“Their vaccinations are fine,” she answered, almost before Barbara finished the question.
In reality, though, she wasn’t certain. The parents had filled out the health forms when the children first enrolled in her day care home, but she couldn’t remember what they had written. She didn’t want Barbara, or Sarah, to know she hadn’t paid closer attention to that. Besides, she wanted information, not inquiries.
Finally, Barbara said, “I’m sorry, Mrs. Lustov, but without more details, it’s impossible to know if the other children are at risk of getting what Eddie has. You need to discuss this with the pediatrician who advises your day care. He, or she, can talk to Eddie’s doctors and help figure out what to do.”
Outside the kitchen window, two blue jays fought for a foothold at the bird feeder, and four chickadees were lined up in the trees, waiting for the jays to move on. She closed her eyes and shook her head at the memory of Barbara’s comments. She’d never had a “pediatrician who advises your day care.” None of the other day care ladies that she knew had a pediatrician advisor, either. They had never needed one.
When she applied for her day care license, she had typed up a health policy, copying, exactly, the example in the pamphlet from the State Health Department. Besides providing the wording for a health policy, the booklet described what to do if a child had diarrhea, a fever, a rash, or strep throat. It also suggested rules for giving medicines at the day care, tips for serving meals, and techniques for changing, and discarding, diapers. She couldn’t remember it saying anything about meningitis.
After the children awoke from their naps, she herded them into the backyard. The breeze, as fresh as clean sheets, blew from beyond the fence and rustled the canary-colored blossoms on the forsythia branches. Overhead, clouds floated like wads of white insulation.
Amanda yelled at Sawyer to get off the tricycle. A hank of her hair blew into her open mouth. Her face was stiff with determination as she grabbed the hair and hooked it behind her ear. “Get off the trike, Sawyer, or I’ll tell Rose Marie,” she yelled again. Meghan and Davey headed for the sandbox and Chris leaped, spread eagle, against the chain link fence. The toes of his shoes jammed into the metal mesh, his fingers clutched the steel wire. He looked like a spider hanging on its web.
Such lively children, she thought, watching them romp across the grass. So innocent. So protected. So unaware of the trouble with Eddie. Even if she told them about his illness, which she hadn’t done yet but would do later, they would shrug it off.
“Oh—kay,” Meghan would sing in her melodic, sunny voice. She was unable to understand adversity. Everything she saw streamed through her prism of cheerfulness.
“Poor Eddie, he’th thick,” Sawyer would lisp and then race toward his next idea.
She sighed as she compared the simplicity of their lives to the complexity of her own. They didn’t know about dead husbands or credit card debt or broken water heaters. Or about intensive care units. In the wonderfully naïve world of these children, sick didn’t get any worse than paper cuts or bloody noses or tummy aches.
“No climbing on the fence,” she called. She needed to help them focus their energies. “Let’s see who can build the tallest sand tower.” She stepped into the kitchen to prepare their snack. “Remember to keep the sand in the box,” she called out the sliding glass door.
How had Eddie been on Friday, the last time he was at her house? She struggled to recall that day. He hadn’t been particularly fussy, took his nap as usual, ate like a starving baby Hun.
She looked up to see Chris racing toward her. “Rose Marie,” he called, trying to catch his breath. “I need a Band-Aid.” He leaned into the kitchen, his fingers gripping either side of the door frame, his torso arching forward like a sail full of the wind.
“What happened?”
“I got hurt.” He stepped into the house and laid his elbow in her palm.
“Where?”
“Here.” He pointed to a faint, pink line.
She kissed her fingertips and touched the skin beside the barely visible scratch. “All better.”
“No,” he whined. “I need a Band-Aid.”
“That’s too little for a Band-Aid, Chris. It isn’t even bleeding.”
“No,” he whined, louder. “It hurts.”
She stared into his face, searched his sullen, pleading eyes, tried to understand. It was his third request for a Band-Aid that afternoon. True, he was at the Band-Aid age. True, he was trying to reassure himself that assaults of all sorts could be fixed with a piece of pink adhesive. She shook her head at the irony . . . Eddie in the ICU, Chris demanding Band-Aids.
“Okay. Come with me.” She led him into the bathroom, pulled the Band-Aid box from the medicine cabinet. A little strip of flesh-colored plastic would heal Chris’s medical problem. How about Eddie’s? What would it take to heal meningitis? Poor Anna. How would Anna ever cope with her baby being so sick?
Chapter 12
Anna
“Where were you born?”
“Baltimore,” Anna said.
“New Baltimore? New Baltimore, Michigan?”
“No.” She spoke louder, drawing out the syllables. “Baltimore, Maryland.”
The admitting clerk furrowed her brow, tapped the delete button on her keyboard, and began typing again. “What’s your mother’s maiden name?”
She didn’t answer immediately. Her eyes drifted to the bulletin board behind the clerk’s head to the poster of the pregnant woman to the NO SMOKING sign to the patients’ bill of rights in print too small to read. Her mother’s maiden name? She was too tired to think. The question sounded like a trick.
The clerk’s fingernails clicked against the counter beside her keyboard, steady, rhythmic, impatient. “These are security questions, ma’am. To protect your child from being kidnapped.”
Kidnapped? Eddie already had meningitis. How many bad things could happen to a child? All she wanted to do was get to the ICU.
“I want to see my baby,” she said.
The clerk’s face softened a bit. “Let’s get him registered into the hospital first. Your mother’s maiden name?”
She rubbed her palm against her nose and tried to sort through the family. Her own maiden name was Baxter. Her mother’s maiden name was . . . Her grandparents’ last name was . . . “Feldy.”
“Spell it, please.”
“F-E-L-D-Y.”
The woman sighed and continued to type. “Occupation?”
“My occupation? Or Eddie’s?”
“Eddie’s a baby, right? We would like your occupation.”
“Linguist.”
“Again?” The clerk looked up from the keyboard.
“Linguist. L-I-N-G-U-I-S-T. I teach English as a second language.”
The clerk nodded and kept typing. “Employer?”
“LaSalle Community College.”
“The child’s father—what’s his occupation?”
“Physician.”
“Employer?”
“Here. He works here.”
The clerk asked about their insurance, about emergency phone numbers, about religious preference.
“Okay, Mrs. Campbell.” The printer beside the clerk’s elbow started to rumble. “We have all the information we need.” She smiled at Anna. It was a slow, sultry smile. Her thick, ruby lips parted to reveal a wide gap between her front teeth. “It’ll take just a minute to process and then you may go.”
Anna stepped into the lounge adjacent to the registration desk. Suddenly, dots of light skittered above the seat cushions, over the magazines on the tables, across the carpet. Wherever she looked, bits of glitter—pink, yellow, pale green, lapis blue—danced in the air. She shut her eyes. The glitter still sparkled, now against an empty, black nothing.
She sank into the nearest chair and laid her head on her bent elbow against the back cushion. Deep breaths, she told herself. Take slow, deep breaths. She hadn’t eaten anything since last evening. Maybe that’s why she w
as light-headed. With her eyes closed, she unzipped her purse and ran her hand along the inside pouch until she felt the candy. Two chocolate mints. Leftovers from the hotel in the Upper Peninsula. Her fingers trembled as they unwrapped the cellophane. The candies were gooey. She ate them anyway.
Her forehead felt damp and clammy, her arms cold. Darkness deep as midnight surrounded her. The warm, bright world was far away and its sounds—now muffled—echoed in the distance.
By the time she swallowed the second mint, the glittery dots had begun to fade and, one by one, the room noises moved toward her, out of the rattle of the background. A phone rang. A tiny voice called, “Grammy.” Sharp heels clicked against the floor tiles. Nearby, a woman’s voice spoke in Spanish—lyrical words that sputtered like a bow bouncing on violin strings. The voice spoke of someone named Romero who would take a bus somewhere. Mañana. Tomorrow.
When she opened her eyes, she squinted against the light. Sunshine streamed through the window and outlined the figure before her. The young woman, seated in an armchair, leaned forward, nose to nose with a brown-skinned baby propped in a stroller. Shiny ebony hair fell across her face. While the woman talked into a cell phone, she nudged a spoonful of pureed food against her baby’s pursed lips, her own mouth falling open. “Mi hija. Mi hija.” The woman sang, “Abre la boca.” Open your mouth. She tapped the baby’s chin with the edge of the spoon. “Por favor, mi hija?” Please, little one?
The flashing spots had gone and her thoughts were clearer. That other mother was as normal as daisies while she coaxed her child to eat, relying on the baby’s instincts of imitation to get the job done. Anna, on the other hand, wasn’t normal. She was the mother of a baby in the intensive care unit, trapped in a limp and unmoving body. A knot tightened in Anna’s stomach.
She spotted a shiny new penny on the floor beside her left clog.
This must be an omen, she thought as she stared at the coin. A good omen. A sign that Eddie would be okay.
Like her lost earring. Another omen. A week before the trip to the Upper Peninsula, as she stood in the shower combing her fingers through the tangle of hair and shampoo foam, she had sensed something wrong, something out of balance. She had rubbed her hands along the sides of her face. The gold hoop was no longer hanging from her left earlobe. Those earrings had been her first anniversary gift from Jake.
She had dropped to her knees to search the tub’s drain. Not there. Not on the bathroom floor or the counter. She shook the bed sheets and pillowcases. Nothing. Finally, she gave up, unhooked the other hoop and put it in the drawer. What do you do with one orphan earring? she wondered as a wave of sadness rolled over her.
Then, an hour before leaving for the drive up north, she found the missing gold hoop. It lay on the carpet between their bed and the nightstand.
Luck always comes in sets of three. First, the earring, then the penny, and next would be Eddie. It was a sure sign Eddie would get better.
She picked up the penny and then slumped against the back of her chair. The Spanish-speaking lady and her baby in the stroller were gone. The clerk was still working on the admission papers. Chris was set. Her class was set. Jake was set. Suddenly, she jolted upright. Eddie. He was upstairs. In this hospital. He might die. A silent scream folded over her, wrapped its gnarly fingers around her neck.
Her heart raced faster and faster, pounding against the inside of her chest. She leaped from the chair, ready to run, as if she could outsprint the unspeakable, as if she could outrace the unthinkable. Her baby was desperately ill. He might die. This was really, really, really happening.
Before she actually started across the reception room floor, she stopped and dropped back into the chair. With shaking hands, she buried her face, once again, in her soggy tissue.
Anna followed the nurse through the sliding glass door, down a short hallway, past the sign that said PEDIATRIC INTENSIVE CARE UNIT. They turned a corner.
“He’s in here, Mrs. Campbell.” The nurse motioned toward one of the cubicles.
She stopped, twelve inches from the crib. It was a stainless steel cage, cold and metallic. The sides were raised, the mattress was waist high. Inside was a tiny person.
“Is that Eddie?” she whispered.
“Yes, hon,” answered the nurse. “The machine there”—she pointed to a gray box beside the crib—“is helping him breathe. We put his medicines into his IV—his antibiotics, his antiseizure drugs, his blood pressure meds.”
A monitor, like a television screen, hung above the crib. Numbers flashed in red, others in blue. 148. 30. 64. What did it all mean? Was he okay? Was he alive? Square boxes with dials and toggle switches were stacked like building blocks on the poles near the head of the crib. Clear plastic tubes snaked from the boxes, looped over the bed rails, coiled into a tangle, then disappeared under the flannel receiving blanket that covered the baby.
She stepped to the side of the crib. Eddie lay on his back, his arms and legs still, his face unmoving. She wanted to touch him but didn’t dare. His skin was as pale as snow. Would it feel icy? His straight, fine, corn-silk hair lay crumpled against the mattress and looked as if it might send off an electric spark if she stroked it.
The thin, tooth-colored tube, still protruding from his mouth, was anchored to his face with strips of tape and connected to the breathing machine by a springy, ribbed pipe. She stared at the pipe. A ribbed, springy pipe. It seemed familiar. Then she recognized it. A miniature dryer vent hose.
“Do you have any questions, Mrs. Campbell?” the nurse asked.
She shook her head, her achy, empty, overloaded, adrift, throbbing head. No, she couldn’t think of any questions.
Wait. She did have a question. “How can he eat with that tube in his mouth?” she asked.
“He gets sugar water and minerals in his IV,” the nurse answered. “If he needs the breathing tube for several more days, he’ll get hyperal—that’s elemental proteins and fats—in his IV. We’ll be sure he gets enough nutrition.”
Anna nodded.
“Ask us to explain everything to you. But right now, we’ll have you wait in the waiting room. You may return in about fifteen minutes.”
Leave him again? She didn’t want to leave him.
“What’re you going to do to him?” Likely they would hurt him again, stick other things into him.
“Well, we’ll draw some blood, empty his urine bag. Dr. Farley wants him to have another art line, so we’ll put a tiny tube into his radial artery . . . there on his left wrist. You’ll be more comfortable in the waiting room while we do these things.”
“Mom, this is Anna.” She leaned her head against the wall of the phone closet in the visitors’ lounge.
“Something awful has happened.” Clutching a Kleenex in her free hand, she bent over the phone receiver. “Eddie’s in the intensive care unit.”
Sobs and half breaths interrupted her sentences. She was a little girl again, a little girl in trouble. Terrified. Alone.
She told her story as best she could. She explained that Eddie had meningitis, said that Jake had taken Chris to Rose Marie’s. Would she understand?
Her mother’s words came like an echo from long ago. “Listen to me, Anna. It’ll be okay, honey. I’m sure of it.”
Suddenly she was back to the time when she had poison ivy all over her arms, when she thought she had flunked her first algebra test, when her horse sprained his ankle skidding around the barrels.
“He’s so sick, Mom.”
“Darling, your dad will check the flight schedules to see what we can get. I’ll call as soon as we have reservations.” Her mother paused and then said, “Where will you be? Where should I call? Honey, we love you. Eddie’s going to be okay.”
Chapter 13
Jake
His pager chimed. He grimaced at its sound, at the repetitive electronic noise that snapped like a jackal for his attention. Someone needed something from him, yet again. During the three hours since he had taken Chris to Rose Marie�
��s, the pager had rung fourteen times. Its business—those constant interruptions, nonstop demands, incessant questions, forever trouble—never stopped. He wanted to go home but still had several orders to sign and three dictations to complete. Before leaving, though, he needed to see how Anna was doing and, of course, check on Eddie.
As he turned a corner in the hallway deep in the basement of the hospital near the morgue, the ceiling lights cast serial shadows of his body on the walls, one overlapping the other, that overlapping the next. The shadows followed him along the corridor as if they were phantom tails. A pain stabbed in the right-lower quadrant of his abdomen. He rubbed his side. Must be a replay of the original conditioned-response experiment—ring the bell and Ivan Pavlov’s dog salivated; sound the pager and Jake Campbell’s gut churned. Some days he was tempted to dump it, batteries, holster, and all, into a toilet. Today, especially today, he wanted peace.
Maybe the ER needed him to see a kid with a fracture. Maybe the OR had, yet again, rearranged the schedule for tomorrow morning. Maybe 9 North was requesting more pain meds for Mr. Minette. “Fix it yourself,” he muttered, bitterly, to no one.
The pager chimed again. Two short beeps, a reminder that he hadn’t responded to the earlier page. It might be Rose Marie with a question about Chris, except she never called him. Whenever she needed to reach them, she called Anna. It might be Anna, except Anna wasn’t home. She was in the ICU waiting room.
Had something happened to Eddie? He was intubated and on a ventilator, so the call couldn’t be a notice he had stopped breathing—the machine took care of that. Maybe he was seizing again. Maybe his heart had stopped beating.
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