Tracking Time

Sixty-one

Maslow was dripping with sweat. He had been working for hours without a break, hoping to dig and pry his way out before all the light was gone and he could see no more. A rock on the outside wedged the heavy gate in place. When he could not open it from the inside, he tried to lift it high enough to move Dylan's foot from under it. But there was not enough room above. He could lift the bottom only a little before the top edge struck against the roof.

Dylan screamed each time the gate shifted a little, but he gained a few precious inches by stuffing his running shoes into the gap. In the hours after that, he dug frantically around and under her pinned limb, using both hands and the sharp edge of a rock to create a depression, a trench deep enough to ease the pressure of the gate on what he could now tell was a jagged piece of bone. Dylan's body was flung at such an awkward angle that her own weight, slight as it was, worked against them. The leg continued to swell, filling all the space he created.

The extraordinary closeness of the situation created an even greater anxiety in Maslow. In his world, he was forbidden to talk to a patient outside office hours much less sit with her in a coffee shop. Touching even her hand would be the greatest violation of all. Now he was taking her pulse and manipulating her limbs and talking to her with love and the intent to convey it. He was caught in an upside-down world where the lines between evil and good could no longer be drawn. A child was his enemy. A former patient was his sister, never to be a patient again. The sand was shifting, and he had no certain place.

As night fell, the only hope of saving Dylan was for Maslow to get help. He switched tactics and began grinding away at a spoke of the once-stout barrier. He could not squeeze out with only one spoke missing, but with two gone he thought he might have a chance. He started with the weakest one, so badly rusted it chipped and splintered into spiny fragments in his fingers. He sawed at it with a rock and his bare hands, oblivious to the cuts the stone and rust made on his palms.

Dylan had a high fever and was hallucinating now. The things she mumbled made no sense, just like Maslow's whole life and what he'd thought was his history. Nothing made sense anymore. Outside all he could hear was the bark of a city dog and the steady rumble of the subway. Inside his head was a throbbing that wouldn't ease. His back and legs trembled with his efforts to break the spoke free. He was frantic. Beside him, a second sister was dying. This one was even more precious because she came as an unexpected gift when he'd thought he was all alone. Even worse than that, she was dying for the sole reason that she had wanted to be with him. No one else had ever cared for him that much. "You're doing well," he told her. "Very well. Just a little while more. Hang in there with me."

"No, no. The elephant is broken," she muttered.

"I fix elephants," he told her.

For Maslow, nothing had ever mattered to him but being a doctor. He'd worked all his life for the two magic letters after his name and the meaning they gave his existence. There was no reason in what was happening to them. She was going to die right in front of him, and there was nothing he could do to keep her alive.

It was pitch-black now. He stopped his sawing to scream again for help, but before the yell was out of his mouth, a crack of thunder struck so loud he thought it was an exploding bomb.

"Mommy," Dylan whimpered. He reached over and took her hand for a moment.

Then he returned to the spoke, jerking it with all his weight. This time it cracked at the top. Another clap of thunder split the sky. Maslow pried the spoke toward him with bleeding fingers. It hardly budged. He picked up the rock and used it as a wrench, braced his bare feet against the base of the gate and worked the rock toward him.

The spoke broke free in his hand and he fell back, panting. Just then the clouds let go, and rain hurled down out of the sky. A flash of lightning reached into the dark. Maslow stretched his hand through the space. His arm and one shoulder fit through, but his chest stuck. He could feel drops of rain wash his hand.

"Stay with me. I'll have you out soon," he murmured to Dylan. One more spoke and they would taste freedom. He would have them out before their captor returned. He was sure of it.