chapter 24 of course word gets back to my dad and judy about this whole incident and they decide to cut short their honeymoon whoever heard of a two-month honeymoon anyways why do they feel the need to be away from us kids so long what's not to love about us whatever they call to say they're picking up bear from judy's parents and we'll head up here bear had been texting me the entire summer telling me all of the adventures he's been on with his grandparents let's see first he said they made up some care packages again only this time it wasn't to aid starving people in africa instead it was to help harbor seals off the coast of alaska apparently mae and jed silver jude's parents had some concern remember her parents are kind but kinda kooky that the seals wouldn't be able to survive the frigid temperatures that far north so bear learned to knit he knit sweaters for the seals i guess you could call them faux seal skin or is it sealed ponchos pro one knit two these are seals i texted back that have inches of blubber to insulate against the cold bear replied was i know i know i could hear his sigh of humiliation through the text the latest project was interrupted by the carl craze bear texted me one sentence about it we're raking up acorns for the squirrels to help with their winter stock poor bear he really does put up with a lot after all he's put up with me all these years the evening after all the cemetery stuff happens grandma insists that i go get checked out at the hospital we'll take you moosham and me but i'm fine i implore not wanting to get prodded and poked then go for my sake nezzy and junior will go pick some juneberries for you and have to have when you get back well all right i so love my berries we head to bell court to the indian health service building its facade is covered in brick and stone cut from the local quarry that's another thing i noticed up here that in the turtle mountains people use what they have they have local materials back home in minnesota some people on lake minnetonka ship in carrara marble from italy or french porcelain tiles even flying an exotic zebra wood from the african continent to include in their houses but to me this makes more sense it's more meaningful to use homegrown building materials oh my gosh i sound like a granola loving tree hugger in the waiting room there are about six people ahead of me one by one they nod at my grandparents and then they do the unimaginable they nod to me they actually nod to me and acknowledge my existence i am apple hear me roar the nurse finally calls my name and i follow her back to the examining room don't you always peek into the little rooms as you pass i always do too in one room is a mom holding her baby in her lap as the nurse prepares to give the little one a shot down the hall i appear into another room okay so i push the door open a bit and i hear the dad saying well i know i saw something up your nose and it wasn't no piggy bank i saw the old penny of the nose toddled their trick yikes i'm so immersed in my hospital room observations that i almost lose the nurse ahead of me she has bright red hair so it's easy to catch up to her now take a seat in here i'll take all your vitals before the doctor gets here please don't tell me to go into one of those hospital gowns they have no back to them and i have no self-respect in them either the nurse continues to look at my chart and at me then down to my chart again she brushed she brushes her flame red box out of her eyes and stares at me that hair what is it about her hair we are in a scary match for a few seconds let's see here um she says looking at her chart it says here your name is apple is that correct it's not a typo is it sometimes that front office doesn't know yep i interrupt her it's apple all right i guess i'm supposed to get checked out we're still we're still in a staring mode but we're pretending that it's all well and normal if she only knew who she was dealing with the nurse continues to flip her chart papers and then she stops and sex in her breath oh oh my word you your the nurse whose head is red says apple remember geez am i the one on the alzheimer's unit and then it hits me i know that face that hair i know too i yell you're the one in the picture with my mom she yells you're marion's daughter i yell the picture from high school graduation it's you she yells i know your face anywhere i knew someday i'd meet you the doctor chooses that exact moment to walk in the door and he hears us yelling and hugging and crying he slowly decks his head and backs out wise man i come to find out the nurse's name is tiffany she and my mom were best friends growing up and all throughout high school tiffany is an indian but moved to the turtle mountains with her family when she was five on the first day of first grade she and my mom were assigned deaths next to each other and from then on she says they were inseparable when my mom went to north dakota state university in fargo to study teaching tiffany went to the university of minnesota to pursue a degree in nursing she did all her clinical studies at the mayo hospital and then was offered a job back up in bell court north dakota on the turtle mountain reservation they lost touch for a bit after my mom and dad got married cradling my face she whispers oh i have thought about you so many times it's just been so long i didn't know you were up here which is surprising since word travels fast up here some call gossip but we call it the moccasin telegraph for some it's the traditional pastime up here i've been up here since june spending time with my gran i mean my mushroom in kukum's house i even get to sleep in mom's bedroom oh my stars we spent so many hours in her room planning about our future she always wanted to teach your mom marion was like the pied piper when it came to kids they just flocked to her she would always try to get me to teach sunday school with her but i just never had the knack we talk in that little room for what must have been close to an hour she talks and tells me so many stories about my mom as she gives me the okay i'm fit as a fiddle funny the doctor never does come back and just see me that's america's health care system at its best we make plans to meet for lunch early next week but as i hold the door to leave one thing about her story comes back to me tiffany yeah apple did you say you did your clinicals for a few weeks at the mayo the hospital in rochester minnesota yes why she looks at me in a serious way we both know what was coming so tiffany when was that i tried to sound nonchalant well let's see it took me about seven years to get through college i wasn't a brain like your mom i had to work twice as hard as everyone just to make it through trying to keep her focused i continue and did you have any memorable cases when you were there at the mayo hospital her hand rips the door from my grasp and slams it shut yes i did there was a case i would have given everything i had to avoid it tiffany hides her face from me as she hugs me burying her mass of red curls in my face it was on a friday late friday night with the season changing from fall to winter highway 52 just outside of the city of rochester is notorious for car accidents it's just a little road with no overpasses so if people need to cross it they gun it and try to speed up before an oncoming car hits them tiffany looks at me gauging whether to continue she can't sense if i'm ready to hear so she pauses please i beg it's time i know you were there when my mom died you're right apple it's about your life too isn't it then for a few minutes she tells me of how the fog and the icy rain had made up had made traveling that night treacherous but my mom watched my mom wanted to stop by the mayo hospital where my dad was performing a last-minute surgery she noticed earlier that he didn't bring his wallet and she knew he'd be famished after the operation so she piled into the car eight months pregnant and drove to bring it to him so he'd have money only she never made it a car trying to cross the highway spun out and hit her head on she never saw it coming it happened close enough to the city that within minutes an ambulance picked her up and had her to the emergency room quickly the emts later told my dad that they didn't understand what my mom was saying it seemed she had already begun the travel back to her native first languages french and the chief mom was brought to the same hospital where my dad was working that night for the first time in his life he was the loved one waiting to hear word of a family member hanging on to life with a thread tiffany then tells me so many details about the operation in which doctors tried to stop mom's internal bleeding but the trauma from the car crash was too much for her you were one of the nurses with her in the operating room weren't you tiffany nods without saying a word keeping her face turned to the floor i'm remarkably calm considering this is the first time i'll know really know what happened those last few moments of her life but i do hear one thing my dad never mentioned before tiffany reminds me of the last words coming from mom's mouth from what i can remember of that day your mom said something like that's rough translation in french for my girl the apple of my eye and that's how i got my name yet i never knew what my mom said before that much before remember this all happened within 11 minutes in only 11 minutes mom was wheeled into the operating room and i was born tiffany tells me that the doctor said they were able to save my mother they would if the doc said if they were able to save my mother they would need to give a high dose of narcotics and blood thinners to ease pressure on the circulatory system by administering this cocktail as they called it my mom would get through the trauma done to her body so you're saying mom had a chance to live why hasn't anyone told me should we find these doctors and sue them come on apple apple let me finish sweetie see there's just one caveat it would adversely affect the baby in utero looking at me she finishes if she was to live it would cause you to die to have never seen the light of day i but i don't understand why she i mean she never even knew me and she i can't even finish my thought the horrible thought that my mom my lovely mother could have lived and i caused her to die it really is true i killed my mother i feel arms holding me tightly tiffany looks me square in the eyes i swear in the face her eyes reaching and piercing years of misunderstanding oh sweetie no you have it all wrong your mama she knew you from the moment she found out she was pregnant and she loved you every day but let me finish the story apple after the doctors gave her that choice she never hesitated a moment she looked at the doctor and then to me noticing that it was me her childhood friend pleading she said to me please the baby must live i insist but i thought mom spoke french her last few mo her last few moments how about the doctors have known what she said you're right she was speaking one of her first languages but when it really counted her soul was strong enough to come back lucid for a few seconds she gave the order to save you in english so the doctors would understand and that's when she named me right wait tiffany you weren't the ner the nurse who took that to mean my name was supposed to be apple were you oh no it was another new another nurse but she was a good woman and i truly think that we saw how your mom looked at you and how joyful her laugh was when she said my girl the apple of my eye how could i argue with that even though it may have been a mangled french misinterpretation you're you're right it's the name mom gave me we speak for a few more minutes and then because i know she has a full day with appointments i leave back out in the waiting room grandma sees that tiffany is walking me out and says oh i didn't know you were working today tiffany yeah right grandma knew all along why i needed to go to the doctor today it was for healing all right but a different kind