Ten Days

by Janet Gilsdorf

  The air, heavy and languid, brushed her cheek. Go away, she thought. I’m waiting.

  Again, the air stirred. She opened her eyes. Rose Marie stood beside her, a plastic bag clutched awkwardly in her hands.

  “Hi,” Rose Marie whispered.

  “Hi.” She sat up straight and blinked her eyes.

  “I brought something for Eddie.” Rose Marie held the sack toward her. TOYS“R”US was stamped in green across its face.

  “That’s very thoughtful of you.” She tried to clear her head. In some ways she was pleased to see Rose Marie. And yet, it took effort to be polite to her. What she most wanted was to continue waiting. Alone.

  “How is he?” Rose Marie smiled. “How’s my little Eddie-boy?”

  That voice, high pitched and unnatural, dug into Anna like a nail. Why does she have to talk that way? That’s baby talk. Doesn’t she realize everything is different now? Eddie doesn’t play anymore; he doesn’t even breathe for himself. “He’s pretty sick.” She took the sack.

  If she didn’t work, Eddie wouldn’t need a babysitter and Rose Marie wouldn’t be standing here. She herself wouldn’t be here. Eddie wouldn’t have gotten sick. He wouldn’t have gone to Rose Marie’s, to that place where slobbery kids spread their germs all over each other.

  Rose Marie swayed nervously from side to side. “My house’s unbearably empty without him . . . and the other children.” Her eyes filled with tears.

  Anna’s fingers stopped working the sack. “Where’re the other kids?” She rubbed her forehead. What day was it? Sunday? Monday? No, Sunday.

  “Amanda’s in the hospital. You know that, right?”

  “Yes, Jake told me.” She laid the sack in her lap. “Are any of the other kids sick?” At least Chris wasn’t sick. He was home with her parents and healthy.

  “No, they seem fine.” Rose Marie stared at the floor. “The parents are afraid to bring them to my house, though. Afraid they’ll get it, too, I guess.” She dabbed her sleeve against the tear that trickled down her cheek.

  She stared at Rose Marie. “I often wonder where Eddie caught this infection,” she said.

  Rose Marie wiped her wet face with quivering palms. The skin over the backs of her hands was dry and wrinkled, embossed with craggy veins like pale blue tree branches. “What do you mean?”

  “Where’d he catch it?”

  “Anna . . . do . . .” Rose Marie stuttered. “Did . . . Are . . . are you suggesting he got it from my house?”

  “We don’t know where. He got it somewhere.”

  Rose Marie began to sob in loud, lurching gasps. She looked diminished, defeated. Her old brown coat hung from her shoulders like a blanket on a hanger.

  “How can you think he got it from my place? Please don’t blame me. I love Eddie as if he’s my own.” Tears trickled down her cheeks. She dug in her purse and pulled out a piece of Kleenex.

  “All I know is that Eddie is terribly sick and so is Amanda. The thing they have in common is your house.”

  Rose Marie stepped toward the door. “I guess I’d better leave.”

  Anna closed her eyes. She wanted Rose Marie to leave but didn’t want her to leave. Eddie loved her, after all, spent hours and hours at her house while his mother—the lady who should have been taking care of him—worked. She opened her eyes again. “Wait. Don’t go yet.”

  Rose Marie turned back to her.

  “Do you want to see him?”

  “Yes.” Rose Marie’s voice was thin, uncertain. She was no longer crying.

  “You probably won’t recognize him.”

  “No?”

  “Well, he’s puffy. His head is swollen and he has a breathing tube in his mouth.” She rose from the chair, set the Toys“R”Us sack on the seat. “You can barely see his cheeks for the tape. He doesn’t move. Or open his eyes.”

  Rose Marie followed her into the ICU.

  Anna pointed to Eddie’s crib. He lay, as he had for the past six days, motionless. Tubes ran in and out of him. Machines blinked and squawked beside him.

  Rose Marie stopped at the foot of his bed. “Hi, honey,” she whispered to Eddie.

  Anna could barely hear Rose Marie’s words. Certainly Eddie couldn’t. Assuming, that is, Eddie could hear anything.

  “How does he eat?”

  “They pump formula through that tube in his nose. It goes down to his stomach.”

  “Oh.” Rose Marie stared at Eddie for a long time, said nothing.

  Now, Anna wished she would leave. It felt as if Eddie were on exhibition, a freak in a sideshow, a statue in a wax museum, and Anna was the docent.

  Finally, Rose Marie turned toward her, her eyes glistening. “I’ll go now. I hope everything turns out okay.”

  Something colorful lay against the bottom of the Toys“R”Us sack. Anna turned the bag upside down and a long, rubbery hose fell on the linoleum. It was a toy snake with grass green and leaf brown spots, eyes as blue as the sea, and a yellow stripe that zigzagged like lightning down its back. She picked it up and held the head away from her body so its curving tail dangled toward the floor. Then she coiled it in her lap and closed her eyes again. Would Eddie ever be able to play with this? With anything? She was still waiting.

  Chapter 26

  Rose Marie

  A tangle of invoices, envelopes, second notices, and receipts covered the kitchen table. She slumped in her chair and scratched her wrist with the end of her pen.

  Another outrageous Detroit Edison bill. Why was it so high? She kept the house at sixty-two degrees during the night, sixty-eight degrees while the kids were there. She had replaced the ragged weather stripping around the front door. The windows were double glazed. She used forty-five-watt lightbulbs and ran the washing machine only when it was fully loaded. What more could she do? Her hand was hesitant, but she wrote out the check.

  She tapped the numbers from last month’s grocery receipts into her calculator. $48.43. $14.90. $91.25—why was that one so big? Her eyes scanned the items. Apples, coffee, milk, bell peppers, canned tomatoes. The big beast was $23.39 for a roast. She had made a stock pot of chili with that beef, had frozen six pints for future lunches. She tried to economize on food, clipped coupons from the newspaper, watched for the sales, bought in bulk when she could. One receipt showed three bottles of white zinfandel at $6.99 each. That was important. She and Beefeater couldn’t forego their evening wine.

  What if Davey’s mother withdrew him permanently? What if Amanda quit? She folded her checkbook into her purse and slid the calculator and receipts into the drawer. Out of sight, out of mind. She wished it all away. But, the worries wouldn’t stay away. If Eddie died or was seriously handicapped, Chris probably wouldn’t come back. She stuck stamps on the envelopes and set them on the counter to go to the post office. She couldn’t make these payments if the kids stopped coming. It would take months to rebuild the day care.

  After the quiet weekend, she missed the kids, wanted their company. None were there. None. The house seemed hollow. It almost echoed from the emptiness. Now that the bills were paid, she had nothing to do but fret. She stared out the kitchen window at the lonely backyard, at a squirrel that raced along a limb of the maple tree with a nut in his mouth. He was set, had plenty of food, for a while, at least. Unlike her.

  The nagging thoughts clawed inside her head. She still needed to know if Amanda had the same infection that Eddie had, to know if they had gotten it at her house. She needed a guarantee that her day care was safe. If the health department was worth its salt, it would do that. Even so, they couldn’t make the mothers bring the kids back. One thing the health department could do, for sure, was shut her down.

  She had no choice; she had to get the information. She found the number in the government section of the phone book, under LaSalle County, and dialed 7-9-2. Her finger was about to punch the 4, but she paused. Yes. No. Right. Wrong. Call. Don’t call. Her hand hovered over the 4 for another moment and then she set the phone receiver back on the cradle. S
he didn’t know what she would say.

  She could ask for the fellow from the health department who had spoken with her earlier. What was his name? She hadn’t written it down. She reran a mental recording of the conversation. His name was blank. She went through the conversation again in her head. No name. She’d have to talk to whoever answered the phone.

  She dialed 7-9-2 again, straightened a curtain in the kitchen window, and hung up the phone. She decided to take a nap.

  An hour later, she still needed information, needed to call the health department. She got up from the bed, smoothed the bedspread, fluffed the pillow, and, slowly, walked to the phone in the kitchen. Her chest tightened. Would they give her the information she wanted? Maybe they’d accuse her of running an unsafe center, would rescind her license. Her fingers dallied on the phone buttons. She rubbed the oily smear off 7, coaxed the strand of hair from between 4 and 5. Finally, her hand quaking, she finished dialing the number.

  She introduced herself. The man from the health department did the same. She asked if Amanda and Eddie had the same kind of meningitis. He said he didn’t know.

  “What do you mean, you don’t know?” she said. “How can you not know?”

  The man’s voice was deep and scratchy like a smoker’s. “As I just told you, Mrs. Lustov, the laboratory tests aren’t completed yet. All we can say is that four children in LaSalle County have meningitis.” He paused a moment. Then before she could begin speaking again, he continued, “Three boys have bacterial meningitis caused by a germ called Streptococcus pneumoniae. We don’t know yet what kind of meningitis the fourth child, the girl, has.”

  “What if she has the same kind Eddie has?”

  “Then we’ll have four children in LaSalle County with pneumococcal meningitis.”

  “You’re playing games with me.” She slammed her fist on the kitchen counter. “What does that mean for me and my day care?”

  “As I already said, we won’t know if the kids at your day care have the same kind of meningitis until the laboratory completes its analysis.”

  “What if they are the same strain?”

  “Then we may have an epidemic on our hands.”

  She brushed a dead wasp from the kitchen windowsill into the sink and washed it down the drain. “Would you shut down my day care if it’s an epidemic?”

  “I can’t answer that right now.”

  “Well, I have to know, because this is my business and I need to know what might happen to it.”

  “We should have the information by tomorrow or the next day.”

  “Fine. That’s just fine.” Her words felt like acid-tipped darts. “What kind of health department is this? These kids are very sick and you guys haven’t figured out what they have. My business is going down the sewer and you refuse to help me. The parents are terrified to bring their children to my house. I pay taxes and deserve to get better service from you people.”

  The man said nothing.

  “Are you still there?” She could tell she was shouting.

  “Yes, but I can’t answer your questions, because we don’t have the information yet.”

  “Well, you could tell me what would happen if they both have the same kind, or what would happen if they don’t.” Her throat was getting sore. He wasn’t listening to her. She clutched the phone to her ear. “You could call the children’s parents and tell them my house is safe. You could—”

  “I told you I can’t answer all your questions right now.” He sounded angry. “You’ll have to wait until the final laboratory results are available. Good-bye, Mrs. Lustov.”

  The dial tone hummed in her ear.

  She slammed the phone on the hook, then picked it up and dialed her daughter.

  “That guy’s an asshole,” she sobbed. She hated crying to Sarah but couldn’t help it. The man had been so ugly to her. She tore a sheet of paper towel from the roll under the sink and blew her nose.

  “Mother, you need to settle down. You’re totally out of control. Take a few deep breaths and tell me what’s going on.”

  She told her daughter what he had said. “Sarah, the man hung up on me.”

  “Well, that was rude. I guess you just have to wait until the laboratory finishes their tests. Have you seen Anna or Eddie?”

  “I went to the hospital yesterday.” Her eyes welled up again and she dabbed them with the paper towel. “It was awful. Eddie looked like a corpse. He didn’t move at all, just lay there—still as a stone—with the breathing machine puffing air into a tube stuck down his throat. His skin was gray and waxy. Like recycled paraffin. I didn’t dare touch him, he seemed so fragile. It breaks your heart.”

  “How about Anna?”

  “She’s a zombie. Very upset. Remember how stylish she always was? No more.” Rose Marie shook her head. “I took a toy snake, but Eddie’s way too sick to play with it yet.”

  Sarah’s voice softened. “Is he going to make it?”

  “Didn’t dare ask. Why did this have to happen to us, anyway ?”

  She called Amanda’s house and waited for someone to answer. After the fifth ring, Amanda’s mother said, “Hello?”

  “Hi. It’s Rose Marie. I’m calling to check on Amanda.”

  “She’s doing better but is still in the hospital.” Her voice sounded tentative, as if she wasn’t interested in speaking with Rose Marie.

  “Good. Hopefully she’ll be able to come home soon.”

  “We hope so, too.”

  Now what should she say? “Um . . . You know . . . I’ve read the reports in the newspaper and have spoken to the health department. Have the doctors told you what kind of meningitis Amanda has? Apparently they aren’t sure if it’s the same kind that Eddie has.”

  “They don’t know yet. Amanda still has her IV and they’re still giving her antibiotics.”

  “Have you read the papers or heard the news on TV? Apparently there are four cases.”

  “Yes, we’ve been told that.” She sounded flat. Was she mad at her? Or maybe just worried about her daughter?

  “I’ve been wondering how the newspaper reporter got my name. Did you by any chance give it to him?” She let out a deep sigh. The question had haunted her for days.

  “No. I wouldn’t do anything like that.” She sounded surprised, puzzled. Perhaps a little offended.

  “Good. I couldn’t imagine you had, but I can’t figure out who did.”

  “Uh, maybe . . .” Amanda’s mother paused. “Maybe . . . My friend Laura’s husband works for the paper. I called her as soon as we learned Amanda had meningitis. He might have had something to do with that.”

  “That’s probably it.” At least she had an answer. “The reporter was pretty brash, demanding information about the other kids.” Why were people so snoopy? Why couldn’t they mind their own business?

  “That was unfortunate. But, with everything else that has happened, I guess the news would have gotten out one way or the other. They haven’t used your name in any of the reports, have they?”

  “No, thank goodness. At least not that I’ve seen. That would be horrible.”

  After the call, Rose Marie made a cup of coffee and settled into the lawn chair on her patio. The Big Wheels were all lined up against the garage and the sandbox toys were piled in the sandbox. One question was answered—she knew who called the reporter. But, there were still so many other questions. Did Eddie and Amanda have the same kind of meningitis? Did they get it at her house? What would happen to the children? What would happen to her?

  Chapter 27

  Jake

  He felt a tap on his shoulder.

  “You’ve seen the newspapers, I assume.” Farley spoke in his usual way, authoritative and fearless, the way ICU docs always were. It was a voice Jake could trust.

  “Yeah, read all about it.” He liked this guy. Didn’t have to second-guess his medical decisions. Farley had, after all, probably twenty-five years of experience in critical care medicine and was the fellow ultimately responsibl
e for whatever happened to Eddie; at least for what happened while in his unit.

  “Hopefully the reporters haven’t been pestering you.”

  “They’ve tried, but my mother-in-law’s manning the phones at home and she’s a brick wall.”

  “I’m always amazed with the fear-mongering the press applies to infections . . . Lyme disease, flesh-eating bacteria, West Nile virus, meningitis. A person is one thousand times more likely to be in a car accident than to get any of those rare infections, but . . .”

  Farley stopped midsentence. “I made that up, you know. That statistic. But I bet it’s close.”

  They neared Eddie’s crib. The closest side rail was down. Jake’s knee-jerk reaction was to yank it up. But there was no risk—Eddie wasn’t going to roll to the floor, wasn’t going to roll anywhere.

  Anna sat beside the crib, her head resting on her arm. She lifted her eyes toward Farley with the expectant, reality-weighted look of a mother who seeks a thread of good news from a doctor, yet knows, deep down, he has none to give.

  “Our day care lady’s been bothered by the reporters,” she said. “Now she’s scared to death the health department’s going to shut her down.”

  “Oh, brother.” Farley shifted to the other foot. “I’ve spoken several times to their director. He’s a pretty sharp guy who has a huge mess on his hands. Even though every parent—at least every reporter—in the state thinks we have a meningitis epidemic here, apparently we don’t.”

  Farley turned away from Anna, toward him. “That fellow from the health department, Klug . . . Myron or Martin or whatever his name is . . . told me just a few minutes ago that all three of the kids with bacterial meningitis—Eddie and the other two boys—have Strep pneumoniae, but they are different genotypes, so the cases aren’t related.” He folded his arms over his chest and then continued. “The four-year-old girl, the one on the pediatric ward downstairs, had a sterile tap. Apparently she received a couple doses of amox for otitis, so it’s not clear yet if she has bacterial meningitis or not. Klug is waiting for the enteroviral PCR on her spinal fluid from the state lab.”