A Novel by Kawika A. Stafford

Chapter 3

Nikko stood in the doorway looking at her daughter affectionately.
Raye slept peacefully, taking her usual afternoon nap.
She began to reflect when her daughter had been born in Tucson.

A nurse had wheeled her daughter into the room so that she could breast feed her.
“Oh, I’m sorry I must be in the wrong room,” nurse Pavlov said.

“No you’re in the right room, and that is my baby, so,” Nikko said, her voice beginning to trail off.

She had to have an emergency cesarean. She was weak, and groggy. The nurse reacted as though she had not heard Nikko. The nurse continued to look at the infant information card, and back at Nikko.

The nurse did this several times, before wheeling the newborn up to the side of the bed. “There you go,” nurse ratchet said with an aspartame smile.

Nikko could feel a small fire beginning to burn inside her.

However, she took a breath, not wanting her daughter to hear any unnecessary nonsense right from the beginning of her young life.

She would experience America soon enough.

As the nurse prepared to leave, Nikko couldn’t resist a little condescending smile.

As she began to feed her child, she watched the nurse leave the room with the swish swish sound of her white hospital dress and white panty hose echoing in her ears.
The sound of her tea pot whistling interrupted her thoughts.

She stood in the kitchen waiting for her tea to seep to its fullest flavor.

Nikko mulled over how insensitive some people could be. She knew that everyone in general, was color conscious to a greater or lesser degree.

Throughout her life she had heard all the simple simon rhetoric, white with white, black with black, bullshit.

She poured some cream into her cup, and stirred it gently.

“If only people could be like a cup of tea.”

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