Vm here. Mommy. Here I am. Vm here, Vm here. She was a little girl, so small her mother had to pick her up onto the couch; she curled into her mother's lap, nibbling on an oatmeal cookie and listening to her mother read a book, her voice like music, warm and beautiful, making the story real. Her mother kissed her cheek and her forehead and the top of her head and held her tight, but then, suddenly, she couldn't see the book or her mother anymore; it was all dark, the whole room was dark and she wondered how her mother could read in the dark, how could she see anything, it was so dark, but her mother wasn't reading because her voice had stopped, and then Emma couldn't feel her mother's arms anymore, she couldn't feel anything, she was all alone and so cold,
she was cold deep inside her and all through her, in her throat and her stomach and even her eyes, and it was hard to breathe, she was having trouble breathing because she was so cold and weak and each breath was like pushing up a mountain that was on her chest, and then a feeling of terror swept through her because she knew she was dying—/ can't be dying, Vm just a little girl —but when she tried to breathe the mountain kept pressing on her as if she were already buried deep in the earth, and everything hurt, all over; she was cold and she hurt and she was going to die.
There was a loud sound in the room, louder and louder, a slow rasping with long pauses in between, and Hannah's voice said, "It's you, Emma, it's you, breathing, keep breathing, Emma, keep pushing, don't stop, don't stop." Reds and yellows and blues whirled behind her eyes, so bright they hurt, and then they were gone and it was dark again, and she felt herself sinking deeper and deeper into the cold, and she thought, I can't help it, I can't do anything, I'm sorry. Mommy, I'm sorry, Hannah, I can't keep going, I can't, I can't, and then she saw her mother's eyes and she heard her mother's voice, and her mother said, "Love."
"Room ten twenty-one," said the registration clerk. He looked with curiosity at Claire and Alex, a handsome couple, respectable, classy, and their friend, standing a little to the side, good-looking, not beautiful but a real lady. And they'd come to get a kid who drank herself into a stupor. He gave them the key. "The bellhop took her up."
"Why.?" Alex asked.
"She wasn't in good shape. She'd had a lot to drink."
"She doesn't drink," Claire said, and the three of them ran across the lobby, to the elevators, and pushed ahead of others who were waiting. "She hardly drinks at all; she never liked it."
"She's been drinking a fair bit, with Brix," Gina said. "And she's been taking Halcion."
"What.'"' Alex swung on her. "How long have vou known that.?"
"Since this afternoon," Gina said defensively. "She took it so she could sleep. She hasn't been sleeping too well."
"She told me that," Claire said. "But she never mentioned—"
The elevator door opened on the tenth floor. Claire ran ahead of them down the corridor to 1021 and automatically put her hand
on the doorknob. "Let me," Alex said. He knocked once, loudly, and then unlocked the door. The room was dark and still, the only sound a terrible, slow rasping, Gina found a light switch and a floor lamp near the bed came on, sending a pale yellow cone of light straight down, onto Emma.
She lay in the middle of the bed, covered to her chin, her face drained of color. The rasping came from her open mouth: long struggling breaths with deadly silences between. With a cry, Claire flung herself on the bed, taking Emma and the quilt and the pillow into her arms. "Emma, we're here. Emma, Emma, we're here, we love you, please open your eyes, please, Emma, oh, God, Emma, please, please; we love you . . ."
Gina sat on the other side of Emma. She found one of her hands under the quilt and rubbed it between hers. "She's so cold. My God, she's so cold."
Alex was at the telephone. "We need an ambulance. We've got a very sick girl in ten twenty-one. Now!" As he hung up, he saw a prescription bottle tucked between the lamp and the radio. He picked it up. It had Emma's name on it, it was labeled Hal-cion, and it was empty.
"Emma," Claire pleaded, "you've got to hear me. Open your eyes or just nod or . . . Please, Emma, please wake up."
"Maybe if we slapped her . . . ," Gina said.
"I can't," Claire said, her face against Emma's. "I can't,"
Alex leaned over the bed. "I don't think it would help."
The ambulance took only a few minutes, and then the paramedics took over, ignoring Claire and Alex and Gina. "You'd better take this," Alex said to one of them, handing him the empty bottle. "If you know what she took . , ,"
"Right," the paramedic said. "Thanks. These damn kids," he muttered to himself.
"I'm riding with Emma," Claire said, and she walked beside the stretcher, holding Emma's lifeless hand. A paramedic on the other side held aloft a bottle, from which an intravenous tube ran into a vein on the back of Emma's other hand; an oxygen mask covered her nose and mouth, "W^hich hospital.''" Claire asked the paramedic.
"Roosevelt." He was checking the flow from the bottle into the tube.
"W'e'll meet you there," Alex said to Claire. He kissed her
forehead and held his arm tightly around her shoulders as they took a back elevator and walked through a bare corridor at the rear of the hotel. He tightened his arm briefly. "There's a lot of love around here, and if that does it . . ."
Claire nodded. "I know. I know there is. Thank you." She was crying. She touched Alex's hand and then walked beside Emma, trying to hold her head to keep it from rolling back and forth, and they went through a back door, down a ramp, and into the ambulance.
At exactly seven o'clock in the morning, Brix rang Emma's room. He let the telephone ring a dozen times, then, his voice worried and anxious, he called the front desk and spoke to the assistant manager. "This is Brix Eiger, in room fifteen oh nine. I'm worried about my friend, Emma Goddard, in room ten twenty-one; she doesn't answer her phone and I'm afraid she might be ill. I think someone ought to go there and find out."
"She's not in the hotel, Mr. Eiger. She—"
"What.'* Of course she's there, you idiot; she couldn't—" He stopped himself. "She was in no condition to go anywhere last night; that's why I'm worried about her."
"She was taken to the hospital by ambulance; she was indeed very ill. Her parents arrived; it was fortunate they got here when they did."
Brix sat frozen in the desk chair. Ambulance. Hospital. Her parents. Who the hell was that.-' She only had a mother; how could she have parents.'' And why would they come looking for her.'' How did they know where to come.''
"Mr. Eiger.''" said the assistant manager.
Ambulance. Hospital. Brix stirred. "Is she all right.'' I mean, is she alive.''"
"We don't know, Mr. Eiger. She was taken to Roosevelt Hospital."
Suddenly, Brix was engulfed in waves of fear; he was drowning in fear. Something was going on and he didn't know what was happening or who was making it happen, or where it was going or how it would end. Everything seemed beyond his control. Last night he'd had it all mapped out; he'd been on top of everything. Now he didn't know anything, he didn't even know
how he could find out anything so he could figure out what to do next.
Hospital. They pumped people's stomachs in hospitals; they'd find out she took an overdose of Halcion. But that was all right; that was how he'd planned it in the first place; that was why he'd left the empty bottle next to her bed. They'd think she tried to kill herself. He'd be in the clear.
The assistant manager was asking him something. Brix hung up the telephone. He'd be in the clear, except that Emma would be alive. And she would know she hadn't taken any Halcion that night. If she remembered. If anybody believed her.
Her mother would believe her.
And his father might believe her. If he did, he'd know that Brix had fucked up. Again.
He felt sick to his stomach and bent over, his head in his hands. Everything had been so clear the night before, so straightforward and easy. She was such a simpleton; he always knew how to get her to react the way he wanted. She
called it love, but he knew it was weakness. His father didn't fall in love and neither did Brix; it was the way they stayed in control.
I have to call him, Brix thought. But maybe not. Not until he knew. If Emma died, he wouldn't have to say anything; he'd taken care of her before she talked to anybody; all his problems would be solved. He wondered what time they'd gotten to her. He thought Halcion acted very fast in the body, but he wasn't sure. And there was no one he could ask. He couldn't call the hospital; he couldn't walk in there and come face-to-face with Emma's mother and God knows who else; he couldn't ask a doctor about Halcion because that would be remembered.
He couldn't do a damn thing except go home and wait.
No, he thought. My girl had a photo assignment today and she's sick. I should call Hale and tell him she won't be there.
But he'll ask how she is and I'll have to say I don't know.
He'll ask where she is, and if I say she's at the hospital, he'll ask if I'm there with her, and I'll have to say no.
He might want to go to see her at the hospital.
And if she didn't die, he had to call his father and tell him . . . something. Tell him he'd tried, tell him he'd had it all figured out but something had happened, tell him he'd fucked up. Again.
God damn it! Shaking with frustration, he fumbled with the combination lock on his briefcase, and when it was open, he took out the innocuous-looking case that held his supply of coke. "Have to think about this," he muttered in the silent room, and snorted it deeply and fiercely. He sprawled in his chair, staring vacantly at the window. The minutes passed. If she didnt die, he had to call his father and tell him . . . something.
"Christ!" he blurted, and stood up, looking wildly around the room like an animal seeking a place to hide. The coke hadn't helped; nothing had changed. It wasn't enough, he thought; I ought to know by now what it takes. . . . He laid out the coke and leaned over the table again to snort it in, feeling the tickling sensation in the back of his throat. Now he could think about things; figure them out.
Tell him he'd fucked up. Again.
With a long howl, Brix hunched over. Nothing helped. His head was buzzing but he still didn't know what to do. Go home. He couldn't. All he'd do would be to sit around waiting, and he wasn't good at waiting. In other times, like that time at college, he'd called his father, but he couldn't do that now, not until he knew what was happening. There was nobody he could call, nothing he could do. Still hunched over, he paced the room. Nothing, nobody, nothing, nobody.
He could not stand it. He had to move, he had to think. He grabbed his coat and left the room. A walk, he thought. Maybe a cup of coffee. Oh . . . don't forget this. He grabbed the case of coke and slipped it into the inside pocket of his sports jacket. A little more of this, and a little time, and I'll think of something. It'll all work out; pretty soon I'll know what to do, and everything will be fine.
"Coffee," Gina said, and held steaming cups in front of Claire and Alex. "And doughnuts. Probably a long way from the world's best, but I think we should eat."
"Did you call Hannah.''" Claire asked.
"She's on her way." Gina sat across from them and blew on her coffee and stared unseeing at the stack of tattered magazines none of them had read. It was seven-fifteen in the morning, and beyond the door of the waiting room the hospital was bustling with the changing of shifts and the arrival of doctors on their
rounds. Everyone moved purposefully through the white corridors, everyone had tasks and schedules and goals to reach. Everyone except the people in the waiting room, groups too withdrawn into their own fears to talk to each other. On one side, on a blue leather couch, Alex and Claire and Gina sat as they had all night, except for forays to the intensive care unit, seeking news of Emma, any news at all. But there had been none.
"We're doing our best," the nurses said each time; it was said in kindly but absent voices; they were thinking of their patients, and Claire or Alex or Gina, whoever had gone, would return to the waiting room with its soothing blue carpet and blue walls, and a television set no one turned on and magazines no one read and a philodendron in the corner, its heart-shaped leaves drooping over a round table.
"Why would she do it.^" Gina asked, as she had a dozen times that long night. "Why would she want to kill herself.^"
"She didn't," Claire said again; she had not wavered in that belief all night. "I don't believe Emma would ever kill herself. She loves life too much. It was an accident; she took something and she had a bad reaction to it. She'll tell you that when she . . . when she wakes up."
"Who prescribed the Halcion.^" Alex asked Gina.
"Some doctor Brix knew."
"Do you know his name? Damn, I should have read the label before I gave that bottle to the paramedic."
"She mentioned the name, but I don't think I . . ." Gina frowned. "Something weird, something like an Arab . . . Saracen!" she said triumphantly. "I think he's in Greenwich."
"I'll be back," Alex said, and went to a pay telephone in the corridor. He was so tense his steps were stiff, and the back of his neck ached. He took into himself Claire's agony, and it seemed to him the worst kind of agony because there was nothing they could do with it. It was not like the anguish he had felt when his wife died; he had known then he had to accept it, live with it, and somehow get past it. But there was nothing they could accept now; they could only pray and wait and help each other through the hours.
But as he lifted the handset of the telephone, absently watching the nurses at their station, busy with the work of the hospital, Alex knew that by making Claire's agony his own he had at last
taken the final step in breaking through the bubble of loss and anger and loneliness that had made him feel cut off from everyone else for so long; he had become engrossed in other lives, other fears, other kinds of pain. He had learned to love, and so he had learned to live again.
Now he could write. He no longer was afraid of what emotions he might dredge up when he created, and so now he could create freely. And because he was no longer afraid of feeling love and pain and fear, he could be a lover again, and a husband to Claire and a real father to David. And to Emma, he thought, and then thought, please, God, please, God, let Emma live. Let this new family have a chance to love, and to thrive.
Meanwhile, he had to do something with the tension inside him, and he did what he always did when driven by pain: he did research. He tracked down Dr. Saracen, calling his home, his office, and finally the Greenwich hospital, where the operator paged him. In a few moments the doctor answered the page.
Alex tried to put everything into a few sentences. "My name is Alex Jarrell; I'm a friend of the mother of a patient of yours, Emma Goddard. I'm with her now; she's in Roosevelt Hospital in New York; she's taken an overdose of Halcion—"
"An overdose!" exclaimed the doctor. "I can't believe— How is she.^"
"We don't know yet. She's not conscious. We're trying to find out where she got the drug, and we know she went to you."
"She did, about a couple of months ago, I think. But I wouldn't have prescribed more than half a dozen pills; as I recall, she was very agitated and I wanted to see how she reacted to it."
"We found the emprv' bottle. It was labeled for ten pills."
There was a silence. "It may be that she said she'd be traveling and wouldn't be able to come in for another prescription; I have a number of patients who do that. I'm sure the label said no refill."
"It did. Would ten pills plus alcohol be life threatening.''"
"She probably didn't have ten. I told you, she came to me a couple of months ago. She'd probably taken at least a few of them between then and now."
"Well, would five be threatening,'' Or seven.''"
"It's unlikely. I don't know how much alcohol she had. She told me she drank ver little."
"Could she have gotten another prescription anywhere else.-^"
"She could have gone to ten doctors in ten cities; I wouldn't know about that. She didn't get it f
rom me."
"Thanks—"
"Will you let me know how she is.'' I liked her ver' much. She was a lovely girl."
Is. She is a lovely girl. "I'll let you know," Alex said, and returned to the waiting room. "Did she go to any other doctors that you know of.'"' he asked Gina. She shook her head. "Claire.'' You must have a doctor."
"Paula Brauer," Claire said. "She's in Danbury."
Once again Alex went to the telephone, and called Dr. Brauer. "My God, my poor Emma," she said when he told her why he was calling. "Why in the world— What do they say about her chances.'"'
"They're not saying. We don't know how long it will be."
"But it isn't like Emma to do something like this. She's not a quitter; in fact, she's a very stubborn young woman. I've known her for most of her life, and I don't believe she took an overdose of anything. zre you sure it's not something else,''"
"The doctors here seem sure. And we found an emprv' pill bottle. Did you prescribe Halcion for her.'"'
"Absolutely not. I don't like the drug, and I certainly wouldn't prescribe it for a teenage girl. If Emma was agitated—and I didn't know^ she was—there are milder drugs she could take. You found a pill bottle.'* Who was the doctor.''"
Pot of gold : a novel Page 45