House Arrest (16 page)

20 ~ Sam

By the dim light from the corridor, Sam recorded the urine volume on the Intake/Output clipboard next to the sink. The nurse had offered to do Zoe’s midnight cath, but he and Anna always liked to do Zoe’s care themselves when she was hospitalized. He scooted the chair close to her bed, tucking the blanket around her small shoulders. Careful not to bump her bandaged head, he checked the ink circle outlining the quarter-sized pink ooze on the dressing. No change. He cradled her hand, the one without the IV, so he would wake up if she moved. Finally he let his eyelids slump.

But it wasn’t Zoe who woke him. Anna and Emily stormed into the darkened hospital room, wrapped in frosty air and the thick smell of wet wool. Anna tossed her jacket and backpack on the empty patient bed by the door and made a beeline for Zoe. Sam wiped a bit of drool from his mustache and turned under the blanket edge to hide the dark splotch. He watched Anna lean over to kiss Zoe’s forehead. When she stood up, he recognized the granite set of her neck and shoulders, even in the shadow light. He knew that stiff dance. When Anna armored her body like that, watch out. And he was the likely candidate for her anger this time. Even so, he felt himself start to relax now that she was here.

Emily circled around to Sam’s side of the bed, squeezing between his chair and the wall unit with its oxygen and suction and Code Blue button. She waited for Anna’s kiss to end, then inspected the dressings on Zoe’s abdomen and head. She touched the back of her hand to the girl’s forehead before glancing at Sam.

“No fever?” she whispered.

Sam shook his head, scooting his chair slightly away to give her room. He glanced at his watch. “How was the driving?”

“Bad,” Anna said. “But we’re here now.” She pulled the other chair to her side of the bed. “Everything went okay?”

“Yeah,” he said. “She woke up in Recovery about five, got back here before seven.” He shook his head; he had been nagging Anna about a cell phone for times like this. “If you had a cell, I could have kept you in the loop.”

“You’re right. You win. What did Dr. Fred say?”

“The tubing had broken, up near the valve.” Sam felt okay, in control of the medical details. Usually he was the one asking the questions and Anna or Emily with the answers.

“How long does he want to keep her here?”

“Probably Friday, but no promises.”

Anna looked exhausted. She collapsed onto the bed, head cradled in her arms next to her sleeping daughter. Driving seven hours from Rockland in a snowstorm. He knew that drive and it was brutal. But, glancing back and forth between her and Emily, he wished she would stay awake long enough to fill him in on what was going on. Last thing in the world he and Zoe needed right now was to get caught up in the middle of those two.

Anna and Emily usually got along fine, but they were both stubborn. When they disagreed, he preferred to be someplace else. Like the year after Emily moved in, when her old boyfriend Chad wanted to get back together. Anna thought Emily should see him, give him another chance. Emily said that she lived with Chad for three years and it never felt right. Neither woman told Sam the whole story, as if a guy couldn’t possibly understand these things. He didn’t want to be involved in their argument, but he wanted to know what was happening. So he stood outside the kitchen door, in their shared back hallway, and tried to listen in. Anna would say that was snooping, but they were his family.

Even wobbly with fatigue, Emily stood sentry right next to Zoe’s bed, between him and the wall. He moved his chair another couple of inches, to make more room. In the dim light from the hallway, her face was stone gray. Was she just going to stand there all night? Or do something nursey, something take-charge? He half expected her to whip a stethoscope out from under her sweater, or pluck a penlight from her sleeve. The last time Zoe had shunt surgery, Emily insisted on flashing that damn light into Zoe’s eyes every fifteen minutes, even though the hospital nurse came by and checked her around the clock. But Emily surprised him. She turned away from the bedside and curled up on the reclining sleepchair in the corner by the window, covering herself with her jacket.

Within a few minutes, the hospital room was silent. Zoe murmured something in her sleep and Sam leaned close to listen. But her words became a soft snore that merged with Anna’s deep exhalations on the bed next to her, and Emily’s slow breaths from the corner. He burrowed his nose into the damp of Zoe’s neck and sniffed. When she was an infant, he joked with Anna that their daughter was born with the aroma of autumn in a New England kitchen. The perfume of pumpkin pie, candy corn, and nutmeg lingered, warring with the metallic smell of hospital antiseptic.

Sam never could get used to that hospital odor. Iodine, maybe, or alcohol? It made him remember Zoe’s birth with that pulsating thing on her back. She needed surgery right away, and then the shunt, and Intensive Care, the viscous smell of sickness that wouldn’t come off no matter how long he stood under the hot shower in the parent lounge. Sometimes it triggered the ancient whiff of his father’s dying, of words never spoken.

Anna couldn’t understand why it was so hard for him to parent a child like Zoe. He couldn’t explain, any more than he could articulate why the medical tasks had finally lost their terror for him. He hadn’t even called his mother yesterday, to tell her about Zoe’s surgery. What could she do? Maybe she would have stopped by, kept him company while he waited for the CT scan and surgery. But he doubted it. In his family, they turned their faces away and sorrowed alone.

Instead, Pippa had shown up to wait with him. Her face was sunny and bright, with those lemon meringue peaks of hair. He could see why she fascinated Emily, even if she lived in a cult. She seemed like such an odd girl, young and tough at the same time. So spunky that you wanted to help her. Be careful, he told himself. Don’t forget that girl was charged with causing her baby’s death. Or letting her die. Sam wondered what actually happened. How could you get over something like that? He couldn’t imagine how she had summoned up the courage to get pregnant again.

Was Emily really foolhardy enough to help Pippa? That was risky, any way you looked at it. Help her break the law, that’s what it came down to. Not that he didn’t bend the rules sometimes. He had to, in his business; that’s what people paid a computer hacker to do. But as a favor? He wasn’t an altruistic kind of guy and there was nothing in this for him. So why did he think of Pippa’s dilemma in capital letters, like it was some sort of crusade instead of a sordid bunch of new age hippies living on the wrong side of Forest Park. If it weren’t for Emily, he would have never heard about Pippa’s problem, would not have to puzzle about what to do. It was hard to believe that nervous-nelly Emily would even consider getting involved with this stuff.

Zoe murmured again in her sleep and this time he understood. “Momma.”

“Your momma is right here, Poose,” he whispered and guided her bundled IV hand across the blanket to Anna’s arm. He watched his daughter’s fingers creep up her mother’s shoulder to stroke the skin of Anna’s neck. In the murky light of the hospital room, he studied their oddly-shaped family portrait. Him on one side of the bed, holding his daughter’s hand. Her other hand resting on her mother’s neck. Prickly Emily too, sleeping six feet away on the reclining chair by the dark window, making small whistling noises with every breath.

Tomorrow, he would have to find a time to talk with Anna, find out what happened in Maine. They might be odd, but they were his family and he wanted to know. Also tomorrow, he would have to find a private time between hospital routines and turkey day, to take Emily aside and explain about Pippa. That he really appreciated the girl stopping by to visit Zoe. That he liked Pippa, in spite of what she got herself mixed up in. But he would have to decline Emily’s request to help her patient break the law.

21 ~ Emily

I woke up to the squeak of shoes on the tile floor. The day shift nurse was trying to check Zoe’s bandages without disturbing Sam and Anna, both still half-sprawled across the hospital bed. The nurse extricated Zoe’s right hand from Anna’s clasp to check the IV site, then replaced it. I tried to consider our domestic tableau through her eyes. We probably looked like a typical family: mother, father, and aunt or something. Stop daydreaming, I told myself. Five hours wasn’t enough sleep, but it was after ten a.m. and we had a lot to do. I woke Sam and Anna and we took turns driving home for a quick shower and change of clothes before Thanksgiving dinner.

“Look at Dr. Fred.” Zoe pointed at her neurosurgeon as we gathered with other patients and families for the holiday meal. “Usually he doesn’t wear that silly hat.” Instead of the light blue cap that covered his balding head in the operating room, he sported a tall white chef’s hat. Instead of a scalpel, he flourished an electric knife to carve the biggest turkey I had ever seen. He balanced each slice of turkey on the flat side of the knife for its brief flight to the huge platters that the staff carried around to the patients and families.

The patient atrium was transformed for the holiday. Wheelchairs and stretchers were crowded around tables positioned among the polar bears and giraffes and lions. Centerpieces of painted cardboard turkeys cut from the outlines of the children’s hands jockeyed for space on the white tablecloth with bowls of mashed potatoes and butternut squash and stuffing and green peas dotted with little white onions.

Zoe was still sleepy from the anesthesia. She took miniscule bites of mashed potatoes and pumpkin pie. Mostly she sat in Anna’s lap and watched the activity. Sam and I watched Zoe. From time to time, I leaned over to look into her face, to make sure that her pupils were equal and her eyes were bright.

•

The next morning, I arrived at work earlier than usual. Marge was waiting for me, pacing up and down the staff room.

“I hope you’re satisfied. Mrs. Newman was transferred to assisted living.” Her voice and eyebrows climbed the fury scale together, exploding on the last two words.

“It’s better for her.” My voice squeaked a little, but I got the words out. “She wasn’t safe at home.”

“It’s a lot of lost income to this agency. That’s what it is.” She shook her finger at me. “I don’t know exactly what happened, but I’m sure you had something to do with it. The only thing that saved your job is the very nice check her son sent to thank us for taking such good care of his mother.” She cleared her throat. “You’d better follow the letter of the law, Ms. Klein. You’re on probation.”

Trembling, I cradled the telephone receiver between my shoulder and ear, and punched in the code to listen to my voicemail messages. The first one jolted me; it was Marge’s voice, presumably before she got the word about Mrs. Newman. After a perfunctory condolence about Grandpa Ivan, she left curt instructions. “I assigned you range of motion exercises on Friday with Josué. I know it’s not precisely your job, but I can’t get a physical therapist until Monday. No big deal, right? You do it all the time with your niece. Besides,” she said, her voice brittle, “his mother asked for you.” I clicked on my daily schedule on the computer and saw Josué scheduled for the ten o’clock slot, between Mr. Stanisewski’s dressing change and Mrs. Grover’s antibiotic infusion.

The next message was from Terrell Grover. His mother had been admitted to the medical center on Wednesday with a high fever and mental confusion. I copied down the phone number in her hospital room, trying to picture Mrs. Grover’s incision. Did I miss signs of infection at my last visit?

Nan Malloy had called late Wednesday afternoon. “Give me a buzz when you hear this. There’s been a development in the Glenning case and I want to give you a heads up.” I wrote her number on the list and underlined it twice.

The last message was from Pippa. “Are you back from Maine? Please call me.” Her voice sounded thin, as if the words were forced through the little holes in the telephone receiver. I wondered what was wrong, and scribbled her name at the top of my list. Did her worried voice have anything to do with the “development in the case” that Nan mentioned? I tried to imagine what Pippa’s Thanksgiving had been like at Pioneer Street, with Abby dead and Tian in jail and Pippa imprisoned by a high-tech ball and chain.

I studied my schedule. Gina had inserted “Meet me at the Park” in bright green in the one o’clock slot, before my new patient intake at two. I heard the outside door open and close, and looked up from my schedule printout. Andy waved and sat down at his desk next to Marge’s office without removing his coat. Checking my watch, I dialed Pippa’s number. She sounded tired, like maybe I woke her up.

“Everything okay?” I asked. “I got your message.”

“I wanted to make sure you’re not mad at me for going to the hospital. I just wanted to meet your family, you know? I really liked them, Zoe and Sam.”

“I’m not mad,” I said. Well, a little, I admitted to myself. More uncomfortable than mad, really. “Sam said he was glad to have the company.”

“Did he say anything else?”

So that’s what she was after. I turned my back towards Andy and lowered my voice. Even then, I chose my words carefully. “He said you guys talked a little about your situation. That he had done some research.”

“And?”

“He said he couldn’t see any safe way to help you, not without getting caught.”

Pippa was silent.

Sam probably hadn’t told Pippa he wouldn’t help her. At least not directly. It was easier for him to avoid a definitive answer. But he had made it perfectly clear to me on Thanksgiving, over warm pumpkin pie with vanilla ice cream. Placing his elbows on the white tablecloth speckled with food drips, he had leaned forward and said that he had liked meeting Pippa, but wasn’t interested in risking his own skin for her oddball religion.

“Didn’t he tell you that?” I finally asked.

“Not really.” Her voice was small. “He said he would keep looking.”

I slouched down in my chair, rescuing my brown knit scarf which had slid to the floor and snaked under my desk. “Then maybe he’ll come up with something.” I wasn’t being any more honest or forthright than Sam, but it would be easier to talk about in person. I arranged to pick Pippa up Monday morning for her ultrasound, and pressed the disconnect button harder than necessary before dialing the probation office.

“Malloy.” She answered on the first ring.

“This is Emily Klein. You left me a message, about Pippa Glenning?”

“Thanks for calling back. First of all, any problems with Glenning?”

No problems, except if you counted Pippa getting mixed up with my private life. It was supposed to be the other way around. I got involved with my patients and their families, but none of my patients had ever met my family before. I wasn’t sure why this bothered me, but it did. “She’s fine. Your message said something about a new development?”

“Maybe. You know that Glenning, along with the two other defendants, has a pre-trial hearing first thing Tuesday morning, right? And that you’re expected to attend, in case the judge has any questions for you?”

“Whoa. I didn’t know anything about me having to be there.” Maybe I wouldn’t even be working here by next Tuesday. I wouldn’t be sorry to miss the hearing.

“Sorry. Your supervisor knows, but I should have told you directly. Anyway, the hearing itself is not the problem.”

Maybe not for you, I thought.

“The problem is that the newspaper got wind of the hearing. There was a reporter here on Wednesday, said they got photos of the house and quotes from the neighbors. If they call, you probably don’t want to talk to them.”

“You’re right about that. What do I do?”

“Just say No.” Nan laughed at her own joke. “Really, just refuse. And one more thing.”

“What’s that?” I had a bad feeling about this.

“You ever heard of a hate group called the White Hats?”

“No. Should I have?”

Nan sighed. “They have recently spread into New England. They’re skinheads, Neo-Nazis. They hate black people, Jews, gays, Muslims. They especially despise any ungodly combinations of the above.”

I wasn’t going to let myself panic. “Skinheads? Aren’t they California types? Isn’t New England too cold for them?”

“Don’t underestimate those people,” Nan said. “They have applied for a permit to rally outside the courthouse Tuesday morning.”

I took a slow, deep breath, trying to imagine Pippa being led by cops through throngs of angry people who hated how she lived.

“What will you do?” I asked.

“Nothing we can do,” Nan said cheerfully. “It’s their right. The permit was granted. I just wanted you to know.”

“Thanks.” I hung up, then sat for a moment before getting up to pack my supply bag. I wondered if Nan had warned Pippa or her housemates about the White Hats.

•

On and off during the busy morning, worries surfaced at odd times. Brief images of Pippa and the White Hats, whatever they were, alternated with sick misgivings about Marge. What did it mean to be on probation? Why hadn’t I thought to ask her?

When I parked the car at Mr. S’s apartment, I noticed the small city park across the street. On a whim, I left my pack in the car and walked along the leaf-strewn gravel path into a grove of maple trees. A male cardinal flew into the bare branches, the red splash of him shockingly bright against the dull brown day. I shivered and shoved my hands deep into my pockets. My fingers found the pebbles. I cupped them in the palm of my hand, warming their hardness. The tips of my fingers felt for the subtly different texture of the ring around the heart of each stone.

Maybe I should just toss them into the dirt at my feet, or into the brush. They were just pieces of rock: inert, dead. It was a silly superstition, putting them on a gravestone. As silly as dancing stoned and bare-assed in a snowstorm around a ring of flat stones in an abandoned nature trail behind a wall of rhododendron bushes. I dropped them in my pocket and turned back towards the street. I had work to do.

•

Mr. Stanisewski’s toe ulcer was almost healed, but his granddaughter’s science fair plants were infected with little white bugs. Mr. S thought they sounded like aphids, and while I reviewed his glucose-testing log, he explained to me how to mash an onion and three cloves of garlic in two cups of warm water and brush the mixture on the infected leaves. His granddaughter refused to try the remedy. She just laughed and called him silly Ja Jou. “That’s Grandpa in Polish,” he said. “Treating the aphids isn’t part of the research protocol. She said that anyway onions and garlic were for making kielbasa, and pesticides were for killing bugs.”

We sat on his sofa and listened to polka tunes while I charted in the laptop and tried to control the phantasms of my sleep-deprived brain. Pippa and Mrs. Newman danced together around the tattered edges of my exhaustion. They did a lopsided foxtrot, naked in the snow, tethered together by twin ankle monitors. Their audience, two toddlers in thick blanket-sleepers, watched in delight from a small clearing, laughing and clapping their frozen hands.