Forbidden Mennonite

Continued from Mennonite on an Emotional Roller-coaster 

“Mm-hmm…,” I answered.

“Anna, did you bring your OHIP card?” Hilary asked.

“An OHIP card? Ahhh… I have a SIN card.”

“No Anna, your health card, he means your health card,” Bree explained.

“Oh… yes, in my bag in the lunchroom.”

“Bree, can you go get her bag and bring it to my car? Anna, I am going to drive you to the hospital, okay?” Hilary said.

Hilary effortlessly lifted me up as if I weighed only a couple of ounces. He put my left arm around his neck so I was leaning against him and put his right arm around my waist. He walked me to his car, put me in the passenger seat, and put my seatbelt on. Bree came running with my bag and put it on my lap.

Hilary explained, “The hospital is a few blocks from here, I will get you there in a few minutes, okay Anna?”

“Okay.”

I was starting to feel much better and all I could think about was “Oba! I’m riding in Hilary’s fancy car and it smells amazing.”

“Are you sure I need to go to the hospital? I think I’m fine. I am feeling much better now,” I said.

“I am so glad that you are feeling better, Anna, but I would like a doctor to examine you and tell us that, okay? Don’t worry about work, it will be there when you get back.”

Hilary slowly drove up toward the emergency door and there was a man nurse waiting for me with a wheelchair. Hilary helped me out of the car and guided me to the wheelchair, and I thought, “Why does this nurse have to be a man?”

“We will call when we know anything, okay?” said the nurse, and Hilary drove off. The nurse wheeled me into a room and hooked me up to all kinds of machines.

“Anna, what do you think is happening to you?” The nurse asked.

“I have a nerve problem and a man left me a bag candy on my car yesterday. I was so scared I couldn’t eat and I passed out, I think.”

“Did you eat any of the candy?”

“No, I threw it away.”

“Okay good. Why are you scared of this man?”

“Because I lied to him and he is mad at me, but I think I passed out because I couldn’t eat today and I haven’t eaten well for months now. I have been feeling weak and light-headed on and off for a long time already because I have a nerve condition,” I explained.

“What condition?”

“You could call this nurse at the walk-in clinic down the street? She can explain it to you,” I got the phone number out of my bag and handed him.

“Okay, I will give her a call right now. I’ll be right back,” he said.

About forty minutes later he returned with a file folder and a bag of cookies. He sat down beside me and said, “Here, eat some of these while I talk.”

I forced down a cookie as he explained that I had to eat to gain my strength back. He explained how important it was for me to eat if I wanted to get strong enough to work an eight-hour shift standing on my feet the whole time.

“Okay, I will try to eat more.”

“I will keep you here for a while hooked up the IV while I run some tests. Why don’t you try to have a nap?”

“Okay.”

George and I were sitting at a table across from each other by the beach at GT’S in Port Stanley and he asked me, “What is the deal with your watermelon seed phobia?”

“You don’t know what happens if you swallow watermelon seeds?”

“No.”

“They will grow inside your stomach, it will get a really big and then your mom will have a baby, George,” I said.

“What the f#ck,” he answered.

All of a sudden the sun got so bright that I couldn’t see George anymore. I rubbed my eyes and when I opened them the nurse was opening the blinds. He had put a warm blanket on me, he came and took the needle out of my arm, put a tray of food on a small table, wheeled it to me and said, “Anna, try to eat a bit.”

I ate all the food -- it was really good. I felt so good after I ate that I got up and went to the bathroom. When I came out the nurse was sitting on the bed with some papers and said, “Anna, everything looks good, you are good to go home but you should take it easy and you have to eat or this will happen again.”

“Okay, I will.”

He gave me a pile of information to read on eating disorders, unhealthy relationships, and how to build up low self-esteem. He pointed to the phone and said, “There is a phone to call your mom for a ride.”

I laughed, and he asked, “What is so funny?”

“Ah… my mom lives in Mexico,” I answered.

“What? Okay, please don’t call her then.”

I called Hilary instead since I had to pick up Izaak’s car from the factory anyway.

While sitting in the waiting room waiting for Hilary with my forehead resting in my palms I got worried and I thought, “I really hope I don’t get fired after this. Oba dietschjat nochemol eent -- why can’t things just go smoothly for a change?”

I lifted my head and there was Mrs. Braun walking around with her new baby, staring at me again. Mr. Braun walked in and looked at me and shook his head as he was talking to Mrs. Braun. He picked up the diaper bag and walked out of the hospital. Mrs. Braun was carrying the baby and could barely keep up with him, but he just kept walking like he was late for something.

I thought “Oh crap! I just know he is going to call Mexico and my mom will know that I was in the hospital.”

Hilary came in with a big smile on his face, asking me how I was feeling and if I was okay. I told him that I was okay and feeling much better.

On our way walking out of the hospital I said, “I am sorry that you had to come and get me, but I couldn’t think of anyone else to call.”

“No Anna, don’t be sorry and don’t worry about it, I wanted to come and pick you up. I wanted to make sure that you were okay and I am so happy to see that you are. Feel free to take tomorrow off and don’t worry about anything. It is completely up to you.”

As Hilary pulled up to the factory parking lot Bree was sitting outside at the picnic table having her lunch break. She waved me over and said, “Tell me everything, what’s going on with you?”

I sat down and told her that I was fine that I just fainted because I hadn’t eaten anything all day. I told her about the bag of candy that Mark had left on the car and she thought that was hilarious.

She said, “What a f#cking loser. I think you have nothing to worry about, he will get the message that you are not interested and move on, I’m sure of it.”

“I really hope so, and soon, because I am getting tired of this,” I replied.

“I can’t believe you have a stalker, Anna. it’s probably because you are Mennonite and that is why men are attracted to you. Maybe that’s why George likes you so much, it’s kind of like you are the forbidden fruit,” she said.

My jaw dropped I turned completely red from head to toe and I couldn’t look at her face anymore. But she continued, “Maybe I should become a Mennonite and someone would be obsessed with me, too. Anna, could someone become a Mennonite?”

I had a really hard time talking to her after that, but then I remembered that this was the same person who had really enjoyed embarrassing me. I remembered the time she showed me her breasts in the bathroom after she got her nipples pierced.

“You want to be a Mennonite? Ahhh… I don’t think you want to but if you’re serious you could go live with my family in Mexico. But then you could never even think the F word let alone say it out loud. You wouldn’t be allowed to say the word pizza you would have to say meat pie because pizza sounds too close to you-know-what. Do you think you could do that?”

“Ahhh… let me think about it,” she replied.

“I’m not saying that you couldn’t, it would actually be interesting to see. And why not? if I can learn your world, why couldn’t you learn mine? But I am imagining you walking through the door of my parents’ house and the first thing you would say is, ‘What the f#ck is this?’”

She laughed and said, “Oh Anna, you’re so good at visualizing reality. Don’t you ever just fantasize and things happen the way you want them to happen, not the way you know they would actually happen?”

I was getting a feeling that she might be jealous of my friendship with George and I knew I had to be careful about what I told her. I said, “Oh Bree, I do fantasize a lot, I think that my fantasy life and the bit of hope that I have left that someday a tiny piece of it may actually come true is what has kept me going this far.”

I thought to myself, “If she knew the dreams and fantasies I was having about George she would beat me up for sure. And I am the ‘forbidden fruit?’ Ahhh… I think she’s got that one flipped around.” Click here to continue reading my story.