“I don’t know. People are everywhere.” Nurse Cathy’s voice drifts, like the beginning of a bedtime story. The medicine in my veins reaches my brain, and I see people floating around in the air, above the earth, arms and legs splayed, like slow-motion jumpers on a trampoline.
I reach my hand out to catch them but only my fingers flutter.
People are everywhere. Don’t you see them floating by?
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
7:10 P.M.
I jolt awake. Sit up straight. I’m not floating anymore. My eyes fly around the room, darting to sliding glass doors and empty corners. My sweatshirt. Charlie’s journal. The empty chair in my room. The woman in yellow in the room across from mine. She’s waiting like my mom would. Like she must be. Where is my mom now? She must’ve stepped out for only a minute. She must be tired from sitting at my bedside. But surely the relief of finding me would make up for the exhaustion. Right? She wouldn’t leave me once she’d found me. She’d be like the woman in the yellow shirt.
“Mom?” I say. “Mom!” Louder. My voice is clear again. Strong enough to shout. The woman in yellow turns her head to look at me. Is she a mom? Does she recognize my need?
The lines on my monitor go up and down and it beeps as my heart races faster. What do the beeps mean? Do they mean I’m dying? Is everyone just waiting?
The nurse rushes in. Her name tag. Cathy. I remember her. She has new scrubs. These ones are blue. A pale green T-shirt underneath. I imagine another band. Another concert. This one all girls with pounding bass lines and screeching guitars.
“Where’s my mom?”
Nurse Cathy’s face falls.
“Honey.” She crosses to my bed. Scrunches her eyes. “Sweetie. I told you. The other day. . .”
The other day? What did she tell me the other day? I remember her shirt. Her name. The water. The fizzy feeling up my arm. I don’t remember days. I don’t remember my mom.
“Is she here?”
“We’re trying to find her.”
Everything slides out from under me. Like the legs of my bed have collapsed. Like the walls of the laundromat. It all folds in.
Memories. Hope. Want. Dread.
My mom. Charlie. Leo. My friends. All that I’ve lost and still might lose. “Have you checked her office? Have you checked our house?” I know it isn’t Nurse Cathy’s job, but it makes me angry she isn’t combing the streets looking for my mom the way I would if I could.
And then.
“Do you even know who she is? How do you know who I am?”
Nurse Cathy points to my sweatshirt. I see it for what it is now. Filthy. Torn. Beat-up. Bloody. A reminder of everything that happened in the rubble.
“We know your name is Ruby. Ruby who plays water polo for Pacific Shore High according to the big logo on the back of your sweatshirt. We’ve been waiting for you to fill in the rest.”
“I’m Ruby Babcock. I need to get out of here.” My eyes dart to my monitor. To the tube running from my hand to the clear bag of clear liquid. To the workstation filled with doctors and nurses. To the room on the other side. “I hate hospitals.”
Hospitals are where people go to die.
“I get it.”
“I have to find my mom.”
“Ruby, honey, we want to help you find her. But taking care of you comes first. And with communication down—”
“No.”
I sit up straight, pull my legs over the side of the bed, and stand up. Determined. That’s it. It’s up to me. Just like I had to get out of the rubble. Now I have to get out of the hospital. I have to get to my house. See if it’s still standing. Or I have to go to my mom’s office. Maybe she’s trapped under her desk the same way I had been trapped at the laundromat. Maybe she’s run out of water. Maybe she’s broken. Or maybe she’s in this very same hospital. I can go room-to-room. Pound on doors. Shout her name.
I step forward and my legs buckle like someone kicked me behind the knees, falling out from under me as I crumble to the floor. I push myself back up. Sway.
And then the thought I don’t want.
What if my mom is like Charlie? Buried. Anonymous. What if she’s under a sheet in a stairwell, piled up among strangers?
I hold my hands to my stomach. Try to keep the emotion in so I don’t break in the middle of this room.
Nurse Cathy tries to coax me back to the bed with a firm grip around my waist, but I twist and manage to wiggle free. I remember how strong I am in the water and summon it now. Nurse Cathy and I are wrestling in front of the goal and I need to make the shot. It’s good that I’m so much taller than she is. It gives me an advantage.
“I see you haven’t lost your athletic skills.” She grabs for but misses the back of my gown.
I push forward, pulling the pole with the metal hook holding the clear bag of clear liquid with me. The wheels scrape. Wobble unsteadily, like my knees. I stand at the opening of the sliding glass doors, but I don’t know where to go. The handful of people sitting in the workstation look up from their computer monitors and their coffee cups and the static radio. That woman’s yellow shirt lights up the room behind them. I want someone to care about me the way she cares about whoever is in that bed.
Nurse Cathy wraps a strong arm around my waist. Steadies the metal stand. “While it’s great to see you on your feet, you’re not ready. Back to bed with you.”
“No.” I untangle myself from her grasp. Push forward again. I’m wrestling in front of the goal in a water polo game, ready to shoot. But this place is blurring. Fizzy. Someone else is here. A woman wearing a lab coat with a stethoscope around her neck. She’s a flash of motion. Like the woman at the laundromat who flipped the safety switches. Her arms reach out. She’s the last thing I remember before I fall into darkness.
Gone.
CHAPTER THIRTY
7:30 P.M.
When I come to, I’m back in bed. Nurse Cathy stands on one side of me, fussing with my IV. The woman with the stethoscope is on the other side, leaning over me, pushing something that smells too minty-strong against my nose. I flick it away like a buzzing bug. A nuisance.
“Ruby,” Nurse Cathy says, “this is Doctor Patel. I get that you’re ready to bust out of here, but you need to listen to what she has to say.”
Doctor Patel takes a breath. “It’s very important that you stay in bed.” She looks at me. Wants her concern to sink in. But my concern is elsewhere. Its focus is someplace beyond this room.
“I have to find my mom.” I look at Nurse Cathy for help. She heard me. She knows how important this is.
“I understand. But you’ve been through a lot,” Doctor Patel says. “You were dehydrated and unconscious when you arrived three days ago.”
“Three days?”
She nods. “You came in with something called a staph infection; do you know what that is?”
“No.”
“It’s serious. It can lead to sepsis. When you arrived, your blood pressure was too low. Your heartbeat was erratic. And you were running a high fever. We’ve been treating you with an antibiotic called vancomycin because the cut on your arm needed stitches and the infection was resistant to penicillin. Your rescuers got you here just in time.”
I remember the jagged overhang in my safe space. The reach for my phone. My arm slicing open like cake when I pushed too hard to grab it. The way my pain had a heartbeat. The way my arm felt like it was on fire for the hours that sunk into days. The fire is dull now. From medicine, I guess.
“You’re a lucky one,” Nurse Cathy says.
“Am I?”
Doctor Patel smiles. “You are. But you still need to take it easy so you can heal completely. We were giving you medicine to help you sleep. You don’t seem like you need it anymore. But I do need you to stay in bed.” Her eyes are gentler than I’d realized. They match her voice. “You need close monitoring and lots of rest. Can you let us do our part while you do yours?”
Nurse Cathy nods. “Listen to Doc Patel, sweetie
.”
“Why?”
“She knows what’s best. We’ve worked shifts together for a decade. She’s one of our top doctors and I trust her. You should, too.” She leans in. “And if you want in on a little secret, she’s also a movie genius. She sweeps our ICU Oscar pool every year.”
How can Nurse Cathy be talking about movies? How can she be so calm? When I’m sitting here worrying about whether or not I’ll ever see my mom again?
“Look,” Doctor Patel says firmly, so opposite of Nurse Cathy’s sweetie and honey and pats on the shoulder. “You’ve lived through a catastrophic 7.8-magnitude earthquake, Ruby. The Big One. There are repercussions from the ocean to the desert. Water supplies are limited. There are casualties in the thousands. This hospital is being run on generators. Phones aren’t working. The internet isn’t working. No TV, so we can’t even fully keep track of the news as it breaks. Reuniting family members has been a difficult and arduous task, not just here but everywhere.”
“But my mom—”
Nurse Cathy nods. Tries to soothe me with a look. “We know.”
My questions pile on top of one another like the rubble. How can anyone think I’d even want to be alive in a world without my mom in it? The hours in a world without Charlie in it have been bad enough, and I just met him. And what about everyone else? All the people I care about. Leo. Thea. Iris. Juliette. My teammates. Coach. And yes, Mila. Where are they? If everyone’s gone, what would be the point of my going on?
Doctor Patel says, “Teams of people are working hard to reconnect family members. And it is happening. But it’s taking a lot of time with so many systems down. We want to find your mom, too. And when we do, you will be the first to know. I promise.”
I fist my hands in frustration. “You can’t really promise that.”
“I can do my best.” Doctor Patel doesn’t look at me.
Neither does Nurse Cathy.
Because they know I’m right. They might never find her. And if they do, she might not be alive.
Nurse Cathy says, “There are FEMA crews out there. And the American Red Cross. They’ve set up shelters all over. And there are everyday people crossing state lines to pitch in. So many folks are out there trying to help.”
I nod. That’s great, but I can’t see how it helps me.
I’m so hungry. The realization sinks me.
“Food?” I ask.
“Certainly.” Doctor Patel looks at Nurse Cathy. “I think she’s ready for something besides liquids. Jell-O maybe? Do we have any left?”
“On it,” Nurse Cathy says, and heads out the sliding glass door.
Doctor Patel stays with me. “The earthquake has been devastating. We need more people like you out there. To help with cleanup and getting us back to normal. I have a feeling you can do a lot of good when you get out of here. So will you rest up and get strong, Ruby?”
“Okay.”
“Good.”
Doctor Patel leaves, and Nurse Cathy returns with a snack pack–size Jell-O cup like the ones my mom used to put in my school lunches in elementary school.
“I got you the last one.”
She sets it on a tray in front of me, peels the lid off. I spoon a wobbly bite into my mouth and feel it go down my throat all smooth and easy. I hum with relief, my tongue wrapping around the sweet taste of it. I spoon another bite. Swallow.
“My mom used to pack Jell-O in my school lunches,” I mumble through a mouthful.
“Mine too.” Nurse Cathy smiles. “Strawberry is the best flavor, don’t you think?”
“Right now, it’s pretty much the most delicious thing I’ve ever eaten.”
“My mom used to buy the variety pack, and my sister and I would argue over who got the strawberry ones.”
I take another bite. “Who won?”
“My sister. Usually.” She studies me. “You remind me of her.”
“Why? Because I keep arguing with you?”
Nurse Cathy laughs. A real laugh. Like Charlie in the rubble. It’s amazing how joy can be found in such horrifying places. And that kindness can happen with the simplest of gestures. Like a cup of Jell-O.
“For the record, you remind me of my sister because you don’t give up. You’re a fighter just like she is.”
“I don’t feel like a fighter.”
“You are. Fighting is what got you here.”
But I know it’s not just me. It’s people, too. From Charlie to Cathy. From the big hands and the calm voice to Doctor Patel. From the woman who flipped the safety switches to the woman in the hallway with the clipboard. So many people have fought to get me here. They believed in my strength.
I have to believe in it, too.
BELIEVE
Leo had rules and curfews and two parents who had been high school sweethearts. There were weekly Sunday dinners with his grandparents and Dave & Buster’s birthday parties for his little brother. His whole family attended every swim meet, and his mom was a dedicated member of the PTA and the aquatics booster club.
I could only imagine what he thought when he came to my house and my mom had left a fluorescent pink Post-it on the fridge to tell me she was working late and I was on my own for dinner.
“Should we DoorDash?” I asked Leo, pulling my phone from my back pocket and tapping on the app.
“We can do whatever.” He made his way to my living room, flopped down on the couch, and aimed the remote control at the TV to turn it on. “I don’t hate this, though.”
“What do you mean?” I abandoned my phone on the counter and flopped down beside him.
“Watching TV. Not even thinking about dinner.” He lingered on a channel that aired only black-and-white television shows from the fifties. My mom watched it sometimes, too. “It’s kind of nice to walk into a house and not have my mom breathing down my neck with a million questions about my AP chem test and my swim times.” He leaned his head against the back cushions of the couch. “I feel like I can breathe.” And then he did. He let out a long exhale and his whole body seemed to decompress, melting into the cushions. “I don’t even have to set the table for dinner.”
I thought about coming home alone. My own breath sometimes stopped until I was inside and had flicked on the lights, making the dark bright. Safer. Warmer.
“Right,” I said.
And it’s not like my mom wasn’t around. She came to my games. We sometimes did stuff on the weekends. On most nights she was home for dinner. But since there were only two of us, it was quiet even when we were both there.
Part of me envied the noise and organized chaos at Leo’s house. The juggling of sports schedules and the chore list tacked to the inside of the pantry door.
Is it true that we always want what we don’t have?
Did I want a sibling and a dad?
I couldn’t say.
But maybe.
I hadn’t thought about it until that moment when Leo seemed to think something about my life was better than his.
Even though it was probably just the peace and quiet and room to breathe.
I flung my leg over Leo’s knee, and we sat there on the couch, flipping through channels, eventually getting sucked into whatever reality show was on MTV.
We didn’t order dinner.
Because we both fell asleep.
Grueling workout schedules caught up to both of us, and we were like an old married couple that couldn’t stay up past ten o’clock on a Friday night. We both jolted awake when my mom came home, the kitchen door clicking shut too loudly behind her as she came into the house from the garage.
She wandered into the living room and said hello to both of us.
I discreetly swiped at my mouth, worried I’d drooled all over Leo’s shoulder as I had a tendency to do when I was the kind of bone-tired that made me pass out on the couch.
All clear.
I studied my mom as she checked the dead bolt on the front door.
She wasn’t in work clothes. She was in a little black dress with
spaghetti straps. And spiky heels with thin straps of ribbon that crisscrossed her ankles. She smiled to herself, like she’d suddenly remembered a funny story someone had told her. I could smell her perfume from where I was sitting. And something else I couldn’t put my finger on. Liquor? Cigarette smoke? Her hair was mussed, too, like she’d been driving around in a convertible with the top down.
“You worked late?” I asked cautiously.
“Huh?” She balanced on one leg as she unbuckled the strap of a high heel. “Yes, right. Busy day.” She cleared her throat. “Long day.” She unbuckled her other heel and dangled both her shoes from her fingertips. “Well, I’m going to shower.”
“ ’Night,” I said.
“Good night, you two,” my mom said as she headed up the stairs.
I watched her as she went, mumbling into Leo’s shoulder, “I don’t believe her.”
“About what?”
“She wasn’t at work.”
He shrugged. “Where else would she have been?”
“I don’t know. But I don’t believe her.”
“You have to believe her. She’s your mom.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
8:30 P.M.
I need a phone. I need to make calls.
First to my mom, then to Leo.
I need to find my people.
“I want to call my mom.”
“The phones aren’t working. I know it’s frustrating, but—”
“I want to try.”
“Okay, Ruby.” Nurse Cathy goes to the workstation. Comes back. Hands me a cordless phone. She leaves again to give me privacy. I dial. And wait.
When I dial my mom, nothing happens. Not a busy signal. Not a ring. Nothing. I call our landline next. It rings and rings and rings. But it’s an old-timey ring that doesn’t sound normal. Like it isn’t real. I imagine that ring echoing through our empty house. I don’t get sent to voicemail, either. Proof it’s not working. I redial her cell. Then home. I am a ping-pong ball going back and forth. Cell. Home. Cell. Home. My fingers shake, slip. I punch the numbers wrong and have to start over again. I grip the phone harder, willing my mom to answer.
Aftershocks Page 12
