The Compound

Chapter EIGHTEEN

I FLEW ACROSS THE ROOM, TOSSING ASIDE THE STAND AND sending it clattering to the other side of the room. Mom lay on the floor.

“Mom?”

I put one arm under her legs and the other around her waist, scooping her up in my arms. Her body flopped against mine as I carried her to the infirmary and laid her down on the bed next to Dad’s.

I dug around for smelling salts and waved them under her nose.

Her eyelids fluttered. “I don’t feel so well.”

My efforts to get her to sit didn’t work. She groaned and lay back down.

“Mom, what hurts?”

Mom licked her lips. “My stomach. Really bad cramps.” She rolled a bit with the pain.

“You’re bleeding.” I grabbed some extra sheets and towels from the linen closet and spread them under her on the bed as best as I could.

She lay propped up on some pillows, holding her stomach. “Ohhhh.” Her face was pale.

“You shouldn’t have done that. I’ll find the clue.” My words spoke what I wanted to be feeling, but I wasn’t. All I could think was that she had to be okay, I couldn’t do it without her. I could not be responsible for all of us. I wasn’t up to it.

Not even thinking, I reached to loosen my hair, put up my wall. But my hand found only the back of my head, which was covered with soft prickles.

I held my open hand in front of my eyes. My wall was gone. It didn’t matter whether I felt up to the task or not. Our lives depended on me. My fingers curled into a tight fist before releasing.

“Mom?”

Her eyes shut. “Hurts.”

My hand touched her arm. “Cramps?”

“No.” She grimaced. “Worse.”

It was crucial to figure out for sure what was wrong with Mom before I would know how to help. If I could. By paging through the index of one of the medical books, I found what I was looking for. I quickly scanned through descriptions of pregnancy complications.

Mom sighed. “I know what it is, Eli. I had it with Terese.”

I looked at my mother. “What happened?”

Her eyebrows rose. “Nothing. They put me on bed rest.”

As I glanced over at Dad, I noticed a syringe on the bedside table. A small bottle of the sodium nitroprusside sat beside it. I picked it up. Empty.

“Mom?”

She looked at the bottle in my hand and raised her eyebrows a bit. “I had to try. He may be our only way out.”

Lexie walked in. She rushed to Mom’s side as soon as she saw her face.

I explained what was going on. Then I looked at Mom. “So you’ll stay in bed until I get us out of here.”

She tried to get up. “I need to…”

With a gentle touch, Lexie pushed her back. “No, we can do it. I’ll help Terese with the babies. I already told her Dad was sick. I’ll tell her you’re just… just hanging out with him and getting some rest.” Lexie looked at me. “And Eli will figure out how to get us out of here.”

She was the last person I expected to be confident in my abilities as a savior.

Before she left, Lexie kissed Mom on the cheek. And she whispered to me, “Can you get us out of here?” She didn’t wait for an answer.

Mom stared at the ceiling. “This puts a kink in things.”

“No, we’ll take care of everything, really. You need to lie still.”

She sighed. “Eli? I like your haircut.”

I picked up her hand and held it between both of mine. Although touching someone still felt like a struggle, so strange after so long without the sensation, it was becoming more normal. Maybe I needed to get used to it. If we got out of here, we would all have to get used to normal again, whatever that might be. Normal again, to me, would be to touch someone, without having to summon up courage.

“Mom, what did the doctors say when this happened before?”

She didn’t answer right away. “It wasn’t that big a deal, really.”

“Did they tell you it could happen again?”

“Yes.”

“And that wasn’t a problem?”

“Even on bed rest, there was a chance it could have been bad enough that they would have to do an emergency C-section. That’s what they told me. They also said…”

“What? What did they say?”

Mom leaned back again. “Because I was getting a bit older, they recommended that Terese be my last baby.” I felt my heart in my throat. “Did Dad know that?”

“Of course.”

“And he let you have more babies? Down here, with no doctors?” I didn’t need the answer.

She shut her eyes.

I covered her with a blanket and left, careful to be quiet as I closed the door.

Out in the hall, I leaned against the wall for support. I had to figure out what turducken meant. Was it the clue? I needed to find out. Fast.

For the first time in six years, I did not have all the time in the world.