with the spoons and to examine her daughter.
As I stepped to the back of the nurse’s stations, the attending doctor pulled me aside. “We will need to help us with the exam for obtaining specimens for STD testing of the four-year-old, Maria.” It was not so unusual, this type of exam, but I cringed with sadness as I prepared the q-tips and swabs. I wanted to vomit.
Little Maria smiled brightly at the four of us, two physicians, a social worker and a nurse entered the small room. Maria’s hair was snuggly tucked into two braids along side her head. The resident doctor bent down and began explaining to Maria what we needed to do while the social worker quickly whisked the siblings out of the room. The attending doctor explained the requirements of the exam to Jacqueline.
As we pried Maria from her seated position next to her mommy and started to undress her, she began to scream. Crocodile tears welled in her eyes and spilled down her cheeks. The resident doctor offered Maria a teddy bear and I couldn’t help but wonder if Maria had been bribed before with toys as her clothes had been stripped and her tiny legs spread. She fought the doctors and I held her down. The attending and resident physicians pointed out the obviously STD related lesions as they collected cultures: such a grown-up disease on such a little person.
Maria trembled as her mommy pulled up her Dora the Explorer underwear and blue leggings. The doctors and I slipped out of the room and Maria stared after us with betrayed, angry eyes. As soon I walked out I felt and I had to return.
I knocked on the door, entered and sat on the chair opposite Jacqueline. The words “how are you?” seemed magical that evening. The mother who was described as “a child herself” and “cold” looked me in the eyes and said she was scared.
“I believe in God,” she whispered. “And I don’t know if I can accept what is happening. I was molested as a child, in and out of my parents’ home and foster care. I promised myself my kids wouldn’t have this happen to them. We live at a shelter but…” Her words trailed off and I moved to sit beside her. “Are you a Christian?” I asked. “Yes,” she replied. I reached over and clasped her hand in mine. “Let’s pray” I said. As the Holy Spirit gave me words of blessing and healing to speak over Jacqueline and her children, Jacqueline and I were no longer separated as nurse and mother, white and Latina, wealthy and homeless, we were sisters.
We said, “amen” and opened our eyes to the three children staring at us with great curiosity. I stayed and played with the children for several minutes the standard hospital games of ‘balloon glove’ and ‘peek-a-boo from behind the exam curtain’. As I stood up to leave Jacqueline whispered something to Maria and patted her gently on the back. Maria ran over to me and I bent down on my knees. “Thank you!” She exclaimed as she wrapped her arms around my neck. I met Jacqueline’s eyes as I hugged little Maria. Sisters now, we exchanged an unspoken wish. The God that had brought us together with Her steady hand would heal together the pieces of tiny Maria’ heart with equal strength and love.