Light Years

by Emily Ziff Griffin

  “What are you doing?” I yell.

  Janine looks over at me. “Fall in love for me, okay? Fall in love and tell me all about it.” Her eyes roll back in her head. Seconds later, she’s inside the ambulance. I lunge toward the door.

  “Sorry, no.” The EMT blocks my path.

  A second ambulance pulls up. “Where are you taking her?”

  “Brooklyn Hospital Center. You’ll be quarantined and observed,” he replies.

  “Me? I’m not sick.”

  “You will need to be evaluated. That’s the protocol.” He slams the doors in my face and they drive away.

  The paramedics from the second ambulance jump out, grab me, and shove me inside.

  “I’m not sick!” I protest. They say nothing.

  I watch through the rear windows as the scene recedes. The shiny steel frames of our discarded bikes shine in the sun like scrap metal carcasses. I sit stone-faced, the initial flood of horror evaporating into an icy numbness. I close my eyes, count the tapping of my feet, and drift.

  Next thing I know we’re outside the hospital. A long line of cars and emergency vehicles snakes along the front of the building. I’m brought in on a gurney to the special ARNS triage area. My hands and forearms are scrubbed down by nurses in surgical gowns, masks, caps, and gloves. My mask and black gloves are replaced with a new set of clear latex gloves and a mint-green surgical mask and gown.

  “Where’s my friend?” I ask a passing nurse. “Her name is Janine, long dark hair. She was right ahead of me.”

  “Just relax,” she replies through her mask.

  “I’m perfectly relaxed. I just want to know where she is.”

  “Shhh, honey” is all she says.

  I’m wheeled into a row of gurneys. I scan each face. My stomach churns and the room turns reddish. No sign of Janine.

  I take out my phone. I look back at our texts from the night before. They’re so ordinary. I keep scrolling back. Our whole friendship is right here. I place my hands down and feel the bed sheet. I look at my knees, my scar. I love u, I write. Send.

  I check to make sure Joe’s e-mail is still there, still real. I imagine that apartment again. Simple and spare. Bright. All mine. How will I convince my mother?

  A cry from the next bed. I feel it like an electric shock across my chest. She’s about my mom’s age, with blond hair and amber eyes. She pulls a blanket off her torso. She’s covered in blood. I look away. I tap the gurney railing with my foot and close my eyes.

  “My IV,” I hear her say. I glance back at her. A needle is dangling from her arm by a piece of tape. It’s dripping blood.

  “She’s bleeding!” I yell to anyone who might hear me.

  “It’s the bag,” the woman says. She nods toward a bag of blood hanging from a portable stand. She’s not bleeding. It’s a transfusion bag that is leaking. A nurse rushes over to take care of it as I turn my back. I disappear into blackness.

  “Luisa?”

  I startle awake. “Yes?” I mumble. A nurse named Starr is standing next to me. Several hours have passed.

  “I’m here to ask some questions and get some stats, okay?” I nod. She attaches a device to my index finger. It beeps as I tell her that my grandfather died of lung cancer and my uncle has diabetes but I’m not sure what type. She puts a blood pressure cuff on my arm and a thermometer under my tongue. I look over at the next bed. It’s empty now and the sheets are a clean, crisp white.

  “Normal,” she says, removing the cuff and checking my temp. She plants a small yellow flag on the end of my gurney.

  “What’s that for?” I ask.

  “Low risk.” She wheels me through a packed hallway. There are flags on all the other beds—some red, some yellow. Doctors with three-day beards and mascara caked around their eyes rush by yelling orders. But Starr takes her time getting me through. She brings me into a private room.

  “You’ll be isolated in here for the next six hours and if there are no symptoms, you’ll be released,” she says.

  “What about my friend? Janine Stevens. She collapsed and they brought her here right before they took me. Could you check on her?”

  “I’ll try.” She grabs the tablet from the compartment at the foot of the bed and begins typing.

  “Do a lot of people have it in New York?” I ask.

  “A lot of people will take any excuse to go to the emergency room,” she answers without looking up.

  “You’ve been doing this a long time?”

  “Too long.” She puts the tablet back. “I’m supposed to retire this year. But yes, New York has the most cases so far. You comfortable?” she asks. I nod. “Doctor will be around soon to check you.”

  “Do I need to be in this bed? I’m not sick.”

  “I know, baby. But right now we’re keeping everyone in beds. It’s how we keep track of you.” She motions to the tablet.

  I look down at my watch. No response from Janine. I focus on the treetops out the window. A gust of wind blows them from side to side. I can almost hear the whisper of the leaves. It reminds me of my father’s smile.

  Shit.

  He has no idea where I am.

  A doctor wearing a scrub mask, gown, cap, goggles, and gloves arrives. He wears a black mesh bag across his body.

  He pulls out the tablet. “I’m Dr. Jamison.” His bright eyes crinkle around the edges. “Any fever, cough, aches, runny nose? Anything like that?”

  “No.”

  “And you were brought in with a friend who was ill?”

  The word friend flashes brown and plants a lump in my throat. “Yes, but I haven’t touched her since—”

  “Since when?” he cuts me off.

  “I don’t know. Days ago at least? I definitely didn’t touch her today or since she got sick.”

  “You’re sure about that?” I press my feet against the rail so I can concentrate. The carousel, the bikes, the bridge, the park. I try to replay it all like it happened to someone else.

  “I’m sure,” I say. He types notes on the tablet.

  “What happened to her? To my friend?” My voice is quieter than I expect. Maybe only part of me wants the answer.

  “I can’t tell you that.” A tear escapes the edge of my eyelid. I wipe it away quickly and put my attention back on the rail. “I’m sorry. I am only assigned to triage for low risk. I would like to keep you for observation until tomorrow, but we don’t have the space, so after six hours, if you’re asymptomatic, we’ll release you to your—” he looks back at the tablet. “Father.”

  “You called my father?”

  “You’re a minor. A parent has to be notified. After you’re discharged, if you experience any flu-like symptoms, go to the nearest emergency room or call 911. It’s best to wear protection at all times.” He pulls an extra mask and pair of gloves from his bag. “Good luck, Miss.” And he’s gone.

  I lie back and look at the clock.

  • • •

  Sabrina was two years older. She had a gravelly voice and a high ponytail. Her eyes were ringed with black liner. Always. I inched past her on the bus. I wanted her to notice me. And was also scared she would. I sat down. She yelled my name and hurled a pair of goggles at my face. I caught them. Did she see me flinch? She turned back toward Kathryn McDonald, who smoked cigarettes and sometimes brought a flask of vodka to school.

  The bus trudged up the Westside Highway. I closed my eyes and the hum of its tired engine mingled with the sound of my breath until it drowned out the chatter of the other girls’ gossip. Would he come? The question asked itself again and again.

  Through the wrought-iron doors of their school. Down the mahogany halls, past the dreary oil paintings and vacant classrooms. The smell of chlorine grew with each step. I changed quickly into my suit and wrapped my long hair inside my cap. My legs were strong beneath me as I headed past the competition in their emerald green, a crowd of little grasshoppers.

  Would he be there?

  The stands were filling up. We too
k our place on the benches. I sat with earphones in my ears and watched the door, waiting for the 800-meter free. Sabrina swam a personal best that day. I remember the heaviness of her teenage body as she climbed out of the pool. It made me feel like a child.

  I was up. I stripped off my warm-ups and stretched my arms overhead. I placed my feet on the blocks. My toes gripped the edge. Coach nodded at me and I bent forward. In that moment, I wasn’t nervous. I wasn’t anything. I was just ready.

  And then there he was, my dad, upside down in my view, with sunglasses on, unsteady on his feet. He was drunk. The anger rising up in me, blinding my view with waves of purple. I looked back at the still lane stretching out in front of me. I closed my eyes and waited for the horn to sound and the water to wash away the sting.

  • • •

  A nurse comes in, tall and dark-haired with a tattoo of a heart on her temple.

  “I’m Joanne,” she says. “How are you feeling?”

  “I’m fine,” I answer. “Where’s Starr?”

  “She’s gone. New shift.”

  “She was supposed to look for my friend.”

  She doesn’t hear me or doesn’t care. “Open your mouth,” she says. She gazes at my throat with a penlight. She takes my temperature again. “You look fine,” she pronounces. “Your father is waiting for you.”

  She pulls my gown off and throws it into a biohazard bin. She pats my knee and opens the door. Sounds from the hall bleed in—the tinny warbling of the PA, the moaning of the sick, the beeping machines keeping track of heartbeats and breathing for the dying.

  “Take care, sweetie,” she says and disappears into the noise.

  I follow the exit signs to the lobby. My father is standing there, right in the center—a point of stillness amid chaos, a buoy in the middle of a swaying sea.

  CHAPTER 6

  “Janine,” I start to say. He pulls me to his chest and wraps his arms around me. “They came and took her. They just took her and drove away.” I look up at him. A swirl of different colors and a surge of energy up the center of my body.

  I don’t let myself cry because what if I can’t ever stop?

  “She couldn’t feel her feet,” I whisper.

  My dad pulls down my mask and grabs my face. “Are you all right?” His voice is urgent. It focuses me. I feel the roughness of his hands against my cheeks, but panic leaps into my throat. He’s not wearing a mask.

  “Don’t touch me.” I pull away.

  “Are you all right?” His voice trembles. “They wouldn’t tell me on the phone.”

  “I don’t know. I think so. They said I’m fine.”

  “They did?”

  I nod. “They said I should go home.”

  His expression softens. “Okay, lamb. It’s going to be okay.”

  I relax into his arm around my shoulder as we walk. His hand presses against the bar on the heavy revolving door. A whoosh as it moves. Force equals mass times acceleration. One of physics’s simplest and most fundamental formulas, right there in action. The mass of my father’s hand, its flesh, blood, and bone; the acceleration generated by an impulse in his brain that says push, carried out by motor neurons springing into action, by his weight shifting forward and connecting with the door. Whoosh. The mind creating an effect on the physical world.

  Outside in the heat, I realize I’m still holding the extra mask and gloves Dr. Jamison gave me.

  “Here,” I say. My dad puts them on.

  We walk two blocks to our car. I get in. Relief settles over me as we seal ourselves in and the world out. He starts the engine. The vents blast us with warm air that quickly turns cold.

  The radio blares another news report. Military-controlled quarantines are being set up outside New York City and San Francisco to deal with the hospital overflow. They describe conditions as “grim.” They say it won’t be long before they run out of space.

  I turn down the radio until it becomes a blur of background noise. I lean my head against the window.

  “What’s that?” my dad asks.

  “What?” I reply.

  “I thought you said something.”

  “No. I didn’t.” We pull out into an empty street. “You remember that story you used to tell us, that summer we spent at the beach?”

  “ ‘The Night Shadow’?”

  “Yeah. ‘The Night Shadow.’ ” I silently note the numbers on the buildings as they pass. “Tell it to me.”

  “A small boy and his father ride on horseback through the woods. The boy keeps insisting there’s something chasing them, but the father tells him it’s nothing. On and on they ride, the boy growing more and more upset. When they arrive home, the boy is dead. There was something there, but no one could see it except the child.” He pauses. “What about it?”

  “I don’t know,” I say. “I was just thinking about it. It always scared the shit out of me.”

  “You know, you shouldn’t have gone out.”

  I close my eyes. “I know; I’m sorry. I didn’t know she was sick.”

  “Look, it’s my fault. Fifteen thousand people have died. I should’ve made it clear you were not to leave the house.”

  “Fifteen thousand? I thought it was three.”

  “It’s up to fifteen now. Maybe more.”

  “Jesus.” I open my eyes as we pass an enormous truck emblazoned with the Front Line logo. It’s parked at an intersection and three lanky young dudes are passing out emergency supplies to a long line. Everyone’s wearing masks.

  “Promise me you won’t go out again,” my dad says sternly.

  “I won’t. Promise me you won’t tell Mom.”

  “I won’t.” The sun bounces off the parked cars as we drive up Lafayette Avenue. The murmur of the radio fills in our silence. My mother. I hardly ever see her, but she never leaves my mind for long.

  • • •

  “His name is Dan,” she said as we walked up Central Park West, the smell of the horse-drawn carriages like a tickle in the back of my throat. “He’s kind, intelligent, vulnerable.”

  “What does ‘vulnerable’ mean?” I asked.

  “He’s not afraid to show his feelings.” We turned the corner onto 81st Street on our way to the Planetarium. The wind kicked up a pile of autumn leaves and the massive jewel box that houses the scale model of our solar system came into view. My mom clasped my hand in hers. My brother was two steps behind. And there he was: Dan, with his coffee-colored hair and thick, round glasses. I instantly wanted him to like me.

  “This is Luisa,” my mother said, a nervous edge in her voice. “We call her Lu.”

  I smiled and put my right hand forward. “How do you do?”

  “She’s adorable,” Dan said, looking at my mom like they were alone.

  “And this is Ben.” Ben’s eyes were fixed on the hulking model of the sun rising eighty feet over our heads. He looked like he was hoping it might open up and swallow him.

  “Hey Ben.” Dan effortlessly matched Ben’s cool exterior.

  “Hey,” Ben muttered. We walked up from the sun along the Cosmic Pathway. From the Big Bang, past the formation of the Milky Way, the sun and the planets, first life on earth, the dinosaurs, and on and on over thirteen billion years, to the miniscule blip that comprises the existence of humans—depicted as the thickness of one human hair. Millions of years with each step up the ramp and I had that feeling like after a dream where everything—life, death, the biggest mysteries and questions of them all—seems to come into focus. It all made sense, and then it was gone again.

  We measured our weight on scales calibrated to reflect the surface gravity of various planets. We watched a film about dark matter, the invisible stuff that makes up most of the known universe. We ate popcorn and ice cream in the cafeteria. And then we said good-bye to Dan and got on the subway.

  We sat in an empty car, my mother’s arms around us. “I like him,” Ben said.

  “I do too, very much,” my mom replied, squeezing us close as the train rocked
us to near sleep on the long ride home.

  I saw Dan only once more. My father was away performing in a concert. I heard them downstairs after I was supposed to be asleep. In the morning, I saw my mom kissing him in the living room. Her legs were bare under an oversized T-shirt and her hair was wild like a lion’s mane. Dan’s eyes caught mine as I stood in the doorway, unnoticed by my mother. I turned and went back up to my room, embarrassed.

  • • •

  “I have something else to tell you,” I say.

  He shifts in his seat. “Okay?”

  “I got an e-mail this morning. From that guy Joe. Bell wants me for the Fellowship.” I look at him.

  “Wow,” he says. “Wow.” I watch his Adam’s apple twitch as he swallows. “What did you tell them?”

  “I didn’t tell them anything yet.” He doesn’t respond. “Hello?”

  “Yeah, yes. Look, this is amazing, Lu. I am incredibly proud of you. I just, I’m not sure what to do.”

  “Because of Mom.”

  “For one thing, yes.”

  “Do you agree with her? Because it’s honestly bullshit of you guys to let me put in all that work if you never had any intention of letting me do it.”

  “I had every intention of letting you do it.” His words boom through the car in a burst of orange. A surprise. “I know what it means to be chosen for this. You’re nearly seventeen. And I’ve seen plenty of seventeen-year-olds, not to mention I was one once. You’re completely capable of being on your own. I know that. But your mother has a strong opinion about this.”

  “Why does she get a say about anything? She’s the one who left. Doesn’t that mean her opinion no longer counts?” Her scent pulses white off my seat belt. I dig my thumbnail into the handle on the door.

  “She’s your mother. Her opinion will never not count.”

  “She doesn’t really feel like what a mother is supposed to be.”

  “I’m not sure any mother does, especially at your age. But she obviously cares about you very, very much.”

  “Dad, I know it’s easier for you to think that, but you really have no idea.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Sorry to be blunt, but there was a long time when you weren’t exactly paying attention. I actually thought it was your fault she was like that. I used to wish she’d just kick you out.” I don’t have the guts to say what it really was: that sometimes I wished he would drink himself to death.