Lifeguard

by Deborah Blumenthal

  Then there are the sad kids, the troubled ones. Their figures are small and cryptic. There’s darkness in their short, hard lines, as if their creativity is locked inside a prison of pain.

  I get to Cody’s room and think I’m in the wrong place. The balloons at the foot of the bed are gone. So is the stuffed animal menagerie that surrounded his TV. The bed is stripped, the mattress bare. Everything is lifeless and sterile. I check the number next to the door.

  It’s not the wrong room.

  It’s like he never existed.

  I run to the nurse’s desk. “Jane, where’s Cody? What happened?”

  She looks at me sympathetically. “Back in the ICU, Sirena,” she says in almost in a whisper. “There were complications.”

  “Like what?

  “He started having seizures and vomiting.”

  I’m not a doctor, I don’t understand this, but her face tells me all I have to know. “What’s going to happen to him?”

  She shakes her head. “We just don’t know. It’s hard to tell at this point.”

  “He’s just a little boy.”

  She reaches out and touches my hand. “I know, honey. It’s never easy working here, especially in Pediatrics.”

  I walk back into his room and sit in the chair near the empty bed, my arms crossed over my chest, my eyes closed. Finally I get up and walk to the window. Birds are circling in a big grassy field as if they smell food and are ready to swoop down. I think of the pterodactyls. One creature surviving at the expense of another. The coldness of nature. Where does a little child fit in? Whom would he fall prey to?

  Just outside the door I see Pilot. Why is he here? He steps into the room and looks around.

  “Where’s Cody?”

  He’s been caught off guard, setting off a rush of nervousness and uncertainty in me.

  “I…He’s back in the ICU, I heard.”

  His eyes are shadowed with concern. “Since when?”

  “This morning…He started having seizures.”

  I expect to hear him say something reassuring to give me hope; instead he disappears into the hallway.

  On my way out I pass the chapel. I’ve never been inside it. I can’t remember the last time I was in church. Now I should be first in line at confession.

  You’re a thief, Sirena.

  Is this my punishment?

  I tug open one of the heavy wooden doors. No white sterile rooms and life-support machines here. The room is bathed in warm, golden light. Candles flicker on the altar. Diffused light pours through a stained glass window. I feel like I’m inside a Flemish painting.

  I slide onto a cool wooden bench, lean back, and close my eyes. This has more to do with serenity than religion. I think of sanctuary and the power of distant prayer.

  Is there anything I can do to help him? Some people are convinced that praying for others can heal them, even if you don’t know them personally. Others swear it makes no difference. What would Aunt Ellie say? Science, science fiction, or something in between?

  What I do know is that science and proof are apart from believing and, hoping so, I focus on Cody’s skin and hair, his angelic face, his innocence, and all the life ahead of him. I have to do this, I have to help. I can’t just stand there helpless and watch a baby die without trying, no matter how pathetic my help is. I squeeze my eyes shut, summoning up all the power in me to will him to get better. The alternative is unthinkable.

  Tears pool in my eyes. Only now it’s not just about Cody making it, it’s about how everything will turn out in my life too, even though I know that’s selfish. I want to draw on all the power in the universe to make him better so that he can go home. I want to make my parents love me too and I want to have a real home to go back to and a real life again.

  I want to fix everything at once.

  I ask for help as hard as I can as if there’s a giant healing machine you can call on to steamroll over all your problems at once and make them disappear. I want to fix the road ahead and make it freshly paved without any bumps so everything in life will be smooth and easy and filled with joy. I don’t care if that sounds like total make believe. It’s what I want.

  I curl up on the bench and sink into a cocoon of calm. I don’t want to leave the protected world of the chapel. I close my eyes, and then the dreams come.

  I’m on my bike pedaling furiously, trying to ride up into the sky like ET, fighting gravity, only I can’t lift off and get away. The police are there, only they’re wearing masks on their faces like doctors in surgery. Black curtains surround me, only they’re not curtains, I realize; they’re monks in dark robes holding crosses. They surround me. They’re humming something in a strange language that sounds like the underwater music of the whale songs. It’s so muffled I can’t make it out. I can’t understand anything because I’m underwater.

  My eyes open. Day or night?

  I get to my feet finally and walk to the door, unsteady. I squint in the harsh corridor lights that never shut off, whether it’s day or night. The air smells of Lysol and old people and sickness. The magic doors spring open by themselves, as if a ghostly presence behind them is watching. I step outside, released into sunshine and warmth.

  I bike home along the beach still numb from sleep, studying the patchy clouds like Rorschach blots to explain the ever-changing mood of the sky. Then there’s Antonio, and the same anxiety washes over me. The stolen picture. What do I do? He’s wearing a black shirt instead of a colored one. An omen? I should have turned off and gone another way. I’m not ready to see him. I didn’t prepare what to say or how to act. There are no distractions now. No model to hold our attention.

  How can I smile and pretend everything’s the same? I still haven’t had a chance to tell him I saw his paintings and how much I loved them. I’m trapped. I start to pedal away, but he turns and calls out to me.

  “Sirena.”

  The flitting butterfly caught in the net. Come up with something, anything, I tell myself. I get off my bike and slowly make my way to his chair, dropping down next to him in the sand. Edna looks up at me expectantly. Can she read faces?

  Antonio is working on a new painting. It’s darker, more stormy. I’m filled with wonder. How does he do it? Is it something I can learn?

  “Your paintings are so alive. I wish I could paint like you.”

  He reaches out and touches my hand. “When it works, it’s wonderful. When it doesn’t…” He waves his hand out helplessly. “You know what Wordsworth said?”

  I shake my head.

  “‘Fill your paper with the breathings of your heart.’ Beautiful, no?”

  I nod, my eyes tearing up. “Yes…”

  I’m almost afraid to speak. Antonio glances at me and hesitates. He narrows his eyes, concerned. He turns back to his painting and we sit there for a few minutes without talking. He’s using a new brush. Maybe that’s for a painting. Like his shirt.

  “Tell me,” he says, finally.

  I shrug, hugging my knees hard. He stops painting and turns to me, his eyes narrowed, questioning. I tell him about Cody. I need to talk.

  “I’m scared for him, Antonio. I don’t know what to do.” I press my forehead on my knees.

  “Children have energy, strong spirits, great resources,” he says, slowly and deliberately. “Nature wants them to survive. By instinct, they fight. And there is…healing.”

  I look up, into his eyes. “Really?”

  He nods and turns back to his painting, lightly touching the end of the brush to the canvas as if it’s a test to see how faint he can make the color. For the first time I wonder if Antonio has a family and children of his own. Is his wife alive? What if she isn’t? Would asking him make him sad? I don’t want to pry. If he wanted to tell me, he would.

  Instead I take deep breaths. I focus on his canvas. “Have you sold a lot of paintings?”

  He shrugs. “I sell some, I give some away. And you?”

  I roll my eyes. “No one wants to buy any of my paint
ings. Not yet, anyway.”

  “I’ll be your first client. When you’re ready.”

  Now I can’t think of anything but the painting of Pilot and I’m totally consumed with guilt. What if Antonio needed the money from a sale? What if he can’t afford to buy food now? He’s retired; maybe he doesn’t have much money. I didn’t think about anything like that, all I thought about was myself. I turn away slightly. It feels like something’s stuck in the back of my throat and I can’t swallow. I wish there was some way to fix what I did. He looks at me curiously for a moment and then turns back to his canvas.

  “Antonio…” This may just end our friendship, but if I don’t tell him, I’ll never be able to spend time with him again without feeling guilty, and I know he’ll figure it out and hate me more for not telling him.

  He turns to me.

  “I did something terrible and I wouldn’t blame you if you never spoke to me again.”

  He knits his brows together questioningly.

  “I went to see your paintings in town.”

  “Yes?”

  “I’m really sorry about this, Antonio, I swear. I’ll give it back.”

  “Give what back, Sirena?”

  “The painting—of Pilot. I…I stole it off the wall.”

  “You stole the painting in the gallery?” His face darkens and he looks at me in disbelief, as though he’s getting the facts straight in his mind. The change in his voice signals Edna, who looks up suddenly, as if she has to take everything in.

  “Yes…I did.”

  He purses his lips. “So you are our little town thief.”

  “I am so so sorry, Antonio. I know it was wrong and I shouldn’t have done it and I’ll give it back, I swear.”

  He sits silently, as if in judgment, and then shakes his head up and down slightly as if some understanding has come to him. Just as quickly the darkness lifts and his face softens into an easy smile. He throws his head back and laughs, a deep, throaty laugh.

  “What’s so funny, Antonio? I stole your painting. That was awful of me.”

  “Why did you do it, Sirena? Tell me.”

  “I had to have it. I wanted to paint Pilot, too—it was before he modeled for us—only I’d never ask him on my own and, anyway, he wouldn’t, I just know it. He doesn’t even like me. ”

  He rubs the side of his face as if he’s thinking and has come to some kind of wonderful decision. “No one has ever done anything like that. No one has ever stolen one of my paintings. It’s wonderful, the passion. It makes me feel…exhilarated.”

  “What’s so wonderful? I broke the law, Antonio. You could have me arrested.”

  “Yes, that’s right. I suppose I could. But if you liked the painting so much you felt you had to have it, no matter the cost to you, then that’s the biggest compliment to me and to my work, don’t you see?”

  “I’m not sure.”

  “You may keep it. I’ll paint more pictures of him. That wasn’t the first.”

  “I’d like to paint him, too,” I blurt out, saying more than I should.

  “He’s handsome, no?”

  I shrug.

  “I’ll ask him to sit for both of us again, for longer.”

  “No, please, Antonio, don’t, don’t ask him. Don’t say anything. Really, it’s okay.” I jump up and get ready to get back on my bike. “Thank you for understanding. I felt awful about what I did. And please don’t tell Aunt Ellie because she’ll tell my parents. I was afraid the police would come to my house and arrest me.”

  Antonio smiles at me and shakes his head. I’m about to get on my bike and I stop and go back to him.

  “Antonio, just one more thing. The theft was never reported in the paper. Did anyone realize it?”

  “The gallery owner, he told me right away,” Antonio says.

  “So what did you do?”

  “I told him I took it to fix it.”

  I hesitate. “But why?

  “It was mysterious,” he says, nodding. “And mysteries reveal themselves, Sirena. You just have to be patient…and then, eventually, the layers, they peel away, and the answers…they come to you. Like healing.”

  seventeen

  I wake up early the next morning and head to the mailbox. There’s another letter from Marissa.

  You are so lucky not to be here. Three slutty girls snuck out of camp to go to a bar in town, but they got caught, so for the next week we’re all paying the price. Lights out at nine, can you believe? Otherwise, it’s unbearably hot and weirdo Geoff is playing games or something. Suddenly he’s pretending that he doesn’t want to hook up with anybody. I secretly think he likes this new girl in the next bunk. How totally sleazy is that?

  I read the letter and was surprised to be happy not to be part of the group scene with the counselor police herding me from one activity to another. I don’t have to answer to anyone here, except Aunt Ellie, and she’s not a control freak.

  I tuck the letter in my pocket and head outside. The air is cooler and there’s a light breeze. It’s a perfect day to bike. I pedal slower than usual on my way to the hospital. There are purple wildflowers growing along the road and I hop off my bike to pick some, binding the stems together with the rubber band from my hair. I lay them into my basket and keep going. On my way to Pediatrics I pass the chapel and stop. It can’t hurt. Then I’ll look for Cody. Whatever happens, I’ll be strong and live with it. Maybe there is some higher plan, something we don’t see or understand. It’s all how you let yourself see things in life and react to them, Aunt Ellie says. It’s about the words and feelings you attach to things that determine how you think about them and the effect they have on you. She’s smart. She might be right.

  After a few minutes in the chapel I go out into the brightness and walk the three flights of stairs. He won’t be in the ICU anymore, I tell myself. He’ll be back upstairs, completely better because I made it so—I put the idea out there to draw positive energy.

  The scent of food is the first thing that reaches me when I open the corridor door. The dietitian is serving lunch. I scoot past a woman carrying a tray with a white plastic cover over a porcelain plate. Roast chicken. The other smell I pick up, like a dog detective, is mac and cheese—the all time favorite for kids.

  I approach Cody’s old room first. The door is closed. I hesitate. Am I intruding? I knock softly and wait. No answer. Slowly I push it open.

  My heart starts to slam.

  There’s no one at the nurses’ station, so I run for the stairs. He’s still in the ICU. Where else could he be? What was I thinking? I shouldn’t be in the ICU—you have to be someone’s relative to be let in—but I don’t care. I run down the stairs and don’t stop. When I go to the exit door and open it, the corridor is dark. Something’s wrong. Where am I? I look up at the wall. B for basement. I’m too far down. God, is it the morgue? Out of breath, I go running back up to the first floor. My mouth feels dry and pasty; drums pound in my skull.

  I approach the double doors and look through the glass windows. There are half a dozen beds, one next to the other in a semi-circle. I glance around the room. Some of the beds are hidden behind white cotton curtains. An old woman is getting a blood transfusion. I get a sick feeling as I stare at the plastic bag of maroon-colored liquid hanging next to her bed, a pillow of blood dangling from a steel IV pole. A rubber tube coated red runs into her arm. Other patients are sleeping, or unconscious. How can they tell?

  I walk up to one of the nurses. She’s writing in a patient’s chart, the equivalent of the medical bibliography. She looks up at me finally. Why are you here? her eyes say.

  “I’m looking for a little boy, he’s about seven.” I pause to catch my breath. “Cody. His name is Cody O’Malley. He was here yesterday.”

  She shakes her head. We don’t have children in here. Did you try the Pediatric ICU?”

  “I…I didn’t know there was a separate one.”

  She points outside. “First room on the left.”

  I feel stupi
d for not knowing. I walk down the corridor and see the sign above the door. The Pediatric ICU is smaller, only four beds. There are children in two of them. The other two are empty. I ask the nurse at the desk about Cody.

  “I just started my shift,” she says. “Let me check.” She goes to her computer and types away, switching screens. It’s a small hospital; why is it so complicated?

  She looks up at me finally. “Transferred this morning.”

  “So he’s better?”

  “I guess.”

  I rush out the door and go back into the elevator, leaning back against the wall out of breath, almost faint. I lean over so blood runs to my head and I don’t pass out. As the doors start to open I quickly stand up straight, taking deep breaths, trying to act normal. At the nurses’ station I see a face I don’t recognize.

  “Cody O’Malley?”

  “301.”

  eighteen

  I hear voices in the distance as I walk down the corridor.

  301. The door is open.

  His parents sit on either side of his bed. For the first time they look up and make eye contact with me. His mother has color in her face. And the first thing I think? She’s returned from the dead. My little rag dog has come back too. I see him truly alive for the first time, smiling and responsive.

  “You’re better,” I blurt out.

  “They gave me ice cream,” he says, as though that’s what made the difference. “And they said they’d bring more if I finished all they gave me.”

  “You’re so lucky!”

  “He is,” his dad says, dropping his head. “We never expected…” His voice cracks and he turns abruptly staring hard out the window.

  “We were all rooting for you,” I say. It comes out too loud and euphoric, but no one seems to notice.

  “They said I could go home soon,” Cody says.

  “We’re supposed to go to Manhattan for a week’s vacation,” his mother says. “If he continues to get better, they’ll discharge him and consider letting us go.” She shakes her head. “He talks nonstop about climbing to the top of the Statue of Liberty.”