House Arrest (14 page)

Marilyn put her face in her hands and leaned against her sister. I think she said, “I really miss Grandpa.” I saw her shoulders shake, but it was hard to hear her words because of the buzzing in my ears.

“Are you okay?” Anna touched my arm.

There was no reason to be scared of these people. It wasn’t their fault that their home had been my prison. Maybe it was the warm room, or not enough sleep, or the noise of bees in my ears, or how Carla’s face looked so much like Momma’s. I didn’t plan to say anything. But something fizzed open inside me.

“Were my parents wrong?” I blurted. “To break the law, even to stop a war and a draft?” I stared at my cousins, daring them to answer, barely feeling Anna’s arms around me.

“I admired your folks, Emily.” Carla spoke with Momma’s mouth. “I wish they had destroyed the draft board records here, on the island instead of in Michigan. Then maybe Uncle Fred wouldn’t have been drafted and blown to bits.”

Laura nodded. “Me, too. I’ve always been in awe of your parents. Your parents died young, but their lives had purpose.”

I stood up and thumped my hand on my chest. “Isn’t family enough purpose? Besides, did it make any difference? That fire didn’t end the war. It just made a bunch of people miserable.”

“Maybe sometimes you have to act, in spite of the consequences,” Laura said.

I heard her speak, but the words came out in a foreign language, one that I had studied long ago but no longer understood. I whispered to Anna, “I’m going back.” She followed me to the mud room, then outside.

Aunt Ruth met us at the front door with a frown. “Call Sam,” she said. “It sounded important.” As Anna hurried towards the kitchen telephone, Aunt Ruth turned to me. “You’re back early. Is something wrong?”

I sidestepped her touch and tried to follow Anna into the kitchen. It had to be Zoe.

Aunt Ruth steered me away from the kitchen door. “What happened?”

“Nothing.”

“Just like your father.” Ruth’s mouth tightened into a thin, discouraged line.

“What do you mean?”

“Stubborn. Blind.” Ruth’s voice cracked slightly on the last word.

I couldn’t believe we were talking like this. “Blind? Seems to me that he was forced to see things pretty clearly, locked up for years. Didn’t he see Momma was dying of a broken heart?”

Ruth led me to the sofa and sat herself down at the other end. We faced each other across two feet of green plaid. “Your mother was my baby sister. I loved her. But it wasn’t a broken heart. She died of guilt.”

“Guilt?”

“Arnie talked big, but he was nothing without Jemma. A zero. He almost caved in, the night they firebombed the draft board. Jemma convinced him not to quit. He was the speechmaker, but she was the strategist, the backbone. Together they were a terrific team.”

“Then why?”

“Why did he go to prison alone?” Ruth asked. “Because he was fingered, turned in. He was the speech maker, and too many people knew he was involved. There was no way he could get off. So your parents had a choice: either they both went to prison, or he went alone. They made their decision. He told everyone—the cops, the judge, the newspapers—that he acted alone.”

“Why didn’t Momma tell the truth?”

“To stay with you.”

“But she didn’t stay. Not really.”

“She tried. She couldn’t hack it without him.”

“She had me.” I stood up, both hands splayed across my chest. “She left me alone.”

“You weren’t put out on the street, Emily. We took care of you. You had a roof over your head, a family who loved you. Get over it. Stop picking at your past like a giant scab.” Then Ruth frowned. “Sit down. There’s more to talk about.”

“I’ve had enough.” I turned towards the kitchen. Anna stood in the doorway.

“Zoe,” she said. “It’s her shunt.”

17 ~ Gina

Well, here goes nothing, Gina thought, peering through the windshield at Pippa’s three-story stucco house. It was set way back on its lot compared to the triple-family buildings on either side, aloof from the life of the street. In the yard next door, a white-haired man leaned on the business end of a rake, the handle planted in a pile of snow-frosted leaves. A camera, black against the hunter orange of his parka, hung on a leather strap around his neck.

“Looks like snow,” he called across the yard. His words were mild, but something prickly in his voice made Gina turn her head and look at him. He stared back.

Gina nodded, then hurried up the front stairs. She knocked on the door and waited for Pippa. Even though it crowded her day, Gina relished the opportunity to meet the cult girl in person. Maybe then she’d understand why Emily was acting so out of character. The door opened.

“Good morning. I’m—”

“You must be Gina,” the young woman interrupted. “I’m Pippa. Emily said you would come.” She pulled the heavy door and stood back to let Gina enter. Two cats wove in and out between their legs. Following Pippa into the living room, Gina stared at the thick wool socks below the border of her denim skirt, but couldn’t see any evidence of the ankle monitor.

Gina arranged the paper towels and computer on the coffee table. She tried not to gawk at the painting over the fireplace. Soft and round with spiky hair and pointy glasses, Pippa sat cross-legged on the couch flanked by her cats.

“Any problems since last week?” Gina asked. “Cramping? Spotting?”

“I feel fine,” Pippa said. “Have you heard from Emily?”

Gina shook her head. “How about digestive problems—heartburn, nausea, constipation?”

“No. Nothing. When do you think she’ll be back?”

“The funeral is this morning.” Gina read the notes in the computer file. “What about the cat box? Is someone else cleaning it?”

“Liz is doing it.”

“And the herb teas? Are you avoiding the ones that can trigger labor too early?”

Pippa looked confused for a moment, then shrugged. “I’m doing everything just like Emily said.”

“How’s the rash under your ankle monitor?”

Lifting her skirt, Pippa leaned down and pushed the gray wool sock down from her right ankle, exposing the small black device. “It rashes up and itches after my shower,” she said. “But as long as I tuck this thin sock under the strap, the blotches and itching go away pretty quick.”

Gina nodded and typed Pippa’s responses into the file. Looking up, she said, “Let’s check your weight, blood pressure, and urine, okay?”

“Emily said she would tell me the results of my blood tests. From last Friday?”

“I don’t see them. It takes a few days to show up in the computer record. When Emily comes back, she’ll track them down.” Gina finished typing, rummaged in the bag, and then held out a small plastic cup. While Pippa was in the bathroom, Gina allowed herself to finally stare at the painting. Why hadn’t Emily mentioned that awful bird-woman with her bare breasts and fierce eyes?

Pippa handed the cup to Gina, who took it in a gloved hand and set it on a folded paper towel. She dipped the plastic strip into the urine, and held it against the small squares on the bottle label, matching each color at the precise number of seconds for accurate results. Gina knew that other people weren’t as careful, but the details were important to her.

“Everything’s normal.” She smiled at Pippa.

Pippa’s weight and blood pressure were normal too, and Gina folded up the supplies and fit everything neatly into the rolling back pack. That wasn’t so bad, and she had plenty of time to check on Mr. Stanisewski before her regular Wednesday morning patients. Then Pippa walked back into the living room carrying a tray with a nut-brown teapot and two mugs.

“Spearmint tea. Specialty of the house.”

“I’m not sure I have time.”

“Please sit for a spell,” Pippa said, her voice slipping into a southern cadence. “I could sure use the company.” She poured tea into both cups.

Gina checked her watch. She could spare the time, but didn’t like Pippa calling all the shots. The girl wasn’t all that strange, just intense. And the house felt pretty ordinary really, like any household with the rest of the family at work and at school. Except for the bare-breasted goddess on the wall.

And, except for the fact that the young woman pouring tea let two babies die while she danced stoned in a blizzard.

“So you haven’t heard anything from Emily?” Pippa cupped the mug in both hands.

“Not since she left for Maine.”

“I miss her,” Pippa said in a small voice. “You think she’ll be back tomorrow?”

“Probably not until after Thanksgiving,” Gina said. Pippa seemed to genuinely care about Emily. “I bet she’ll stay up there with her relatives for a few days. Unless there’s trouble with Zoe.”

Pippa tilted her head to the side. “The little girl Emily lives with? Didn’t she go?”

Gina shook her head. “Just Emily and Anna. Zoe stayed home with her dad. Sam.”

“What kind of trouble with Zoe?”

“Sam wasn’t sure, but this morning he was worried about her shunt.”

“Her shunt?”

“It keeps her brain from swelling, because of her spina bifida. They were on the way to the hospital for a CT scan.” Gina put the tea cup down and reached for her pocketbook. She should go. She shouldn’t be talking about Emily’s private business. She should zip up her big mouth.

Pippa leaned forward and put down her teacup. “What does that mean, if her shunt isn’t working? Is that big trouble?”

“
Big chobble
, that’s what my Granny Teisha called it.” Where did that come from? What was it about Pippa that made Emily abandon her common sense, and now here she was, flapping her mouth without her brain in gear.

Pippa smiled. “So, is a shunt problem
big chobble?
”

Couldn’t hurt to answer one more question. “She would need surgery. Right away most likely.”

Pippa’s face sagged. “Without her mother here? That’s awful.”

Was Pippa thinking about her own daughter, left alone in the frozen forest?

“Shunt surgery can’t wait, not even for a mother. If a shunt fails and revision isn’t done in time, Zoe could suffer brain damage or even die.” Gina stood up. “Thanks for the tea.”

Pippa stood too. “Will you let me know what happens?”

That was an odd request from a patient with
big chobble
of her own. This girl wasn’t at all what she expected. “I’m going to stop by the hospital to check on Zoe after work. I could call you, if there’s news.”

“Emily really loves that little girl, huh? Even though she’s only her cousin’s kid?”

“Zoe means the world to her.”

Gina picked her way down the icy sidewalk, then turned back to wave at Pippa, framed in the doorway with the black cat. She could see why Emily was so taken with Pippa.

•

“You’re not Emily.” Mr. Stanisewski’s look was accusatory.

Gina placed her sparkly jade wool glove against the closing apartment door. “Wait. I’m from the nursing agency.”

“Where’s my nurse?”

“Emily is away for a few days. I’m filling in for her. I’m Gina Belinfante.” Gina gently pushed against the door. “May I come in?”

Mr. Stanisewski stepped back. “She didn’t tell me.”

“She didn’t have time to call.” Gina rolled her backpack into the living room, noting the single crutch leaning against the refrigerator. “Her grandfather passed away, and she had to drive home for his funeral. But she asked me to stop in and check on you.”

The old man steadied himself against the back of the brown plaid lounger. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know her grandfather was sick. She never talks about her family.” He pointed to the sofa. “Emily usually sits there, and puts her computer on the coffee table.”

Gina spread the paper towels. “Are you feeling well?”

“Not bad for an old coot,” he said. “I’ve been doing just like Emily said. I take my temperature every day. There’s been no fever.”

Gina checked the computer notes. “Any more drainage from the ulcer?”

“Not a bit. Perfect sock-checks.” He chuckled. “That’s what Emily told me to do. Sniff my socks when I take them off. They just smell like old feet, nothing else.”

Gina smiled at him. “That’s a good way to check for infection. Emily knows all the tricks. May I take a peek at your toe?”

He nodded and reached down to his shoelaces. “Yep. And while you change the dressing, I’ll tell you about my granddaughter’s plants. You can fill Emily in if you talk to her before I do. She’ll want to know how the experiment is going.”

Leaving Mr. Stanisewski’s home twenty minutes later, Gina wondered if her own patients would miss her as much as Emily’s seemed to.

18 ~ Pippa

Pippa closed the door behind Gina and leaned against it until the lock clicked.

A hoot, that’s what Ma would have called Gina, with her shiny red lipstick and fur collar and
big chobble
. Ma wouldn’t have meant any disrespect, just that she was different, in a quirky way. Of course, back home Ma would have never had the opportunity to know Gina as a person, hoot or no.

The deep brown of Gina’s skin made Pippa ache for Tian. Gina was darker than him, lighter than Delmar. Isis loved all her children, and they weren’t supposed to notice skin color. But she couldn’t help wondering what Abby’s cocoa skin tone would have grown into as an adult. And worrying that having a white mother and a black father would bring her trouble. Ma used to say that being a mother was nine-tenths worry. Pippa couldn’t imagine the worry of having a kid with a shunt.

Gina said she’d let her know what happened with Zoe, but Pippa couldn’t just sit around and wait for news. She dumped the tea leaves into the compost bucket on the counter, and rinsed out the teapot. It was probably crazy, but maybe just a quick trip to the hospital, to meet this kid Emily loved and find out for herself what was happening. Perhaps she could even help Sam, keep him company since his family was in Maine.

There was no one around to try to stop her. Francie was sleeping. Marshall and the twins were out on a home school expedition, not expected back until dinnertime. Liz and Adele were working at the Tea Room, where Pippa was supposed to join them in less than an hour. She knew without asking what they all would say. No way could she ask Francie about this, not since she’d turned all ice-princess remote. Pippa shivered with aloneness. She dried her hands on the dishtowel and wandered into the living room. Isis’ expression was stern, like she didn’t approve either. Maybe in her own way Isis was as rule-bound as Emily.

Tian didn’t have any problems with thumbing his nose at authority. He taught them that they didn’t have to follow the rules of society that were wrong-headed, or didn’t apply to them. But he also taught that they should rely only on each other, didn’t need to go looking for anything outside the Pioneer Street family. And look at him, always talking about his new buddy, that bald guard down at the jail. It didn’t make sense, trusting a guard that much, but maybe even Tian needed a little help from the outside once in a while.

Rely on yourself, Pippa. Think about this logically. She paced back and forth in front of the Isis painting, stroking soft spirals on her belly. Relax, little one, she whispered. Don’t stress out with my worries. The way she understood the house arrest system, nothing bad would happen if she left the house at the regular time, but instead of taking the bus to the X, took the North End route instead. She could safely visit Zoe at the Children’s Hospital as long as she got home in time, before the ankle monitor could register anything out of the ordinary. She glanced up at Isis for confirmation, but the half-smile on the goddess’s face didn’t change. For the first time, Isis’s expression looked almost like a smirk.

She scrawled a message on the chalkboard on the wall next to the telephone: Something came up. Home by dinnertime. When she called the Tea Room, she was grateful no one answered; hopefully that meant they were busy. She left the same message on voicemail, adding at the end, “Don’t worry. Everything’s fine.”

Adele would be pissed off; she would probably have to stay and help Liz serve customers. She would sulk for a day or so and then forget all about it. None of them would understand why Pippa wanted to visit some kid she didn’t know, why she cared about a court-assigned nurse. Pippa wasn’t sure she could explain it either, even if Adele or Liz did want to listen. Was it just because she needed Emily’s help, or was the nurse feeling like a friend? Whatever, she was going to visit Zoe.

The afternoon was raw and dreary. Standing at the bus stop, it felt like snow. Pippa zipped her jacket all the way up and twisted her scarf around her neck. Francie always told her to wear a hat, but Pippa hated having anything on her head, any covering at all. The twins laughed at her when they went sledding on Barney Hill, because her short hair stood up in frozen peaks, stiff with ice and snow. In deepest winter, she compromised and wore earmuffs, but never a hat or hood.

•

No one asked for identification when Pippa signed the guest log as Sally Ann Pike and was given Zoe’s room number. She clipped the Visitor Pass to her jacket and watched the giraffes and elephants in the hospital lobby recede from the slow climb of the glass elevator. She peeked into the two-story atrium upstairs at more life-size animals, polar bears and penguins. Multi-colored hot air balloons appeared to float near the skylights, the thin wires visible only if you looked closely.

The Neurosurgery Unit clerk pointed to the far end of the corridor. The door to room 2163 was slightly ajar, with two laminated signs taped to the glass window. One slashed circle forbade medical gloves, NO LATEX RUBBER in bold print at the bottom. The other had drawings of a can of soda and a hamburger and was labeled NPO, nothing to eat or drink.

Pippa heard a low voice singing and peered into the dim room.

A lanky man with sand-colored curls leaned over the slight form on the bed next to the window. He held both hands in front of the child’s face, his wiggling fingers decorated with pieces of colored fabric.

“Who’s afraid of the big bad wolf?” he sang. His fingers danced, a red-cloaked pinky in jiggling step with a plump blue-dressed thumb.

As Pippa retreated a step into the hallway, her boot clunked into the heavy door. Sam looked up at the sound, brought his bare index finger to his bushy old-fashioned mustache with twisted curly ends, then turned back to finish the miniature song and dance. He leaned over to kiss Zoe’s forehead, pushing the elastic cap back up to her hairline. She didn’t move. He watched the girl for a few long seconds, then joined Pippa in the hallway.

“I didn’t want to wake her.” His voice was soft. “Who are you?”

“Pippa Glenning. I’m . . . a friend of Emily’s.”

“I’m Sam. Zoe’s dad. She’s sedated for surgery.” His voice broke on the last word.

She shouldn’t have come, shouldn’t have interrupted something so personal between parent and child. She wasn’t even related, had never even met these people. “I’m sorry to butt in. I shouldn’t be here.” She turned to leave.

“Wait. I know who you are.” He glanced down towards Pippa’s shoes.

Well, that was pretty direct. But what did she expect, barging in like this. Pippa stuck out her right foot, slightly lifting the edge of her denim skirt to display the bulge of the ankle monitor under her thick wool sock. She felt pleased that Emily had mentioned her, even if it was just the awful peculiarity of the house arrest situation.

“Gina told me Zoe was here.”

Sam nodded.

“It was stupid to come. But I wanted to help Emily.”

“It’s okay. Waiting alone is really hard.”

“What’s wrong with her?”

“Her shunt isn’t working. She needs a new one,” Sam said.

Pippa shook her head. “I mean in general, what’s wrong with her?”

“She was born with spina bifida.”

“What’s that?”

Sam shrugged. “The bones in her lower back didn’t grow right. When she was born, part of her spinal cord and nerves were on the outside of her back, in a big lump.”

“Wow.”

“They operated right away, to put them back inside. And inserted the shunt.”

“But now it’s broken?”

“Sometimes the tube breaks or gets plugged. So it can’t drain the fluid from her brain.” Sam traced an imaginary line from the side of his head, along his neck and chest down to his belly, then noticed his fingers and laughed.

Pippa laughed too. “What are those?”

“Finger puppets. Zoe and I collect old gloves and make puppets from them.” He held his fingers up for Pippa’s inspection. Short sections of glove fingers were positioned below faces drawn with colored pens, some topped with glove tip hats. “We do puppet shows.” He pulled a turquoise tube off his pinky and handed it to Pippa.

She slipped it onto her thumb. A simple hood partially obscured the soft pad of her finger, which could become a puppet’s face if she drew features on it. Would Tian ever think of playing a game like that with his babies? She tried to remember how he used to be with Abby. She wiggled her finger at Sam.

“How you doing, young fella?” She made her voice deep and southern.

He smiled, then a nurse pushed a stretcher down the corridor to Zoe’s door.

“Is she sleeping?” the nurse asked.

Sam’s smile faded. “Yeah.”

The nurse maneuvered the stretcher into Zoe’s room, right up next to the bed. “I’m going to bring her down to the OR holding room now, OK?”

“We’re coming.” Sam helped the nurse transfer Zoe onto the stretcher, tucked a purple stuffed animal close to her face, and turned to Pippa. “Okay?”

Pippa nodded.

•

For a person with no use for doctors or their medicine, Pippa was spending a lot of time in medical waiting rooms. Someone had tried to make this one cheerful. A wicker laundry basket of toys and picture books sat next to the blue oval rug in the corner. On the walls, fist-sized tulips in improbable colors bloomed under dazzling sunlight and brown stick trees grew lush with emerald leaves. The twins would love to paint on a wall. Maybe they could do a mural at Pioneer Street, spiff up the house a little. The bright colors made her feel buoyant and hopeful, until she remembered why she was there, that Zoe was asleep under bright lights with someone mucking around in her brain. She turned to Sam, sprawled on the chair across from her. He bit methodically at the ragged red skin around his right thumbnail.

“Giving Red Ridinghood’s grandma a haircut?”

“The show’s over,” he said, tugging the fabric cylinders off each finger and stuffing them into the pocket of his flannel shirt. “When she gets out of surgery, she’ll be so loopy with the medicine that she won’t remember she fell asleep in the middle of the story.”

“Sounds like you’ve been through this before.”

“Once, when she was three. She was sleeping at my apartment that night too, but Anna was here. Emily too.” He looked at his watch. “I left Anna a message at her Aunt Ruth’s.” He dropped his face into his hands and mumbled, “They’ll probably blame me for this.”

Pippa nodded. She knew how that felt, being blamed for something horrible. And even worse was blaming yourself. “Did you screw up?”

Sam wiped his eyes with the back of his hand. “I don’t think so. Maybe I should have noticed sooner that she wasn’t acting normal. It’s much better to catch it early.”

“Is the operation dangerous?”

“They tell you all these awful things that could go wrong and you have to sign that you understand the risks. But that’s just to cover their asses. I think this is pretty safe. I hope. Who knows?” He spit on his fingers and started rubbing the inky grins and cartoon eyes with the tail of his flannel shirt. “Could we talk about something else?”

“Sure. What do you want to talk about?”

“How about your house arrest monitor?” Sam pointed at Pippa’s skirt dragging on the floor.

Pippa frowned. This guy was terrific with his daughter, but he could be pushy about things that were none of his business.

Sam leaned back in his chair, hands locked behind his neck. “Explain it to me, how it works?”

How much had Emily told him? Pippa repeated what the probation officer had said in the stuffy courthouse conference room. She stumbled at first, over the electronic hook-up between the ankle device and the telephone, but he asked smart questions that helped her get it right. In the middle of describing how her work hours were programmed into the computer at company headquarters, Sam’s cell phone rang.

He pulled the phone from his shirt pocket in a tumble of red and green and sparkly purple tubes. “Anna?”

Pippa only half-listened to his description of Zoe’s symptoms. She looked around the windowless room. How odd that a hospital waiting room made her feel safe, protected. What if she had found Abby half-frozen in the snow, the morning after the solstice, and brought her right here to this hospital built especially for kids? Would they have been able to save her? Would Tian have played finger puppet games to help Abby get better? Would they have waited together, sitting for hours on these molded plastic chairs facing a childish mural? And what about this new baby? Who would wait with Pippa, if something went wrong with this baby? Who would keep her company when the judge made her give birth in a hospital instead of at home with the midwife and the family and Isis?

“You okay?”

Her cheeks were wet. This wasn’t like her, even with the hormone deluge that came with pregnancy. She nodded. “What did they say?”

“They’re leaving now. It’ll take six, seven hours for them to get here. Anna said it’s supposed to snow.”

They both looked at the clock on the green waiting room wall.

“I have to catch my bus at five,” Pippa said. “If I’m not home on time, the computer will notify the cops and they’ll arrest me.”

Sam leaned forward. “Do you have a problem with your monitor?”

“Why do you want to know?”