A deep voice. “Has he vomited?”
“Several times but dry heaving at this point.” A woman’s voice. They sound fogged over. Far away. I think I’m outside, but the ground is not cold. A smell wafts through the cool air. It’s like smoke and oil and heartache. I know where I am. Vivi.
My eyes snap open. I try to jolt up, but I’m held down by strong hands.
“Lay still,” a voice says. “Try not to move. Relax.”
“I’m okay,” I say. At least, I think I am. I’m on a stretcher, looking out the open back doors of an ambulance. But I can’t see Vivi—only flashing lights, people milling around. “I’m okay. Is Vivi okay?”
“She’s being helicoptered to the hospital.” That means she’s alive. Thank God. Oh, thank God. They wouldn’t bother with a helicopter if there was no chance she’ll be okay. Right? The person speaking is a paramedic. He has black hair in curls that fall to his ears. “Her driver’s license had a Seattle address and phone number. Do you have a home number for her?”
“Yes. My phone . . . it’s in my pocket. Her mom’s number . . . is under ‘Carrie.’”
“Stay still,” the paramedic says, reaching into my pocket. I couldn’t move if I wanted to. My legs and arms are restrained. Am I okay?
He calls out to someone, who rushes over, and the paramedic reads off the number. Then the doors are closed behind us. We lurch forward.
“No, I want to go with her! I don’t need an ambulance. I . . .”
“It’s precautionary. Look here.” He shines a flashlight straight into my eyes. “We need to keep watch for a possible concussion, so we’ll keep you at the ER for observation. Not for long.”
“I’m really fine. Just not good with . . . blood.” Or bone. Oh God, the memory of Vivi’s arm and shoulder makes me woozy again.
I lean to the side just as my stomach lurches again. The paramedic has a bag in front of me, though all I do is heave. I wipe my mouth anyway.
“Deep breaths. I think we’re gonna need to get you some fluids,” he says. He holds up my cell phone. “I’m going to call your parents now and let them know what’s happening.”
“No. Don’t bother. They’re . . .” They’re what? One is dead and the other one is barely able to make toast, let alone handle a crisis? “Um . . . out of town.”
He asks me questions like if my head hurts, if I know who the president of the United States is, if I know what day it is. I answer them. I ask him questions about Vivi and what is happening. He dodges them. When I roll my eyes in frustration, he breaks his flashlight out again and directs the beam at my pupils. I’m not sure if it’s a medical precaution or punishment.
“Wait,” I say, when the ambulance stops. “I can’t go in there.”
With such a short drive time, we can only be at one hospital. This is the building where my dad was pronounced dead. I consider asking the paramedic to call my mom after all. Don’t they need consent or something? She could say no. She wouldn’t, though. She’d just freak out.
“Hey,” the paramedic says. He grasps my arm. “You’re fine. Everything’s going to be okay.”
The ambulance driver opens the back doors and climbs in to help slide the stretcher out.
I want to thrash. I want to break loose like an outtake from One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest. They can’t take me in against my will. But the truth is, I’m so worn down. I’ve got no fight left. In fact, once I lie back in surrender, something occurs to me: it’s kind of nice to have someone else wheeling me forward for once.
I didn’t even feel the needle go into my arm. I was in the bed, but I wasn’t really there. A nurse tucked a warm blanket around me. The IV fluids will make you cold, she said. I felt nothing.
“Hey, Jonah.”
I look up to see Mrs. Fischer, my friend Zach’s mom. She’s in pink scrubs. I should have figured someone I know would be working here. It’s a small town.
“Hey, Mrs. Fischer.” My throat hurts from screaming for help. I unbundle myself from the blanket and sit up straighter, trying to look less like an invalid.
“I spoke with the doctor and looked over your chart. How are you feeling?” She stands at the bedside.
“Okay.” I can’t bring myself to meet her eyes. “Did they call my mom?”
Mrs. Fischer looks sad, maybe even guessing why I wouldn’t want my mom to know. “You’re a minor. It’s protocol.”
I nod. I’m not mad or anything. I just feel so bad for my mom. I didn’t want to trouble her with this. I really am fine. I wanted to go home, where she could see with her own eyes that I’m fine. Now she has to know that her kid is in the place where her husband died.
I look up, pleading. “Do you know anything about Vivi? The girl they flew in? My friend?”
I hear Vivi’s voice in my head. My friend? Is that what I am, Jonah, you darling goof? No, Viv. At least that’s not all you are. Please be okay. Be okay.
“They got her to St. Elizabeth West for surgery.”
“So it’s really bad?”
She pauses, considering, either because it’s really bad news or because there’s nurse-patient confidentiality that I’m hoping she’ll bend for me. The pause feels like the space between the edge of a cliff and the ground below. “Well, it’s not good, but it could be a lot worse. One of our paramedics helped at the scene. He said her head and spine were okay.”
Then she says words like severe, road rash, irrigation, compound fracture, ligament. I lose track until she says, “Thank God she had the good sense to wear her helmet.”
And that’s when I press my face into my hands, shaking my head over and over, wondering how I got here.
They release me not long after. I figure I’ll call Silas once I get to the lobby. Mrs. Fischer said there’s no point in waiting around to hear about Vivi. She’ll be in surgery for hours and then sedated so her body can start to heal.
It feels weird, after everyone else being in control of my body tonight, to walk down the hall independently, on my way out of the hospital. This night has been made up of a million slow minutes, so slow that it seems strange that I’m still wearing the same clothes. I still can’t believe that it happened. I feel light-headed, which I’d never confess to the nurses.
I stop dead.
My mom is standing at the end of the hall, at the nurse’s station. She’s wearing pajama pants and a too-big sweater. But she’s talking intently. Standing up straight. Gesturing with her hands. I want to call out to her, but I can only stare. I’m remembering years ago, when Isaac got stung by a bee and puffed up like a croissant. She must have been terrified, but I remember her saying firmly, “It will be fine,” and we all believed her. She was the mom, and she was in control. That’s how she looks now, even in her grieving uniform. Like my mom. She is the parent—I do still have one parent.
I’m almost close enough to touch her when I say, “Mom?”
“Oh, thank God. Jonah.” Tears blink to her eyes. She pulls me into a grasping, desperate hug. I can feel her shake against me. It’s been so long since she’s stood up straight in my presence. Even with her upright posture, she seems small to me. Have I gotten taller these past eight months? Or did she shrink? Maybe both. When she backs away, her lower lip is shaking. She places her hands on either side of my face. “You never do that to me again. Are you okay? They told me you were, but . . . I didn’t know . . .”
“I’m fine. Vivi wrecked her scooter. I wasn’t on it with her, but I saw it happen. They made me come here because I passed out. I could see . . . I guess it’s called a compound fracture. I got sick a few times, so they gave me fluids. But I don’t even have a concussion.”
“Thank goodness. Is Vivi all right?”
“She’s in surgery. At a bigger hospital. I don’t know, Mom. I don’t know anything.” I’m crying before I even realize that it’s coming over me. In my mind, Vivi’s unconscious on an operating table, under bright lights—pale skin and bloodred lips, unsmiling. Are the doctors stitching her up or cutting her open? My stomach groans.
“Oh, pal,” my mom says, pulling me into a hug. How many people have stood in this place? Clutching onto someone to keep from collapsing. My mom runs her hand over my back, telling me over and over that it will be okay. It makes me cry harder.
I know I’m only going to make it worse. But now is the time, if there ever was one. My voice cracks as I choke out the words. “I miss you, Mom.”
I can feel her start to cry, too, and we stand here, quiet except for the sniffling noises.
Finally, she whispers, “I miss me, too, pal.”
Over my mom’s shoulder, I see the red neon sign through tear-blurred eyes: EXIT. It’s what I want. This is the place where my father died, and all I want is to start moving away from the darkness it left in our lives.
“Let’s go home, okay?” I point my mom toward the exit, and I guide us out.
It’s what I’ve been trying to do all along.