by Jamie Sumner
“Excuse me!” Mom shrieks.
“May I help you?” someone behind us asks. We turn. A man in blue scrubs stands with his hands on the back of a wheelchair. The big guy in the chair holds a wad of bloody napkins over his nose with one hand and checks his phone with the other. I scoot closer to Mom.
“My husband. Sean O’Connell. He had a ski accident. I’m—” Mom stops and puts a hand on my shoulder. “We’re trying to find out how he is.”
“Okay,” the nurse says calmly. “Do you know when he arrived? Or who admitted him?”
“What?” Mom shakes her head. “No. No, I don’t know any of that. Someone, a nurse, called, and I came. He was wearing a blue ski suit. He works up on the mountain.” She can’t stop talking. “We just moved here this past July. He used to be an engineer. He worked with computers. He’s a computer guy. Tall. He has red hair.”
The nurse holds up a hand. “Let me see what I can find out and I’ll be right back. Okay?”
“Okay,” Mom says, and squeezes my shoulder, but I don’t feel it.
He swipes his name badge at the double doors lit up by a big red EMERGENCY sign and disappears down a bright hallway. Mom leans against me so suddenly, we lurch sideways.
“Come on, Mom.”
I lead her to two seats under a window lined with fake ferns, but I can’t sit down. I check the clock. I’m supposed to be in history class. I pace up and down the row of chairs, but Mom doesn’t notice. Her eyes are trained on the doors that open and close over and over. I walk faster to speed things along. Mom is frozen in her chair, but the muscles in my legs feel spring-loaded. Images of Dad flicker like movie previews: Dad laughing on the ski lift and pointing out elk tracks in the snow. Dad with a glob of cheese stuck to his chin from pizza at Antonio’s. Dad’s red hair flying as we race to the bus stop, late again. I follow the tiles and blink back tears.
When someone does finally walk our way, it’s not our nurse, but a woman with cropped brown hair and a white coat.
“Mrs. O’Connell?”
Mom lifts her hand. A heavy wave.
“I’m Dr. Rothman. I have an update on your husband. May I sit?”
I’ve got that tingly, electric feeling that happens right before a test or the timed mile in gym, but I force myself to sit.
“Mrs. O’Connell,” she begins, “your husband sustained several injuries to the abdomen and right leg. From what we can gather, he was leading a group of skiers on one of the forest trails when he hit an icy patch and collided with a tree. Luckily, he was wearing his helmet.”
How is any of this lucky? I pin my hands under my legs to keep them still.
“The leg and—and the abdomen, you said?” Mom pulls her arms around her own stomach.
Dr. Rothman tucks a stray lock of hair behind her ear. She looks too young to be taking care of my dad.
“Yes. He tore three out of the four major ligaments in his knee. He’s in surgery to repair those now. He may need a second surgery. We’ll know more once the surgeon is finished.”
Tore. Ligaments. Surgery. Repair. These words don’t belong to Dad. I lean forward, pressing on my hands while she continues, “In addition to the injuries to his knee, he also has two fractured ribs.”
Mom sucks in a sharp breath, but my chest seizes up. I can’t breathe at all.
“But there’s nothing we can do for those. They’ll heal on their own as long as he follows his discharge orders and keeps still, which shouldn’t be difficult given that he’ll be in a locked knee brace for at least six weeks.”
“Oh, I’ll see to it he keeps still,” Mom snaps, real anger in her voice. I can’t tell if it’s for the doctor or Dad.
“There’s one other thing we’re keeping an eye on,” Dr. Rothman adds.
“What? What is it?” Mom asks, and my nerves rev up, sending prickles down my neck like eels. How can there be more? How many different places can you hurt yourself before you can’t be put back together again?
“One of the ribs punctured your husband’s left lung. It’s a small tear, so we should be able to— Mrs. O’Connell!”
Mom has pitched forward onto her knees on the waiting room floor. Her face is gray, and her eyes are closed. She’s trembling and breathing too fast. I don’t know what’s going on. I don’t know what to do. I get down on my knees next to her. She won’t stop breathing like that. Too fast and shallow. When I shake her shoulder and she doesn’t turn, I start to cry tears that I can’t wipe away because I’m afraid to let go of her. Dr. Rothman calls for juice and a blanket. Along with a nurse, she lifts Mom back into her seat. I try to help her hold the bottle of apple juice so she can take a sip, but my hands are shaking too badly.
“Mom—” I whisper, and it hurts. My throat and my body are hollowed out and raw. She looks over at me, and slowly her eyes seem to refocus.
“You’re, Hugo, right?” Dr. Rothman asks gently, and hands me a pale green tissue from the box on the table. I wipe my nose. “Hugo, I want you to listen very carefully. I know lung injuries are scary, but the puncture is very, very small. So small that we hope it will heal itself. For now, we’re giving your dad some oxygen for extra support, okay?” She says it to me, but she’s looking at Mom.
We both nod.
Dr. Rothman stands and shakes Mom’s hand and then mine. I can feel the grit between our palms from where I’d pressed my hand against the floor. “I’ll send someone to let you know when he’s out of surgery. Once he’s awake, we’ll take you back to see him.”
She tucks her hair behind her ear again and smiles. When she leaves, all the sights and sounds of the ER come rushing back. A weary voice pages “Dr. Jordan” over the loudspeaker. Strings of jack-o’-lantern lights flicker above the nurse’s desk. The woman who was hugging the pillow is now sleeping across a row of chairs. The smell of hand sanitizer mixes with vomit.
I stare at the wadded-up tissue in my lap while Mom sips her juice. Now all we can do is wait.
Chapter Eleven Grounded
It’s dark when they finally let us see Dad. We follow the same nurse from the ER. It’s hours past dinnertime and my stomach grumbles loudly. The nurse passes me a packet of animal crackers. I tuck them in my back pocket for later.
The hallway leading back to the patient rooms is so bright, I have to squint. We make a left and then a quick right and stop at a set of elevators. The nurse whistles while we wait, but I can’t follow the song.
We take the elevator to the seventh floor and then follow another hallway to another nurse’s station. There’s no way we will find our way out again. We get checked in and hold out our arms for the visitor wristbands, a white plastic bracelet that the nurse snaps in place. Then, finally, we turn down one last hallway with a blue stripe on the floor and stop at room 709.
“He’s still groggy from the anesthesia, so talk slowly and don’t worry if he falls asleep, okay?” the nurse in charge of Dad instructs before opening the door. I move behind Mom. We waited all that time, but now I don’t want to go in. The Dad I picture is sitting next to me at Antonio’s in his green flannel shirt, picking all the mushrooms off his pizza. I’m afraid to see what he looks like now.
From inside, a voice croaks, “Is that my crew?”
Mom immediately starts sobbing and rushes in, pulling me with her. His room is dim, the only light a single bulb over the sink. I stop just inside the doorway.
“Sean,” Mom whimpers, and lets go of my hand to reach him. He fumbles to free his hand from the covers and pat her arm. It makes her cry harder.
“Babe, it’s okay. I’m okay,” he rasps. I feel like I shouldn’t be here. I back up against the door. He catches the movement and waves me over. I make my feet move until I’m standing right next to the plastic bed rail. He looks small under the white sheet.
“Hey, kid.”
He reaches out his other hand to take mine, and Mom gives me a weepy smile.
“Hi, Dad.” His face is puffy and yellow, and oxygen tubes snake out from behind hi
s ears and into his nose. The air makes a hissing noise.
“How are you feeling?” I’ve never asked either of my parents how they’re feeling. It’s the question they’re supposed to ask me. His fingers are cold.
“Well, I’ve been better,” Dad croaks, and then winces, yanking his hand out of mine to grab his side.
The nurse in pink scrubs who followed us in to check his chart looks up long enough to say, “Try not to talk too much yet, Mr. O’Connell. That rib’s going to be pretty sore.”
Dad opens his mouth, but then closes it again and nods. Mom sinks into a chair without letting go of him. I stay standing, unable to move closer or farther away. We remain like that for a long time in the half dark.
* * *
Do you know what goes on in a hospital at two and three and five o’clock in the morning? I do. It’s the exact same thing that goes on in a hospital at all the other times of the day. Nurses talk too loud in the hallway. The television at the security desk plays episodes of Rachael Ray on repeat. A woman in room 713 calls for more ice in her water every twenty minutes.
I’ve fallen into a world without time. Nothing changes and nobody sleeps. Except Dad. Dad sleeps like a champ while the nurse in the pink scrubs comes in to take his temperature, and the surgeon comes in to check on his knee, and somebody who introduces himself as the “respiratory therapist” comes in to monitor his breathing. Dad sleeps through it all. Meanwhile, Mom mutters constant prayers of “please” and “thank you” to Raphael, the patron saint of healing, and I play Super Mario on my phone. Not once has she asked me to “check in.”
At seven a.m., the new nurse on duty pulls open the blinds. “Oh good, you’re up,” she says to Dad, who’s trying to rub his eyes, except Mom won’t let go of his hand. “You are officially allowed solid foods. Are you ready for your breakfast?”
At the mention of food, my stomach growls so loudly, everybody’s head turns in my direction at once and my face heats up with the sudden attention. I never got around to those animal crackers.
Mom hands me her wallet.
“Why don’t you go down to the cafeteria and get some breakfast?”
“Get me a coffee, will you?” Dad wheezes.
“No coffee,” Mom orders.
“Marion—”
Relieved the attention is back where it belongs, I sneak out.
* * *
I’m dragging my last strip of bacon through the maple syrup when Mom comes down in jeans and one of Dad’s old CU sweatshirts. She looks tired, but more normal now, less like a waiting room casualty. I look down at my borrowed jersey and sniff. It’s not good.
“Your aunt and uncle stopped by. There are clothes for you in Dad’s room.”
“Did Vij come?”
She shakes her head. “They’re already off to school.”
“Oh, okay.” He texted me last night, asking about Dad, but I was too wiped to respond. And also, after our fight yesterday, I didn’t know what to say. Andrew and Peter and a couple of other guys texted this morning, so I just added Vij and the newsletter crew to it. I got a lot of “Sucks, man,” and “Wicked, bro,” but nothing from Vij. I draw a frowning face through the syrup with my fork. We fight and then get over it. That’s what we do. But this feels different.
Mom takes a sip of hospital coffee and winces—it’s either too hot or too terrible. Probably both.
“I thought I’d give your dad a chance to rest.” She pretends not to watch me over the rim of her cup, and I pretend not to notice. “You know he’s going to be okay, right?”
“Yeah, I know.”
“Do you?”
“Mom. Yes.”
“Because I didn’t.”
She starts tearing the edge of her Styrofoam cup in one long swirl. “Not last night. Not for sure. When the doctor was talking and later… when I saw him, I still wasn’t certain.” She stops tearing, catches my eye. “Not until he woke up this morning.”
I don’t know if it makes it better or worse that she’s saying exactly what I was thinking. Maybe better and worse. I’m glad he’s getting well, but I’m never going to be able to forget that he can be broken. And Mom too. She fell apart. You grow up thinking your parents are invincible, until one day, they’re not.
“When you were a baby, I spent a lot of time in a cafeteria like this one,” she says, glancing around at the hot food bar, the piles of chips and plastic-wrapped cookies by the register, the people huddled around tables in all different kinds of clothes, from bathrobes to coats and ties to snow gear. I bet none of them planned to be eating breakfast in a hospital today either. I hate it when she talks about how sick I was as a baby. It makes me feel my smallness all over again.
“You were so fragile. We were worried every time you got sick that you might not make it.”
“Mom, I get it.”
“No, you don’t. I’m trying to explain why I lost it in the waiting room,” she says, studying her Styrofoam discards curled up like orange peels. “It wasn’t that what the doctor was saying was so frightening, though it certainly was. It was all of it. The grubby chairs. The smell. Every hospital smells exactly the same. Did you know that? The memories of you in a place like this hit me all at once, along with the fear and the panic and the”—she lifts her hands—“the out-of-control feeling of it all.”
She closes her eyes and pinches the bridge of her nose.
“What I’m trying to say, Hugo”—she puts her hand over mine—“is that most of the time I don’t think about how often I came close to losing you. And then something like this happens and I remember it all over again. Hugo, I’m so thankful for you and Dad.”
I don’t know what to say. You’re welcome? She stands and stretches and saves me from saying anything at all.
“All right. Enough. Help me hunt down some decent coffee, and then we’ll find a paper to bring to your dad, okay?”
When I get up to throw my trash away, Mom puts her arm around my shoulders. I don’t go in much for hugs these days with her, but I let it stay there all the way up to the seventh floor.
* * *
In the end, Dad spends four nights in the hospital. Once he comes off the oxygen, they send us home. Somebody, Uncle Dave probably, has already salted and shoveled the drive so Dad doesn’t slip on his crutches. Aunt Soniah stocked the fridge with her famous curry, a vegetable soup, and a tuna casserole that we’ll probably eat tonight if Mom remembers it’s Friday. And Vij still hasn’t texted or called. Yeah, I could call him. But the person whose world got turned upside down isn’t supposed to be the one to call. He should want to talk to me to make sure I’m okay. Everybody else is. Andrew’s parents sent a bouquet of flowers to the hospital. And we don’t even know Andrew’s parents! So why can’t Vij pick up the phone? I punch down a pillow on my bed, grab the Xbox controller, and bury the hurt with penalty kicks.
Upstairs, I hear Dad trying to hop around on only one crutch. He is already the worst patient on the planet. At first Mom was super sweet and “Here, let me get you a pillow” and “Is it too cold in here, do you need an extra blanket?” until Dad refused to let her help him into the bathroom. Now they’re in the kitchen bickering over whether to try to eat around the table (Dad’s vote) or sit in the living room so he can keep his foot elevated per the doctor’s orders (Mom’s vote). I’m just happy to be able to cut off my visitor’s wristband. I shake it off into the trash like a handcuff. I remember Mom’s words in the cafeteria, about how thankful she is for both of us. Dad’s injury has to make them realize how much they need each other and then they’ll stop fighting so much.
* * *
By Saturday, Dad refuses to take his pain medicine even though he’s supposed to stay on it through the weekend, and Mom calls the emergency-on-call doctor and puts him on speaker so he can tell Dad to take it “or else.” And by Sunday, Dad is on the phone with his new physical therapist, trying to negotiate his required rehab down from six months to six weeks while Mom burns a batch of Grandma Sue’s
peanut brittle and pretends none of us exist.
So much for the grateful, happy family.
Chapter Twelve 6-Across
I am the star of school when I get back after Dad’s injury. Everyone wants to hear the story, which has somehow turned into an action-hero stunt worthy of John Cena. I never said Dad hurt himself vaulting through the trees to rescue a baby deer stuck in the avalanche barrier, but I’m also not in a hurry to correct them. The cheer squad made me peanut butter cookies.
My teachers also let me have as much extra time as I needed to make up my missed assignments. Except for the Crow. He gave me a totally impossible deadline and then took ten points off for every day I was late. Em even let me skip newsletter meetings, which is a miracle, because I can barely handle sitting in class with Vij, much less extra time after school. We were down to one syllable: “Hey” and “Bye” at Friday dinners. And now it’s none. This morning he barely even gave me a nod. I don’t care. I’ve got plenty to keep me busy—street hockey with the guys, at least fifteen bags of garbology projects to sift through, and the makeup homework that is becoming its own mountainous pile in my bedroom. I don’t need Vij. I just wish every time my phone pings I could stop expecting it to be him.
The person currently blowing up my phone with texts is Em. Now that I’ve been back at school for two weeks, she’s on the warpath.
She corners me on my way to lunch.
“Two days!” she yells, and I see Jasmine and some other girls look up from their table. “TWO DAYS until the newsletter goes out, and we still don’t have the results from the vending machine poll or your crossword puzzle, Hugo.”
“Em, shhhh. I told you I got it!”
“Well, give it to me, then.”
She holds out her hand.
“No, I mean, I’ll get it. I will. Just chill.”
“Do not tell me to chill. Come on. Let’s strategize. I’ve made a schedule to help us manage our time for the next forty-eight hours.”