Caring for Strangers

The quiet young girl with thick eyebrows arching over blue eyes sat quietly, waiting for her chin to be sewn, and took it all in. The room was nearly full. Most of the people waiting with her were familiar to her, seemed to know her, glanced from her to her mother and formed the unspoken gossip with their eyes. This was life in a small town. She avoided their stares much as she suppressed the pain of her chin. Looking through the door, she saw the starched white nurses waiting on the doctor. She didn't ever want to wait on anybody. She wanted to be waited on. The doctor had something in his right hand, brought it down to a bare leg, then away, then down and away again. The girl caught the pungency of iodine, the steel-sharp scent of alcohol. There were old magazines she didn't want to read and a chart of fruits and vegetables on the wall. She was bored. She was tired. She was hurting.

“Next,” said the skinny nurse, and the young girl followed her mother into the next room. She sat on the table, tried to cover the rip in the knee of her jeans with a hand, and looked around.

“How old are you, honey?” asked the older nurse with the glasses on a chain. “Has she had her shots?” she asked the girl's mother.

“Nine,” said the girl.

“Yes,” said her mother. “They're up to date.”

“Dee-Pee-Tee?”

“Just last year, in school,” answered her mother.

Laughter shot from the adjacent examining room, then shuffling, a clinking of metal on glass, and the doctor breezed in. He was tall, young, happy-looking. He probably had kids of his own.

“My God,” he said, “what beautiful eyes! And your eyebrows, young lady … .”

“She …