Center of Gravity

by Shaunta Grimes

  A man is asleep in the next room. His hair is white on the white pillowcase, and his face shows pain even in his sleep. There isn’t anyone in the room with him.

  When I look through the little window into the third room, I see two men about my dad’s age. They’re both half sitting, half lying, staring straight ahead like maybe they can ignore each other and they’ll magically find themselves back at home.

  In the fourth room, I can’t see the patient. A blond woman is sitting between the bed and the door. She’s leaning over with her head on one folded arm, resting on the mattress. I almost move on, but something catches my eye.

  Marvel’s backpack is on the chair by the window. The woman must be his mother. She’s petting him with her free hand, like a cat.

  I take a step back, my heart in my throat, and bump into a nurse who’s pulling a portable blood-pressure machine behind her.

  “Coming in?” she asks.

  I shake my head, duck around her, and try to force myself not to run back to the elevator.

  * * *

  Lila is in pain when I get back to the third floor. I hear her in the hallway, not quite screaming, but definitely hurting. Her door is open, and there’s a bustle of activity around it.

  A nurse backs out of the room, pulling the bed with Lila in it.

  “What’s wrong?” I stand against a wall, out of the way. “What’s happening?”

  “We’re having a baby.” Alicia comes out behind the bed and offers me a smile that doesn’t really reassure me. “We can’t wait any longer.”

  Lila reaches for me, and I take her hand. I have to walk beside the bed because Alicia and the other nurse do not slow down.

  “They’re going to do a C-section,” Lila says.

  Her fingers grip mine hard, and I have to keep myself from pulling back. “What’s that?”

  “Surgery,” she says. “The baby…”

  “It’s going to be okay,” Alicia says. “There’s a waiting room three doors down to your left. I’ll come find you there as soon as I can.”

  “I have to stay with her,” I say.

  “You can’t.” Alicia doesn’t leave any room for argument. I’ve heard that nurse voice enough times from my own mother to know there’s no point in arguing.

  It actually calms me. Alicia knows what she’s doing.

  The nurse at the head of the bed pushes a button and a door opens. They’re gone before I can say anything else.

  The waiting room has two families in it. They sit on either side, like little islands. One side has three sleepy little kids and grandparents, a giant stuffed bear, and a bouquet of balloons. The other has a young man, maybe Lila’s age, sitting between an older man and woman. He’s clutching a bunch of yellow roses in his hands, and I wonder if his wife is having a C-section, too.

  I sit in a chair in the middle, because I don’t want to impose on either family. I wish I had money to buy roses or balloons. Something.

  The baby should have been born in August. It’s at least six weeks early. I don’t know what that means. I wish Alicia would come tell me. The longer I sit there, the more clearly I imagine the nurse coming to tell me that my new sister or brother is sick. Or worse. Or that Lila …

  “Christine Adams.” I pull my feet up to the edge of my chair and hug my legs as I whisper, murmuring into my knees. “Craig Alphonse. Richard Carlson. Elizabeth Dixon.”

  I make my way through all fifty-eight kids in my box. A little jolt of anxiety makes me feel like I might be sick. Did I remember them all? What if I missed one? What if missing one means that something bad will happen to Lila or the baby?

  “Christine Adams. Craig Alphonse. Richard Carlson. Elizabeth Dixon,” I start again, this time counting on my fingers as I go.

  Forty-nine. That can’t be right. I’ve forgotten nine names? Nine? I don’t even know which ones are missing. I didn’t stumble. I’ve gone through these names so many times, I should know them. Now I’ve forgotten nine of the kids in my box and tonight I almost threw a milk carton away without even checking the back of it.

  I’m in the middle of this thought when Alicia comes and sits next to me. “You have a brother,” she says.

  I swallow a hiccup, choking back tears that hadn’t fallen yet. “Already?”

  “It can happen fast,” she says. “She didn’t need a C-section after all.”

  “But the baby was a girl.”

  Alicia shakes her head. “A beautiful little boy. Very small, but he’s a fighter, I can tell.”

  “You can?”

  “Oh yeah. I’ve been doing this a long time. Your brother is strong.”

  “You should see his bedroom,” I say. All that doll wallpaper and pink paint.

  Alicia smiles and stands up again. “I just wanted to make sure you knew.”

  “Can I see him?”

  She shakes her head. “Not yet. But Lila will be back in her room in a bit. You can wait for her there if you want to. I’ll take you to the nursery as soon as you can see him.”

  I have a brother. I wonder if he has brown hair like me and dad, or if he’s blond like Lila. The clock over the door says it’s after eleven, and thinking about blond little boys makes me think about Marvel again.

  I’m pretty sure that Jay Jay and Oscar left without saying goodbye. I didn’t see Petey in Marvel’s room, so I don’t know where he is. It’s late to call anyone, but when I get back to Lila’s room, I decide to see if I can reach Jay Jay.

  If his grandmother answers, I’ll just hang up.

  The room is weird now, without the bed in it. Too big and empty, with just the monitoring equipment and tables taking up space. I pick up the phone from the little table against the wall and dial Jay Jay’s number.

  He picks up before the first ring finishes. “Hello?”

  “Hey,” I say. “It’s Tessa.”

  “Oh.” I can’t decide if he sounds upset or relieved. “How’s Lila?”

  “She had the baby. It’s a boy.”

  “Are they okay?”

  I want to say Yes. I want to believe that. But I don’t know. “The nurse sounded like everything was pretty good.”

  “My grandma made me and Oscar leave without going to see you. She said it wasn’t appropriate until after the baby. Petey’s supposed to call, but I haven’t heard from him.”

  “I don’t think he’s here,” I say.

  “Why not?”

  “I saw … I think I saw his mother and there was someone in the bed. But Petey wasn’t there.”

  “How do you know it was his room?”

  “Marvel’s backpack was there,” I say.

  Jay Jay makes a sound at the back of his throat.

  When he doesn’t say anything, I ask, “Do you think I should go see if I can find Petey?”

  “Yeah. Call me back either way, okay?”

  I hang up and then stand there a minute, staring at the phone. I pick it up again. I’m not sure whether the number I dial will work, it’s long distance. But I dial anyway.

  It rings several times before I finally hang up. It’s Mountain Time in Denver. Nearly midnight. Gran is probably asleep.

  * * *

  I feel guilty, leaving Lila’s room. What if they bring her in and I’m not here? I want to ask Alicia how long it will be, but I don’t see her. I hesitate at the elevator before I push the up button.

  Chances are that Petey is in the room now with his mother and Marvel. She wouldn’t have gone home and left Petey at the hospital. Would she?

  I honestly don’t know. When I saw her before, and I’m pretty sure it was her, she seemed like a normal mom. Worried about her son. Upset, maybe, that he was hurt.

  I am positive that Petey would not leave his mother alone in the hospital with Marvel if he had a choice.

  She broke his arm. Petey couldn’t stop whatever happened. The doctors must not think it was anything more than a little boy falling off his bicycle or something, because otherwise she wouldn’t have been alone with him
.

  As the elevator takes me up to the fifth floor, I wish Dad were here. I would tell him. He’d know what to do. Or Mom. She would take care of Marvel. She’d make sure he was safe.

  She would never let his mother hurt him again.

  Maybe I should tell Alicia, I think as the door opens.

  I go back to the room where I saw Marvel’s backpack and the woman leaning over the bed. This time, I know for sure that it’s the right room. Marvel is lying in the bed, staring up at the ceiling. His left arm is in a cast from his hand over his forearm.

  He won’t play foosball for the rest of the summer.

  He’s alone in the room. I look behind me, both ways down the hall, and there isn’t anyone. So I open the door and go in. “Marv?”

  He turns to look at me, and I see a flash of fear across his small face before he recognizes me. “Tessa, what are you doing here?”

  I go to the side of the bed. “How are you?”

  “You shouldn’t be here.”

  “I told Jay Jay I’d check on you.”

  “What are you doing at the hospital?”

  “Lila had the baby. It’s a boy.”

  “You really shouldn’t be here.” Marvel looks past me at the door. “You have to go.”

  “Where’s Petey?”

  “Mom took him to the cafeteria.”

  I feel a sharp ache in my stomach. “She’s coming back?”

  “Yes.” He sounds miserable. Scared and in pain. I think that must be what the kids in my shoebox sound like, anytime they speak.

  “What happened, Marvel?”

  “I fell off my bed.”

  “What?”

  “I fell off my bed, okay?”

  I can’t imagine what his mother did to him, to break his arm. I whisper, “I want to tell Lila’s nurse. She’s real nice. She’ll help you.”

  Marvel sits up straighter, then whimpers because it must have hurt to move. “You have to go, Tessa.”

  But I can’t just leave him there alone. “I don’t know what to do.”

  “They’ll put me in foster care,” Marvel says, so low I can barely hear him. “It’ll be worse, and I won’t have Petey.”

  “You might be together.”

  “It will be worse. You promised.”

  “But, Marv…”

  Before I can finish the door opens. I turn, half expecting to see Alicia, even though she works on the third floor and wouldn’t have come all the way up here looking for me.

  * * *

  Petey and Marvel’s mother is young. Older than Lila, of course, but much younger than my parents. For a split second, she looks at me with an absolutely blank stare. Like she’s empty on the inside. And then her blue eyes narrow, and she says, “Who are you?”

  I turn back to Marvel. I want to do something. I have to do something, but I don’t know what. He shakes his head once, barely, and his blue eyes are the opposite of empty. They beg me to leave. To go and not tell anyone.

  I turn back to his mother. Her face tightens a little, like she is anticipating something.

  “Wrong room,” I say. “I’m sorry.”

  Her eyebrows lift, but she doesn’t say anything else when I scoot around her, out the door, and take off nearly running down the hallway toward the elevator.

  By the time the elevator drops me back off on the third floor, I’m crying. Not just quiet tears either. I’m sobbing. I need to find a bathroom so I can pull myself together before I go back to Lila’s room.

  “Tessa?” I look up and see Alicia holding a clipboard, one hand on a doorknob. “Are you okay?”

  I shake my head. The entire story is on the tip of my tongue, about to spill out, when she comes to me and puts a hand on my shoulder.

  “Poor girl. Lila’s fine. The baby needs a little help, but he’s strong, just like I told you.”

  I exhale slowly. “Lila’s back in her room?”

  “I just left her there.”

  “Thank you.” I really need a bathroom to at least wash my face before I see her.

  “Here, let me take you. You’ll see, she’s just fine.”

  Before I can do or say anything else, she’s holding my arm and walking me down the hall to Lila’s room. I can’t think of a way to make her stop without actually letting the whole story come out, right there in the hallway, so when she opens the door and waits for me to go in, I do.

  “Tessa?” Lila is sitting up in her bed, propped up with pillows behind her. I take a gasping breath. “A boy. I can’t believe it.”

  I’m too tired and confused to read her face. “There’s nothing wrong with boys,” I finally say.

  She tilts her head. “I know that.”

  “You shouldn’t have put up all that stupid wallpaper when you didn’t know for sure.”

  “Tessa?” Lila winces as she sits herself up a little higher in her bed. I can’t catch a good breath. I try, but it doesn’t work. “Oh, Tessa. I don’t care that the baby’s a boy. It was silly of me to decide I knew.”

  “Are you okay?” I finally ask. “Are you going to be okay?”

  “I’m fine. Tired, but I’m okay. The baby’s small, but he’s perfect, Tessa. I can’t wait for you to see him.”

  I turn to look at Alicia, and she nods in agreement.

  Now I am crying for more than just Marvel and Petey. I move without knowing that I’m going to and wrap my arms around Lila’s neck. Instead of an awkward half pat, which is probably what I’d do, she holds me close.

  “It’s okay,” she says, just like she did at the house before we got in the cab. “It’s okay. It’s okay.”

  “Tessa,” Alicia says behind me. “Lila’s still recovering.”

  I stand up, my face still messy with tears and now red with embarrassment. “I’m sorry.”

  “It’s okay,” Lila says again. I think she means it.

  “Ring if you need me,” Alicia says before going back out into the hall.

  Lila’s head is tilted, looking up at me like she can see right through me. Mom could do that. Dad could, too, when I was younger, but he hasn’t in a long time. It makes me squirmy to get that look from her.

  “What’s wrong?” she finally asks.

  I mean to say, Nothing. Or pretend it’s just worry about her and the baby. I mean to re-rust my jaw. But what comes out is, “My friend Marvel is here, on the fifth floor.”

  “Marvel?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Is he a friend of Jay Jay’s?” she asks.

  “His brother, Petey, is our age. Marv’s seven.”

  “I remember Petey from the tournament,” she says. “Marvel’s the little boy in the bear costume?”

  I nod, and I feel the tears welling up behind my eyes again. “He’s our mascot.”

  “Why is he in the hospital?” she asks.

  I promised. They will hate me. All of them. If I tell, they will hate me. But I remember the empty look in their mother’s eyes when I left the room. I think about Marvel alone with her two floors up and I can’t stop the words. “His mother broke his arm.”

  Lila’s eyes open wider. “What?”

  I cover my mouth with my hands. I want to take it back, but those aren’t words you can unsay.

  “Tessa?”

  I just look at her. My jaw has truly rusted shut now. One minute too late. I couldn’t tell her more if I wanted to. What I want to do is beg her not to tell anyone. And also beg her to send Alicia upstairs to make sure that Marvel is okay and that his mother isn’t hurting him again because she found me in his room with him.

  Lila waits until it’s pretty obvious that I’m not going to talk and then says, “I’ll ask a couple of questions, and you just shake your head yes or no, okay?”

  I nod.

  “Marvel’s here in the hospital right now with a broken arm?”

  I nod.

  “His mother broke his arm?”

  I nod.

  “You’re sure?”

  My face crumbles as tears fall down m
y cheeks. I nod.

  “Is she here with him?”

  I nod.

  “Okay.” She looks at me another minute. “Do you want to see the baby?”

  That one surprises me, and my jaw loosens up enough for me to ask, “Can I?”

  “I think so.” She reaches for the red button on the side of her bed and pushes it.

  “Yes, Mrs. Hart?” a voice says, coming through a speaker somewhere near Lila.

  “Would it be okay if my daughter walks down to the nursery to see the baby?”

  Hearing her say daughter shakes me up. No one would believe it. I’m too old to be her daughter. And it’s not true anyway. She should have said stepdaughter, but for some reason I’m glad she didn’t. I don’t know what to think, and I’m all caught up in that when the nurse says, “That would be fine.”

  “The nursery is down the hall, past the nurses’ station,” Lila says to me.

  “Does he have a name?” I ask.

  “It was supposed to be Joanna. I never even told your dad.”

  “You didn’t?”

  She shakes her head. “Maybe the baby will tell you his name when you see him.”

  I still feel tears welling up behind my eyes. “Maybe.”

  “Let me know.”

  * * *

  I walk down the hallway, toward the nurses’ station. When I reach it, Alicia is on the phone. She looks at me as I walk past and hangs up the receiver.

  “Want me to help you find the nursery?”

  I shake my head. I need to do this alone. “No, thank you.”

  “All right then.”

  The nursery is behind a wall of windows. The older couple and the young man I saw in the waiting room are standing at one. A nurse is on the other side of the glass, holding up a baby wrapped in pink. The man has his arms around his waist, and I think he looks like he might fall over. The older man must think so, too, because he puts an arm around him.

  “She’s beautiful,” the woman says. “Just perfect.”

  I think she kind of looks like a splotchy, squished-up prune, but I don’t say so. That would be rude. Grandparents have to think their granddaughters are beautiful. And anyway, who knows what my new brother looks like.

  There is a row of babies in the nursery. Each one is wrapped in either a blue or pink blanket, lying in a clear plastic baby bed. There’s a card at the foot of each one with the words Baby Boy or Baby Girl and a last name.