Sandman Page 17

  “She’s got a pulse,” he said, standing, heading for the door. “You breathe for her, I’ll call an ambulance.”

  Jenny knelt at Kim’s head and began mouth to mouth, murmuring frantic prayers between each forced breath. “Come on, baby, please, oh, Jesus, God, please...”

  Jack came back into the bathroom saying, “They’re on their way. I left the front door open for them.” He checked Kim’s pulse again. Jenny looked into his eyes and read volumes there.

  She’s going to be a vegetable, you know that, don’t you.

  “No pulse,” he said. He put a hand on Jenny’s shoulder. “Jen, maybe we should—”

  “Jack, you help me.”

  Jenny resumed breathing for her daughter. After a moment, Jack began closed chest massage.

  Five minutes later Jenny heard the ambulance attendants stamping briskly up the stairs.

  * * *

  Storm clouds rode the wind into the city that night, bringing a bitter rain that turned the avenues into slick black stream beds. Traffic was light, the trip to the Children’s Hospital taking only eight minutes, but to Jenny it seemed an eternity. Though Kim’s color had improved since the paramedic began ventilating her lungs with oxygen, she lay utterly still on the stretcher, not responding to Jenny’s attempts to get through to her, not even flinching when the paramedic first intubated her, then stuck an IV needle into her arm.

  Yet worse than her unresponsiveness was the frightfully placid expression on her face. Or lack of expression, Jenny thought as the ambulance swerved into the side road leading to the ER. Her face was a smooth white blank, devoid of the timid tucks and faint worry lines that had characterized Kim’s face since early childhood. She was wearing a death mask.

  Oh, Jack, why didn’t you come with us?

  The ambulance jounced up the ramp and came to an abrupt halt. The rear doors swung open and now someone was helping Jenny out, guiding her through swirls of exhaust into the ER, the stretcher bearing Kim’s body following close behind. Jenny tried to stay with Kim, but they wheeled her into a treatment room and a woman in a blue jacket led Jenny into the busy waiting area.

  “I have to stay with my daughter...”

  “I understand, but we must leave her to the doctors now.”

  The woman was pulling on her arm. “But I...”

  “Please, ma’am, come with me.”

  Jenny wrenched her arm free and whirled toward the treatment room. One of her feet skidded on the damp floor and she fell, landing on her knees in front of a wheelchair occupied by a boy of about Kim’s age with Down’s syndrome. The boy, whose name was Andrew, had a laceration above his left eye he was waiting to have stitched. His father had been pushing him around the waiting area in calming circles, singing his favorite song. The child’s father saw Jenny stumble and managed to stop the wheelchair in time to avoid a serious collision. When Jenny’s head snapped forward it landed in Andrew’s lap, and the boy placed a stubby hand on her cheek and began stroking it. Spent, Jenny left her head there and surrendered to a vast, breathless despondency. It enveloped her totally.

  As he stroked her face, Andrew sang in a toneless, slurring voice around his overlarge tongue. It was the song his father had been singing to him.

  “They’re gonna put me in the movies, they’re gonna make a big star outta me...”

  * * *

  The next few hours had a strung-out, sludgy quality that mocked the terrible urgency Jenny felt. She couldn’t find anyone who would give her a straight answer.

  “It’s too early to even guess at an outcome,” the neurosurgeon, Dr. Blackwell, told her in the ER waiting area. “She’s having a CAT scan right now. Depending on what that shows, I may have to take her to the OR to insert an ICP monitor—a pressure sensitive device that will tell us how much swelling has occurred in her brain. In any case, we’re looking at a period of time here—anywhere from days to weeks—during which no meaningful prognosis can be made. I’m sorry to be so guarded, Mrs. Fallon...”

  Later, she saw Kim briefly as they wheeled her out of the X-ray department into a waiting elevator. A nurse broke off from the circle of attendants and came over to Jenny.

  “Your daughter’s going to the OR, Mrs. Fallon,” the nurse said. “Dr. Blackwell has decided to insert the ICP monitor. We’ll need you to sign a consent.”

  Jenny signed the consent and asked where she could wait.

  “You can wait right here,” the nurse said. “The cafeteria’s not open yet, but you can get coffee and snacks from the vending machines down the hall. There’s a payphone there, too.”

  “Will someone let me know?”

  “The procedure takes about an hour. Dr. Blackwell will come down and talk to you immediately afterward.”

  Jenny got herself a coffee and returned to her seat in the waiting area. It was almost seven AM. Jack had said he would follow in the car, but that had been over an hour ago. Jenny had already called the house and got the answering machine; it was Kim’s voice, shy, subdued, halting: “I’m sorry we can’t get to the phone right now...” Jenny practically had to twist her arm to get her to recite that simple message.

  Now Andrew and his father came out of a treatment room. Andrew’s laceration had been stitched and a bandanna-like dressing applied to his head. On his way to the exit he spotted Jenny and pointed at her in sudden agitation. His father rolled him to Jenny’s seat and the boy handed her a round gray rock, warm from his enfolding hands. He did this with a reverence that both moved Jenny and broke her aching heart. A mentally challenged boy, a complete stranger, had just given her what Jenny guessed was his most prized possession—his father’s startled expression confirmed her impression—and Jenny’s own husband had left her to face this time of shock and uncertainty alone.

  Andrew eyed the stone longingly for a beat, then looked at Jenny and smiled. “Rambo,” he said through gapped teeth, one blocky hand patting his bandanna. Jenny returned his smile and thanked him. “I hope everything turns out okay,” the father said.

  Then Andrew was gone and Jenny was alone again. She stroked the smooth rock with her palm, feeling its warmth.

  * * *

  An hour later, still waiting for Dr. Blackwell’s return, Jenny went to a nearby payphone and called home. When Jack hadn’t answered by the fourth ring she cut the connection. She didn’t think she could bear to hear Kim’s recorded voice over those dead wires again. She tried Nina’s number next, then Paul’s, but no one picked up. Paul’s answering machine was on and Jenny left a distraught message, the details of Kim’s unexpected suicide attempt spilling out of her until the machine cut her off. Adding to her loneliness was the realization that she could think of no one else to call. Her parents were dead, her mother less than a year ago, and Jenny felt their loss now, fresh and heavy in her heart, heaping itself on her shock and dread.

  She sat alone in front of a wall of glass and sipped tepid coffee, watching the rain taper off and the sun slowly break through.

  * * *

  It was midday before Jenny was allowed to visit Kim in the ICU. The nurse left her at the cubicle door.

  Jenny’s gaze touched the foot of the bed first, skipping over the cranks and levers, rising to the blanketed steeples of Kim’s feet. Her misting eyes fell next on her daughter’s arm, plastered with tape and sprouting IVs, then lifted to her head.

  They’d shaved off her hair and Jenny saw wires snaking out of the surgical dressing. They’d bandaged her neck, too, where the belt dug into her, and attached the tube in her throat to a ventilator. Perhaps it was just the bandages, but Kim’s face looked swollen to Jenny, her closed eyelids puffy, and Jenny had the fleeting, irrational hope that she’d been led to the wrong room. There was no way in the few short hours that had passed her sweet baby girl had been reduced to this lifeless, moon-faced creature...

  The name tag on the wall removed any trace of doubt.

  Jenny went to the bedside and pressed her lips to Kim’s cheek. Her flesh was dry and cold.
“I’m sorry, baby,” she whispered. “So sorry. But I’m here with you now, and I’ll wait for you. I’ll wait as long as it takes.”

  She pulled up a chair and sat down.

  Paul Daw came in after lunch and sat with her a while, not saying much, then excused himself and crept quietly away. There were no other visitors.

  17

  WILL SAID, “BINGO,” WATCHING NINA and the twins hustle into the lawyers’ building across the street. She was wearing snug jeans and a dark blue sweatshirt, and as he watched her he felt a vexing mix of gladness, longing and fury. The twins looked scrubbed and tidy in matching red T-shirts, plaid shorts and suspenders.

  Resisting the urge to confront her right away, Will left his seat in the busy café, paid his bill at the cash and stepped out into the sunny morning. An ice cream vendor happened by and Will bought a couple of Nutty Buddies, the twins’ favorite. Then he crossed the street and entered the air-conditioned building, all dark marble and gleaming brass.

  He’d been camped out in front of the lawyers’ building since early Monday afternoon, working on the almost certain assumption Nina would turn up here eventually. It made more sense than running from pillar to post, being lied to by whoever was holing her up. He’d hung around until after seven the first night, long past business hours, drinking coffee fortified with scotch, and had been about to pack it in when Blumstein pulled out of the underground lot in his Jag. On a hunch Will had followed him to his yuppie ranch in the Glebe. The bitch was probably paying his fees with blowjobs and Will wanted to be there when she made her next installment. It hadn’t panned out that way—he’d sat down the block until dawn in the Suburban, drinking scotch and grinding his teeth, repeating the whole maddening process again last night. But the payoff was coming now, just as if he’d written the script. He knew how her mind worked, that was the thing. He knew she’d want to keep the boys with her around the clock—it was the only way she could do what she had to and still be sure he hadn’t found them—and he was counting on her reluctance to expose them prematurely to the messiness of an impending separation. It was a sure bet she’d avoid bringing them into Blumstein’s office to hear what was being said.

  He rode the elevator to the fourth floor, stepped out behind a guy in a FedEx uniform and entered Blumstein’s outer office, just like he belonged there. Blumstein’s secretary was on the phone, the twins seated together on a leather couch, hunched over their Game Boys. The reception area was otherwise abandoned.

  Jeffrey spotted him first and nearly knocked his brother off the couch trying to get to his dad. “Daddy.” The secretary’s head came up. “Where have you been?”

  Then Jerry was on his feet, the Game Boy forgotten, and the secretary was scowling at Will, reaching for a switch on her intercom.

  Will took three brisk strides to the desk and broke the switch off. He said, “You tell her if she wants her family back, we’re at home, where she ought to be.”

  He dropped the broken switch onto the desk, hunkered down and gave the twins their treats.

  “Thanks, Dad.”

  Will snugged an arm around each of them and lifted them up. “Now,” he said, planting kisses on their cheeks. “We’re gonna go have some fun while your mom does her business.”

  “Cool,” Jerry said. He threw an arm around his father’s neck. “Can we go to the wave pool? Mom took us there the other day and it was awesome.”

  “No,” Jeffrey said, “Wal-Mart.”

  Will started out the door. “Whatever you want.”

  Standing, the secretary said, “Doctor Armstrong, I don’t think you should—”

  The office door closed on her words. Will thumbed the elevator call button. He glanced back and saw Blumstein’s secretary darting around her desk, heading for the inner office.

  The boys got the wrappers off their treats and started in. The elevator arrived and Will stepped aboard. As the doors slid shut he saw Nina come charging through the office door, her face as white as a sheet.

  He rode the elevator to the parking level, belted the boys into the Suburban and backed out of his spot without looking. An old woman in a gray Lincoln leaned on her horn and Will buzzed down his window and cursed her furiously. The woman drove off and the twins fell silent. They’d lost interest in their ice cream.

  Will paid the kid at the exit booth and saw Nina standing at the top of the steep ramp, scanning the street in frantic glances. When she spotted the truck, she started down the ramp at a run.

  The barricade came up and Will punched the accelerator.

  “Dad,” Jeffrey said. The uneaten portion of his treat plopped into his lap. “Look out for Mom.”

  The truck surged up the ramp, and for a moment it looked as if Nina was going to call his bluff and hold her ground.

  But Will wasn’t bluffing.

  At the last instant she leaped aside, hugging the curved cement wall, and the Suburban jounced into the street, scattering pedestrians and narrowly missing a city bus. Nina ran up the ramp after them, screaming Will’s name. She stopped at the curb and hung her head.

  The Suburban had vanished with her babies.

  * * *

  Nina said, “Mark, I’ve got to get my boys back. Your secretary said she could smell liquor on him. Will would never hurt the kids; but a couple of weeks ago I’d’ve said the same thing about myself. He almost ran me over out there.”

  Blumstein, though outwardly calm, was livid. He was a compact man of forty-three with soft brown eyes and a close-cropped beard flecked with gray. He said, “Oh, I’ll get your boys back for you, Nina. That’s a given. You’ll have your boys, and with a little luck you’ll have a non-harassment order. That should get his attention.” He sat at his desk and checked his watch. “We’ll put an affidavit together right now, then grab a judge and apply for an emergency interim motion.” He looked firmly at Nina. “Are you up for this? It could get ugly.”

  “Whatever it takes.”

  They spent the next two hours preparing an affidavit outlining the events leading up to the present time, then drew up a notice of motion—a summary of what they hoped the judge would grant them. When they were done, they took a cab to the courthouse on Elgin Street. The court coordinator told Blumstein he could see Judge Henley immediately.

  Blumstein hedged. “Is there anyone else?”

  “Not today,” the coordinator said. “Full slates all around.”

  Blumstein nodded and the coordinator called in the appointment with Henley.

  “Henley’s a hardass,” he told Nina as they followed the corridor to the judge’s chambers, “but he’s fair.”

  “Can I come inside?”

  “Afraid not,” Blumstein said. They’d reached Henley’s office. “Just sit tight out here. I shouldn’t be long.” He took Nina’s hand. “Look, I made you a promise. This is a rotten situation, but I’ve seen it a hundred times. It’s going to work out.” He led her to a slatted bench. “You’ll be back with your boys by tonight, okay?”

  Nina nodded bravely, but tears stood in her eyes.

  Armed with the affidavit, Blumstein knocked and went inside.

  Alone in the dim hallway, forced into sudden inaction, the unreality of the whole situation crashed in on Nina full blown. It was as if some malign prankster had booby-trapped the very landscape of her existence, undermining her trust in its most fundamental elements. Nothing seemed solid anymore. If the man she’d loved for almost half her life could kidnap her babies and try to run her down like an animal in the road, then the floor beneath her feet could sheer away or the building could collapse around her. She felt herself cowering inside.

  But there was another emotion stirring and Nina reached for it now, the way a soldier will reach for a trusted weapon. She’d felt it when she ran for those elevator doors, sliding shut on her children’s stupefied faces, and again a few minutes later, with her own face pressed to the damp concrete of the parking ramp wall.

  That emotion was rage, and when she touched it sh
e felt it surge.

  “All right, you son of a bitch,” she whispered through clenched teeth. “This time you’ve gone too far.” She began to rock on the bench. “This time you’ve gone too far.”

  * * *

  Blumstein came out twenty minutes later, looking dispirited. “I can’t believe that bastard,” he said.

  Nina felt the defeat rise up in her again, smothering the flames of her rage.

  “I made the situation ultra clear, but Henley feels the children are in no immediate danger. He spouted some naive bullshit about not wanting to prejudice a professional man without hearing both sides of the story.”

  “You did your best,” Nina said.

  Blumstein grinned slyly. “Oh, we’re not done yet. I have another idea. It’s a bit slippery...”

  He laid it out for her in detail. And as he spoke, Nina’s defeated posture grew erect, her downcast eyes widening with possibility.

  “Let’s do it,” she said when he was done.

  “Good,” Blumstein said. He took out his cell phone. “Just let me make a few calls.”

  * * *

  The twins were scratchy and sullen. They wanted their mom. Their Kraft dinner was too watery and Will burnt their bacon bunnies—a melted cheese and bacon treat their mom sometimes made for them when they’d been especially good. He couldn’t find their matching Hulk pjs and he refused to sit through a second viewing of Corky Romano on the VCR. His temper finally snapped when Jerry spilled his pop on the coffee table.

  “That’s it. Bed. Both of you. Right this minute.”

  “But it’s only seven-thirty,” Jeffrey said, his voice a live wire in Will’s skull. “He spilled it, not me. Why doesn’t he go to bed?”

  Will made a grab for Jeffrey and the kid slithered away.

  “I’m not going to bed. I want mommy.”

  Will rose up like a grizzly.

  “Jeffrey. Jerry. Come here to Mommy.”

  Will turned and saw Nina standing at the base of the rec-room stairs, her eyes fierce and clear. She seemed both strange and achingly familiar.