Exercises - Jenni 4 - Characterization by Dialogue

Jenni sat in the cool green corridor, perched on the edge of her seat. The smell of the antiseptic rose up and choked her. The night duty nurse whistled off-key as he filed a stack of pink forms. One of those forms had her son's name on it. Christopher Star, in the smooth cursive she'd learned from the nuns in grammar school and never forgotten. Jenni's hands clenched convulsively in her lap, opening and closing on the drab brown of her uniform skirt. She choked back a sob, then another, knowing that she if she started to cry, she'd never stop.

"What's wrong, child?" A thin black man sat three chairs down, with a face drawn and tired from his own vigil. Jenni had watched his wife wheeled into emergency three hours ago. A gunshot victim and still no word. Despite his own weariness, his face was concerned, and his voice soft as he gazed at the tears caught in her eyes.

"It's my son. There's something wrong with his heart." Her voice cracked, as she admitted out loud what she'd been trying not to think about.

"Trust the doctors, child. They'll do their best."

"And if that isn't enough?" Tears leaked out of her blue eyes, even after Jenni squeezed her eyes tightly shut. "My dad was a doctor, you know. A surgeon."

"He was?"

"Oh, I know I don't look like a surgeon's daughter." Jenni laughed throuh her tears, a ragged, pained laugh, as she clenched her work-worn hands. "Dad would have hated to see me like this. He died in a hospital just like this one, when I was a little girl. They didn't know what was wrong with him -- one minute he was fine, had this poor man's chest open right in front of him. The next minute, he was gasping for air, and then he collapsed. He died within minutes. They found another doctor, but the patient died too. I was seven, and I haven't stepped into a hospital since then."

"Sometimes God works in mysterious ways."

"God!" Jenni spit the word out, suddenly furious at this stranger. "Was it God who killed my brother two months later? He died of cancer -- the doctors couldn't do anything. And you tell me to trust in God? I can't believe in a God who would be so cruel!" She was almost shouting now, and the nurse had turned from his filing.

"If you don't have God, you don't have nothin'," the thin man calmly answered.

"Then I guess I have nothing." The words were bitter, tired. She stared at the man, almost daring him to say something, anything else, so she could explode again, find some other way to take out her fear for her son. He was silent, giving her nothing.

"Ms. Star?" A doctor stepped out of the emergency room, his broad face wrinkled with concern. "Could I have a word with you?"