Page 10 of The River Is Waiting

“Yeah. What’s that stand for? Were you talking about my son’s condition?”

“No, I wasn’t. Hey, speaking of initials, I have a question for you, too.When I fed your information into the system, it said you got a DUI a while back. What was that about?”

Sergeant Fazio looks over at me, waiting for my response. I tell him it happened the day I lost my job. “Company downsized. I stopped off at that tavern on North Main Street to drown my sorrows.”

“Bid’s?” Fazio says. “Was that where you stopped?”

“Yeah. I ran into some guy I know and we took turns buying pitchers. I was feeling no pain when I left, but I was still able to drive. Thought I was anyway. Got about halfway home when they pulled me over.” I leave out the part about it being the twins’ first birthday party and forgetting to pick up their cake.

“Bid’s has great sandwiches, don’t they?” Fazio says. “The Astro, the Supreme. Good bread, too. I like a crusty grinder bread better than the soft kind. And how about Betty’s pickled eggs? Try not to pucker up when you’re eating one of those babies.” Up front, his partner is nodding.

It’s surreal. My kid is fighting for his life and he’s talking about sandwiches? I still haven’t gotten an answer about what EtOH is, but I shut up after that. Close my eyes and try to imagine I’m not riding in the back of this squad car. That I dropped the kids off at Emily’s mother’s like we planned because I buckled both of them in and nothing bad has happened to Niko.

When I open my eyes again, we’re moving at a faster clip past the Wendy’s on Perkins Avenue, then the Little League field, then that laundromat Emily and I used to use before we could afford to buy our washer and dryer. It dawns on me that this is the same route we took after I phoned Dr. Delgado to tell him her contractions were coming about five minutes apart and getting more intense. “Time to rock ‘n’ roll then,” he said. “I’ll meet you there.” Emily worked so hard in that delivery room.… Have they gotten ahold of her or is she still in the dark? Still on that bus heading to New Haven? She must be, or else she would have called me. Oh God, this is going to wipe her out. If he ends up disabled, in a wheelchair or something, how is she ever going to forgive me? How will I ever forgivemyself? I start shaking, just a little at first, then uncontrollably.

At the emergency room entrance, I get out of the cruiser and run on wobbly legs, passing through the sliding glass doors. Sergeant Fazio is a few steps behind me; Officer Longo has dropped us off and gone to park.

“Corby! Corby,wait!” Emily is running toward me. “What’s going on? The vice principal flagged down the bus just as we were turning onto the highway, but all he’d say on the way here was that there’s a ‘family emergency.’ Is it my mother?” When I shake my head, her eyes go wide with fear. With a trembling hand, she reaches out and grabs my arm. “Please tell me it’s not one of the kids.”

CHAPTER FIVE

In tears, I tell her it’s Niko. “He’s hurt, Em. It’s my fault. I’m so sorry.”

Fear flashes in her eyes. “Hurt how? Did he break something? Were you in a car accident?” I shake my head. “What about Maisie?”

I tell her Maisie’s fine, that I left her with Jodi and Mary Louise so I could be with him here at the hospital.

“I don’t understand,” she says. “Aren’t you just getting here? Where is he?”

“The ambulance took him. When the EMTs got to the house, they worked on him in the driveway. Then they—”

“EMTs? Why were they called? Is it that serious?” I tell her yes, that he lost a lot of blood. She shakes her head vehemently. When her eyes roll back and her knees buckle, I catch her before she falls. She’s back a few seconds later, demanding to know what happened and why I said it was my fault.

We’re both crying now. “He was… he was belly-down on the driveway. Looking at ants. I remembered the bag I’d packed for them was on the step and I went back to… and the McNallys had just come back from… and it slipped my mind that I hadn’t buckled both of them in yet. I’d gotten her strapped in but…”

“Oh no!” she shouts. “Oh, God!”

“So I started the car and—”

She closes her eyes tight and shakes her head. “Stop it, Corby! I can’t hear this. Stop talking!” Then she embraces me, holding on for dear life.

“Listen. I think he’s going to come out of this okay,” I tell her. “Sometimes it looks worse than—”

“Please, juststop!”

I coax her into one of the chairs and tell her to take some deep breaths.

“I don’t need deep breaths!” she snaps. “I need to find out what’s happening! I need to see my son!”

I see Sergeant Fazio at the receptionist’s window. Then he approaches us. “Excuse me, folks. Sorry to interrupt, but they need you to check in, answer some questions, give them your insurance information.” Message delivered, he joins Longo, who’s standing halfway across the room. With a shaky hand, Emily takes the card out of her wallet and hands it to me. I approach the window, answer the receptionist’s questions, and ask her some, too. Is our little boy in surgery? Who’s the doctor? When can we see him? She says she’s sorry but she doesn’t have that information. She imagines the doctor who’s seeing him will be out to talk to us soon.

When I sit back down again, Emily asks if I got any answers from the receptionist. I shake my head. “Why aretheyhere?” she asks, nodding toward the two cops. I tell her they gave me a ride here after the ambulance left, but beyond that I’m not sure. “I guess there may be an investigation.” Emily says she can’t believe this is happening. “I’m so scared, Corby,” she says. “What if he ends up crippled? Or brain damaged? You said there was blood. Where was he bleeding from?”

“Don’t go there, Em.” She rests her elbows on her knees, covers her face with her hands, and sobs softly. I knead her shoulder for a minute or so, then stop. She sits up and leans against me.

In the silence that follows, I take in the waiting room: an elderly couple, a high school kid on crutches at the soda machine, a middle-aged woman with knitting in her lap, a homeless-looking guy. Like Peeping Toms, they’ve been watching us, but when I look back at them, they avert their eyes. Fazio and Longo donotlook away. Emily and I are being watched.

A young woman in scrubs and a lab coat calls my name from the doorway. “That’s me,” I say. She tells me to follow her. Emily asks herwhether she should come, too, that she’s the mother. Looking confused, the woman says that won’t be necessary and this won’t take long. Emily nods, a puzzled look on her face. When she asks where they’re taking me, I tell her I don’t know. I follow the woman in the lab coat. Longo, the younger cop, gets up and starts walking behind us. Fazio stays in the waiting room with Emily.

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