Ten Days

by Janet Gilsdorf

  But, always, the rifts between them were soon over. He would tell a silly joke or pat her on the fanny or speak to her in sad sack tones through Chris or Bullet—“Tell your mommy I really love her”—and she would sigh, soften her scowl, and laugh in her songbird, I-just-can’t-stay-mad-at-you-very-long way.

  But nothing as serious as Eddie’s illness had happened to them before.

  He leaned against the counter at the nursing station and watched her, crumpled and haggard, from afar. This form in the chair was not the person he had married. The old Anna had confidence and self-assurance built into her bones. Usually her maple syrup–colored hair swung in a smooth, graceful wave with every turn of her head. Now it hung behind her ears in greasy clumps. When she walked, her clothes used to move over her shoulders and sweep across her backside like flowing water. Now her shirt puckered across her shoulders in sweaty creases.

  “Good evening, Dr. Campbell.” The ward clerk smiled at him.

  He nodded, continued to watch Anna. He had always been proud to be at her side. Male passersby in hallways and on sidewalks, strangers he had secretly hoped to outdo even though their paths would never cross again, seemed to lock their eyes on her, their gazes drawn out well beyond a mere glance.

  She straightened up, patted Eddie on the chest, and slumped back into her chair again.

  He thought of the way water dripped off the tips of her hair when, surrounded by a floral-scented cloud, she stepped from the shower; the way she rubbed lotion in gooey circles until it disappeared into her cheeks; the way she leaned toward the mirror, dabbing mascara on her lashes.

  Apparently, now she didn’t care. Two days ago he had brought clean underwear, slacks, and that shirt, now limp and wrinkled. He assumed she had given herself a sponge bath in the visitors’ restroom before she put on the clean underwear, but he wasn’t sure. Maybe this was yet another way of punishing herself. Or maybe she was letting herself become raggedy to match how she felt.

  He walked to Eddie’s crib and placed his hand on her shoulder. She shuddered at his touch.

  “You scared me.” Her voice was thick, groggy.

  “Sorry, I didn’t realize you were asleep.”

  “I wasn’t asleep.” Her empty eyes, now open, stared at the wall.

  “Anna,” he said, his arms motionless at his sides, “why can’t you just let yourself rest for a while? Please come home for the night.”

  “Quit badgering me.”

  “Eddie needs you to rest.”

  “Quit it, Jake.”

  The photo taped to the metal headboard looked nothing like the baby in the hospital crib. Somehow, back then, the photographer’s camera had created an exact replica of Eddie, his animated hands, his buoyant grin, his glowworm face. Even in the two dimensions of the picture, his arms and legs, wrapped in the blue outfit Anna’s parents had sent, seemed to spring out of the photographic paper and into the third dimension, fueled by the total body excitement that only a baby can muster. His thin, pineapple-colored hair was parted and combed to one side, a few stray strands falling toward his eyebrows. His fingers clutched an orange and black plastic ladybug that had originally been Bullet’s toy. Chris had squeaked it under Eddie’s nose the day of the photo and, after Eddie finally managed to grab it, he wouldn’t let go.

  This was the photo Anna carried in her purse. She undoubtedly wanted it on his bed to show everyone in the ICU that her baby was really a vibrant little boy, that the baby in the hospital wasn’t the true Eddie.

  The child in the crib was still as a stone, its face no longer laughing, its cheeks no longer dimpled. The endotracheal tube pulled at one corner of Eddie’s little mouth, twisting his lips into a sneer, and a gastric tube snaked out his right nostril. The flannel blanket that covered his chest rose and fell to the rhythm of the ventilator. Jake had heard that sound maybe a thousand times during his medical career without really listening. Now, he heard it in a new way—the delicate wheeze, the subtle click of mechanical breathing, the sounds of keeping his son alive.

  Before, he had swept in and out of the ICU bays without noticing what was there. Now all the hospital things loomed large, as vivid and contorted as Wonderland must have been to Alice. The stethoscope dangling from an IV pole, the way the blue-tinged walls reflected off Eddie’s sallow skin, the lack of privacy and dignity, the urine bag half full of lemon yellow pee and tied to the crib rail, the metallic smell of antibiotics—all of it odious. He reached over the rail and touched his son’s head. His fingertips stuck in the globs of electrical jelly glued to Eddie’s hair. The nurses hadn’t washed it off yet after his EEG.

  When would this nightmare end? Ever? Would any day be normal again? Would Anna ever smile? Would Chris have a brother who would climb trees, shoot marbles, race bikes down hills with the wind whistling past his ears?

  “Jake,” Anna whispered.

  “Yes?”

  “Stoop closer. I have something to tell you.”

  He stepped back from Eddie’s crib and leaned his ear toward her lips.

  “See that guy over there in the running suit?”

  “Yeah.”

  “He wants Eddie’s liver.”

  “What?” That made no sense. She must have scrambled her words.

  “Shush, don’t let him hear us. He wants Eddie’s liver.”

  “What are you talking about?” He studied her face, tried to figure out what she was trying to say. Wants a liver? Surely that man already had a liver.

  Her eyes were hollow, fixed in a faraway gaze. “His little girl over there?” She tilted her head toward the crib across the narrow, crowded room. “The one who looks like a dirty canary? She needs a liver transplant.” Anna shot a fierce, hateful glare at the man. “See that pager hanging on his belt? That’s so they can call him as soon as they find a donor liver.”

  The man seemed to be purring as he stroked his daughter’s hand, rubbing her frosty pink polished fingernails.

  “That has nothing to do with Eddie.”

  “Yes, it does. He wants Eddie to die so his daughter can have Eddie’s liver. She needs a small one because she’s such a little girl.” Anna tucked a lock of greasy hair behind her ear and then continued. “Eddie’s would be about the right size.” Her voice lowered to a growl. “Don’t let him have it.”

  “Where’d you get that crazy idea? Did he say something to you?” He eyed the man. Middle-aged. Running suit. Clean jogging shoes. A New Yorker magazine balanced on his lap. He looked like an ordinary father, not a ghoul.

  “No, but I can tell by watching him.” She closed her eyes. “I see the wish on his face when he walks by Eddie’s crib. It’s like he’s measuring Eddie’s liver for size.”

  He looked again at the man. He was humming to his daughter now, and tapping on her nose. Three times. Tap. Tap. Tap.

  Anna wore a blank stare. He had heard that kind of tortured logic before, spoken by desperate, crazy patients. But this was his wife.

  “Get that notion out of your head. No one’s going to take Eddie’s liver, because Eddie isn’t going to die.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yes, I’m sure.”

  “He’ll die sometime.”

  “We’ll all die sometime but Eddie isn’t going to die soon.” As he spoke, the words, assured and authoritative, bounced through his head as if they didn’t belong to him, as if they had floated in from another room. He didn’t know if what he said was actually true. But the liver transplant idea needed to be put to rest.

  In silence, he reached for her hand. It was limp, as if detached from her body. His finger traced the path of her veins along the back of her hand, over her wrist, and to the spaces in her forearm where they dove deep between the muscle sheaths and coursed, close to the bone, toward her shoulder.

  The nurse slid a thermometer into Eddie’s armpit, waited a moment, pulled it out, and wrote 37.4 on the vital-signs chart. Then she injected a colorless liquid into his IV line and flicked the reservoir with her fingernai
l, clearing the bubbles from the fluid.

  “What’s that?” he asked.

  “Antibiotic.” She slid the syringe and needle into the sharps container.

  “Which one?”

  “Ceftriaxone.” Her voice was muffled by the empty hypodermic needle sleeve wedged between her lips. He nodded. She pried open Eddie’s eyelids, shined a flashlight on both pupils, and charted their sizes on his bedside record.

  Jake squeezed Anna’s hand. Eddie’s pupils must have reacted to the light. A good sign—or rather, if they hadn’t reacted, it would have been a bad sign.

  “Honey, have you heard about Eddie’s EEG? He has brain activity.”

  “Dr. Farley told me.” She seemed vacant. “Tell me what they do when a baby dies.” Her voice was weak, almost hoarse, like sandpaper rubbing against another piece of sandpaper.

  “What do you mean?”

  “If Eddie dies, what will they do with him?”

  “He isn’t going to die.”

  “Tell me what they’ll do if he does.”

  “We’re not going to talk like this.”

  “Tell me, Jake. Where will he go?” Now her words were resolute, spoken as a command.

  He took a deep breath but remained silent.

  “Tell me, or I’ll ask the nurse. I have to know this.”

  “After the doctors determine that a patient has died”—he spoke of an abstract patient, not of Eddie or even of a dead child—“the nurses pull out all the tubes and wipe off the adhesive tape marks and straighten up the sheets and hospital gown.”

  He paused. Where were these questions coming from?

  She stared out the window. “Keep talking. Then what?”

  “Well, then the family is allowed to stay with the deceased as long as they need to. Ultimately the body is taken down to the morgue.”

  She seemed to listen intently, her eyes half closed. “Where’s that?”

  “The morgue?”

  She slowly nodded.

  “In the basement of the hospital.”

  She was quiet again. She hadn’t asked about a postmortem exam. He didn’t know how he would have answered that. If Eddie were to die, it might be a coroner’s case; by law, an autopsy would be done because he had been critically ill when he arrived in the ER. He envisioned Eddie on the morgue table, dwarfed by the endless expanse of shiny stainless steel. He saw the rubber garden hoses—the ones used to wash down the table when the autopsy was completed—looped on the floor, the jars of formaldehyde, lined up in a row and labeled with Eddie’s name and hospital number. The scale where the pathologist would plop Eddie’s organs—brain, kidneys, liver, spleen—hung by a chain from the ceiling.

  He leaped from his chair, let Anna’s hand drop into her lap. Eddie dead. Eddie dead. He ran out into the hallway and leaned his forehead against the wall. He closed his eyes, erased the details of the ICU. The ventilators—gone. The anxious parents—gone. The nearly dead kids—gone.

  Voices rang through the ICU like a weird, postmodern chorale, swelling, first, in one corner of the room and then moving in an aural wave to another corner. Someone coughed. An IV pump beeped. A pager chimed. Jake reflexively reached for his belt. It wasn’t his.

  When he returned to Eddie’s cubicle, Anna grabbed his arm.

  “What do the parents do?” Her voice was a flat whisper. “Just put on their jackets, walk out the door, and drive home?”

  “Eventually, yes.” He swallowed and then continued. “That’s about it.”

  “Not me. I’m never leaving Eddie.”

  Chapter 21

  Rose Marie

  It was Saturday, and Rose Marie was doing the weekly cleaning. As she swiped the dust rag, which was really an old cotton diaper, over the window frames, she heard the thunk against the porch. Would the paper say anything about it? Would they identify her day care? Identify her?

  She pulled open the front door, let out a soft groan as she stooped for the newspaper, and headed to the kitchen. The ink was blurred along the fold. Hopefully that wasn’t the part with the story. She wanted to read the whole thing. She flattened the crease of the newsprint against the tabletop with the edge of her hand.

  She scanned the headlines of the front page. Not there. On page two she glanced at the death notices and the weather forecast. Not there.

  In the middle of the third page the headline read:

  Four Area Children Hospitalized with Meningitis

  Four? She read it again. Four. Eddie and Amanda and who else? Quickly she skimmed the article for names, her eyes darting across the print, ready to land on the words “Amanda” or “Edward” or “Rose Marie Lustov.” There were no names, other than the director of the county health department. Then she returned to the beginning and read, slowly and carefully so she didn’t miss anything important.

  Four LaSalle County children have been hospitalized in the past five days with meningitis. Three boys, ages six months, two years, and six years, and a four-year-old girl, are in LaSalle Children’s Hospital and St. Andrew’s Hospital. The three older children are in serious condition while the six-month-old boy is listed in critical condition.

  According to Dr. Myron Klug, medical director of the LaSalle County Health Department, meningitis is an infection of the membranes that surround the brain and spinal cord. The most serious form of the infection is caused by bacteria while a milder form is caused by viruses. Some types of bacterial meningitis can be spread by coughing, kissing, sharing drinking glasses, and other close contact. Dr. Klug said that the six-month-old and the four-year-old attend the same Huron Township day care center, but no link has been identified between these two cases and either of the other cases. The other children in the day care, including the three-year-old brother of the six-month-old, show no signs of the infection, Dr. Klug reported.

  Vaccines are available to prevent some forms of bacterial meningitis, said Dr. Klug, and are recommended for routine immunization of children starting at two months of age. The investigation of these cases is still underway, and Dr. Klug said he didn’t yet know if the ill children had received the vaccines. Bacterial meningitis is usually treatable with antibiotics, but serious side effects may occur, such as deafness, blindness, mental retardation, seizure disorder, or cerebral palsy if treatment is delayed. There is no antibiotic treatment for viral meningitis, and children with this form of the infection recover fully.

  Dr. Klug emphasized that there is no evidence of an epidemic at this time and urged parents to consult their family physician if their children develop unexplained fever, severe headache, vomiting, listlessness, or stiff neck. The LaSalle County Health Department Immunization Clinic is open Tuesdays from nine to noon at the courthouse; appointments are recommended.

  The words swirled across the page, looming large at one moment, fading into the background at another. Her eyes flitted from line to line. She read each paragraph again, and then again. Four children. What was going on?

  She warmed a cup of water in the microwave for coffee. At least the other two weren’t in her day care. Chris, Meghan, Sawyer, and Davey were well. At least as far as she knew.

  She started at the beginning of the article and read it yet again. It seemed odd for Eddie—sweet little Eddie, with the big ears and long, skinny neck—to be called “the six-month-old boy” and Amanda—bossy but imaginative Amanda—to be called “the four-year-old girl.” Those words were too impersonal, as if the children weren’t really people. Or were insignificant people who didn’t deserve to have names.

  She tossed the descriptions of the children around in her head several times, amending them to suit her. A six-month-old loveable baby named Eddie. A four-year-old princess named Amanda, who just two weeks ago had declared she wasn’t Amanda anymore, because her name was Gretchen. When asked to put the puzzle pieces back in the box, she had turned her head away, lifted her chin, puckered her lips, and announced, “I can’t, because I’m Gretchen.” Now she was neither Amanda nor Gretchen, but rather “th
e four-year-old girl.”

  She called Amanda’s house. No one answered. They were probably all at the hospital. She didn’t even know which hospital. After nine rings, she hung up.

  She dialed Davey’s house. She had to know about the other children. The answering machine responded.

  “Please call me if Davey’s sick. I sure hope we get to the bottom of this soon,” she said into the phone.

  No one was home at Sawyer’s house, either, so she left another message.

  Meghan’s mother, thank goodness, answered.

  “How’s Meghan?” Rose Marie asked, worried about the answer. An army of insects seemed to dance around her insides.

  “She’s fine. I read the news in the paper; can’t tell if I should freak out or not. What’s the story about Davey and Sawyer?”

  “I don’t know. No one answers at their houses. If I learn anything, I’ll let you know.”

  She reread the newspaper article one last time, making absolutely sure her name wasn’t in it. She didn’t want anyone in town to know that two of the sick children attended her day care. With a sigh, she folded the newspaper and turned on the television to see what the local news would say about the kids.

  The first news item detailed the strike by the city bus drivers planned for the next day. Rose Marie fidgeted in her chair.

  Then it came.

  “Possible Meningitis Outbreak” was written in blue and black letters across the screen. In a breathless, rapid-fire voice, the newsman described the four cases. None of the children’s names were mentioned. Her stomach churned as she listened for her own name.

  “Two of the infected children attend the same LaSalle County day care.” She held her breath. He didn’t say Lustov, didn’t give her address.

  “Dr. Myron Klug is director of the local health department,” he said as he thrust a microphone toward a stern man who stood in a parking lot downtown. Dr. Klug repeated a few of the details and explained that they had no evidence for an epidemic in their county.