Mute Mallorie

Chapter Four

Chapter Four

"How are you feeling, darling?" Mother asked. She stood over me and stared at me. She was holding my hand. I had just woken up and I was extremely groggy.

I looked around.

"Eli is perfectly fine, dear," she said, "Don't you worry now."

Another bed got wheeled into the room.

"Elizabeth insists that you two share a room," the nurse said, staring at me.

I sat up and nodded.

They parked her bed on the other side of the bedside table.

"Thank you," Eli said, rather irritable.

"I'll go find Patricia," Mom said, leaving the room.

Eli looked at me and smiled, "How ya feeling?"

I smiled and put two thumbs up.

"Great," Eli said, "I feel like I'm done with surgeries," she paused, "Aside from ours next month. Ready for that one?"

I shrugged.

"You want to speak, don't you?"

I shrugged again.

"We can't have the surgery unless you are one hundred percent sure you want it."

'I'll get back to you on that,' I signed, 'It's going to happen, but I want to think of the right reasons, not the superficial reasons.'

"Like?"

'Getting a voice just to be normal,' I paused, 'To try to live in the past.'

"No living in the past for you," she said, "You need to live now and you need to find a damn good reason to why you want this voice. Why you want to go through all of this work, just to be normal again. It's perfectly normal to want to feel normal. I've wanted to feel normal ever since I was first put in a hospital for my kidney problems."

'So we're not so different after all.'

"No, Mallorie, we certainly are not.

*********

"Mallorie, sweetie," Mom said, walking into the room, "Ready to leave?"

'Already?' I signed, 'What about Eli?'

"Eli is gonna be just fine, honey. She needs a little more time to recover because the kidney needs time to adjust. Its all brand new for her."

'But I just had one ripped out of me.'

"Honey, you don't wanna leave Eli, do you?"

I looked over at Eli sleeping in her hospital bed. She looked so peaceful, she was gonna finally be normal. Well, as normal as Eli could be.

I shrugged, 'She's always lonely in here by herself. She recovers alone.'

"Eli is old enough to be alone. She's used to it. She'll be fine. Your sister is really excited for you to come home. Its been almost a week."

'So can I just leave then?'

"Yep. Get dressed."

I figured there was no use arguing with mother, 'Shouldn't we wait for Eli to wake at least?'

"That could be hours."

I just looked at Mom.

"Alright, fine. Do what you please. You're gonna see Eli later any way. But if this makes you feel better, then by all means..."