Chapter Nine
It is six o-clock by the time she arrives home and Doug and Josh are sitting in front of the television set eating pizza. The mess scattered across the coffee table is massive.
“Hey,” Doug says, mouth over pizza, eyes still.
“Hi Mom. How is Nana?”
Nana, the white lie. “Oh, she’s...she’s doing great. How’s that homework coming along?”
“I only had two sheets. They were wicked easy. Want a piece?” he asks, lifting a doughy piece from the box.
She shakes her head, “That’s okay…you guys eat it. I just finished a chicken sandwich on the ride home.”
Doug studies her for a moment then opens his mouth to speak before reconsidering. A commercial punctuates his thoughts, one featuring a car salesman hovering around a shiny black Ford pick-up truck. Running his fingers along the hood’s edge, he promotes an interest-free finance plan. “Yeah, sure you will,” Doug says, skeptical.
“You wish you had that truck, Dad?”
“Nope,” Doug says, his hand cupped over his son’s knee. “There are more important things than new things, you know.”
Josh touches his chin, ponders his father’s wisdom. “Yeah,” he says back, “except when you really need something….like this year my bike will probably be too old for me.”
Doug makes a dramatic expression with his eyes and, somehow, the simple gesture prompts a tickling match. Serena stares through them, wonders how Doug would have survived, how she would have!—and walks away. “If someone cracks a head on the furniture, I’m not responsible,” she warns.
Doug pops up. “Alright, you got me,” he says, breathless. “I gotta’ go get something for Mom.” He struggles to stand and Josh takes one last cheap shot.
“Joshua,” Serena says sternly, “Please help clean up this mess, and head upstairs for a shower.”
He hand-irons a rumpled shirt and begins to basketball-shoot crumpled napkins into the pizza box.
Serena and Doug head for her office. Doug closes the door. Still pink-faced from wrestling; he whispers, “I can’t believe you went to see him, Serena. What did he say?”
“He couldn’t say much…he’s struggling for his life, Doug.” She makes eye contact with the back wall as the words slip out. A large picture of Josh’s ex-soccer team, posed in a pyramid, finds her gaze. Life before…
“Exactly. He’s struggling…” Doug says, bringing her back, “what comes around goes around, Serena. Let nature take its course.” With those words, he draws a stick of Blistex from his pocket and coats his lips, then the air, with the smell of lime.
There is something specious about her husband’s composure; something she can’t put her finger on, something that rattles her to no end.
“You’re defending him?” Her nose crinkles as she holds back a temper of emotion. “Let nature take its course? Is that what you were thinking when you left him by himself at the mountain?”
Doug scrunches his eyes shut, clenches a fist. “Here we go again, the blame. Are we going to live the rest of our lives obsessing over that incident, Serena? Our kid is back! He’s fine! We won! We’ve beat the odds!”
Serena has pushed the wrong button. Doug is unable to maintain his cool—the necessary whisper—while Josh stands frozen outside of the glass doors.
“Why are you arguing about me? Everything o.k. Mom?”
“I’m fine, honey,” she says, disgusted with Doug and, even more, with herself. “Just a lot on my mind, that’s all.”
An irritated Doug exits the conversation and hustles up the stairs while Josh follows, a series of questions in tow—Do you still like Mom? Are you mad at me?
Serena, feeling incapable of saying the right thing when so much is wrong, disengages from her family and heads for the kitchen. A generous stack of dirty dishes awaits her. Leaning against the counter; she rests her forehead in her hands and thinks about Doug’s message. What comes around goes around. It’s that simple. She stands upright and moves closer to the sink, turning the water on. But what if she’s unable to wait for ‘what comes around’ to circle back to him?
To the madness of her thoughts, she cringes, hot water cascading over her hands. The heat burns but feels good and she leaves them there for awhile before tackling the dishes. From the window above her sink, she can see Rosalind’s silver Mercedes gliding into the driveway across the street.
She watches her park, carry her briefcase to the front door, and key herself into the doorway; Harry, her peppery terrier wiggling wildly at the foyer. Then the door closes and her neighbor is gone.
Rosalind, a financial executive, would be better at handling Serena’s situation, she thinks. A logical thinker, she’d come up with a solution that would end simply, in black or white. In her mind, Serena begins to order the events of her problem as would Rosalind: Josh was abducted. Josh was rescued. His kidnapper ended up in the hospital. He will pay for his crime when he leaves. But what if?—her mind strays, rebelling from the careful computation. Serena, stuck in shades of grey, cannot seem to think rationally.
Using a butter knife, she begins to scrape away at the surface of a frying pan that has been soaking shamefully for two days. Watered down rice has left a starchy residue on the pan, the tackiness of which requires more than a knife’s edge. She drops the ineffective tool into a pool of suds and grabs a better one, the rough side of a sponge.
Scrubbing vigorously, she manages to smooth the pan down within minutes. There is something gratifying about conquering a soaking pan after two days and, feeling justified, she shuts down the water, despite a small stack of dirties that remain at the sink’s bottom like unwanted puppies. Paranoid that someone may be watching, her eyes dart about the kitchen,
inadvertently noticing her vibrating cell phone at the kitchen table. Drying her hands thoroughly, she takes a brisk walk toward it. The caller i.d. indicates that Detective Hearns is calling.
What now?—she wonders, heading for the basement to talk privately.
“Hello?”
“Hello, Mrs. Davis. And how are you, this evening?”
“I’m, I’m fine.” She is not fine. Her heart pounds recklessly.
“I have some news regarding Steven Roth that I thought you may be interested in knowing.”
Serena manages a grunt. “M-hmm?”
“The kidnapper has suffered a stroke today. Apparently, his heart rate shot up and the lack of oxygen led to cerebral damage. His speech has been impaired, along with function and movement to the right side of his body.
Serena presses a palm against her stomach and sits on the floor.
“The hospital is running an investigation as to the actual cause of this stroke. He had many complications…so there are a number of things that could have went wrong. But his doctor seems to believe that something unusual may have caused the severe rise in his blood pressure.”
“Oh, oh my gosh,” she says I…I don’t know what to say.”
“Well, I can tell you this much, Serena. This is not a man who will be grabbing kids any time soon.”
“How—how did you find all of this out?” she asks weakly.
“It wasn’t easy…I’ll tell you that much, especially in this day and age. The hospital is subject to a privacy law called HIPPA, making it tough to eek out any medical information from the hospital…”
Serena thinks about her phone-call to the intensive care ward. The ‘Aunt Cecilia’ line had worked like a charm. Had the receptionist been misinformed of the privacy law? Or simply too tired to care?
“So…how did you get the information?”
“Well, let’s just say that I have my connections, Mrs. Davis. When you’ve been working in the New England area as long as I have, you’re bound to know someone, you know what I mean?”
“Oh, of course,” Serena says back, standing by now, circling the air hockey table. “And…as far as his arrest goes?”
“By law, he needs to be treated for his health and re-habilitate from the stroke. But, I can assure you, Serena…his medical condition will not have any bearing on the crime committed.”
Tears streak her cheeks. “I see,” she says, hiding her horror with a serious tone.
“Looks like God had his own plan to punish this guy,” the detective says, coughing. Serena can hear her blowing smoke.
The nursing disguise, her own smaller punishment, floats through her mind. Roth’s stroke, following her visit, was completely unprecedented. And now that his speech is impaired, her secret is safe. His medical condition has become the perfect remedy for a lie that was—justified?
“You still there?”
“Wh-what? Oh yes, I’m here, Detective Hearns…just a bit shocked by the news.”
“Well, here’s another shocker for you. Apparently a woman by the name of Cecilia Roth called the intensive care ward inquiring about her nephew’s status, only a few hours prior to the incident...”
Serena gasps, sliding the phone away from her mouth.
“Despite his stroke, when asked whether or not Roth has an aunt by the name of Cecilia, he was able to indicate ‘no’ with a head nod.”
“…and?”
“And this leads the medical staff to believe that someone entered his room, Mrs. Davis. Uninvited.”
Serena draws in a deep breath and closes her eyes. She knows that guest. Yet, somehow, she feels as though she does not know her at all.
Sunday, March 28, 2010
Friday, March 26, 2010
Chapters Eight and Nine - The Hours of Change - Amy LeClaire
Chapter Eight
The highway is busy, though not miserably so, as she yields into the right lane, cutting off an oncoming driver then speeding up fast enough to reconcile the threat of road rage from behind. She flips open her cell phone, selects Kim’s name, and dials.
“Hey.”
“You’re not really going through with this, are you, Ser?”
“I just have to get it out my system, Kim. I think one confrontation will be enough to help me move on from the incident, you know what I’m saying…” she says, soaring into the fast lane.
“It’s only been a few days, Serena. You’ve gotta’ give yourself more time to move on. Like I said before, set up a few appointments with the school psychologist to make sure Josh is on track, and take things one day at a time. The jerk committed a major crime. This is so black and white. He’s not going to be freed from kidnapping a child…even if he does walk out of that hospital in one piece. There’s just no way.”
“I just can’t believe Doug trusted him, Kim,” she says back, stuck in her own mindset.
“From what you’ve told me, Ser, they went out together and snowboarded together. Doug left him for how long, five minutes?”
“Try twenty-five.”
“But Josh is back now, Ser, safe and sound. Everything worked out for you guys. I mean, God…it could have been so much worse. I think an angel must have been with Josh that night.”
“Did I tell you how he gave me a business card in the cafeteria? What a complete nutcase,” she says, noting the eighteen-wheeler to her right, a truck that’s too close. She steps on the gas and loses him, the needle of her speedometer climbing dangerously.
“Of course he’s a nutcase, Serena. Sane people don’t take other people’s kids…”
Her friend continues to ramble on but Serena remains fixed on that line.
Sane people don’t take other people’s kids. She can see Josh on his bed, sitting cross-legged, telling Roth’s side of the story.
‘I was so afraid…I thought I was going to pass out, my heart was beating really hard…” he had tapped his chest to illustrate, ‘but then he told me he has a son Steven, just like his name. But his old wife…they didn’t stay married because I think he didn’t like her anymore …well, she took Steve across the country.’ At this juncture, he had turned to Doug, “ I think that’s why he took me, Daddy—to try to have a new son.’
The thought of her child defending this man makes her gasp and cry again. She switches lanes, settles back to the middle.
“Serena? You there?”
“Yes,” she says back, sniffling. “I’m here. It tore me apart, Kim, and I just can’t stand that I was duped by him. I thought Josh was…” she squeals through her tears, “I thought he was— ”
“Don’t say it. He’s not. He’s alive and well and just as perky as he’s always been, Serena. You should have seen him playing in the driveway with Willy while waiting for the bus…and speaking of which… I’m getting him off the bus today, right?”
“Yeah.” She wipes her nose with her sleeve. “Doug will be home early today. He said no later than four…and I should be back around seven tonight.”
“Where did you tell him you’d be?”
A pause.
“Ser? Oh gosh, you didn’t tell him anything yet. How about Josh?”
Another pause.
“Oh boy.”
“I know, I’m sorry, it’s just that there was no easy way to communicate, between what I have to do with work and laundry and—”
“I got it covered, honey.”
“I’ll call Doug during his lunch break. I’m going to ask him to tell Josh that I’m helping Nana out at the nursing home today. I’ll figure out what to say about my visit today. If you could just support that, it would be a huge help. ”
“You got it, babe.”
“I love you, Kim.”
“I love you, too, sweetie. Keep me posted.”
“You got it. I’ll take Ty on Friday, ‘kay?”
“That would be great.”
They hang up and Serena flicks on the radio. He’s fine, he’s fine, he’s fine, she chants to herself. ‘Hey Jude’ is playing on Oldies 103. She blasts the song.
And anytime you feel the pain, hey Jude, refrain…don’t carry the world upon your shoulders…for well you know that it’s a fool who plays it cool, by making his world a little colder…na-na, na na, na-na, na na…hey Jude…
She cries and sings softly.
* * *
After two and a half hours of driving, she pulls into a rest area for a bathroom run, deciding, first, that her looks are not presentable for the public. She rummages through the slouched cloth make-up bag seated in the passenger seat and quickly applies a new face before pushing herself from the trusty Toyota and jogging to the front entrance.
A waft of cool air brushes her face, blowing back her hair as she swings the door open. The skirted woman diagram of the Ladies Room meets her gaze immediately and she enters alone.
Inside, a mother stands at the sink with her little girl, helping her to hand-wash. Serena pushes open a stall door, drops her jeans, and squats over the toilet, placing her pocketbook on the floor. A long stream of pee trickles into the toilet water, creating a sound that seems too loud in the company of strangers. But then the hand-dryer blares on, relieving her. Reaching for the toilet paper, Serena cannot help but see the words wet pussy written above the roll, along with a number to call.
At one moment did the vandal decide to write this?—she wonders. Was she actually feeling sexual in the confines of this stall? And what if someone actually did call the number? What would they say? Hi, my name is Jane and I read your message in the NH rest area stall. I like wet pussy, too, and I would like to get together.
How on earth could the vandal trust this person? Even worse, how could the reader trust someone desperate enough to write this in a public restroom? Disgusted, she pulls up her jeans, buttons them, and draws a red lipstick from her pocketbook. Then, using the tip as a crayon, she blots out the message, leaving behind a rich red rectangle for the next occupant to see.
One less rape in this crazy world, she thinks, washing her hands, letting them drip dry on the way back to the car.
* * *
The rest of her drive, prompted by the pleasing British voice of the GPS recording, is smooth and steady. ‘Turn left in one hundred yards,’ she directs. In her mind, Serena can hear Josh mimicking the accent from the back seat. ‘She says, yodds, not yards.’
She turns left and, finally, the Little Regional Hospital stands before her. The building is not what she had expected in an institution. The geometric rooftops, mostly triangles, remind her of gingerbread houses. The architecture is modern, forming an l-shape that stretches across a snow-covered plot of land. Even more magnificent—a cluster of snow-capped mountains sit behind the hospital.
Serena is transfixed by the mountains for a moment, cannot take her eyes off of them. Her hand floats to her lips. The mountains look the same, just as they did when Josh was missing.
She shudders to the thought, follows a sign leading to the Emergency Wing of the building. It isn’t hard to find a parking sport. She pulls into a close one, collects her pocketbook, and slams the driver’s door shut. What the hell is she doing? A horrified thought caves in on her. But it is short-lived.
Before she has a chance to change her mind, she finds herself in the building, in the elevator, and, finally, in the laundry room, fully prepared to execute her plan. The walls are painted a soft mint green and she is surrounded by people, all kinds of people.
But, right now, their faces are transient. They do not take shape in her mind. Instead, a slideshow flashes in her head…the business card handed to her in the cafeteria, his Ken doll face, sitting on the chairlift with Jim, waking up in vomit, the smell of pine trees, the smell of hot chocolate in the tent…
There is no turning back.
* * *
The nursing scrubs hang loose over her thin frame. She tightens the belt at the waist, shifts the shirt so the v-neck of the shirt is centered at her chest, and scoops her hair into a short pony-tail before pulling the wig onto her scalp. Opening the closet door, she finds a small mirror to adjust the wig so that it appears authentic. Perfect. She has a thick set of bangs and stylish black hair cut sharply to her chin.
The intensive care unit is located on the third floor. She wriggles out of the closet, heads for the elevator, and sinks nicely into her new role. The possibility of medical staff talking to her, questioning her, is very real and she must be prepared for whatever curve ball is thrown at her. A recent conversation to her sister-in-law, an intensive care nurse, had supplied her with enough information to get by.
She pushes through a double-set of doors and finds a foursome of elevators. A somber family awaits their turn and, clearly, they are in no mood to talk. The elevator door slides open and they enter.
“Three please?”
The eldest of the crowd, a distinguished-looking man, nods and pushes her number, followed by two. There is a strange energy between them as, momentarily, they are connected by the dismal aura of the hospital elevator, a moving box which does not feel the weight it bears each day. Instead, it rises and falls; opens and shuts to new faces and new health problems.
The family exits to their floor and the door snaps shut, leaving Serena alone in her ascent, her thoughts mixed in memory and madness.
I’ve never had a chance to snowboard under the lights!
I’ll go with him, honey.
I can have him back by 8:15
Instruction makes a huge difference.
The incident sweeps through her head, causing her to walk faster as she pauses to hospital room numbers, the open doors of which display images of sick people and tubes and trays of half-eaten meals. The sights are unattractive and worrisome, intensifying the urge to turn around and go home.
But she knows herself too well, knows that there will be more days when she will worry incessantly about Josh going to the bus stop. The worry will be off balance, skewed by her trauma, and the only way out is to yank at the problem’s root and confront the culprit.
The culprit’s room, number three-hundred twelve, is not hard to find. When she arrives, she takes a moment to listen to the sounds outside of his door, discerning only the low gurgling sound of the television. She squeezes her eyes shut for a moment, clenches her fists, and barges in.
He is there, his eyes half-open, a haggard version of the handsome man she met in the lodge cafeteria. His arms lay still, a pair of skis over the starched bedspread. An eggplant colored bruise stains the right side of his face and his eyelids are swollen. An intravenous tube is hooked to his wrist, a cardiac monitor to his chest.
The screen displays the pattern of his pulse, electrified green hills, hills which morph in her mind—to snowy mountains, to her struggling son. How hard had he tried to wrestle away from Roth’s muscular arms? Nausea swims through her stomach like a school of sick fish.
She swallows the feeling, presses on.
“How are we doing this afternoon, Mr. Roth.”
He lifts a hand and turns his wrist to create the ‘so-so’ signal.
“Just so-so? Hmm...one-hundred seventy over one-ten…” she reports, reading his blood pressure. “That is a bit high for a fit man like you, seems that you’re a bit stressed here.”
His breathing is labored. She sits down on a swivel stool and slides toward him. “Here…take a sip of your water.”
Lifting his head from the pillow is an obvious strain. She activates a button from the bedside and brings him to a perpendicular position; then hands him a plastic cup of water.
His lips fumble with the straw before finding a comfortable means to manage the drink. Taking a sip, he seems revived. His eyes widen slightly.
“There, there. Now you’ll feel better.”
“He cocks his head to face her.”
“Instruction makes a huge difference, you know. I train people on maintaining a healthy heart. Here…” she reaches into the large pocket of her scrubs, “take a business card. I’ll be giving lessons until ten tonight.”
His eyes spark to the terror of her words. His heart rate begins to increase as his face reads her identity. His fingers, she notes, search for the beeper so that he can call for help.
“Oh, that won’t be necessary,” she says, slapping his hand, moving the beeper out of reach. “I’m completely qualified to nurse you, just as you were to train my son on that mountain.”
The hills of the heart monitor begin to double, reflecting his racing pulse. He strains to speak, breathing heavily through each syllable, “Y-you don’t under—”
“I don’t understand?” she interrupts, inching her way closer to his moving chest. “Oh, I understand perfectly, Mr. Roth. I think, more importantly, there are some things that you may not understand about me.”
“Y-you-won’t-get-away—”
“Now that's a bit cliche, don't you think?" Her professional tone becomes darker. She gets up, stands beside the IV and begins to tug on the cord.
“Guess what, Steven…I was never here in the first place and if you live to say that I was, it’s only because patients like you, patients bleeding internally, patients fighting for their life…”she goes on, rolling the IV stand, “are often considered to be delusional.”
To the threat, the heart monitor beeps wildly, indicative of the sudden spike of his heart rate.
“Whoops….looks like my time is up here, Mr. Roth. Bye-bye now.”
The black haired nurse scurries away, only seconds before a new one arrives in room three twelve.
Chapter Nine
It is six o-clock by the time she arrives home and Doug and Josh are sitting in front of the television set eating pizza. The mess scattered across the coffee table is massive.
“Hey,” Doug says, mouth over pizza, eyes still.
“Hi Mom. How is Nana?”
Nana, the white lie. “Oh, she’s...she’s doing great. How’s that homework coming along?”
“I only had two sheets. They were wicked easy. Want a piece?” he asks, lifting a doughy piece from the box.
She shakes her head, “That’s okay…you guys eat it. I just finished a chicken sandwich on the ride home.”
Doug studies her for a moment; opens his mouth to speak then reconsiders, a commercial punctuating his thoughts. A car salesman hovers around a shiny black Ford pick-up truck. Running his fingers along the hood’s edge, he promotes an interest-free finance plan. “Yeah, sure you will,” Doug says, skeptical.
“You wish you had that truck, Dad?”
“Nope,” Doug says, his hand cupped over his son’s knee. “There are more important things than new things, you know.”
Josh touches his chin, ponders his father’s wisdom. “Yeah,” he says back, “except when you really need something….like this year my bike will probably be too old for me.”
Doug makes a dramatic expression with his eyes and, somehow, the simple gesture prompts a tickling match. Serena watches them, feeling as though she has two children, not one, then walks away. “If someone cracks a head on the furniture, I’m not responsible,” she warns.
Doug pops up. “Alright, you got me,” he says, breathless. “I gotta’ go get something for Mom.” He stuggles to stand when Josh takes one last cheap shot.
“Joshua,” Serena says sternly, “Please help clean up this mess, and head upstairs for a shower.”
He hand-irons a rumpled shirt and begins to basketball-shoot crumpled napkins into the pizza box.
Serena and Doug head for her office. Doug closes the door. Still pink-faced from wrestling; he whispers, “I can’t believe you went to see him, Serena. What did he say?”
“He couldn’t say much…he’s struggling for his life, Doug.” She makes eye contact with the back wall as the words slip out. A large picture of Josh’s ex-soccer team, posed in a pyramid, finds her gaze. Life before…
“Exactly. He’s struggling…” Doug says, bringing her back, “what comes around goes around, Serena. Let nature take its course.” With those words, he draws a stick of Blistex from his pocket and coats his lips, then the air, with the smell of lime.
There is something specious about her husband’s composure; something she can’t put her finger on, something that rattles her to no end.
“You’re defending him?” Her nose crinkles as she holds back a temper of emotion. “Let nature take its course? Is that what you were thinking when you left him by himself at the mountain?”
Doug scrunches his eyes shut. “Here we go again, the blame. Are we going to live the rest of our lives obsessing over that incident, Serena? Our kid is back! He’s fine! We won! We’ve beat the odds!”
Serena has pushed the wrong button. Doug is unable to maintain his cool—the necessary whisper—while Josh, picking up the tab, stands frozen outside of the glass doors.
“Why are you arguing about me? Everything o.k. Mom?”
“I’m fine, honey,” she says, disgusted with herself, “just a lot on my mind, that’s all.”
An irritated Doug exits the conversation and hustles up the stairs. Josh follows his father, a series of questions in tow—do you still like Mom? Are you mad at me?
Serena, feeling incapable of saying the right thing when so much is wrong, disengages from her family and heads for the kitchen. A generous stack of dirty dishes awaits her. Leaning against the counter; she rests her forehead in her hands and thinks about Doug’s message. What comes around goes around. It’s that simple. She stands upright and moves closer to the sink, turning the water on. But what if she’s unable to wait for ‘what comes around’ to circle back to Roth?
To the madness of her thoughts, she shudders, hot water cascading over her hands. The heat feels good, therapeutic, and she leaves them there, cupped at the waterfall’s bottom, before tackling the dishes.
From the window above her sink, she can see Rosalind’s silver Mercedes gliding into the driveway. She watches her neighbor park, carry her briefcase to the front door, and key herself into the doorway. Then, she catches a glimpse of Harry, the peppery terrier, wiggling wildly at the foyer before the door closes and her neighbor is gone.
Rosalind, a financial executive, would be better at handling Serena’s situation, she thinks. A logical thinker, she’d come up with a solution that would end simply, in black or white. In her mind, Serena begins to order the events of her problem as would Rosalind: Josh was abducted. Josh was rescued. His kidnapper ended up in the hospital. He will pay for his crime when he leaves. But what if?—her mind strays, rebelling from the careful computation. Serena, stuck in shades of grey, cannot seem to think rationally.
Using a butter knife, she begins to scrape away at the surface of a frying pan that has been soaking shamefully for two days. Watered down rice has left a starchy residue on the pan, the tackiness of which requires more than a knife’s edge. She drops the ineffective tool into a pool of suds and grabs a better one, the rough side of a sponge. Scrubbing vigorously, she manages to smooth the pan down within minutes. There is something gratifying about conquering a soaking pan after two days and, feeling justified, she shuts down the water, despite a small stack of dirties that remain at the sink’s bottom, unwanted puppies at the pound.
Paranoid that someone may be watching, her eyes dart about the kitchen, inadvertently noticing her vibrating cell phone at the kitchen table. Drying her hands thoroughly, she takes a brisk walk toward it. The caller i.d. indicates that Detective Hearns is calling.
What now?—she wonders, heading for the basement to talk privately.
“Hello?”
“Hello, Mrs. Davis. And how are you, this evening?”
“I’m, I’m fine.” She is not fine. Her heart is pounding recklessly.
“I have some news regarding Steven Roth that I thought you may be interested in knowing.”
Serena manages a grunt. “M-hmm?”
“The kidnapper has suffered a stroke today. Apparently, his heart rate shot up and the lack of oxygen led to cerebral damage. His speech has been impaired, along with function and movement to the right side of his body.
Serena presses a palm against her stomach and sits on the floor.
“The hospital is running an investigation as to the actual cause of this stroke. He had many complications…so there are a number of things that could have went wrong. But his doctor seems to believe that something unusual may have caused the severe rise in his blood pressure.”
“Oh, oh my gosh,” she says I…I don’t know what to say.”
“Well, I can tell you this much, Serena. This is not a man who will be grabbing kids any time soon.”
“But…” she says weakly, “his sentencing?”
“By law, he needs to be treated for his health and re-habilitate from the stroke. But, I can assure you, Serena, his medical condition will not have any bearing on the crime committed.”
“Mmm-hmm,” she says, tears falling down her cheeks.
“Looks like God had his own plan to punish this guy.”
Cell phone to ear, Serena rocks herself gently. Roth cannot speak. Her secret is safe.
“You still there?”
“Wh-what? Oh yes, I’m here, Detective Hearns…just a bit shocked by the news.”
“Well, here’s another shocker for you. Apparently a woman by the name of Cecilia Roth called the intensive care ward inquiring about her nephew’s status, only a few hours prior to the incident...”
Serena gasps, sliding the phone away from her mouth.
“Despite his stroke, when asked whether or not Roth has an aunt by the name of Cecilia, he was able to indicate ‘no’ with a head nod.”
“…and?”
“And this leads the medical staff to believe that someone entered his
room, Mrs. Davis. Uninvited.”
Serena draws in a deep breath and closes her eyes. She knows the uninvited guest. But she will not say so. At least not right now.
The highway is busy, though not miserably so, as she yields into the right lane, cutting off an oncoming driver then speeding up fast enough to reconcile the threat of road rage from behind. She flips open her cell phone, selects Kim’s name, and dials.
“Hey.”
“You’re not really going through with this, are you, Ser?”
“I just have to get it out my system, Kim. I think one confrontation will be enough to help me move on from the incident, you know what I’m saying…” she says, soaring into the fast lane.
“It’s only been a few days, Serena. You’ve gotta’ give yourself more time to move on. Like I said before, set up a few appointments with the school psychologist to make sure Josh is on track, and take things one day at a time. The jerk committed a major crime. This is so black and white. He’s not going to be freed from kidnapping a child…even if he does walk out of that hospital in one piece. There’s just no way.”
“I just can’t believe Doug trusted him, Kim,” she says back, stuck in her own mindset.
“From what you’ve told me, Ser, they went out together and snowboarded together. Doug left him for how long, five minutes?”
“Try twenty-five.”
“But Josh is back now, Ser, safe and sound. Everything worked out for you guys. I mean, God…it could have been so much worse. I think an angel must have been with Josh that night.”
“Did I tell you how he gave me a business card in the cafeteria? What a complete nutcase,” she says, noting the eighteen-wheeler to her right, a truck that’s too close. She steps on the gas and loses him, the needle of her speedometer climbing dangerously.
“Of course he’s a nutcase, Serena. Sane people don’t take other people’s kids…”
Her friend continues to ramble on but Serena remains fixed on that line.
Sane people don’t take other people’s kids. She can see Josh on his bed, sitting cross-legged, telling Roth’s side of the story.
‘I was so afraid…I thought I was going to pass out, my heart was beating really hard…” he had tapped his chest to illustrate, ‘but then he told me he has a son Steven, just like his name. But his old wife…they didn’t stay married because I think he didn’t like her anymore …well, she took Steve across the country.’ At this juncture, he had turned to Doug, “ I think that’s why he took me, Daddy—to try to have a new son.’
The thought of her child defending this man makes her gasp and cry again. She switches lanes, settles back to the middle.
“Serena? You there?”
“Yes,” she says back, sniffling. “I’m here. It tore me apart, Kim, and I just can’t stand that I was duped by him. I thought Josh was…” she squeals through her tears, “I thought he was— ”
“Don’t say it. He’s not. He’s alive and well and just as perky as he’s always been, Serena. You should have seen him playing in the driveway with Willy while waiting for the bus…and speaking of which… I’m getting him off the bus today, right?”
“Yeah.” She wipes her nose with her sleeve. “Doug will be home early today. He said no later than four…and I should be back around seven tonight.”
“Where did you tell him you’d be?”
A pause.
“Ser? Oh gosh, you didn’t tell him anything yet. How about Josh?”
Another pause.
“Oh boy.”
“I know, I’m sorry, it’s just that there was no easy way to communicate, between what I have to do with work and laundry and—”
“I got it covered, honey.”
“I’ll call Doug during his lunch break. I’m going to ask him to tell Josh that I’m helping Nana out at the nursing home today. I’ll figure out what to say about my visit today. If you could just support that, it would be a huge help. ”
“You got it, babe.”
“I love you, Kim.”
“I love you, too, sweetie. Keep me posted.”
“You got it. I’ll take Ty on Friday, ‘kay?”
“That would be great.”
They hang up and Serena flicks on the radio. He’s fine, he’s fine, he’s fine, she chants to herself. ‘Hey Jude’ is playing on Oldies 103. She blasts the song.
And anytime you feel the pain, hey Jude, refrain…don’t carry the world upon your shoulders…for well you know that it’s a fool who plays it cool, by making his world a little colder…na-na, na na, na-na, na na…hey Jude…
She cries and sings softly.
* * *
After two and a half hours of driving, she pulls into a rest area for a bathroom run, deciding, first, that her looks are not presentable for the public. She rummages through the slouched cloth make-up bag seated in the passenger seat and quickly applies a new face before pushing herself from the trusty Toyota and jogging to the front entrance.
A waft of cool air brushes her face, blowing back her hair as she swings the door open. The skirted woman diagram of the Ladies Room meets her gaze immediately and she enters alone.
Inside, a mother stands at the sink with her little girl, helping her to hand-wash. Serena pushes open a stall door, drops her jeans, and squats over the toilet, placing her pocketbook on the floor. A long stream of pee trickles into the toilet water, creating a sound that seems too loud in the company of strangers. But then the hand-dryer blares on, relieving her. Reaching for the toilet paper, Serena cannot help but see the words wet pussy written above the roll, along with a number to call.
At one moment did the vandal decide to write this?—she wonders. Was she actually feeling sexual in the confines of this stall? And what if someone actually did call the number? What would they say? Hi, my name is Jane and I read your message in the NH rest area stall. I like wet pussy, too, and I would like to get together.
How on earth could the vandal trust this person? Even worse, how could the reader trust someone desperate enough to write this in a public restroom? Disgusted, she pulls up her jeans, buttons them, and draws a red lipstick from her pocketbook. Then, using the tip as a crayon, she blots out the message, leaving behind a rich red rectangle for the next occupant to see.
One less rape in this crazy world, she thinks, washing her hands, letting them drip dry on the way back to the car.
* * *
The rest of her drive, prompted by the pleasing British voice of the GPS recording, is smooth and steady. ‘Turn left in one hundred yards,’ she directs. In her mind, Serena can hear Josh mimicking the accent from the back seat. ‘She says, yodds, not yards.’
She turns left and, finally, the Little Regional Hospital stands before her. The building is not what she had expected in an institution. The geometric rooftops, mostly triangles, remind her of gingerbread houses. The architecture is modern, forming an l-shape that stretches across a snow-covered plot of land. Even more magnificent—a cluster of snow-capped mountains sit behind the hospital.
Serena is transfixed by the mountains for a moment, cannot take her eyes off of them. Her hand floats to her lips. The mountains look the same, just as they did when Josh was missing.
She shudders to the thought, follows a sign leading to the Emergency Wing of the building. It isn’t hard to find a parking sport. She pulls into a close one, collects her pocketbook, and slams the driver’s door shut. What the hell is she doing? A horrified thought caves in on her. But it is short-lived.
Before she has a chance to change her mind, she finds herself in the building, in the elevator, and, finally, in the laundry room, fully prepared to execute her plan. The walls are painted a soft mint green and she is surrounded by people, all kinds of people.
But, right now, their faces are transient. They do not take shape in her mind. Instead, a slideshow flashes in her head…the business card handed to her in the cafeteria, his Ken doll face, sitting on the chairlift with Jim, waking up in vomit, the smell of pine trees, the smell of hot chocolate in the tent…
There is no turning back.
* * *
The nursing scrubs hang loose over her thin frame. She tightens the belt at the waist, shifts the shirt so the v-neck of the shirt is centered at her chest, and scoops her hair into a short pony-tail before pulling the wig onto her scalp. Opening the closet door, she finds a small mirror to adjust the wig so that it appears authentic. Perfect. She has a thick set of bangs and stylish black hair cut sharply to her chin.
The intensive care unit is located on the third floor. She wriggles out of the closet, heads for the elevator, and sinks nicely into her new role. The possibility of medical staff talking to her, questioning her, is very real and she must be prepared for whatever curve ball is thrown at her. A recent conversation to her sister-in-law, an intensive care nurse, had supplied her with enough information to get by.
She pushes through a double-set of doors and finds a foursome of elevators. A somber family awaits their turn and, clearly, they are in no mood to talk. The elevator door slides open and they enter.
“Three please?”
The eldest of the crowd, a distinguished-looking man, nods and pushes her number, followed by two. There is a strange energy between them as, momentarily, they are connected by the dismal aura of the hospital elevator, a moving box which does not feel the weight it bears each day. Instead, it rises and falls; opens and shuts to new faces and new health problems.
The family exits to their floor and the door snaps shut, leaving Serena alone in her ascent, her thoughts mixed in memory and madness.
I’ve never had a chance to snowboard under the lights!
I’ll go with him, honey.
I can have him back by 8:15
Instruction makes a huge difference.
The incident sweeps through her head, causing her to walk faster as she pauses to hospital room numbers, the open doors of which display images of sick people and tubes and trays of half-eaten meals. The sights are unattractive and worrisome, intensifying the urge to turn around and go home.
But she knows herself too well, knows that there will be more days when she will worry incessantly about Josh going to the bus stop. The worry will be off balance, skewed by her trauma, and the only way out is to yank at the problem’s root and confront the culprit.
The culprit’s room, number three-hundred twelve, is not hard to find. When she arrives, she takes a moment to listen to the sounds outside of his door, discerning only the low gurgling sound of the television. She squeezes her eyes shut for a moment, clenches her fists, and barges in.
He is there, his eyes half-open, a haggard version of the handsome man she met in the lodge cafeteria. His arms lay still, a pair of skis over the starched bedspread. An eggplant colored bruise stains the right side of his face and his eyelids are swollen. An intravenous tube is hooked to his wrist, a cardiac monitor to his chest.
The screen displays the pattern of his pulse, electrified green hills, hills which morph in her mind—to snowy mountains, to her struggling son. How hard had he tried to wrestle away from Roth’s muscular arms? Nausea swims through her stomach like a school of sick fish.
She swallows the feeling, presses on.
“How are we doing this afternoon, Mr. Roth.”
He lifts a hand and turns his wrist to create the ‘so-so’ signal.
“Just so-so? Hmm...one-hundred seventy over one-ten…” she reports, reading his blood pressure. “That is a bit high for a fit man like you, seems that you’re a bit stressed here.”
His breathing is labored. She sits down on a swivel stool and slides toward him. “Here…take a sip of your water.”
Lifting his head from the pillow is an obvious strain. She activates a button from the bedside and brings him to a perpendicular position; then hands him a plastic cup of water.
His lips fumble with the straw before finding a comfortable means to manage the drink. Taking a sip, he seems revived. His eyes widen slightly.
“There, there. Now you’ll feel better.”
“He cocks his head to face her.”
“Instruction makes a huge difference, you know. I train people on maintaining a healthy heart. Here…” she reaches into the large pocket of her scrubs, “take a business card. I’ll be giving lessons until ten tonight.”
His eyes spark to the terror of her words. His heart rate begins to increase as his face reads her identity. His fingers, she notes, search for the beeper so that he can call for help.
“Oh, that won’t be necessary,” she says, slapping his hand, moving the beeper out of reach. “I’m completely qualified to nurse you, just as you were to train my son on that mountain.”
The hills of the heart monitor begin to double, reflecting his racing pulse. He strains to speak, breathing heavily through each syllable, “Y-you don’t under—”
“I don’t understand?” she interrupts, inching her way closer to his moving chest. “Oh, I understand perfectly, Mr. Roth. I think, more importantly, there are some things that you may not understand about me.”
“Y-you-won’t-get-away—”
“Now that's a bit cliche, don't you think?" Her professional tone becomes darker. She gets up, stands beside the IV and begins to tug on the cord.
“Guess what, Steven…I was never here in the first place and if you live to say that I was, it’s only because patients like you, patients bleeding internally, patients fighting for their life…”she goes on, rolling the IV stand, “are often considered to be delusional.”
To the threat, the heart monitor beeps wildly, indicative of the sudden spike of his heart rate.
“Whoops….looks like my time is up here, Mr. Roth. Bye-bye now.”
The black haired nurse scurries away, only seconds before a new one arrives in room three twelve.
Chapter Nine
It is six o-clock by the time she arrives home and Doug and Josh are sitting in front of the television set eating pizza. The mess scattered across the coffee table is massive.
“Hey,” Doug says, mouth over pizza, eyes still.
“Hi Mom. How is Nana?”
Nana, the white lie. “Oh, she’s...she’s doing great. How’s that homework coming along?”
“I only had two sheets. They were wicked easy. Want a piece?” he asks, lifting a doughy piece from the box.
She shakes her head, “That’s okay…you guys eat it. I just finished a chicken sandwich on the ride home.”
Doug studies her for a moment; opens his mouth to speak then reconsiders, a commercial punctuating his thoughts. A car salesman hovers around a shiny black Ford pick-up truck. Running his fingers along the hood’s edge, he promotes an interest-free finance plan. “Yeah, sure you will,” Doug says, skeptical.
“You wish you had that truck, Dad?”
“Nope,” Doug says, his hand cupped over his son’s knee. “There are more important things than new things, you know.”
Josh touches his chin, ponders his father’s wisdom. “Yeah,” he says back, “except when you really need something….like this year my bike will probably be too old for me.”
Doug makes a dramatic expression with his eyes and, somehow, the simple gesture prompts a tickling match. Serena watches them, feeling as though she has two children, not one, then walks away. “If someone cracks a head on the furniture, I’m not responsible,” she warns.
Doug pops up. “Alright, you got me,” he says, breathless. “I gotta’ go get something for Mom.” He stuggles to stand when Josh takes one last cheap shot.
“Joshua,” Serena says sternly, “Please help clean up this mess, and head upstairs for a shower.”
He hand-irons a rumpled shirt and begins to basketball-shoot crumpled napkins into the pizza box.
Serena and Doug head for her office. Doug closes the door. Still pink-faced from wrestling; he whispers, “I can’t believe you went to see him, Serena. What did he say?”
“He couldn’t say much…he’s struggling for his life, Doug.” She makes eye contact with the back wall as the words slip out. A large picture of Josh’s ex-soccer team, posed in a pyramid, finds her gaze. Life before…
“Exactly. He’s struggling…” Doug says, bringing her back, “what comes around goes around, Serena. Let nature take its course.” With those words, he draws a stick of Blistex from his pocket and coats his lips, then the air, with the smell of lime.
There is something specious about her husband’s composure; something she can’t put her finger on, something that rattles her to no end.
“You’re defending him?” Her nose crinkles as she holds back a temper of emotion. “Let nature take its course? Is that what you were thinking when you left him by himself at the mountain?”
Doug scrunches his eyes shut. “Here we go again, the blame. Are we going to live the rest of our lives obsessing over that incident, Serena? Our kid is back! He’s fine! We won! We’ve beat the odds!”
Serena has pushed the wrong button. Doug is unable to maintain his cool—the necessary whisper—while Josh, picking up the tab, stands frozen outside of the glass doors.
“Why are you arguing about me? Everything o.k. Mom?”
“I’m fine, honey,” she says, disgusted with herself, “just a lot on my mind, that’s all.”
An irritated Doug exits the conversation and hustles up the stairs. Josh follows his father, a series of questions in tow—do you still like Mom? Are you mad at me?
Serena, feeling incapable of saying the right thing when so much is wrong, disengages from her family and heads for the kitchen. A generous stack of dirty dishes awaits her. Leaning against the counter; she rests her forehead in her hands and thinks about Doug’s message. What comes around goes around. It’s that simple. She stands upright and moves closer to the sink, turning the water on. But what if she’s unable to wait for ‘what comes around’ to circle back to Roth?
To the madness of her thoughts, she shudders, hot water cascading over her hands. The heat feels good, therapeutic, and she leaves them there, cupped at the waterfall’s bottom, before tackling the dishes.
From the window above her sink, she can see Rosalind’s silver Mercedes gliding into the driveway. She watches her neighbor park, carry her briefcase to the front door, and key herself into the doorway. Then, she catches a glimpse of Harry, the peppery terrier, wiggling wildly at the foyer before the door closes and her neighbor is gone.
Rosalind, a financial executive, would be better at handling Serena’s situation, she thinks. A logical thinker, she’d come up with a solution that would end simply, in black or white. In her mind, Serena begins to order the events of her problem as would Rosalind: Josh was abducted. Josh was rescued. His kidnapper ended up in the hospital. He will pay for his crime when he leaves. But what if?—her mind strays, rebelling from the careful computation. Serena, stuck in shades of grey, cannot seem to think rationally.
Using a butter knife, she begins to scrape away at the surface of a frying pan that has been soaking shamefully for two days. Watered down rice has left a starchy residue on the pan, the tackiness of which requires more than a knife’s edge. She drops the ineffective tool into a pool of suds and grabs a better one, the rough side of a sponge. Scrubbing vigorously, she manages to smooth the pan down within minutes. There is something gratifying about conquering a soaking pan after two days and, feeling justified, she shuts down the water, despite a small stack of dirties that remain at the sink’s bottom, unwanted puppies at the pound.
Paranoid that someone may be watching, her eyes dart about the kitchen, inadvertently noticing her vibrating cell phone at the kitchen table. Drying her hands thoroughly, she takes a brisk walk toward it. The caller i.d. indicates that Detective Hearns is calling.
What now?—she wonders, heading for the basement to talk privately.
“Hello?”
“Hello, Mrs. Davis. And how are you, this evening?”
“I’m, I’m fine.” She is not fine. Her heart is pounding recklessly.
“I have some news regarding Steven Roth that I thought you may be interested in knowing.”
Serena manages a grunt. “M-hmm?”
“The kidnapper has suffered a stroke today. Apparently, his heart rate shot up and the lack of oxygen led to cerebral damage. His speech has been impaired, along with function and movement to the right side of his body.
Serena presses a palm against her stomach and sits on the floor.
“The hospital is running an investigation as to the actual cause of this stroke. He had many complications…so there are a number of things that could have went wrong. But his doctor seems to believe that something unusual may have caused the severe rise in his blood pressure.”
“Oh, oh my gosh,” she says I…I don’t know what to say.”
“Well, I can tell you this much, Serena. This is not a man who will be grabbing kids any time soon.”
“But…” she says weakly, “his sentencing?”
“By law, he needs to be treated for his health and re-habilitate from the stroke. But, I can assure you, Serena, his medical condition will not have any bearing on the crime committed.”
“Mmm-hmm,” she says, tears falling down her cheeks.
“Looks like God had his own plan to punish this guy.”
Cell phone to ear, Serena rocks herself gently. Roth cannot speak. Her secret is safe.
“You still there?”
“Wh-what? Oh yes, I’m here, Detective Hearns…just a bit shocked by the news.”
“Well, here’s another shocker for you. Apparently a woman by the name of Cecilia Roth called the intensive care ward inquiring about her nephew’s status, only a few hours prior to the incident...”
Serena gasps, sliding the phone away from her mouth.
“Despite his stroke, when asked whether or not Roth has an aunt by the name of Cecilia, he was able to indicate ‘no’ with a head nod.”
“…and?”
“And this leads the medical staff to believe that someone entered his
room, Mrs. Davis. Uninvited.”
Serena draws in a deep breath and closes her eyes. She knows the uninvited guest. But she will not say so. At least not right now.
Monday, March 22, 2010
My Petty Pet-Peeves
Every now and then, I crave the opportunity to let off some steam, to clear the air so to speak. When issues float around in my head long enough, eventually, I'll find a way to write about them. So—in taking a night off from my novel—I've decided to write about my pettiest of pet peeves. As you scroll down, please don’t feel that you have to agree…and do bring your sense of humor while you read. Remember, there’s nothing like a dose of satire when it comes to the small stuff. I’m not sweating it, just writing it. No offense, it's just what I do. Here goes…
1. Why does every single business need to harass you to apply for a Rewards Card? What happened to the days of keeping loyal customers by keeping prices reasonable? I’m just saying…
2. Along the same lines as the above, why does every coupon received have to expire in an amount of time that is mockingly convenient for the business owner. And...taking a survey to report on ‘how well the service was’ isn’t worth the buck back. With my luck, the buck is probably some kind of rebate in disguise that has more fine print than O.J’s DNA test.
3. Why do restaurant hosts (and esses) never seem to realize how obvious it is when they try and pawn my family off at the worst table by the door when there are a roomful of desirable seats available? When they ask: Is this alright?—I’m inclined to say back, “Why thank you. I’ve always wanted to explore the facial hairs of every single visitor while I munch my salad.
4. Why do PTO moms constantly feel the need to convey that they are volunteering more time than Mother Theresa and that the rest of us don’t give a rat’s ass. News Flash: We do care about our children. But if we have to attend one more pumpkinfest to raise money or purchase one more bag of bulbs, we’re going to start drinking before five o’clock. Solution: Tell us what you need for your budget, and we will write out a check.
5. Why do moms feel that their child needs to have the perfect teacher in order for Einstein-Eddy to be challenged? News Flash: Bright-minded children will get what they need without having the smartest teacher in the Northeast.
6. Why do men need more credit than a Visa card when they complete a single chore of which women do on a multiple basis, then act as though they’d need to quit their jobs in order to manage what working women do daily. I’m not convinced that all bachelors are unemployed. They simply endure messes or hire a maid.
7. Why are cell phones no longer for talking?
8. Why does every parent have to complain about how crazy their life is when they are choosing a crazy lifestyle? News Flash: Two-year old Tommy will be fine without the violin lessons. He’s got four other activities stacked for the week.
9. CHILDREN NEED BETTER NUTRITION THAN NUGGETS AND FRIES! Forgo on driving Johnny to his private photography lesson and please, oh please….cook the way your grandmother would!
10. Why does technology never work when you follow every-bloody-direction and, accentuating that point, why do the technical people of the world always leave out ‘one ingredient’ when they try and help us. Control? I'm suspicious.
Whew, I'm feeling better already - refreshed, renewed, and ready to look the pettiest of peeves straight in the eye, next time I'm faced with one.
Now it's your turn: Tell me your pettiest pet-peeve. When you post, type in your name under the URL profile and ignore the prompts that refuse you (the missing ‘ingredient’ of my blog page). Just hit post twice and you’re good to go!
1. Why does every single business need to harass you to apply for a Rewards Card? What happened to the days of keeping loyal customers by keeping prices reasonable? I’m just saying…
2. Along the same lines as the above, why does every coupon received have to expire in an amount of time that is mockingly convenient for the business owner. And...taking a survey to report on ‘how well the service was’ isn’t worth the buck back. With my luck, the buck is probably some kind of rebate in disguise that has more fine print than O.J’s DNA test.
3. Why do restaurant hosts (and esses) never seem to realize how obvious it is when they try and pawn my family off at the worst table by the door when there are a roomful of desirable seats available? When they ask: Is this alright?—I’m inclined to say back, “Why thank you. I’ve always wanted to explore the facial hairs of every single visitor while I munch my salad.
4. Why do PTO moms constantly feel the need to convey that they are volunteering more time than Mother Theresa and that the rest of us don’t give a rat’s ass. News Flash: We do care about our children. But if we have to attend one more pumpkinfest to raise money or purchase one more bag of bulbs, we’re going to start drinking before five o’clock. Solution: Tell us what you need for your budget, and we will write out a check.
5. Why do moms feel that their child needs to have the perfect teacher in order for Einstein-Eddy to be challenged? News Flash: Bright-minded children will get what they need without having the smartest teacher in the Northeast.
6. Why do men need more credit than a Visa card when they complete a single chore of which women do on a multiple basis, then act as though they’d need to quit their jobs in order to manage what working women do daily. I’m not convinced that all bachelors are unemployed. They simply endure messes or hire a maid.
7. Why are cell phones no longer for talking?
8. Why does every parent have to complain about how crazy their life is when they are choosing a crazy lifestyle? News Flash: Two-year old Tommy will be fine without the violin lessons. He’s got four other activities stacked for the week.
9. CHILDREN NEED BETTER NUTRITION THAN NUGGETS AND FRIES! Forgo on driving Johnny to his private photography lesson and please, oh please….cook the way your grandmother would!
10. Why does technology never work when you follow every-bloody-direction and, accentuating that point, why do the technical people of the world always leave out ‘one ingredient’ when they try and help us. Control? I'm suspicious.
Whew, I'm feeling better already - refreshed, renewed, and ready to look the pettiest of peeves straight in the eye, next time I'm faced with one.
Now it's your turn: Tell me your pettiest pet-peeve. When you post, type in your name under the URL profile and ignore the prompts that refuse you (the missing ‘ingredient’ of my blog page). Just hit post twice and you’re good to go!
Saturday, March 20, 2010
Chapters Seven and Eight - The Hours of Change
Chapter Seven
It is a cloudy Wednesday morning, five days following Josh’s kidnapping. Serena’s kitchen, chilled by December’s night air, feels different, almost as though aware that something sinister has happened while the family was gone.
Tightening her robe, Serena bends to the thermostat to turn the heat up while Doug enters the room in a tan blazer and faded pair of jeans. Being a sixth grade male teacher, Doug can get away with wearing jeans to work. The kids love him. The principal loves him. His diplomatic ability to work well with people, to see the other side, is contagious and Serena, still un-showered, feels inadequate to him suddenly. Her soft Swedish looks do nothing for her disposition this morning.
“Taking a sick day?” he asks, helping himself to the first cup of coffee.
She meanders to Josh’s vitamins at the counter, unscrews the cap of a multi. “I’m taking a personal day. I have a few things to take care of.”
At the coffee maker, Doug pauses to the response and Serena can see that, in his quiet gaze, he knows the possibilities that lie beneath the words. He rips open a sugar packet and Josh arrives, his energy derailing troubled thoughts. “Hey Champ.”
“Hey Dad,” he answers, climbing onto the breakfast stool. His hair is matted to one side and he is wearing a rugby shirt buttoned high at the neck. “You’re not being a teacher today, Mom?”
She hands him his vitamin, followed by a glass of juice. “I’m taking one of my personal days, honey.”
He gulps down a sip. Next, she knows, he will spin himself around and prompt a chain reaction: the chair’s back will knock the counter’s edge and chafe away at the vinyl, causing Doug’s blood pressure to spike because the stool costs money.
Unbeknownst to his colleagues; Doug can be the opposite of calm. One time, after opening a loosely capped bottle of salad dressing, he got up with his oiled shirt and left the table, fired up as though someone had played a dirty trick on him. Josh had followed him into his office with a sponge while Serena suggested soaking the shirt in warm water.
This morning is different.
Josh does not spin around and Doug does not sweat the small stuff.
“What’s a personal day, Mom?”
Doug answers from his new position at the toaster. “The school understands that we all need days off once in awhile, just to get personal things done….so they work a few days into our contract. That way we still get paid.”
“How come kids don’t get personal days?” Josh asks.
“Kids…” Serena cuts in, “have many days off. You have the summers, school vacations, snow days—”
“Yeah, but you guys are teachers, so you have those days off, too,” he interrupts, his logic undeniable.
Doug and Serena exchange a smile and the pop tarts spring up with impeccable timing. Doug plucks out a hot one, slaps it onto a paper towel, and hands it to Josh. “Here you go, pal, only thirty grams of sugar.”
“Thanks, Dad. You have one for Mom?”
“Oh, I’m good, honey,” she says, “I’m just having a grapefruit today.”
“You don’t like too much sugar, right Mom?”
She looks at her son, crumbs already dotting his lips.
“Well, I like a little bit of sugar…but the grapefruit is enough for me. Would you like some strawberries?”
“How about orange slices?”
“You got it.”
She rummages through the refrigerator fruit drawer and Doug, from behind, zooms in for a peck at her neck, his half-eaten tart dangling from his bandaged hand. “I have to run. We’re conferencing,” he says, enunciating the words with sarcasm, “on the new reading program.”
“Oh, I’m sure you’ll come to a decision sometime before the ball drops,” she jokes, handing him his lunch while setting two oranges down at the counter.
Doug makes his way to Josh and offers his son a bear hug before shuffling down the basement stairs, leaving behind the scent of his cologne. Already, he is missed.
“You comin’ home early today!” Josh yells down the staircase.
“Definitely!” Doug hollers back, adding, “Floor hockey re-match!”
“But you only have one good hand, Daddy!”
“Then I’ll just have to cream you, one-handed!”
Josh grins and splits his pop tart into more pieces before attacking the orange wedges.
“The problem with these oranges,” he says, showing his teeth like an angry dog, “is that the pulp gets stuck in my teeth.”
“How about you give your teeth another quick brush, then grab your silent reading book upstairs while you’re at it,” she nods back while washing dishes.
“What time is it? I don’t want to miss the bus.”
“You have plenty of time, Josh. It’s only 7:40.”
He scurries upstairs. Serena grabs a moment to think. The number to the hospital, she needs the number, intensive care. She rubs her hands dry on a dishrag and snaps open the junk drawer, deciding instantly that the chaos is too much to bear in searching the phonebook. The internet will be quicker.
Rushing over to the kitchen table, she presses open her laptop screen, turns on the computer, and taps her foot to the eternal ‘booting up’ process.
The first screen, a tropical ocean, springs to life and she begins to sign in, entering her password wrong the first time. She proceeds with a second try and, finally, she is able to navigate to the web page. She moves her cursor to the tiny window and types in Franconia Notch, New Hampshire, Hospital Intensive Care Units. Go.
Instantly, she is bombarded by information about lost hikers, accidents, and other tragedies. Then, scrolling down the page, she finds the name: Littleton Regional Hospital.
Josh is back.
“I got my book, Mom…and a chapstick,” he adds, revealing the stick, turning it up too high.
Next, she watches him unzip a small pouch at his backpack, place the chapstick inside, and prepare himself for the bus stop. Josh is the same. How can it be?
She is suspicious; worried about the sameness of Josh, despite all that he has endured. She and Doug have already sat down to discuss his feelings about what happened. Shockingly, he had somehow related to Roth’s insanity, even shared a story about the kidnapper’s divorce with his ex-wife.
It had all seemed too easy. Was he trapped in some kind of a denial?
“Josh…?” she asks tentatively.
“Yeah, mom?”
“Are you—I mean, did you—did you pack your homework?” she asks, changing the course of her question.
“I always pack it up at night…” he says, giving the backpack a final zip. “You know that, Mom.”
“Oh, what was I thinking,” she says, shaking her head. “It’s freezing out. Let’s go grab a hat and gloves for the bus stop.”
“I’m going to Tyler’s today.”
Tyler lives only two houses away, yet a jolt of fire burns her insides to the thought of him walking alone. “You’re going to Tyler’s?”
“Tyler’s—you know, the kid you knew since he was in Kim’s belly, the kid whose house is right in front of the bus stop.” The facetious tone is both daunting and appropriate.
“Hey wise guy,” she says, grabbing his gear from a basket on the floor beside the front door. “Tell Mr. Tyler that I said hello.”
He pulls a Red Sox hat over his head and flashes a wide grin. “Have a good personal day, Mom.”
She kisses the wool flap of his hat and shuts the door. Then, racing to the nearest window, she watches him walk to Tyler’s, his backpack weighing him down slightly. He passes the stop sign, then the Halloways house, until there is a small section of street where he disappears from her view.
From the deck door she will be able to see him better. She scurries to that door to await his appearance in Kim’s driveway.
He does not arrive. Her heart pounds. She waits another few seconds. An intruder enters her mind, a strange car. She is about to call Kim when the spaces between the shrubs become mottled with Joshua’s moving body.
He is there, safely there.
Hastening to finish her task with the hospital number; she grabs the cordless phone and accesses the hospital number, reading and dialing simultaneously. An automated voice lists options for her to follow. She waits for the ‘intensive care’ option. Four. She pushes the number and a person answers immediately.
“Intensive care, how may I help you?”
“Hi. My name is Cecilia Roth, great aunt of Mr. Steven Roth, a patient on your floor. Would you mind telling me of his status? I want to take a ride in to see my nephew but want to be sure it’s o.k with the staff and doctors first.”
“Can you hold, please?”
“No problem.”
The sound of classical music plays briefly.
“Hi. Thank you for holding. I’m happy to say that your nephew has made some fine progress. His condition has been changed from critical to fair.
Visiting hours are from one to eight p.m. When were you thinking of coming in?”
A wave of panic, of anger, consumes her. “Oh…that’s great news. Let me talk to my husband about making the trip and I’ll call you back.”
“Certainly, Mrs. Roth. Should I tell Steven to expect you as a visitor?”
“Ahh….actually, if it’s alright with you, I’d like to surprise my dear nephew…he’s been through an awful lot. I’d like to pick up a present for him at the gift shop before visiting. What are the hours there?”
“The gift shop is open from ten o’clock to eight p.m., Mrs. Roth.”
“Oh, perfect. Thank you.”
“Have a good day, now.”
She hangs up, her mind frozen to the devilish vision of a recovering kidnapper, the same one who took her son.
Chapter Eight
The highway is busy, though not miserably so, as she yields into the right lane, cutting off an oncoming driver then speeding up fast enough to reconcile the threat of road rage from behind. She flips open her cell phone, selects Kim’s name, and dials.
“Hey.”
“You’re not really going through with this, are you, Ser?”
“I just have to get it out my system, Kim. I think one confrontation will be enough to help me move on from the incident, you know what I’m saying…” she says, soaring into the fast lane.
“It’s only been a few days, Serena. You’ve gotta’ give yourself more time to move on. Like I said before, set up a few appointments with the school psychologist to make sure Josh is on track, and take things one day at a time. The jerk committed a major crime. This is so black and white. He’s not going to be freed from kidnapping a child…even if he does walk out of that hospital in one piece. There’s just no way.”
“I just can’t believe Doug trusted him, Kim,” she says back, stuck in her own mindset.
“From what you’ve told me, Ser, they went out together and snowboarded together. Doug left him for how long, five minutes?”
“Try twenty-five.”
“But Josh is back now, Ser, safe and sound. Everything worked out for you guys. I mean, God…it could have been so much worse. I think an angel must have been with Josh that night.”
“Did I tell you how he gave me a business card in the cafeteria? What a complete nutcase,” she says, noting the eighteen-wheeler to her right, a truck that’s too close. She steps on the gas and loses him, the needle of her speedometer climbing dangerously.
“Of course he’s a nutcase, Serena. Sane people don’t take other people’s kids…”
Her friend continues to ramble on but Serena remains fixed on that line.
Sane people don’t take other people’s kids. She can see Josh on his bed, sitting cross-legged, telling Roth’s side of the story. ‘I was so afraid…I thought I was going to pass out, my heart was beating really hard…” he had tapped his chest to illustrate, ‘but then he told me he has a son Steven, just like his name. But his old wife…they didn’t stay married because I think he didn’t like her anymore …well, she took Steve across the country.’
At this juncture, he had turned to Doug, “ I think that’s why he took me, Daddy—to try to have a new son.’
The thought of her child defending this man makes her gasp and cry again. She switches lanes, settles back to the middle.
“Serena? You there?”
“Yes,” she says back, sniffling. “I’m here. It tore me apart, Kim, and I just can’t stand that I was duped by him. I thought Josh was…” she squeals through her tears, “I thought he was— ”
“Don’t say it. He’s not. He’s alive and well and just as perky as he’s always been, Serena. You should have seen him playing in the driveway with Willy while waiting for the bus…and speaking of which… I’m getting
him off the bus today, right?”
“Yeah.” She wipes her nose with her sleeve. “Doug will be home early today. He said no later than four…and I should be back around seven tonight.”
“Where did you tell him you’d be?”
A pause.
“Ser? Oh gosh, you didn’t tell him anything yet. How about Josh?”
Another pause.
“Oh boy.”
“I know, I’m sorry, it’s just that there was no easy way to communicate, between what I have to do with work and laundry and—”
“I got it covered, honey.”
“I’ll call Doug during his lunch break. I’m going to ask him to tell Josh that I’m helping Nana out at the nursing home today. I’ll figure out what to say about my visit today. If you could just support that, it would be a huge help. ”
“You got it, babe.”
“I love you, Kim.”
“I love you, too, sweetie. Keep me posted.”
“You got it. I’ll take Ty on Friday, ‘kay?”
“That would be great.”
They hang up and Serena flicks on the radio. He’s fine, he’s fine, he’s fine, she chants to herself. ‘Hey Jude’ is playing on Oldies 103. She blasts the song.
And anytime you feel the pain, hey Jude, refrain…don’t carry the world upon your shoulders…for well you know that it’s a fool who plays it cool, by making his world a little colder…na-na, na na, na-na, na na…hey Jude…
She cries and sings softly.
* * *
After two and a half hours of driving, she pulls into a rest area for a bathroom run, deciding, first, that her looks are not presentable for the public. She rummages through the slouched cloth make-up bag seated in the passenger seat and quickly applies a new face before pushing herself from the trusty Toyota and jogging to the front entrance.
A waft of cool air brushes her face, blowing back her hair as she swings the door open. The skirted woman diagram of the Ladies Room meets her gaze immediately and she enters alone.
Inside, a mother stands at the sink with her little girl, helping her to hand-wash. Serena pushes open a stall door, drops her jeans, and squats over the toilet, placing her pocketbook on the floor. A long stream of pee trickles into the toilet water, creating a sound that seems too loud in the company of strangers. But then the hand-dryer blares on, relieving her.
Reaching for the toilet paper, Serena cannot help but see the words wet pussy written above the roll, along with a number to call.
At one moment did the vandal decide to write this?—she wonders. Was she actually feeling sexual in the confines of this stall? And what if someone actually did call the number? What would they say? Hi, my name is Jane and I read your message in the NH rest area stall. I like wet pussy, too, and I would like to get together.
How on earth could the vandal trust this person? Even worse, how could the reader trust someone desperate enough to write this in a public restroom? Disgusted, she pulls up her jeans, buttons them, and draws a red lipstick from her pocketbook. Then, using the tip as a crayon, she blots out the message, leaving behind a rich red rectangle for the next occupant to see.
One less rape in this crazy world, she thinks, washing her hands, letting them drip dry on the way back to the car.
* * *
The rest of her drive, prompted by the pleasing British voice of the GPS recording, is smooth and steady. ‘Turn left in one hundred yards,’ she directs. In her mind, Serena can hear Josh mimicking the accent from the back seat. ‘She says, yodds, not yards.’
She turns left and, finally, the Little Regional Hospital stands before her. The building is not what she had expected in an institution. The geometric rooftops, mostly triangles, remind her of gingerbread houses. The architecture is modern, forming an l-shape that stretches across a snow-covered plot of land. Even more magnificent—a cluster of snow-capped mountains sit behind the hospital.
Serena is transfixed by the mountains for a moment, cannot take her eyes off of them. Her hand floats to her lips. The mountains look the same, just as they did when Josh was missing.
She shudders to the thought, follows a sign leading to the Emergency Wing of the building. It isn’t hard to find a parking sport. She pulls into a close one, collects her pocketbook, and slams the driver’s door shut.
What the hell is she doing? A horrified thought caves in on her. But it is short-lived.
Before she has a chance to change her mind, she finds herself in the building, in the elevator, and, finally, in the laundry room, fully prepared to execute her plan. The walls are painted robin-egg blue and she is surrounded by people, all kinds of people. But, right now, their faces are transient. They do not take shape in her mind.
Instead, a slideshow flashes in her head…the business card handed to her in the cafeteria, his Ken doll face, sitting on the chairlift with Jim, waking up in vomit, the smell of pine trees, the smell of hot chocolate in the tent…
There is no turning back.
* * *
The nursing scrubs hang loose over her thin frame. She tightens the belt at the waist, shifts the shirt so the v-neck of the shirt is centered at her chest, and scoops her hair into a short pony-tail before pulling the wig onto her scalp. Opening the closet door, she finds a small mirror to adjust the wig so that it appears authentic. Perfect. She has a thick set of bangs and stylish black hair cut sharply to her chin.
The intensive care unit is located on the third floor. She wriggles out of the closet, heads for the elevator, and sinks nicely into her new role. The possibility of medical staff talking to her, questioning her, is very real and she must be prepared for whatever curve ball is thrown at her. A recent conversation to her sister-in-law, an intensive care nurse, had supplied her with enough information to get by.
She pushes through a double-set of doors and finds a foursome of elevators. A somber family awaits their turn and, clearly, they are in no mood to talk. The elevator door slides open and they enter.
“Three please?”
The eldest of the crowd, a distinguished-looking man, nods and pushes her number, followed by two. There is a strange energy between them as, momentarily, they are connected by the dismal aura of the hospital elevator, a moving box which does not feel the weight it bears each day.
Instead, it rises and falls; opens and shuts to new faces and new health problems.
The family exits to their floor and the door snaps shut, leaving Serena alone in her ascent, her thoughts mixed in memory and madness.
I’ve never had a chance to snowboard under the lights!
I’ll go with him, honey.
I can have him back by 8:15
Instruction makes a huge difference.
The incident sweeps through her head, causing her to walk faster as she pauses to hospital room numbers, the open doors of which display images of sick people and tubes and trays of half-eaten meals. The sights are unattractive and worrisome, intensifying the urge to turn around and go home.
But she knows herself too well, knows that there will be more days when she will worry incessantly about Josh going to the bus stop. The worry will be off balance, skewed by her trauma, and the only way out is to yank at the problem’s root and confront the culprit.
The culprit’s room, number three-hundred twelve, is not hard to find. When she arrives, she takes a moment to listen to the sounds outside of his door, discerning only the low gurgling sound of the television. She squeezes her eyes shut for a moment, clenches her fists, and barges in.
He is there, his eyes half-open, a haggard version of the handsome man she met in the lodge cafeteria. His arms lay still, a pair of skis over the starched bedspread. An eggplant colored bruise stains the right side of his face and his eyelids are swollen. An intravenous tube is hooked to his wrist, a cardiac monitor to his chest.
The screen displays the pattern of his pulse, electrified green hills, hills which morph in her mind—to snowy mountains, to her struggling son. How hard had he tried to wrestle away from Roth’s muscular arms? Nausea swims through her stomach like a school of sick fish.
She swallows the feeling, presses on.
“How are we doing this afternoon, Mr. Roth.”
He lifts a hand and turns his wrist to create the ‘so-so’ signal.
“Just so-so? Hmm...one-hundred seventy over one-ten…” she reports, reading his blood pressure. “That is a bit high for a fit man like you, seems that you’re a bit stressed here.”
His breathing is labored. She sits down on a swivel stool and slides toward him. “Here…take a sip of your water.”
Lifting his head from the pillow is an obvious strain. She activates a button from the bedside and brings him to a perpendicular position; then hands him a plastic cup of water.
His lips fumble with the straw before finding a comfortable means to manage the drink. Taking a sip, he seems revived. His eyes widen slightly.
“There, there. Now you’ll feel better.”
“He cocks his head to face her.”
“Instruction makes a huge difference, you know. I train people on maintaining a healthy heart. Here…” she reaches into the large pocket of her scrubs, “take a business card. I’ll be giving lessons until ten tonight.”
His eyes spark to the terror of her words. His heart rate begins to increase as his face reads her identity. His fingers, she notes, search for the beeper so that he can call for help.
“Oh, that won’t be necessary,” she says, slapping his hand, moving the beeper out of reach. “I’m completely qualified to nurse you, just as you were to train my son on that mountain.”
The hills of the heart monitor begin to double, reflecting his racing pulse. He strains to speak, breathing heavily through each syllable, “Y-you don’t under—”
“I don’t understand?” she interrupts, inching her way closer to his face. “Oh, I understand perfectly, Mr. Roth. I think, more importantly, there are some things that you may not understand about me.”
“Y-you-won’t-get-away—”
“Won’t get away with this?” Her professional tone has slipped into a sharper, darker one. She gets up, stands beside the IV and begins to tug on the cord. “Guess what, Steven…I was never here in the first place and if you live to say that I was, it’s only because patients like you, patients bleeding internally, patients fighting for their life…”she goes on, rolling the IV stand, “are often considered to be delusional.”
To the threat, his heart rate shoots up until the monitor is beeping wildly.
“Whoops….looks like my time is up here, Mr. Roth. Bye-bye now.”
The black haired nurse scurries away, only seconds before a new one arrives in room three twelve of Littleton Regional Hospital.
It is a cloudy Wednesday morning, five days following Josh’s kidnapping. Serena’s kitchen, chilled by December’s night air, feels different, almost as though aware that something sinister has happened while the family was gone.
Tightening her robe, Serena bends to the thermostat to turn the heat up while Doug enters the room in a tan blazer and faded pair of jeans. Being a sixth grade male teacher, Doug can get away with wearing jeans to work. The kids love him. The principal loves him. His diplomatic ability to work well with people, to see the other side, is contagious and Serena, still un-showered, feels inadequate to him suddenly. Her soft Swedish looks do nothing for her disposition this morning.
“Taking a sick day?” he asks, helping himself to the first cup of coffee.
She meanders to Josh’s vitamins at the counter, unscrews the cap of a multi. “I’m taking a personal day. I have a few things to take care of.”
At the coffee maker, Doug pauses to the response and Serena can see that, in his quiet gaze, he knows the possibilities that lie beneath the words. He rips open a sugar packet and Josh arrives, his energy derailing troubled thoughts. “Hey Champ.”
“Hey Dad,” he answers, climbing onto the breakfast stool. His hair is matted to one side and he is wearing a rugby shirt buttoned high at the neck. “You’re not being a teacher today, Mom?”
She hands him his vitamin, followed by a glass of juice. “I’m taking one of my personal days, honey.”
He gulps down a sip. Next, she knows, he will spin himself around and prompt a chain reaction: the chair’s back will knock the counter’s edge and chafe away at the vinyl, causing Doug’s blood pressure to spike because the stool costs money.
Unbeknownst to his colleagues; Doug can be the opposite of calm. One time, after opening a loosely capped bottle of salad dressing, he got up with his oiled shirt and left the table, fired up as though someone had played a dirty trick on him. Josh had followed him into his office with a sponge while Serena suggested soaking the shirt in warm water.
This morning is different.
Josh does not spin around and Doug does not sweat the small stuff.
“What’s a personal day, Mom?”
Doug answers from his new position at the toaster. “The school understands that we all need days off once in awhile, just to get personal things done….so they work a few days into our contract. That way we still get paid.”
“How come kids don’t get personal days?” Josh asks.
“Kids…” Serena cuts in, “have many days off. You have the summers, school vacations, snow days—”
“Yeah, but you guys are teachers, so you have those days off, too,” he interrupts, his logic undeniable.
Doug and Serena exchange a smile and the pop tarts spring up with impeccable timing. Doug plucks out a hot one, slaps it onto a paper towel, and hands it to Josh. “Here you go, pal, only thirty grams of sugar.”
“Thanks, Dad. You have one for Mom?”
“Oh, I’m good, honey,” she says, “I’m just having a grapefruit today.”
“You don’t like too much sugar, right Mom?”
She looks at her son, crumbs already dotting his lips.
“Well, I like a little bit of sugar…but the grapefruit is enough for me. Would you like some strawberries?”
“How about orange slices?”
“You got it.”
She rummages through the refrigerator fruit drawer and Doug, from behind, zooms in for a peck at her neck, his half-eaten tart dangling from his bandaged hand. “I have to run. We’re conferencing,” he says, enunciating the words with sarcasm, “on the new reading program.”
“Oh, I’m sure you’ll come to a decision sometime before the ball drops,” she jokes, handing him his lunch while setting two oranges down at the counter.
Doug makes his way to Josh and offers his son a bear hug before shuffling down the basement stairs, leaving behind the scent of his cologne. Already, he is missed.
“You comin’ home early today!” Josh yells down the staircase.
“Definitely!” Doug hollers back, adding, “Floor hockey re-match!”
“But you only have one good hand, Daddy!”
“Then I’ll just have to cream you, one-handed!”
Josh grins and splits his pop tart into more pieces before attacking the orange wedges.
“The problem with these oranges,” he says, showing his teeth like an angry dog, “is that the pulp gets stuck in my teeth.”
“How about you give your teeth another quick brush, then grab your silent reading book upstairs while you’re at it,” she nods back while washing dishes.
“What time is it? I don’t want to miss the bus.”
“You have plenty of time, Josh. It’s only 7:40.”
He scurries upstairs. Serena grabs a moment to think. The number to the hospital, she needs the number, intensive care. She rubs her hands dry on a dishrag and snaps open the junk drawer, deciding instantly that the chaos is too much to bear in searching the phonebook. The internet will be quicker.
Rushing over to the kitchen table, she presses open her laptop screen, turns on the computer, and taps her foot to the eternal ‘booting up’ process.
The first screen, a tropical ocean, springs to life and she begins to sign in, entering her password wrong the first time. She proceeds with a second try and, finally, she is able to navigate to the web page. She moves her cursor to the tiny window and types in Franconia Notch, New Hampshire, Hospital Intensive Care Units. Go.
Instantly, she is bombarded by information about lost hikers, accidents, and other tragedies. Then, scrolling down the page, she finds the name: Littleton Regional Hospital.
Josh is back.
“I got my book, Mom…and a chapstick,” he adds, revealing the stick, turning it up too high.
Next, she watches him unzip a small pouch at his backpack, place the chapstick inside, and prepare himself for the bus stop. Josh is the same. How can it be?
She is suspicious; worried about the sameness of Josh, despite all that he has endured. She and Doug have already sat down to discuss his feelings about what happened. Shockingly, he had somehow related to Roth’s insanity, even shared a story about the kidnapper’s divorce with his ex-wife.
It had all seemed too easy. Was he trapped in some kind of a denial?
“Josh…?” she asks tentatively.
“Yeah, mom?”
“Are you—I mean, did you—did you pack your homework?” she asks, changing the course of her question.
“I always pack it up at night…” he says, giving the backpack a final zip. “You know that, Mom.”
“Oh, what was I thinking,” she says, shaking her head. “It’s freezing out. Let’s go grab a hat and gloves for the bus stop.”
“I’m going to Tyler’s today.”
Tyler lives only two houses away, yet a jolt of fire burns her insides to the thought of him walking alone. “You’re going to Tyler’s?”
“Tyler’s—you know, the kid you knew since he was in Kim’s belly, the kid whose house is right in front of the bus stop.” The facetious tone is both daunting and appropriate.
“Hey wise guy,” she says, grabbing his gear from a basket on the floor beside the front door. “Tell Mr. Tyler that I said hello.”
He pulls a Red Sox hat over his head and flashes a wide grin. “Have a good personal day, Mom.”
She kisses the wool flap of his hat and shuts the door. Then, racing to the nearest window, she watches him walk to Tyler’s, his backpack weighing him down slightly. He passes the stop sign, then the Halloways house, until there is a small section of street where he disappears from her view.
From the deck door she will be able to see him better. She scurries to that door to await his appearance in Kim’s driveway.
He does not arrive. Her heart pounds. She waits another few seconds. An intruder enters her mind, a strange car. She is about to call Kim when the spaces between the shrubs become mottled with Joshua’s moving body.
He is there, safely there.
Hastening to finish her task with the hospital number; she grabs the cordless phone and accesses the hospital number, reading and dialing simultaneously. An automated voice lists options for her to follow. She waits for the ‘intensive care’ option. Four. She pushes the number and a person answers immediately.
“Intensive care, how may I help you?”
“Hi. My name is Cecilia Roth, great aunt of Mr. Steven Roth, a patient on your floor. Would you mind telling me of his status? I want to take a ride in to see my nephew but want to be sure it’s o.k with the staff and doctors first.”
“Can you hold, please?”
“No problem.”
The sound of classical music plays briefly.
“Hi. Thank you for holding. I’m happy to say that your nephew has made some fine progress. His condition has been changed from critical to fair.
Visiting hours are from one to eight p.m. When were you thinking of coming in?”
A wave of panic, of anger, consumes her. “Oh…that’s great news. Let me talk to my husband about making the trip and I’ll call you back.”
“Certainly, Mrs. Roth. Should I tell Steven to expect you as a visitor?”
“Ahh….actually, if it’s alright with you, I’d like to surprise my dear nephew…he’s been through an awful lot. I’d like to pick up a present for him at the gift shop before visiting. What are the hours there?”
“The gift shop is open from ten o’clock to eight p.m., Mrs. Roth.”
“Oh, perfect. Thank you.”
“Have a good day, now.”
She hangs up, her mind frozen to the devilish vision of a recovering kidnapper, the same one who took her son.
Chapter Eight
The highway is busy, though not miserably so, as she yields into the right lane, cutting off an oncoming driver then speeding up fast enough to reconcile the threat of road rage from behind. She flips open her cell phone, selects Kim’s name, and dials.
“Hey.”
“You’re not really going through with this, are you, Ser?”
“I just have to get it out my system, Kim. I think one confrontation will be enough to help me move on from the incident, you know what I’m saying…” she says, soaring into the fast lane.
“It’s only been a few days, Serena. You’ve gotta’ give yourself more time to move on. Like I said before, set up a few appointments with the school psychologist to make sure Josh is on track, and take things one day at a time. The jerk committed a major crime. This is so black and white. He’s not going to be freed from kidnapping a child…even if he does walk out of that hospital in one piece. There’s just no way.”
“I just can’t believe Doug trusted him, Kim,” she says back, stuck in her own mindset.
“From what you’ve told me, Ser, they went out together and snowboarded together. Doug left him for how long, five minutes?”
“Try twenty-five.”
“But Josh is back now, Ser, safe and sound. Everything worked out for you guys. I mean, God…it could have been so much worse. I think an angel must have been with Josh that night.”
“Did I tell you how he gave me a business card in the cafeteria? What a complete nutcase,” she says, noting the eighteen-wheeler to her right, a truck that’s too close. She steps on the gas and loses him, the needle of her speedometer climbing dangerously.
“Of course he’s a nutcase, Serena. Sane people don’t take other people’s kids…”
Her friend continues to ramble on but Serena remains fixed on that line.
Sane people don’t take other people’s kids. She can see Josh on his bed, sitting cross-legged, telling Roth’s side of the story. ‘I was so afraid…I thought I was going to pass out, my heart was beating really hard…” he had tapped his chest to illustrate, ‘but then he told me he has a son Steven, just like his name. But his old wife…they didn’t stay married because I think he didn’t like her anymore …well, she took Steve across the country.’
At this juncture, he had turned to Doug, “ I think that’s why he took me, Daddy—to try to have a new son.’
The thought of her child defending this man makes her gasp and cry again. She switches lanes, settles back to the middle.
“Serena? You there?”
“Yes,” she says back, sniffling. “I’m here. It tore me apart, Kim, and I just can’t stand that I was duped by him. I thought Josh was…” she squeals through her tears, “I thought he was— ”
“Don’t say it. He’s not. He’s alive and well and just as perky as he’s always been, Serena. You should have seen him playing in the driveway with Willy while waiting for the bus…and speaking of which… I’m getting
him off the bus today, right?”
“Yeah.” She wipes her nose with her sleeve. “Doug will be home early today. He said no later than four…and I should be back around seven tonight.”
“Where did you tell him you’d be?”
A pause.
“Ser? Oh gosh, you didn’t tell him anything yet. How about Josh?”
Another pause.
“Oh boy.”
“I know, I’m sorry, it’s just that there was no easy way to communicate, between what I have to do with work and laundry and—”
“I got it covered, honey.”
“I’ll call Doug during his lunch break. I’m going to ask him to tell Josh that I’m helping Nana out at the nursing home today. I’ll figure out what to say about my visit today. If you could just support that, it would be a huge help. ”
“You got it, babe.”
“I love you, Kim.”
“I love you, too, sweetie. Keep me posted.”
“You got it. I’ll take Ty on Friday, ‘kay?”
“That would be great.”
They hang up and Serena flicks on the radio. He’s fine, he’s fine, he’s fine, she chants to herself. ‘Hey Jude’ is playing on Oldies 103. She blasts the song.
And anytime you feel the pain, hey Jude, refrain…don’t carry the world upon your shoulders…for well you know that it’s a fool who plays it cool, by making his world a little colder…na-na, na na, na-na, na na…hey Jude…
She cries and sings softly.
* * *
After two and a half hours of driving, she pulls into a rest area for a bathroom run, deciding, first, that her looks are not presentable for the public. She rummages through the slouched cloth make-up bag seated in the passenger seat and quickly applies a new face before pushing herself from the trusty Toyota and jogging to the front entrance.
A waft of cool air brushes her face, blowing back her hair as she swings the door open. The skirted woman diagram of the Ladies Room meets her gaze immediately and she enters alone.
Inside, a mother stands at the sink with her little girl, helping her to hand-wash. Serena pushes open a stall door, drops her jeans, and squats over the toilet, placing her pocketbook on the floor. A long stream of pee trickles into the toilet water, creating a sound that seems too loud in the company of strangers. But then the hand-dryer blares on, relieving her.
Reaching for the toilet paper, Serena cannot help but see the words wet pussy written above the roll, along with a number to call.
At one moment did the vandal decide to write this?—she wonders. Was she actually feeling sexual in the confines of this stall? And what if someone actually did call the number? What would they say? Hi, my name is Jane and I read your message in the NH rest area stall. I like wet pussy, too, and I would like to get together.
How on earth could the vandal trust this person? Even worse, how could the reader trust someone desperate enough to write this in a public restroom? Disgusted, she pulls up her jeans, buttons them, and draws a red lipstick from her pocketbook. Then, using the tip as a crayon, she blots out the message, leaving behind a rich red rectangle for the next occupant to see.
One less rape in this crazy world, she thinks, washing her hands, letting them drip dry on the way back to the car.
* * *
The rest of her drive, prompted by the pleasing British voice of the GPS recording, is smooth and steady. ‘Turn left in one hundred yards,’ she directs. In her mind, Serena can hear Josh mimicking the accent from the back seat. ‘She says, yodds, not yards.’
She turns left and, finally, the Little Regional Hospital stands before her. The building is not what she had expected in an institution. The geometric rooftops, mostly triangles, remind her of gingerbread houses. The architecture is modern, forming an l-shape that stretches across a snow-covered plot of land. Even more magnificent—a cluster of snow-capped mountains sit behind the hospital.
Serena is transfixed by the mountains for a moment, cannot take her eyes off of them. Her hand floats to her lips. The mountains look the same, just as they did when Josh was missing.
She shudders to the thought, follows a sign leading to the Emergency Wing of the building. It isn’t hard to find a parking sport. She pulls into a close one, collects her pocketbook, and slams the driver’s door shut.
What the hell is she doing? A horrified thought caves in on her. But it is short-lived.
Before she has a chance to change her mind, she finds herself in the building, in the elevator, and, finally, in the laundry room, fully prepared to execute her plan. The walls are painted robin-egg blue and she is surrounded by people, all kinds of people. But, right now, their faces are transient. They do not take shape in her mind.
Instead, a slideshow flashes in her head…the business card handed to her in the cafeteria, his Ken doll face, sitting on the chairlift with Jim, waking up in vomit, the smell of pine trees, the smell of hot chocolate in the tent…
There is no turning back.
* * *
The nursing scrubs hang loose over her thin frame. She tightens the belt at the waist, shifts the shirt so the v-neck of the shirt is centered at her chest, and scoops her hair into a short pony-tail before pulling the wig onto her scalp. Opening the closet door, she finds a small mirror to adjust the wig so that it appears authentic. Perfect. She has a thick set of bangs and stylish black hair cut sharply to her chin.
The intensive care unit is located on the third floor. She wriggles out of the closet, heads for the elevator, and sinks nicely into her new role. The possibility of medical staff talking to her, questioning her, is very real and she must be prepared for whatever curve ball is thrown at her. A recent conversation to her sister-in-law, an intensive care nurse, had supplied her with enough information to get by.
She pushes through a double-set of doors and finds a foursome of elevators. A somber family awaits their turn and, clearly, they are in no mood to talk. The elevator door slides open and they enter.
“Three please?”
The eldest of the crowd, a distinguished-looking man, nods and pushes her number, followed by two. There is a strange energy between them as, momentarily, they are connected by the dismal aura of the hospital elevator, a moving box which does not feel the weight it bears each day.
Instead, it rises and falls; opens and shuts to new faces and new health problems.
The family exits to their floor and the door snaps shut, leaving Serena alone in her ascent, her thoughts mixed in memory and madness.
I’ve never had a chance to snowboard under the lights!
I’ll go with him, honey.
I can have him back by 8:15
Instruction makes a huge difference.
The incident sweeps through her head, causing her to walk faster as she pauses to hospital room numbers, the open doors of which display images of sick people and tubes and trays of half-eaten meals. The sights are unattractive and worrisome, intensifying the urge to turn around and go home.
But she knows herself too well, knows that there will be more days when she will worry incessantly about Josh going to the bus stop. The worry will be off balance, skewed by her trauma, and the only way out is to yank at the problem’s root and confront the culprit.
The culprit’s room, number three-hundred twelve, is not hard to find. When she arrives, she takes a moment to listen to the sounds outside of his door, discerning only the low gurgling sound of the television. She squeezes her eyes shut for a moment, clenches her fists, and barges in.
He is there, his eyes half-open, a haggard version of the handsome man she met in the lodge cafeteria. His arms lay still, a pair of skis over the starched bedspread. An eggplant colored bruise stains the right side of his face and his eyelids are swollen. An intravenous tube is hooked to his wrist, a cardiac monitor to his chest.
The screen displays the pattern of his pulse, electrified green hills, hills which morph in her mind—to snowy mountains, to her struggling son. How hard had he tried to wrestle away from Roth’s muscular arms? Nausea swims through her stomach like a school of sick fish.
She swallows the feeling, presses on.
“How are we doing this afternoon, Mr. Roth.”
He lifts a hand and turns his wrist to create the ‘so-so’ signal.
“Just so-so? Hmm...one-hundred seventy over one-ten…” she reports, reading his blood pressure. “That is a bit high for a fit man like you, seems that you’re a bit stressed here.”
His breathing is labored. She sits down on a swivel stool and slides toward him. “Here…take a sip of your water.”
Lifting his head from the pillow is an obvious strain. She activates a button from the bedside and brings him to a perpendicular position; then hands him a plastic cup of water.
His lips fumble with the straw before finding a comfortable means to manage the drink. Taking a sip, he seems revived. His eyes widen slightly.
“There, there. Now you’ll feel better.”
“He cocks his head to face her.”
“Instruction makes a huge difference, you know. I train people on maintaining a healthy heart. Here…” she reaches into the large pocket of her scrubs, “take a business card. I’ll be giving lessons until ten tonight.”
His eyes spark to the terror of her words. His heart rate begins to increase as his face reads her identity. His fingers, she notes, search for the beeper so that he can call for help.
“Oh, that won’t be necessary,” she says, slapping his hand, moving the beeper out of reach. “I’m completely qualified to nurse you, just as you were to train my son on that mountain.”
The hills of the heart monitor begin to double, reflecting his racing pulse. He strains to speak, breathing heavily through each syllable, “Y-you don’t under—”
“I don’t understand?” she interrupts, inching her way closer to his face. “Oh, I understand perfectly, Mr. Roth. I think, more importantly, there are some things that you may not understand about me.”
“Y-you-won’t-get-away—”
“Won’t get away with this?” Her professional tone has slipped into a sharper, darker one. She gets up, stands beside the IV and begins to tug on the cord. “Guess what, Steven…I was never here in the first place and if you live to say that I was, it’s only because patients like you, patients bleeding internally, patients fighting for their life…”she goes on, rolling the IV stand, “are often considered to be delusional.”
To the threat, his heart rate shoots up until the monitor is beeping wildly.
“Whoops….looks like my time is up here, Mr. Roth. Bye-bye now.”
The black haired nurse scurries away, only seconds before a new one arrives in room three twelve of Littleton Regional Hospital.
Thursday, March 11, 2010
...For Benjamin, in turning ten
My son will be turning ten on Saturday, a double-digit. It sounds so cliché, but I truly have to say that it seems like just yesterday when Dr. Dunn, delivered him at a healthy seven pounds, seven ounces. Benjamin came into the world on a sunny Monday in March.
With a shock of dark spiked hair to complement a soft newborn face; he was born on 3-13-’00 at 1:13 p.m. (that’s 13:13 army time). He came into the world beating the odds with a threes-pattern. Now, nearly ten years later, he can barely contain himself when we discuss how this number connects with our birthdays—Jim being born on June 3rd (6/3 6-3=3) and me, on August 5th (8 – 5=3).
Our family of three is brighter with Benjamin around and when I see the light reflected in his eyes, eyes that change to a yellow-green in the summer, I thank God for all that he is, and for all that he’s sure to become.
When people ask me what Benjamin needs for his birthday, I am at a loss. This is largely due to the fact that if I receive one more battery operated remote control car/toy which will lack charge for roughly as long as the dinosaurs lived, I just may scream.
With all good intentions, his grandparents brandish the shiny and large China-made toys with enthusiasm and a desire to please. Meanwhile, my husband and I, feigning our own versions of smiles, plot ways to pawn them off.
With all due respect to the toy making industry, to Santa’s elves, my son does not play with toys. At athlete at heart, he’s just as happy with a trusty old ball. Give him something to bounce, throw, charge, roll on, or ride on; and he’s happy.
In regard to child indulgences—to the ‘needs’ that have become the cornerstone of a nation that has it all—each year, I hold back my lecture on the importance of ‘delaying gratification’. Because it’s going to happen: Someday, a hit of marijuana won’t be enough for our sweet soda sipping children and they’ll want a snort of cocaine to inflict a quicker high.
So I exaggerate slightly.
Yet still, I can’t help but rebel to the waterfall of unnecessary party items that have soaked our stores. Earlier this week, I shopped for a few simple cake decorating supplies. Little did I know that I would be bombarded by enough fandoogles to sustain an army of whos down in who-ville. There were fondants and tubes and mists and jujubes; tinkers and tankers, sprinkles and clankers. Gosh, if I wanted to bake a cake that looks as though it popped out of a Dr. Seuss cookbook, I’d hire his staff to bake it for me. Or, better yet, I’d contact my cousin, Karen, who’s got everyone beat.
Not being one to conform to cake molds, let alone molds of any sort, I leave the aisle, banking on my imagination to drive my art project forward one more time. Too much emphasis on one thing, I must admit, makes me suspicious and I feel as though I’m back in line with the Disney rides that I don’t care to wait for.
There is something contrived about the enormity of ‘things’, no?
Unconvinced, a hovering party ghost whispers to me that kids need this stuff (or perhaps it was the store clerk). I raise a fist and challenge the spirit. I respectfully disagree.
My disillusioned self takes me to the piñata section. A meat market of dangling animals find my upward gaze and I envision Benjamin, highly athletic, taking a swing at the neck of a hanging donkey. Something seems inherently wrong with the thirty dollar notion. I decide against the piñata.
The next party row hosts a variety of party favor collections: fake-chocolate soccer balls, tiny golfers, and assortments of sugar concoctions that are processed enough to plug the main artery of a guinea pig. My mind begins to wander… to past days when I have thrown such candy straight into the trash.
Are we really doing our children any ‘favors’ by offering them a pile of junk at the door? I think not, it’s just garbage with a dollar sign, in my opinion.
All sour talk aside, for Benjamin’s ten year old birthday, what I’m hoping for cannot be bought, wrapped, boxed, or swung at. What I’m hoping for…is that my son, for all of his years, will receive the love and kindness that he so generously gives.
The first time he saw me cry, he was a sturdy two and a half year old, and only a few feet high. But his heart, even then, was larger than life.
“Do you want a glass of water, Mommy? How about a nice drink?” I can hear his pip-squeak voice now. It was a voice that cared.
To this day, Benjamin and I seem to share that same connection, reading each other’s thoughts, wanting to make things better. For his ten year old birthday, I’m hoping that Benjamin will receive the empathy that he so naturally gives.
Along with empathy, Benjamin is a kid with desire. Be it on the field, in his classroom, or atop a mountain, Benjamin has the desire to push himself to new limits. I’m hoping that he’ll remember, as a ten year old, that’s it’s okay to fall, to throw four balls at the mound, or to fumble a football. Competition is about knowing how to lose and win; it’s about believing that the spirit that lies within your own heart is more powerful than anyone else’s approval.
This year, along with smoking me in his four mile runs (one day he’ll catch me in a sprint); I’m hoping that my beautiful son, with the light in his eyes, will love himself even more than he loves life.
Benjamin entered the world with the sun. May it shine back down upon him, each and every day.
With a shock of dark spiked hair to complement a soft newborn face; he was born on 3-13-’00 at 1:13 p.m. (that’s 13:13 army time). He came into the world beating the odds with a threes-pattern. Now, nearly ten years later, he can barely contain himself when we discuss how this number connects with our birthdays—Jim being born on June 3rd (6/3 6-3=3) and me, on August 5th (8 – 5=3).
Our family of three is brighter with Benjamin around and when I see the light reflected in his eyes, eyes that change to a yellow-green in the summer, I thank God for all that he is, and for all that he’s sure to become.
When people ask me what Benjamin needs for his birthday, I am at a loss. This is largely due to the fact that if I receive one more battery operated remote control car/toy which will lack charge for roughly as long as the dinosaurs lived, I just may scream.
With all good intentions, his grandparents brandish the shiny and large China-made toys with enthusiasm and a desire to please. Meanwhile, my husband and I, feigning our own versions of smiles, plot ways to pawn them off.
With all due respect to the toy making industry, to Santa’s elves, my son does not play with toys. At athlete at heart, he’s just as happy with a trusty old ball. Give him something to bounce, throw, charge, roll on, or ride on; and he’s happy.
In regard to child indulgences—to the ‘needs’ that have become the cornerstone of a nation that has it all—each year, I hold back my lecture on the importance of ‘delaying gratification’. Because it’s going to happen: Someday, a hit of marijuana won’t be enough for our sweet soda sipping children and they’ll want a snort of cocaine to inflict a quicker high.
So I exaggerate slightly.
Yet still, I can’t help but rebel to the waterfall of unnecessary party items that have soaked our stores. Earlier this week, I shopped for a few simple cake decorating supplies. Little did I know that I would be bombarded by enough fandoogles to sustain an army of whos down in who-ville. There were fondants and tubes and mists and jujubes; tinkers and tankers, sprinkles and clankers. Gosh, if I wanted to bake a cake that looks as though it popped out of a Dr. Seuss cookbook, I’d hire his staff to bake it for me. Or, better yet, I’d contact my cousin, Karen, who’s got everyone beat.
Not being one to conform to cake molds, let alone molds of any sort, I leave the aisle, banking on my imagination to drive my art project forward one more time. Too much emphasis on one thing, I must admit, makes me suspicious and I feel as though I’m back in line with the Disney rides that I don’t care to wait for.
There is something contrived about the enormity of ‘things’, no?
Unconvinced, a hovering party ghost whispers to me that kids need this stuff (or perhaps it was the store clerk). I raise a fist and challenge the spirit. I respectfully disagree.
My disillusioned self takes me to the piñata section. A meat market of dangling animals find my upward gaze and I envision Benjamin, highly athletic, taking a swing at the neck of a hanging donkey. Something seems inherently wrong with the thirty dollar notion. I decide against the piñata.
The next party row hosts a variety of party favor collections: fake-chocolate soccer balls, tiny golfers, and assortments of sugar concoctions that are processed enough to plug the main artery of a guinea pig. My mind begins to wander… to past days when I have thrown such candy straight into the trash.
Are we really doing our children any ‘favors’ by offering them a pile of junk at the door? I think not, it’s just garbage with a dollar sign, in my opinion.
All sour talk aside, for Benjamin’s ten year old birthday, what I’m hoping for cannot be bought, wrapped, boxed, or swung at. What I’m hoping for…is that my son, for all of his years, will receive the love and kindness that he so generously gives.
The first time he saw me cry, he was a sturdy two and a half year old, and only a few feet high. But his heart, even then, was larger than life.
“Do you want a glass of water, Mommy? How about a nice drink?” I can hear his pip-squeak voice now. It was a voice that cared.
To this day, Benjamin and I seem to share that same connection, reading each other’s thoughts, wanting to make things better. For his ten year old birthday, I’m hoping that Benjamin will receive the empathy that he so naturally gives.
Along with empathy, Benjamin is a kid with desire. Be it on the field, in his classroom, or atop a mountain, Benjamin has the desire to push himself to new limits. I’m hoping that he’ll remember, as a ten year old, that’s it’s okay to fall, to throw four balls at the mound, or to fumble a football. Competition is about knowing how to lose and win; it’s about believing that the spirit that lies within your own heart is more powerful than anyone else’s approval.
This year, along with smoking me in his four mile runs (one day he’ll catch me in a sprint); I’m hoping that my beautiful son, with the light in his eyes, will love himself even more than he loves life.
Benjamin entered the world with the sun. May it shine back down upon him, each and every day.
Hours of Change - Chapters Six and Seven
Six
11:03 p.m.
The hospital parking lot asserts itself with moving headlights, a parked ambulance at the front entrance, and the dark presence of an accident that never should have happened. Serena’s mind moves faster than her car. She leans over the steering wheel, squints to the dark, and searches. Doug points out appropriate signs, worries about her driving.
“Careful honey. You almost drove over the curb.”
“It’ll live,” she says, banging a sharp left into the first aisle of cars. An open spot sticks out in the row like the missing tooth of a child’s smile. She zooms toward it. “What did McKenzie say again about the ambulance report?”
“He said that Josh was lucky to be in the passenger seat. The impact of the hit to the driver’s side caused his head to hit the window.
Miraculously…that’s the word he used…he still had his helmet on so he saved himself a brain injury. Also, the snowy roads actually helped in his case. The driver of the other car was actually going slow when he fishtailed and more or less bumped right into Roth, who was outside of the car, at his hood.”
He begins to choke up, “Josh fell forward just right in the passenger seat…he was still coherent and everything. You were right, Ser…God rescued him.”
From his window, his eyes measure the parking spot. Given the careless parking job of the monster SUV beside them, the space is tight.
“You sure you want to chance this one, Serena?”
Without answering, she cuts the wheel, measures precisely, and glides in before killing the engine. “I just want to see him…I can’t deal with all of the insurance crap, Doug. Can you check us in with your card?”
“They’ll make an exception for this,” Doug says with a sense of optimism that she does not have.
“I doubt it.”
Without ample room to open the doors, she and Doug maneuver themselves awkwardly from the vehicle, pushing the doors shut.
They scurry ahead to a revolving set of doors, eager to enter, despite the ER’s taboo, and circulate to the waiting room. Faces greet them immediately, tired faces, wrinkled faces, wanting faces. Serena shoots them a modest nod of apology—perhaps they are not as lucky as she—then heads to the ‘check-in’ window, the block-lettered sign of which demands that insurance cards be ready. Doug is beside her but his body language speaks of compromise. Serena takes over.
“Hi. My son was brought in after a car accident, after being abducted. I will need to see him now. We carry solid insurance…” she gestures to Doug, “my husband has the card.”
“It will just take a moment, ma’am. You’ll need to wait here. We just got slammed.”
“I’m sorry, I just can’t wait,” she says in motion, the useless voice fading like dissolving fireworks in the sky.
Serena makes herself blend into new voices; urgent voices, voices that contain sharp edges and critical direction. She hears blood pressure readings, EMT reports, and technical medical language. They remind her of medical shows, of movies. A pale faced man is being wheeled in on a stretcher, his body impossibly frail and still. His glassy eyes seem to study the ceiling as he speeds by, his tiny wrist hangs limp. He is there and gone. She moves on, power walking, and the energy, the sheer chaos of the hallway, seems to blur. Her mind focuses only on Josh.
She notes the sign, PEDIATRICS, and her heart back flips. He is there.
She confidently pushes through a double set of doors and heads for the triage area. Instinctively, she seems to know where it is located and, with equal intuition, a nurse looks up. Her smile is inviting, unlike that of the woman at the waiting room. Rebecca. “May I help you?”
“Hi. Serena Davis,” she says in a huff. “My son Josh was taken in by ambulance after being—”
“Oh my gosh, yes!—he’s here,” she says, snapping up. “What a brave little man you have. Right this way… I’m so sorry you had to go through all of that.”
“Thank you,” she says, following the nurse, one step closer to Josh. Along the hallway, she passes a poster, smiley faces with feelings, followed by a larger one on CPR. They keep walking, passing an open room with a mother an infant inside, then two more closed doors, and finally—
“He’s right here, 215...” the nurse gestures.
The door is open. Josh is there, laying flat, his hands folded atop his chest, his head propped up on pillows. His eyes widen in a flash of relief.
She carries herself to him and the weight of the passing hours seems to float away. They embrace. She is flooded by sobs and she can see him as a newborn again, the pink face, the small nose, in her arms, at the hospital bed, and then being wheeled away. She is swept up in the moment, in the feeling of his nine year old body conforming to her taller one.
His body feels solid to her thinness. She stretches her arms long to look at him, “I’m so sorry this happened to you, honey.”
“Where’s Daddy?” he asks, his bottom lip quivering.
“He’ll be right here, honey. He was just checking in.”
“Is his wrist okay?”
“His wrist is going to be just fine,” she says, squeezing back tears, pinching her nose.
“Can we go home now?”
She is about to answer when Doug enters. For a second, he stares at Josh as though in disbelief before rushing to his side. They hold each other for awhile and the nurse begins to tear up, her clipboard in her hand. Serena reads her nametag. Elaine.
Elaine quietly places a box of tissues on Joshua’s bed for all of them.
Doug awakens from the embrace, his face pink. “I’m so sorry, Josh…I’m so sorry I let this happen to you. You’re okay now, right? Are you okay?” He sweeps a finger across Josh’s cheek.
“Dad—Mr. Roth was driving soooo fast in the snow! He should have gotten’ a ticket! Then he got hit by a car that swerved into him…” he goes on, creating hand motions as dramatic as the story. “ I thought I was going to be blind when I shot forward in the car!”
Doug and Serena exchange a knowing look. Kids don’t think things through the way we do. They live in the moment and they are resilient. Joshua will be okay. But will they be? Will they ever be the same?
A doctor enters, interrupting her thoughts. “Hello folks, Dr. Asaan,” he
reports, extending a hand shake to Doug, to Serena.
They nod to him.
“You’ve got quite a champion here,” he says, rubbing Josh’s knee.
“We sure do,” she says, facing Josh.
“How…I mean have you completed any tests?” Doug asks.
“This guy’s good to go. We ran a full battery, vision, hearing, internal...” He knocks on Josh’s head, jokes, “You sure this skull isn’t made of steel?”
Josh smiles. “I had my helmet on.”
“Aahhh…that’s right, you did. Good man.” He turns to Doug again. “At his shoulder, there is a mild laceration… let me show you,” he says, sliding Josh’s jonnie to one side, exposing the skin there.
Serena and Doug both move closer to see. There is a small cut in the center of a swollen bump, nothing worse than a football bruise.
“Treat this with an antibiotic, Neosporin, or any of the over the counter creams will do.”
Serena asks, “He’s…he’s really going to be o.k?”
Again, Dr. Asaan jokes. “Can you do this?” He flaps his arms like a chicken. “How about this?” He taps his head while standing on one foot. Josh giggles.
“I think he’s good to go.”
Dr Asaan, Serena decides, is insensitive, his glib antics a mask to the darker happenings that he must face every day. Perhaps it is better to act this way, she thinks, forgiving him already. She will endure all of his jokes, given the positive outcome of the situation. But just as they are ready to collect their things, Dr. Asaan surprises her with a more serious tone.
“Mom, I just need to chat with you in the hallway for a minute.” He winks to Josh, “Medical paperwork is kind of like homework that you don’t want to do but you have to.”
“Go ahead, honey. I’ll stay here,” Doug says, holding his son’s fingers.
They exit and Dr. Asaan gently shuts the door.
“A few things. One...when you leave here, you’ll notice that reporters have been hanging outside of the ER. The media can be a double-edged sword. You and your husband will need to decide how you want to handle them. From what I have seen, you’re better off giving them a little, then walking away with a polite ‘thank you very much’.
“Oh, gosh. I didn’t even think of that. But, you know what. I just feel so blessed that thing is over with, I don’t mind sharing the happy ending with the news.”
“Perfect.” She can see his thoughts moving forward as he studies the floor, two fingers over his chin. Just as he is about to speak; a pudgy nurse waddles into the vicinity with speed that does not conform to the rest of her.
“Dr Asaan…we have a critical in 203.”
“Shelley...” he says, backing up, “send Detective Hearns in to speak with Mrs. Davis about the news, please. She's been waiting.”
Serena feels the onset of a tap dance inside of her chest that has become rudely familiar.
“Wh-what is this all about?”
Shelley offers Serena the one minute signal with an index finger, activates her beeper, and whispers, "A detective hassled us earlier about speaking to you guys. We put her off. She'll be here in just a minute."
As though she was pasted to the Pediatric doorway waiting, Detective Hearns appears immediately. She is wearing a long navy trench coat and black leather boots. The sight of her reminds Serena of a female superhero cartoon.
“First of all, congratulations in getting your boy back,” the detective says, leaning in close, touching Serena's arm.
“Thank you for all that you’ve done to bring him back to me.” Serena says back, wiping away a layer of damp beneath her eyes.
“We thought you should know,” Hearns says sternly, “that Roth is still alive. He was taken by life flight from the accident…and revived through resuscitation," she adds, palming her chest unnecessarily. "He’s fighting for his life in intensive care right now." She looks down, up again, "I know this isn't easy to hear, Mrs. Davis...but I have more news to share with you on Roth. He had actually been watching your son for longer than you knew.
In hearing this, her body feels weak. “Excuse me. I just need to sit down,” she says, searching the white walls for a place to process the dark.
“Here…right this way. I’ll grab an open room,” Shelley says, craning her neck to find a room. “Hold on a minute.” She scurries away to search.
“I don’t need a room,” Serena says to Detective Hearns. “Just tell me now…how—I mean where had this man been watching my son?”
“Your boy trained at Gilmore Hill in Westborough, Massachusetts, correct?”
The day of his first lesson flashes through Serena’s mind. There were lines and groups of skiers everywhere. Erin, the group instructor, a pretty seventeen year old, had helped Josh with his boot straps. She blinks the memory away. “Y-yes, he trained there.”
“According to the facts of our investigation, Mrs. Davis… Steven Roth had been operating the chair lift for a total of two ski seasons.”
Serena takes in a deep breath, closes her eyes momentarily. “Do you have a warrant for his arrest at this time? I mean…this man had been watching my son, then kidnapped him. I expect that if and when he leaves intensive care, he will be behind bars immediately. Am I right, Ms. Hearns?”
“I can assure you, Mrs. Davis, that we’re going to do everything in our power to be sure that this man pays for his crime.”
Serena studies the detective’s face. She is not convinced.
Chapter Seven
It is a cloudy Wednesday morning, five days following Josh’s kidnapping. Serena’s kitchen, chilled by December’s night air, feels different, almost as though aware that something sinister has happened while the family was gone.
Tightening her robe, Serena bends to the thermostat to turn the heat up while Doug enters the room in a tan blazer and faded pair of jeans. Being a sixth grade male teacher, Doug can get away with wearing jeans to work. The kids love him. The principal loves him. His diplomatic ability to work well with people, to see the other side, is contagious and Serena, still un-showered, feels inadequate to him suddenly. Her naturally stunning Swedish looks do nothing for her disposition.
“Taking a sick day?” Doug asks, helping himself to the first cup of coffee.
She meanders to Josh’s vitamins at the counter, unscrews the cap of a multi. “I’m taking a personal day. I have a few things to take care of.”
At the coffee maker, Doug pauses to her response. Serena can see that, in his quiet gaze, he knows the possibilities that lie beneath the words. He rips open a sugar packet and Josh arrives, his energy derailing troubled thoughts.
“Hey Champ.”
“Hey Dad,” he answers, settling himself atop the usual breakfast stool, eyeing Serena. His hair is matted to one side and he is wearing a rugby shirt buttoned as high as possible at the neck. “You’re not being a teacher today, Mom?”
She hands him a vitamin, followed by a glass of juice. “I’m taking one of my personal days, honey.”
He gulps down a sip. Next, she knows, he will spin himself around; causing the chair’s back to miss the counter’s edge by only a smidge and threaten to chafe the leather, a habit resulting in the spike of Doug’s blood pressure. Serena wonders what his colleagues would think if they knew of Doug’s other side, of how, in his own home, he is the opposite of calm.
But, no matter, this morning is different and neither of the two habits takes place.
“What’s a personal day, Mom?”
Doug, waiting for two pop tarts at the toaster by now, answers. “The school understands that we all need days off once in awhile, just to get personal things done….so they work a few days into our contract. That way, we still get paid.”
“How come kids don’t get personal days?” Josh asks, rather casually.
“Kids…” Serena cuts in, “have many days off. You have the summers, school vacations, snow days—”
“Yeah, but you guys are teachers, so you have those days off, too,” he interrupts with undeniable logic.
Doug and Serena exchange a smile as the pop tarts spring to life with an emphatic squeak. The timing is impeccable. Doug pulls out a hot one with a quick finger and slaps it onto a paper towel for Josh. “Here you go, pal, only thirty grams of sugar.”
“Thanks, Dad. Do you have one for Mom?”
“Oh, I’m good, honey,” she says, “I’m going for a grapefruit today.”
“You don’t like to eat too much sugar, right Mom?”
She looks at her son, crumbs already dotting his lips along with an entire section of counter.
“Well, I like a little bit of sugar…but the grapefruit is enough for me. Would you like some strawberries?”
“How about orange slices?”
“You got it.”
She rummages through the refrigerator fruit drawer and Doug, from behind, zooms in for a peck at her neck, his bitten pop tart dangling from one hand. “I have to run. We’re conferencing,” he says, enunciating the word with quotation fingers, “on the new reading program.”
“Oh, I’m sure you’ll come to a decision sometime before the ball drops,” she jokes, handing him his lunch while setting two oranges down at the counter.
Doug makes his way to Josh and offers his son a bear hug before shuffling down the basement stairs. The scent of his cologne lingers. Doug has not left yet but, already, he is missed.
“You comin’ home early today!” Josh yells down the staircase.
“Definitely!” Doug hollers back, adding, “Floor hockey re-match!”
Josh grins and splits his pop tart into yet another piece. Then he tackles the orange slices.
“The problem with these oranges,” he says, showing his teeth like an angry dog, “is that the pulp gets stuck in my teeth.”
Serena, pushing the faucet on to prepare the sink for dishwashing, nods back to him, “How about you give your teeth another quick brush, then grab your silent reading book upstairs while you’re at it.”
“What time is it? I don’t want to miss the bus.”
“You have plenty of time, Josh. It’s only 7:45.”
He scurries upstairs. Serena grabs a moment to think. The number to the hospital, she needs the number, intensive care. She rubs her hands dry on a dish towel, snaps open the junk drawer, and decides, almost instantly, that the chaos is too much to bear in finding the number in the phonebook. The internet will be quicker.
Rushing over to the kitchen table, she presses open her laptop screen, turns on the computer, and taps her feet impatiently to the ‘booting up’ process that never ceases to feel eternal.
The first screen, a tropical ocean, springs to life and she begins to sign in, entering her password wrong the first time. She proceeds with a second try and, finally, she is able to access the web page. She mouses her cursor to the google window box and types in Franconia Notch, New Hampshire, Hospital Intensive Care Units. Go. Instantly, she is bombarded by information about lost hikers, accidents, and other tragedies. Then, scrolling down the page, she finds the name: Littleton Regional Hospital.
Josh is back.
“I got my book, Mom…and a chapstick,” he adds, revealing the stick. She watches him unzip a small pouch at his backpack in the usual methodical fashion before putting on his coat. Josh is the same. How can it be?
She is suspicious, worried about the sameness of Josh, despite all that he has endured. She and Doug have already sat down to discuss his feelings about what has happened during the trip. Surprisingly, he had somehow related to Roth’s insanity, even shared a story about the kidnapper’s divorce with his ex-wife. It had all seemed too easy.
“Josh…?” she asks tentatively.
“Yeah, mom?”
“Are you—I mean, did you—did you pack your homework?” she asks, changing the course of her question.
“I always pack it up at night…” he says, giving the backpack a final zip. “You know that, Mom.”
“Oh, what was I thinking,” she says, shaking her head. “It’s freezing out. Let’s go grab a hat and gloves for the bus stop.”
“I’m going to Tyler’s today.”
Tyler lives only two houses away, yet a jolt of fire burns her insides to the thought of him walking alone. “You’re going to Tyler’s?”
“Tyler’s—you know, the kid you knew since he was in Kim’s belly, the kid whose house is right in front of a bus stop.” The sarcasm is both daunting and appropriate.
“Hey wise guy,” she says, seeing him to the front door, grabbing his hat and gloves from a winter basket on the floor. “Tell Mr. Tyler that I said hello.”
He pulls a Red Sox hat over his head and flashes a wide grin. “Have a good personal day, Mom.”
She kisses the wool flap of his hat and shuts the door. Then, racing to the nearest window, she watches him walk to Tyler’s, his backpack weighing him down slightly. He passes the stop sign, then the Halloways house, until there is a small section of street where he disappears from her view.
From the deck door she will be able to see him better. She scurries to that door to await his appearance at Kim’s driveway.
He does not arrive. Her heart pounds. She waits another few seconds. An intruder enters her mind, a strange car. She is about to call Kim when the spaces between the shrubs become mottled with Joshua’s moving body. He is there, safely there.
Hastening to finish her computer task; she grabs the cordless phone from the receiver and pulls up the Lincoln hospital number she had been searching for. She reads and dials simultaneously. An automated voice lists options for her to follow. She waits for the ‘intensive care’ option. Four. She pushes the number and a person answers immediately.
“Intensive care, how may I help you?”
“Hi. My name is Cecilia Roth, great aunt of Mr. Steven Roth, a patient on your floor. Would you mind telling me of his status? I want to take a ride in to see my nephew but want to be sure it’s o.k with the staff and doctors first.”
“Can you hold, please?”
“No problem.”
The sound of classical music plays briefly before the voice is back.
“Hi. Thank you for holding. I’m happy to say that your nephew has made some fine progress. He’s moved from critical to fair condition. Visiting hours are from one to eight p.m. When were you thinking of coming in?”
A wave of panic, of anger, consumes her. “I’ll—I mean I’d like to come in today if that’s alright.”
“Certainly, Mrs. Roth. Should I tell him to expect you as a visitor?”
“Ahh….actually, if it’s alright with you, I’d like to surprise my dear nephew…he’s been through an awful lot. I’d like to pick up a present for him at the gift shop before visiting. What are the hours there?”
“The gift shop is open from ten o’clock to eight p.m., Mrs. Roth.”
“Oh, perfect.”
“Very well, then, Mrs. Roth. We’ll see you shortly.”
She hangs up, her mind frozen to the devilish vision of a recovering kidnapper, the same one who took her son.
11:03 p.m.
The hospital parking lot asserts itself with moving headlights, a parked ambulance at the front entrance, and the dark presence of an accident that never should have happened. Serena’s mind moves faster than her car. She leans over the steering wheel, squints to the dark, and searches. Doug points out appropriate signs, worries about her driving.
“Careful honey. You almost drove over the curb.”
“It’ll live,” she says, banging a sharp left into the first aisle of cars. An open spot sticks out in the row like the missing tooth of a child’s smile. She zooms toward it. “What did McKenzie say again about the ambulance report?”
“He said that Josh was lucky to be in the passenger seat. The impact of the hit to the driver’s side caused his head to hit the window.
Miraculously…that’s the word he used…he still had his helmet on so he saved himself a brain injury. Also, the snowy roads actually helped in his case. The driver of the other car was actually going slow when he fishtailed and more or less bumped right into Roth, who was outside of the car, at his hood.”
He begins to choke up, “Josh fell forward just right in the passenger seat…he was still coherent and everything. You were right, Ser…God rescued him.”
From his window, his eyes measure the parking spot. Given the careless parking job of the monster SUV beside them, the space is tight.
“You sure you want to chance this one, Serena?”
Without answering, she cuts the wheel, measures precisely, and glides in before killing the engine. “I just want to see him…I can’t deal with all of the insurance crap, Doug. Can you check us in with your card?”
“They’ll make an exception for this,” Doug says with a sense of optimism that she does not have.
“I doubt it.”
Without ample room to open the doors, she and Doug maneuver themselves awkwardly from the vehicle, pushing the doors shut.
They scurry ahead to a revolving set of doors, eager to enter, despite the ER’s taboo, and circulate to the waiting room. Faces greet them immediately, tired faces, wrinkled faces, wanting faces. Serena shoots them a modest nod of apology—perhaps they are not as lucky as she—then heads to the ‘check-in’ window, the block-lettered sign of which demands that insurance cards be ready. Doug is beside her but his body language speaks of compromise. Serena takes over.
“Hi. My son was brought in after a car accident, after being abducted. I will need to see him now. We carry solid insurance…” she gestures to Doug, “my husband has the card.”
“It will just take a moment, ma’am. You’ll need to wait here. We just got slammed.”
“I’m sorry, I just can’t wait,” she says in motion, the useless voice fading like dissolving fireworks in the sky.
Serena makes herself blend into new voices; urgent voices, voices that contain sharp edges and critical direction. She hears blood pressure readings, EMT reports, and technical medical language. They remind her of medical shows, of movies. A pale faced man is being wheeled in on a stretcher, his body impossibly frail and still. His glassy eyes seem to study the ceiling as he speeds by, his tiny wrist hangs limp. He is there and gone. She moves on, power walking, and the energy, the sheer chaos of the hallway, seems to blur. Her mind focuses only on Josh.
She notes the sign, PEDIATRICS, and her heart back flips. He is there.
She confidently pushes through a double set of doors and heads for the triage area. Instinctively, she seems to know where it is located and, with equal intuition, a nurse looks up. Her smile is inviting, unlike that of the woman at the waiting room. Rebecca. “May I help you?”
“Hi. Serena Davis,” she says in a huff. “My son Josh was taken in by ambulance after being—”
“Oh my gosh, yes!—he’s here,” she says, snapping up. “What a brave little man you have. Right this way… I’m so sorry you had to go through all of that.”
“Thank you,” she says, following the nurse, one step closer to Josh. Along the hallway, she passes a poster, smiley faces with feelings, followed by a larger one on CPR. They keep walking, passing an open room with a mother an infant inside, then two more closed doors, and finally—
“He’s right here, 215...” the nurse gestures.
The door is open. Josh is there, laying flat, his hands folded atop his chest, his head propped up on pillows. His eyes widen in a flash of relief.
She carries herself to him and the weight of the passing hours seems to float away. They embrace. She is flooded by sobs and she can see him as a newborn again, the pink face, the small nose, in her arms, at the hospital bed, and then being wheeled away. She is swept up in the moment, in the feeling of his nine year old body conforming to her taller one.
His body feels solid to her thinness. She stretches her arms long to look at him, “I’m so sorry this happened to you, honey.”
“Where’s Daddy?” he asks, his bottom lip quivering.
“He’ll be right here, honey. He was just checking in.”
“Is his wrist okay?”
“His wrist is going to be just fine,” she says, squeezing back tears, pinching her nose.
“Can we go home now?”
She is about to answer when Doug enters. For a second, he stares at Josh as though in disbelief before rushing to his side. They hold each other for awhile and the nurse begins to tear up, her clipboard in her hand. Serena reads her nametag. Elaine.
Elaine quietly places a box of tissues on Joshua’s bed for all of them.
Doug awakens from the embrace, his face pink. “I’m so sorry, Josh…I’m so sorry I let this happen to you. You’re okay now, right? Are you okay?” He sweeps a finger across Josh’s cheek.
“Dad—Mr. Roth was driving soooo fast in the snow! He should have gotten’ a ticket! Then he got hit by a car that swerved into him…” he goes on, creating hand motions as dramatic as the story. “ I thought I was going to be blind when I shot forward in the car!”
Doug and Serena exchange a knowing look. Kids don’t think things through the way we do. They live in the moment and they are resilient. Joshua will be okay. But will they be? Will they ever be the same?
A doctor enters, interrupting her thoughts. “Hello folks, Dr. Asaan,” he
reports, extending a hand shake to Doug, to Serena.
They nod to him.
“You’ve got quite a champion here,” he says, rubbing Josh’s knee.
“We sure do,” she says, facing Josh.
“How…I mean have you completed any tests?” Doug asks.
“This guy’s good to go. We ran a full battery, vision, hearing, internal...” He knocks on Josh’s head, jokes, “You sure this skull isn’t made of steel?”
Josh smiles. “I had my helmet on.”
“Aahhh…that’s right, you did. Good man.” He turns to Doug again. “At his shoulder, there is a mild laceration… let me show you,” he says, sliding Josh’s jonnie to one side, exposing the skin there.
Serena and Doug both move closer to see. There is a small cut in the center of a swollen bump, nothing worse than a football bruise.
“Treat this with an antibiotic, Neosporin, or any of the over the counter creams will do.”
Serena asks, “He’s…he’s really going to be o.k?”
Again, Dr. Asaan jokes. “Can you do this?” He flaps his arms like a chicken. “How about this?” He taps his head while standing on one foot. Josh giggles.
“I think he’s good to go.”
Dr Asaan, Serena decides, is insensitive, his glib antics a mask to the darker happenings that he must face every day. Perhaps it is better to act this way, she thinks, forgiving him already. She will endure all of his jokes, given the positive outcome of the situation. But just as they are ready to collect their things, Dr. Asaan surprises her with a more serious tone.
“Mom, I just need to chat with you in the hallway for a minute.” He winks to Josh, “Medical paperwork is kind of like homework that you don’t want to do but you have to.”
“Go ahead, honey. I’ll stay here,” Doug says, holding his son’s fingers.
They exit and Dr. Asaan gently shuts the door.
“A few things. One...when you leave here, you’ll notice that reporters have been hanging outside of the ER. The media can be a double-edged sword. You and your husband will need to decide how you want to handle them. From what I have seen, you’re better off giving them a little, then walking away with a polite ‘thank you very much’.
“Oh, gosh. I didn’t even think of that. But, you know what. I just feel so blessed that thing is over with, I don’t mind sharing the happy ending with the news.”
“Perfect.” She can see his thoughts moving forward as he studies the floor, two fingers over his chin. Just as he is about to speak; a pudgy nurse waddles into the vicinity with speed that does not conform to the rest of her.
“Dr Asaan…we have a critical in 203.”
“Shelley...” he says, backing up, “send Detective Hearns in to speak with Mrs. Davis about the news, please. She's been waiting.”
Serena feels the onset of a tap dance inside of her chest that has become rudely familiar.
“Wh-what is this all about?”
Shelley offers Serena the one minute signal with an index finger, activates her beeper, and whispers, "A detective hassled us earlier about speaking to you guys. We put her off. She'll be here in just a minute."
As though she was pasted to the Pediatric doorway waiting, Detective Hearns appears immediately. She is wearing a long navy trench coat and black leather boots. The sight of her reminds Serena of a female superhero cartoon.
“First of all, congratulations in getting your boy back,” the detective says, leaning in close, touching Serena's arm.
“Thank you for all that you’ve done to bring him back to me.” Serena says back, wiping away a layer of damp beneath her eyes.
“We thought you should know,” Hearns says sternly, “that Roth is still alive. He was taken by life flight from the accident…and revived through resuscitation," she adds, palming her chest unnecessarily. "He’s fighting for his life in intensive care right now." She looks down, up again, "I know this isn't easy to hear, Mrs. Davis...but I have more news to share with you on Roth. He had actually been watching your son for longer than you knew.
In hearing this, her body feels weak. “Excuse me. I just need to sit down,” she says, searching the white walls for a place to process the dark.
“Here…right this way. I’ll grab an open room,” Shelley says, craning her neck to find a room. “Hold on a minute.” She scurries away to search.
“I don’t need a room,” Serena says to Detective Hearns. “Just tell me now…how—I mean where had this man been watching my son?”
“Your boy trained at Gilmore Hill in Westborough, Massachusetts, correct?”
The day of his first lesson flashes through Serena’s mind. There were lines and groups of skiers everywhere. Erin, the group instructor, a pretty seventeen year old, had helped Josh with his boot straps. She blinks the memory away. “Y-yes, he trained there.”
“According to the facts of our investigation, Mrs. Davis… Steven Roth had been operating the chair lift for a total of two ski seasons.”
Serena takes in a deep breath, closes her eyes momentarily. “Do you have a warrant for his arrest at this time? I mean…this man had been watching my son, then kidnapped him. I expect that if and when he leaves intensive care, he will be behind bars immediately. Am I right, Ms. Hearns?”
“I can assure you, Mrs. Davis, that we’re going to do everything in our power to be sure that this man pays for his crime.”
Serena studies the detective’s face. She is not convinced.
Chapter Seven
It is a cloudy Wednesday morning, five days following Josh’s kidnapping. Serena’s kitchen, chilled by December’s night air, feels different, almost as though aware that something sinister has happened while the family was gone.
Tightening her robe, Serena bends to the thermostat to turn the heat up while Doug enters the room in a tan blazer and faded pair of jeans. Being a sixth grade male teacher, Doug can get away with wearing jeans to work. The kids love him. The principal loves him. His diplomatic ability to work well with people, to see the other side, is contagious and Serena, still un-showered, feels inadequate to him suddenly. Her naturally stunning Swedish looks do nothing for her disposition.
“Taking a sick day?” Doug asks, helping himself to the first cup of coffee.
She meanders to Josh’s vitamins at the counter, unscrews the cap of a multi. “I’m taking a personal day. I have a few things to take care of.”
At the coffee maker, Doug pauses to her response. Serena can see that, in his quiet gaze, he knows the possibilities that lie beneath the words. He rips open a sugar packet and Josh arrives, his energy derailing troubled thoughts.
“Hey Champ.”
“Hey Dad,” he answers, settling himself atop the usual breakfast stool, eyeing Serena. His hair is matted to one side and he is wearing a rugby shirt buttoned as high as possible at the neck. “You’re not being a teacher today, Mom?”
She hands him a vitamin, followed by a glass of juice. “I’m taking one of my personal days, honey.”
He gulps down a sip. Next, she knows, he will spin himself around; causing the chair’s back to miss the counter’s edge by only a smidge and threaten to chafe the leather, a habit resulting in the spike of Doug’s blood pressure. Serena wonders what his colleagues would think if they knew of Doug’s other side, of how, in his own home, he is the opposite of calm.
But, no matter, this morning is different and neither of the two habits takes place.
“What’s a personal day, Mom?”
Doug, waiting for two pop tarts at the toaster by now, answers. “The school understands that we all need days off once in awhile, just to get personal things done….so they work a few days into our contract. That way, we still get paid.”
“How come kids don’t get personal days?” Josh asks, rather casually.
“Kids…” Serena cuts in, “have many days off. You have the summers, school vacations, snow days—”
“Yeah, but you guys are teachers, so you have those days off, too,” he interrupts with undeniable logic.
Doug and Serena exchange a smile as the pop tarts spring to life with an emphatic squeak. The timing is impeccable. Doug pulls out a hot one with a quick finger and slaps it onto a paper towel for Josh. “Here you go, pal, only thirty grams of sugar.”
“Thanks, Dad. Do you have one for Mom?”
“Oh, I’m good, honey,” she says, “I’m going for a grapefruit today.”
“You don’t like to eat too much sugar, right Mom?”
She looks at her son, crumbs already dotting his lips along with an entire section of counter.
“Well, I like a little bit of sugar…but the grapefruit is enough for me. Would you like some strawberries?”
“How about orange slices?”
“You got it.”
She rummages through the refrigerator fruit drawer and Doug, from behind, zooms in for a peck at her neck, his bitten pop tart dangling from one hand. “I have to run. We’re conferencing,” he says, enunciating the word with quotation fingers, “on the new reading program.”
“Oh, I’m sure you’ll come to a decision sometime before the ball drops,” she jokes, handing him his lunch while setting two oranges down at the counter.
Doug makes his way to Josh and offers his son a bear hug before shuffling down the basement stairs. The scent of his cologne lingers. Doug has not left yet but, already, he is missed.
“You comin’ home early today!” Josh yells down the staircase.
“Definitely!” Doug hollers back, adding, “Floor hockey re-match!”
Josh grins and splits his pop tart into yet another piece. Then he tackles the orange slices.
“The problem with these oranges,” he says, showing his teeth like an angry dog, “is that the pulp gets stuck in my teeth.”
Serena, pushing the faucet on to prepare the sink for dishwashing, nods back to him, “How about you give your teeth another quick brush, then grab your silent reading book upstairs while you’re at it.”
“What time is it? I don’t want to miss the bus.”
“You have plenty of time, Josh. It’s only 7:45.”
He scurries upstairs. Serena grabs a moment to think. The number to the hospital, she needs the number, intensive care. She rubs her hands dry on a dish towel, snaps open the junk drawer, and decides, almost instantly, that the chaos is too much to bear in finding the number in the phonebook. The internet will be quicker.
Rushing over to the kitchen table, she presses open her laptop screen, turns on the computer, and taps her feet impatiently to the ‘booting up’ process that never ceases to feel eternal.
The first screen, a tropical ocean, springs to life and she begins to sign in, entering her password wrong the first time. She proceeds with a second try and, finally, she is able to access the web page. She mouses her cursor to the google window box and types in Franconia Notch, New Hampshire, Hospital Intensive Care Units. Go. Instantly, she is bombarded by information about lost hikers, accidents, and other tragedies. Then, scrolling down the page, she finds the name: Littleton Regional Hospital.
Josh is back.
“I got my book, Mom…and a chapstick,” he adds, revealing the stick. She watches him unzip a small pouch at his backpack in the usual methodical fashion before putting on his coat. Josh is the same. How can it be?
She is suspicious, worried about the sameness of Josh, despite all that he has endured. She and Doug have already sat down to discuss his feelings about what has happened during the trip. Surprisingly, he had somehow related to Roth’s insanity, even shared a story about the kidnapper’s divorce with his ex-wife. It had all seemed too easy.
“Josh…?” she asks tentatively.
“Yeah, mom?”
“Are you—I mean, did you—did you pack your homework?” she asks, changing the course of her question.
“I always pack it up at night…” he says, giving the backpack a final zip. “You know that, Mom.”
“Oh, what was I thinking,” she says, shaking her head. “It’s freezing out. Let’s go grab a hat and gloves for the bus stop.”
“I’m going to Tyler’s today.”
Tyler lives only two houses away, yet a jolt of fire burns her insides to the thought of him walking alone. “You’re going to Tyler’s?”
“Tyler’s—you know, the kid you knew since he was in Kim’s belly, the kid whose house is right in front of a bus stop.” The sarcasm is both daunting and appropriate.
“Hey wise guy,” she says, seeing him to the front door, grabbing his hat and gloves from a winter basket on the floor. “Tell Mr. Tyler that I said hello.”
He pulls a Red Sox hat over his head and flashes a wide grin. “Have a good personal day, Mom.”
She kisses the wool flap of his hat and shuts the door. Then, racing to the nearest window, she watches him walk to Tyler’s, his backpack weighing him down slightly. He passes the stop sign, then the Halloways house, until there is a small section of street where he disappears from her view.
From the deck door she will be able to see him better. She scurries to that door to await his appearance at Kim’s driveway.
He does not arrive. Her heart pounds. She waits another few seconds. An intruder enters her mind, a strange car. She is about to call Kim when the spaces between the shrubs become mottled with Joshua’s moving body. He is there, safely there.
Hastening to finish her computer task; she grabs the cordless phone from the receiver and pulls up the Lincoln hospital number she had been searching for. She reads and dials simultaneously. An automated voice lists options for her to follow. She waits for the ‘intensive care’ option. Four. She pushes the number and a person answers immediately.
“Intensive care, how may I help you?”
“Hi. My name is Cecilia Roth, great aunt of Mr. Steven Roth, a patient on your floor. Would you mind telling me of his status? I want to take a ride in to see my nephew but want to be sure it’s o.k with the staff and doctors first.”
“Can you hold, please?”
“No problem.”
The sound of classical music plays briefly before the voice is back.
“Hi. Thank you for holding. I’m happy to say that your nephew has made some fine progress. He’s moved from critical to fair condition. Visiting hours are from one to eight p.m. When were you thinking of coming in?”
A wave of panic, of anger, consumes her. “I’ll—I mean I’d like to come in today if that’s alright.”
“Certainly, Mrs. Roth. Should I tell him to expect you as a visitor?”
“Ahh….actually, if it’s alright with you, I’d like to surprise my dear nephew…he’s been through an awful lot. I’d like to pick up a present for him at the gift shop before visiting. What are the hours there?”
“The gift shop is open from ten o’clock to eight p.m., Mrs. Roth.”
“Oh, perfect.”
“Very well, then, Mrs. Roth. We’ll see you shortly.”
She hangs up, her mind frozen to the devilish vision of a recovering kidnapper, the same one who took her son.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)