Quadir smacked his lips. “Nothing; she’s just crazy, that’s all.”

“Quadir, Amelia has been over to my house many times since we’ve met.”

“What?” Quadir recoiled.

Amelia smiled at him.

“And she may be many things, but one thing she is not is crazy. What is going on?”

“Do you want to tell her, or should I?” Amelia asked looking at Quadir.

“Do what you want; you’ve been doing it anyhow.”

Viola could see her son’s attitude and placed her hand on her hip as she looked down on him.

“Quadir here has given up.” Amelia told her.

“What?”

“Yep, he’s thrown in the towel. Doesn’t want to try in therapy, just wants to sit back and eat Jell-O and watch television.”

“No, that’s not my son. My son is a not a quitter. My baby’s a fighter!”

The two women stared at Quadir in silence. He could feel their eyes on him.

“Quadir…” Viola started off.

“Okay, okay!”

“Okay what?” Amelia asked. “You admit to your mother that you’re a quitter, or okay, you’re not going to let her down and be a quitter.”

Quadir peered up at her and rolled his eyes at Amelia. She was the most nerve-racking woman he had ever met.

“Baby, I want you to walk out of this hospital on your own two feet,” Viola told him. “I want you to hurry up and get well and get outta this place.”

Quadir nodded.

“His gunshot wounds are healing rather well,” Amelia explained. “He has one that I left open, because of infection. We pack it twice a day, and we’ve been giving him antibiotics for it. I want it to close up on its own. It’ll leave only a slightly larger scar than if we had sewn it up. But he’s coming along rather nicely.”

Viola caressed Quadir’s head and nodded.

“We just need for him to give us some effort, so we can get him walking.”

“I’m sore and it hurts like hell!” Quadir told her.

“Just try, baby. Do it for me. Just promise me that you’ll try,” Viola pleaded.

Quadir nodded. “Okay, I’ll do it.”

“Good.” Amelia smiled. “Well, I’ll leave you two alone so that you can catch up. I’ll be back in, say… thirty minutes?”

“Thank you so much, Amelia,” Mrs. Richards leaned forward and kissed her on her cheek.

Amelia turned and left the chapel.

“How’s Gena doing?” Quadir asked.

“She’s doing good. She’s just fine.”

“Where is she? Why didn’t she come here with you?”

“Baby, after this happened to you, I didn’t trust nobody. I decided it be best and I let her think you were dead.”

“What? That’s Gena! Why would you do that?”

“Baby, I know. But it was for your own safety.”

“My safety? She didn’t shoot me!”

“Listen, I didn’t even tell your father and no I didn’t tell her. Do you know what could happen if Gena finds out you’re alive? Do you understand that Amelia put her entire medical career on the line to help protect you? If Gena knew you were alive, the entire city would know. There’s no way she could keep this kind of secret. Please trust us, trust me, and trust Dr. Hopkins. Don’t worry about Gena. You just go ahead and get well. I want you to walk out of this place, then go get your precious Gena and get the hell outta Philly.”

“Get outta Philly? Where’s Rik? Where’s Rasun?”

“Baby, you can worry about them after you get better! But, son, you got to understand, you’re a ghost to these people. To them, you don’t exist.”

Quadir nodded. “I want to see Gena.”

“I know you do. I know, son, but she’s fine; she’s tough, and she can handle herself until you get yourself together and figure out where to go from here with your life.”

Quadir thought about his money. He knew he had been out of it for weeks. He knew that rent needed to be paid, mortgages needed to be paid, and all his other bills had to be taken care of.

“I need you to take care of a few things for me.”

“What?”

“I need you to pay some bills for me.”

“I already took care of all that, Quadir.”

“All of them?”

Viola nodded. She thought that she had in fact taken care of all her son’s bills, not knowing he had many others she knew nothing about, one important one in particular.

“Quadir, I’ve taken care of everything. You just relax, do your therapy, son, and get better. Okay, baby?”

Quadir nodded. He would do as she said. He would focus and he would hurry up and get the hell out of that hospital. Either that or he was going to catch a case for killing Dr. Hopkins.

Viola maneuvered herself behind her son’s wheelchair and began to push. “I want you to come up to the front of the chapel with me so we can pray together, okay?”

Quadir looked blankly at his mother. He didn’t know what she expected of him, but he didn’t have any prayers left. He had prayed, prayed more than anyone would ever know. Every time he tried to use his legs to hold him up, he prayed. And every time he tried to take a step, he prayed. Don’t she know all I been doing is praying? He knew his mother and he also knew that even if he didn’t want to, Viola wouldn’t take no for an answer.

“Okay.”

Six Weeks Later

Dr. Hopkins strolled into her patient’s room pushing a wheelchair.

“Up and at ’em, sleepyhead.”

Quadir was lying on his bed, staring out the window. He turned to face her.

“You are a pest. You should get an award for being the peskiest doctor in the world. Why you won’t stop?”

“Because, Mr. Smith, you are a fighter. You fought for your life on that operating table, and now it’s time to fight for getting back into the game of life. So, up, up, up.”

Amelia lowered the bed railing and clasped Quadir’s arm. He snatched it away from her.

“You’re not even my doctor anymore. And you’re not my therapist. I don’t feel like it today!”

“Look, Mr. Smith, I didn’t save your ass to see you sit here and wither away. Now stop acting like a little bitch and get your fucking ass in the wheelchair.”

Quadir frowned at her, trying to figure out why she was constantly calling him Mr. Smith. Damn, she won’t stop; she just won’t stop.

“You’re like the Energizer bunny. You should wear a bunny outfit and get some Rollerblades,” he said, laughing at her. “Look, you could roll down the hall and shit, in and out of all your patients’ rooms, constantly being a disturbance, you know how you do,” he said, looking at her with his eyebrows raised, waiting for her to agree with his jokes.

“You know what? You really are an asshole.”

“And you’re really a pain in my ass. You know what, doc, that’s all the fuck I do feel, the pain in my ass from your constant bullshit.”

“Get the fuck up, and get in the goddamn chair,” she hollered as she took his vitals chart and used it as a weapon, ready to attack him.

“Please, you can’t hit me; you’re a doctor and I’m a sick patient.”

“Get your ass up and get in the chair! I’m not leaving until we’re done.”

“Fuck, man, come on,” he said huffing and puffing, but he did it because he knew she had to win and she wouldn’t stop. She meant every word she said. He sulked his way off the bed and into the wheelchair.

She pushed him to the elevator and they made the short trip to the rehabilitation center.

“Can I just pay you for your services?” Quadir asked.

“Are you serious?” She stopped the chair and walked around in front of him. “You could never repay me. Do you understand that, Mr. Smith?” she said, looking like Bette Davis.

“Yo, you ever see that movie What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? That’s you.” He started laughing at her again.

This black man must be out of his mind.

“I got your Baby Jane; shut up before I really show you how Bette I can get,” she said, slapping the back of his head.

“I’m going file a report against you. That’s the second time you’ve hit me.”

“Listen, Mr. Smith, I’m really tired of your shit. I know you can do this. I know you can. If you could come back and cheat death the way you did, I know you can make a full recovery. I know you can. Gosh, if you believed in yourself as much as I do, you’d have walked out of here by now. Now come on, it’s showtime.”