The Children's Hospital

64

“Welcome,” said Helena Dufresne. “Where are your bags?”

“I’m just visiting,” Jemma said.

“That’s what everyone says, at first. I said it, too. We’ll just check it out, I said, because I felt a stirring, during the speech. I’m not used to that. Speeches and sermons and commercials and romance movies — they usually don’t touch me the least bit. But what she said — it was all squirmy in me, and I kept thinking about how people used to put gerbils up their bottoms, because I felt a squirminess that I was sure must be just like that, and I wondered, did people ever really do that, and I wondered, was that the reason, was that the last thing he noticed before he said, That’s it? Can you imagine the poor gerbil? I had a dream about it, of course. I was the gerbil, and I had to get out. I scrabbled with my little claws — everything was dark and warm and smelly and I couldn’t breathe. When I woke up I realized what it all meant. I had to get out of the world, I had to get closer than we were. I made up my mind. I told Tir, We’re going for a tour on the ninth floor. We’re just going to look. But I packed us a bag, just in case.”

“I’m really just visiting,” Jemma said. She put a hand on her belly. “It’s time for my checkup.”

“If you say so. Come on with me, I’ll take you to her.” She rose from behind the desk that Thelma had never given up until the botch took her to the PICU. The months had changed the lady: she was a little thinner, and didn’t huff and puff when she walked, and smiled all the time instead of scowling, and cursed more pleasantly if not less frequently, and had adopted a glamorous, sequin-based wardrobe, though today she was wearing the same plain linen dress that all the women on the ninth floor were wearing. “Walk this way!” she said, and Jemma considered imitating her bouncy gait. “Tir’s in class with the other kids,” she added, “or I’d take you to say hello. Maybe after your visit?”

“Okay,” Jemma said. They passed down the pastel halls of the old psych ward, each room was filled with adults sitting quietly on the bare floors, staring up at the ceiling or out the windows; they all seemed to be waiting patiently for something to happen. “What are they doing?” Jemma asked.

“Listening,” Helena said. “Trying to figure it out. I have a hard time being so calm about it. I sit there and think, Speak! Speak to me! Because it’s like a race, to listen hard enough to know what the worst thing was, and be sorry enough for it, and know what to do next, and save ourselves and everybody, before it’s too late. And it’s almost too late, now. “

“Heard anything yet?” Jemma asked.

“I’ll let her tell you.” They circled down the hall into the rehab ward. Jemma peeked in the window to the gym as they walked by and saw a room full of children who looked to be doing a very slow, swaying dance. Helena stopped outside the entry to the old gym. “We’ve got room in our bed,” she said, and winked in a way that struck Jemma as very innocent and strange, then bounced off down the hall.

Vivian was inside, sitting under the model sun on a little platform that hadn’t been there last time Jemma had visited up here. She was wearing a handsome linen pantsuit, her legs drawn up against her chest, and seemed to be staring at her feet. “I’ve never seen you wear a pantsuit before,” Jemma said.

“Graduation,” Vivian said. “And med-school interviews.”

“You said you weren’t going to wear pants at graduation.”

“I chickened out.”

“I didn’t,” Jemma said, recalling the curious feeling of the cheap rayon gown against her bare bottom.

“Sorry,” Vivian said.

“Well,” Jemma said, “what other lies did you tell me?”

“Nothing that ever mattered,” Vivian said sadly. “None of them were the worst thing.”

“I’m here for my checkup,” Jemma said, deliberately not asking what the worst thing was. Vivian lifted her face and gave Jemma a sad, sweeping look.

“You’re fine,” she said, then lowered her head again.

“Well, I don’t feel fine,” Jemma said. “My back hurts and my belly hurts.”

“That’s normal.”

“Well what about my clumsiness and my numb fingers and my nap attacks?”

“Normal, too.”

“The baby is rolling around all the time. I think it’s trying to get out already.”

“You’re fine.”

“Don’t you want to check a urine? Don’t you want to take my blood pressure? What if the lie is all weird? What if it’s breech?”

“It’s fine. You’re fine. Don’t you get it?” She looked up again, and seemed more familiar now — angry Vivian instead of sad, pensive Vivian. “Do you really think something bad could possibly happen to your baby?”

“Of course something bad could happen. What, you think I’m being a freak because I’m worried? Have you noticed the mystery disease that’s killing everybody?”

“Not the kids,” Vivian said. “They’ll be fine.”

“How the hell do you know that?”

“It sort of… came to me.” She looked down at her feet again and sighed. “You can’t sit here all fucking day and not figure something out. Are you here to move in with us? It’s going pretty well, you know. We could make it, maybe. Just maybe. If you helped it might all go quicker.”

“I’m here for a checkup. What happened to the days when I used to have to beat you with a stick to keep you from doing Leopolds on me?”

“You’re fine,” she said again. She made a blessing motion toward Jemma, without looking at her. “All is well.”

“Jesus Christ,” Jemma said, stomping up and sitting down. “How would you like it if I transferred my care to Dr. Killer?”

“She’ll be dead weeks before you have that baby,” Vivian said simply. “Aloysius would probably be better. At least he can work the sono.”

“He’s in the PICU.”

“Well, maybe not him, then. You don’t need anybody, anyway. Do the sono yourself, if you’re that curious to see how totally normal and fine your baby is. Or I could do it, I guess, though it’s totally not necessary, if I could leave here. But I can’t, so you’d have to stay.”

“No thanks,” Jemma said. “I’ve got other obligations.”

“Nothing important, though. You’ll see.”

“I’ll just go do it myself,” Jemma said. “I’ll do it all wrong. I’ll get ultrasound poisoning. I’ll make the baby deaf. What do you care?” Vivian didn’t reply. Jemma sat down. “How are things up here?” she asked, after another few minutes of silence.

“Well enough. Nobody up here is sick yet. We haven’t got an answer, but we’re listening. I’m listening.”

“What have you heard?”

“Not much. A little whisper, now and then. You shouldn’t have… why did you… how could you… what were you thinking when you… But I never hear the good part. I have my suspicions, though. You know how you can tell what a street sign says, even if you can’t read the letters in the name? Just from the shape and the context of the letters? It’s like that. I see the shape of it and I almost know what the word is, what the thing is, and then I’ll know.”

“Then what? What happens after you know, or think you know?”

“Then we fix it. Then we swear it off. All together — heave! I don’t know. Somehow that doesn’t seem like the hard part, maybe just because it’s not the part that’s right now. It will point to what’s next.”

“Rob is getting depressed. He used to love the PICU and now it just makes him sad.”

“I think I should be able to see it pointing, already. I mean it’s already pointing. I should be able to see it.”

“Snood’s a Friend. Not my friend, mind you. He never shuts up.”

“Why can’t I see it? It’s so stupid, to know what’s wrong but not know how to describe it, and to know we have to do something but not know what. Every time somebody dies it’s going to be my fault.”

“It’s going to be my fault,” Jemma said.

“It’s not your fault.”

“Well it sure isn’t yours.”

“Except it is,” Vivian said.

“You’re crazy,” Jemma said, and then a moment later added, “I miss you.” Vivian took her hand but didn’t look at her.

“I know,” she said.