Treasures (30 page)

They flew. In the neighbors’ floodlit front yard a little group had already gathered at the bottom of the long flight of stone steps. Behind a barricade of legs and stooped backs a short, limp leg in a snowsuit was all that was visible; Lara had to thrust through the barricade before she could see her baby—her baby, whose cap had fallen off, whose hair lay spread upon the snow, whose eyes were closed. She fell on her knees. No sound came out of her throat.

A voice said, “Don’t move her. You’re not supposed to. I took first aid.”

Another voice above Lara’s head kept asking, “What happened? What happened?”

More voices babbled. “The ambulance will be here in a minute.… They take so long.… Don’t touch her.…”

Sue wept on Lara’s shoulder. “Mom, Mom, I was in Amy’s house next door, and Peggy must have been looking for me at the Burkes’, and slipped on the ice—oh, Mom!”

But Lara still said nothing, as she knelt there staring at her child.

Davey put his head against Peggy’s chest. As if one
could hear a heartbeat through that thick cloth! He looked up at Lara.

“She’s fainted. That’s all it is. She’s fainted.” Then, with a queer, awkward gesture, he put his hands over his face and someone led him away.

People helped Lara climb into the ambulance, where she and Davey sat beside the stretcher. Endlessly they rode through the empty nighttime streets. The day that had begun with a thaw had turned into a bitter, angry night. Lara had never been so cold. Her teeth chattered so that she could hear them. Imploring, she looked up into the eyes of the young man in the white coat who sat at the head of the stretcher.

“She isn’t dead, ma’am,” he said, answering the unspoken question.

Lara nodded. Her thoughts spun, repeating themselves in some strange, determined ritual: If I keep quiet and calm, if I do everything they tell me to do, not scream or fuss or lose control, then I will be rewarded for good behavior and she will be fine again. Yes, yes, I must. I will. Her hands clasped themselves together on her lap as if in prayer. Then Davey put his hand over hers, and they sat, still without speaking, never taking their eyes away from Peggy, who had not yet moved.

Lights from the emergency wing glared into the courtyard, giving forth the only warmth and brightness in the freezing town. The light looked friendly. Once they got inside there, it would somehow be all right. People there would know at once what to do.

Such a tiny body in her overalls and T-shirt, such a small body next to such big ones all in white! Doctors,
nurses, interns; who was who? Lara did not heed; Davey did the talking off in a corner. Low, hurried voices spoke and came back again to look, to touch, and listen. Peggy’s labored breathing was like a snore—a dreadful sound, but at least it proved that she was alive. The man in the ambulance had said she wasn’t dead, hadn’t he? Pay attention to that, Lara! She isn’t dead.

They were taking her blood pressure. They were listening to her heart.

“No blood in the lungs,” announced a young man with a stethoscope around his neck.

But surely that was blood seeping out of her ears? Still almost speechless, Lara pointed.

“That’s from the skull fracture,” the young man said. “A skull fracture need not be as dreadful as it sounds.”

He meant to be kind. “Need not be.” What did that mean? It meant that it could be.

Now Peggy’s little face began to swell. One could almost see it happening as the flesh rose, black and blue. A crust of blood had hardened on one cheek. As Lara bent to wipe it away, she was gently restrained.

“That’s nothing, only a skin scrape.”

“But will she wake up soon?” It was her first question, a foolish one, she knew as she was asking it.

Davey shook his head, warning: Don’t distract them. They know what they’re doing. And he said aloud, “Darling, it takes time.”

“But look,” Lara whispered, “look, her lips are moving.”

Indeed, the child was shaping her mouth into an unnatural
grimace, an expression that they had never seen before.

“She’s unconscious,” repeated Davey.

A little more than an hour ago she had been eating banana pudding at home.

And suddenly the little body stiffened, rose into an arc, straightened, arched again with head thrown back and legs jerking while her arms flailed frantically from side to side.

“My God!” cried Lara, grasping Davey’s arm.

They were putting a tongue depressor into Peggy’s mouth and holding her firmly.

“A seizure,” a nurse told Lara. “Look away. It will be over in a minute or two.”

“But why? Why?” Lara wailed.

“Perhaps you had better take Mrs. Davis out,” said the doctor, who now appeared to be the one in charge. An older man, he had just arrived, hurrying as though he had been summoned from a distance.

“No,” Lara protested. “No. I’ll be quiet. Please. Please.”

When the seizure ended as abruptly as it had begun, the child lay back inert, and the slow, noisy breathing resumed as before. Davey was motioned aside. Again there was swift talk at the far end of the room, and again he came back to Lara.

“They’ll be taking her for X rays of the chest and skull. And after that, an electroencephalogram.”

So she knew. She knew enough about brain damage to understand what was happening. If she had had any thoughts—and she had had them—about swift repairs
in this emergency room, after which they would take Peggy home as good as new, she now knew better.

Hours in the intensive care unit were to follow. Now came the specialists, the otolaryngologists, the ophthalmologists, and the neurologists to observe, to test, to prescribe, and mostly, in the end, to counsel patience. As the hours went past, they spoke more guardedly and less frequently of hope. No nuance of their voices or their glances escaped Lara and Davey. Admitting nothing to each other, they did not have to admit anything, for the fact was plain: The child was still unconscious.

Every third hour the parents were allowed to see her. And the pathetic silly sentence kept sounding in Lara’s head: She was eating banana pudding, sitting on the other side of the table next to Sue.

They had almost forgotten Sue. At home, on the first night of the disaster, each had asked the other whether he had told Sue to watch Peggy in the yard, and each had answered, “No. I thought you had.”

“So that’s why she was at Amy’s that night. Peggy left the house a bit later, I remember now. We were arguing,” Lara said, and wept again. “Arguing, like fools.”

On the second day Connie flew in and met Lara in the waiting room outside the intensive care unit.

“Sue phoned me. Poor child, she could hardly talk. Oh, Lara, what can I do for you?” Connie lowered her voice. Two middle-aged women, farm wives perhaps, were staring in frank curiosity at her sweeping fur coat. “And Martin says if you need anything, if you run short, Davey must let him know. You understand? I’m going to
stay a few days. Davey says you haven’t rested at all. You have to go home and sleep, Lara. I’ll take your turn here watching.”

“I can’t sleep. I haven’t slept. Anyway, Davey will be here.”

“He needs rest too. And he has to spend some time at the plant. It can’t be allowed to fall apart, he says. So I’m staying for a few days. Don’t argue.”

“I can’t sleep, anyway. I told you.”

“You can try. If Peggy wakes up, I’ll be here. She knows me, and I’ll telephone you right away and tell her you’re coming. Now go home.”

On the next day Eddy arrived with Pam. Pam took Lara into her arms, but Eddy went first to embrace Davey.

“Davey, Davey, there are no words for this. I take back every mean word I said to you that night. God help us all.”

Davey’s eyes were wet. “It’s all unimportant, not worth a breath. Only our baby matters.… Thank you for being here, Eddy.”

From everywhere came an outpouring of concern and help. Neighbors took Sue to school, watched the house, and fed the dogs. The telephone rang, the mail flowed; there were fifty names on a huge card from Peggy’s nursery school. Even those who had felt so bitterly unforgiving toward Davey came through. Dr. Donnelly’s wife took Sue to play with her grandchild. Ben Levy left a roasted turkey at the kitchen door. And Henry Baker, meeting Davey at the gas station, came up and took his hand.

Without animosity Davey could not refrain from asking sadly, “Still won’t trust my judgment, Henry?”

The reply was not unkind, yet it was unmistakably firm. “That’s entirely separate from your little girl. The one has nothing to do with the other. I pray for the child.”

Later that week Lara came home to find a message on the answering machine. Sue had not gone to school that morning.

The three adults, Lara, Davey, and Connie, stared at each other. Is it possible for another disaster to strike this little family? Davey asked himself.

“She had her schoolbag,” Lara said, “I remember that distinctly. I watched her go down to meet the car pool.”

“Who drove today?”

“Lee Connor. I’ll call her.”

When she returned to the others, Lara’s eyes were terrified. “Lee says Sue telephoned her this morning to say she wasn’t going to school.” Lara sank down on the sofa. “I don’t think—I just don’t think we can bear one thing more.” Her voice quavered.

Davey cleared his throat. “We mustn’t panic. Think clearly. Don’t get excited. Think clearly.”

He has to play the male role, Connie thought with pity. He’s not supposed to show that he’s shocked to death. Lara can show it, but he doesn’t dare to.

Aloud she said, “Give me a list of her friends, and I’ll make phone calls. She’s probably gone with one of them to the movies or the mall.”

“Sue wouldn’t do that,” Lara said faintly. “She’s very responsible, very obedient.”

“Even so. There’s always a first time, and she’s getting to the independent age. Give me a list, Lara.”

“There’s one on the bulletin board in the kitchen. I’m class mother.”

After eighteen calls Connie, receiving no clue, began to feel weak in the knees herself. The world was so full of horrors! Could the child possibly have become involved with an older boy and gone to meet him someplace? Some pervert, some killer? One heard of all kinds of terrible things on the news.

When she came back from the kitchen, she found Davey and Lara still where she had left them, staring into space as if devoid of energy or the ability to think. Somebody would have to think for them.

“I have a hunch she might have gone to the movies,” Connie said, trying to sound positive.

Davey frowned. “What makes you think that?”

“Because I remember once when I was about eleven or twelve I was so furious at my parents about something, I forget what, I went off to the movies all alone and sat there sulking through two double features.” There was no response from anyone. “Listen,” Connie said, feigning a vigor that she did not have. “I’m going to ride down to the theater and take a look, just in case. I’ll want your station wagon. Maybe I should try the mall too. Kids like to hang out in malls. Are there any particular places where I should look, Lara?”

“The record shop, I guess,” Lara said, still so faintly that Connie almost missed the words. “And she likes thick shakes.”

The matinee was ending when Connie drew up at the
theater. At once she saw that there were no children among the scanty crowd of retired oldsters; this was, after all, a school day. Next she tried the mall, which, being merely a small strip, was easily scanned from end to end. On the way back home with no success, she had a cold, sick feeling in her stomach.

Determined, nevertheless, to keep up a positive attitude, she walked briskly into the kitchen. Lara and Davey were at the kitchen table, each with a coffee cup in hand. It was after six o’clock, and no dinner was in evidence.

“What about food?” she demanded. “I know you don’t feel hungry, but we have to keep our wits about us, and that’s impossible when the stomach’s empty.”

“I can’t swallow,” Lara said. “But there’s plenty in the refrigerator. Help yourself. There’s a whole roast that the Burkes sent over.”

Connie opened the refrigerator. “I don’t see it,” she said.

“It’s right there.”

“It’s not.”

Lara got up and looked. “That’s strange. It was there this morning.”

“Perhaps it’s not so strange. Look and see whether any other food is missing.”

Bewildered, Lara moved her gaze slowly around the kitchen, and then, as if in a daze, reported, “I’m sure I left the fruit bowl filled with apples and pears. And there was a pie that somebody gave us in the cake box.”

Connie’s thoughts took swift shape. “How has she been acting lately?”

Lara raised her weary eyes. “Upset, of course, like the rest of us.”

Davey spoke. “She’s been very quiet.” And then he added, “But I guess I don’t really know, Connie. We haven’t been paying much attention to anything except—”

Connie interrupted. “I want to see her room.”

“Oh! You’re thinking she’s run away! But why should she run away?” implored Lara.

Connie was already halfway up the stairs while the others followed her into Sue’s room. Her immediate impression was of abandonment; it was as if these inanimate things, the four flowered walls and the bed where lay no carelessly dumped sweaters, jackets, or school-books, were giving a message. Opening the closet door, she saw an even row of pretty clothes, some of which she recognized because they were her own gifts.

“Is anything missing?” she asked Lara.

“The doll. The one we gave her on the day we met. It always sits on the bed,” said Lara, choking.

Davey pointed to the piggybank, whose china head had been broken open.

The pattern of Connie’s thought, growing clearer, filled her with an urgent sense of haste. And she demanded, “Tell me quickly what clothes are missing and how much money was in the bank.”

“Maybe seventy-five dollars. Her warm jacket’s missing, and her boots.” Lara opened drawers. “I think some sweaters are gone. But I don’t know, I can’t tell—” And she collapsed on the edge of the bed with her face in her hands.

“Darling,” Connie said, “I know it’s hell, but we’ve got to face it. So far it’s plain that Sue’s run away. She hasn’t been waylaid and murdered on her way to school, we know that, and she hasn’t been kidnapped for ransom, thank God. The job now is just to go after her.”