“She’s going to stay with me here for a while,” I say. “We’re working some things out.”
Caesar looks up from a magazine. “Is she gonna ride with us?”
I haven’t thought of this. Maybe it will take her mind off things, to feel like she’s an apprentice2 of sorts. “Youknow, she just might.”
Paulie turns around. He’s making fajitas tonight, beef. “Everything okay, Cap?”
“Yeah, Paulie, thanks for asking.”
“If there’s anyone upsetting her,” Red says, “they’ll have to go through all four of us now.”
The others nod. I wonder what they would think if I told them that the people upsetting Anna are Sara andme.
I leave the guys finishing up dinner preparations and go back to my room, where Anna sits on the secondtwin bed with her feet pretzeled beneath her. “Hey,” I say, but she doesn’t respond. It takes me a moment tosee that she’s wearing headphones, blasting God knows what into her ears.
She sees me and shuts off the music, pulling the phones to rest on her neck like a choker. “Hey.”
I sit down on the edge of the bed and look at her. “So. You, uh, want to do something?”
“Like what?”
I shrug3. “I don’t know. Play cards?”
“You mean like poker4?”
“Poker, Go Fish. Whatever.”
She looks at me carefully. “Go Fish?”
“Want to braid your hair?”
“Dad,” Anna asks, “are you feeling all right?”
I am more comfortable rushing into a building that is going to pieces around me than I am trying to make herfeel at ease. “I just—I want you to know you can do anything you want here.”
“Is it okay to leave a box of tampons in the bathroom?”
Immediately, my face goes red, and as if it’s catching5, so does Anna’s. There is only one female firefighter, apart-timer, and the women’s room is on the lower level of the station. But still.
Anna’s hair swings over her face. “I didn’t mean…I can just keep them—”
“You can put them in the bathroom,” I announce. Then I add with authority, “If anyone complains, we’ll saythey’re mine.”
“I’m not sure they’ll believe you, Dad.”
I wrap an arm around her. “I may not do this right at first. I’ve never bunked6 with a thirteen-year-old girl.”
“I don’t shack7 up with forty-two-year-old guys too often, either.”
“Good, because I’d have to kill them.”
Her smile is a stamp against my neck. Maybe this will not be as hard as I think. Maybe I can convince myselfthat this move will ultimately keep my family together, even though the first step involves breaking it apart.
“Dad?”
“Hmm?”
“Just so you know: no one plays Go Fish after they’re potty-trained.”
She hugs me extra tight, the way she used to when she was small. I remember, in that instant, the last time Icarried Anna. We were hiking across a field, the five of us—and the cattails and wild daisies were taller thanher head. I swung her up into my arms, and together we parted a sea of reeds. But for the first time we bothnoticed how far down her legs dangled8, how she was too big to sit on my hip9, and before long she wasstruggling to get down and walk on her own.
Goldfish get big enough only for the bowl you put them in. Bonsai10 trees twist in miniature. I would havegiven anything to keep her little. They outgrow11 us so much faster than we outgrow them.
It seems remarkable12 that while one of our daughters is leading us into a legal crisis, the other is in the throesof a medical one—but then again, we have known for quite some time that Kate’s at the end stages of renalfailure. It is Anna, this time, who’s thrown us for a loop. And yet—like always—you figure it out; youmanage to deal with both. The human capacity for burden is like bamboo—far more flexible than you’d everbelieve at first glance.
While Anna was packing up her things that afternoon, I went to the hospital. Kate was having her dialysisdone when I came into the room. She was asleep with her CD headphones on; Sara rose from a chair withone finger pressed to her lips, a warning.
She led me into the hallway. “How’s Kate?” I asked.
“About the same,” she answered. “How’s Anna?”
We traded the status of our children like baseball cards that we’d flash for a peek13, but didn’t want to give upjust yet. I looked at Sara, wondering how I was supposed to tell her what I’d done.
“Where did you two run off to while I was fending14 off the judge?” she said.
Well. If you sit around and think about how hot the fire’s going to be, you’ll never get into the thick of it. “Itook Anna to the station.”
“Something going on at work?”
I took a deep breath and leaped off the cliff that my marriage had become. “No. Anna’s going to stay with methere for a few days. I think maybe she needs a little time by herself.”
Sara stared at me. “But Anna’s not going to be by herself. She’s going to be with you.”
The hallway seemed too bright and too wide all of a sudden. “Is that a bad thing?”
“Yes,” she said. “Do you really think that buying into Anna’s tantrum is going to help her any in the longrun?”
“I’m not buying into her tantrum; I’m giving her space to come to the right conclusions by herself. You’re notthe one who’s been sitting outside with her while you’re in the judge’s chambers15. I’m worried about her.”
“Well, that’s where we’re different,” Sara argued. “I’m worried about both our daughters.”
I looked at her, and for just a splinter of a minute saw the woman she used to be—one who knew where tofind her smile, instead of having to rummage16 for it; one who always messed up punch lines and still got alaugh; one who could reel me in without even trying. I put my hands on her cheeks. Oh, there you are, Ithought, and I leaned down to kiss her on the forehead. “You know where to find us,” I said, and walkedaway.
Shortly after midnight we get an ambulance call. Anna blinks from her bed as the bells go off and lightautomatically floods the room. “You can stay,” I tell her, but she’s already up and putting on her shoes.
I’ve given her old turnout gear from our part-time female firefighter: a pair of boots, a hard hat. She shrugsinto the coat and climbs into the rear of the ambulance, strapping18 herself to the rear-facing seat behind Red,who’s driving.
We scream down the streets of Upper Darby to the Sunshine Gates Nursing Home, an anteroom for meetingSt. Peter. Red grabs the stretcher from the ambulance while I carry in the paramedic’s bag. A nurse meets usat the front doors. “She fell down and lost consciousness for a while. And she’s got an altered mental state.”
We are led to one of the rooms. Inside, an elderly woman lies on the floor, tiny and fine-boned as a bird,blood oozing19 from the top of her head. It smells like she’s lost control of her bowels20. “Hi, hon,” I say, leaningdown immediately. I reach for her hand, the skin thin as crepe. “Can you squeeze my fingers?” And to thenurse: “What’s her name?”
“Eldie Briggs. She’s eighty-seven.”
“Eldie, we’re going to help you,” I say, continuing to assess her. “She’s got a lac on the occipital area. I’mgoing to need the backboard.” While Red runs out to the ambulance to get it, I take Eldie’s blood pressureand pulse—irregular. “Do you have any pain in your chest?” The woman moans, but shakes her head andthen winces21. “I’m going to have to put you in a collar, hon, all right? It looks like you hit your head prettyhard.” Red returns, bearing the board. Lifting my head, I look at the nurse again. “Do we know if her changein consciousness was the result of the fall, or did it cause the fall?”
She shakes her head. “No one saw it happen.”
“Of course,” I mutter under my breath. “I need a blanket.”
The hand that offers it is tiny and shaking. Until that moment, I’ve completely forgotten Anna is with us.
“Thanks, baby,” I say, taking the time to smile at her. “You want to help me here? Can you get down to Mrs.
Briggs’s feet?”
She nods, white-faced, and crouches22 down. Red aligns23 the backboard. “We’re going to roll you, Eldie…onthree…” We count, shift, strap17 her on. The motion makes her scalp wound gush24 again.
We load her into the ambulance. Red hauls off to the hospital as I move around the cramped25 quarters of thecabin, hooking up the oxygen tank, ministering. “Anna, grab me an IV start kit1?” I begin to cut Eldie’sclothes off her. “You still with us, Mrs. Briggs? Little needle stick coming,” I say. I position her arm and tryto get a vein26, but they are like the faintest tracings of pencil, blueprint27 shadings. Sweat beads28 on my forehead.
“I can’t get in with a twenty. Anna, can you find a twenty-two?”
It doesn’t help that the patient is moaning, crying. That the ambulance is swaying back and forth29, turningcorners, braking, as I try to insert the smaller needle. “Dammit,” I say, throwing the second line on the floor.
I do a quick cardiac strip and then pick up the radio and dial into the hospital to tell them we’re incoming.
“Eighty-seven-year-old patient, had a fall. She’s alert and answering questions, BP 136 over 83, pulse 130and irregular. I tried to get IV access for you but haven’t had a lot of luck with that. She does have a lac onthe back of her head but it’s pretty well controlled by now. I’ve got her on oxygen. Any questions?”
In the beam of an approaching truck, I see Anna’s face. The truck turns, the light falls, and I realize that mydaughter is holding this stranger’s hand.
At the emergency entrance of the hospital, we pull the stretcher out of the cabin and wheel into the automaticdoors. A team of doctors and nurses is already waiting. “She’s still talking to us,” I say.
A male nurse taps her thin wrists. “Jesus.”
“Yeah, that’s why I couldn’t get a line. I needed pedi cuffs30 to get her pressure.”
Suddenly I remember Anna, who’s standing31 wide-eyed in the doorway32. “Daddy? Is that lady going to die?”
“I think she might have had a stroke…but she’s going to make it. Listen, why don’t you just go wait overthere, in a chair? I’ll be out in five minutes, tops.”
“Dad?” she says, and I pause at the threshold. “Wouldn’t it be cool if they were all that way?”
She doesn’t see it the way I do—that Eldie Briggs is a paramedic’s nightmare, that her veins33 are shot and hercondition’s waffling and that this has not been a good call at all. What Anna means is that whatever is wrongwith Eldie Briggs can be fixed34.
I go inside and continue to feed information to the ER staff as needed. About ten minutes later, I finish up myRun Form and look for my daughter in the waiting area, but she’s gone missing. I find Red smoothing freshsheets onto the stretcher, strapping a pillow under its belt. “Where’s Anna?”
“I figured she was with you.”
Glancing down one hallway and then the other, all I see are weary physicians, other paramedics, smallscatterings of dazed people sipping35 coffee and hoping for the best. “I’ll be right back.”
Compared to the frenzy36 of the ER, the eighth floor is all tucked tight. The nurses all greet me by name as Ihead for Kate’s room and gently push open the door.
Anna is too big for Sara’s lap, but that’s where she’s sitting. She and Kate are both asleep. Over the crown ofAnna’s head, Sara watches me approach.
I kneel in front of my wife and brush Anna’s hair off her temples. “Baby,” I whisper, “it’s time to go home.”
Anna sits up slowly. She lets me take her hand and draw her upright, Sara’s palm trailing down her spine37.
“It’s not home,” Anna says, but she follows me out of the room all the same.
Past midnight, I lean down beside Anna and balance my words on the edge of her ear. “Come see this,” Icoax. She sits up, grabs a sweatshirt, stuffs her feet into her sneakers. Together, we climb to the station’s roof.
The night is falling down around us. Meteors rain like fireworks, quick rips in the seam of the dark. “Oh!”
Anna exclaims, and she lies down so that she can see better.
“It’s the Perseids,” I tell her. “A meteor shower.”
“It’s incredible.”
Shooting stars are not stars at all. They’re just rocks that enter the atmosphere and catch fire under friction38.
What we wish on, when we see one, is only a trail of debris39.
In the upper left quadrant of the sky, a radiant bursts in a new stream of sparks. “Is it like this every night,while we’re asleep?” Anna asks.
It is a remarkable question—Do all the wonderful things happen when we are not aware of them? I shake myhead. Technically40, the earth’s path crosses this comet’s gritty tail once a year. But a show as dynamic as thisone might be once in a lifetime.
“Wouldn’t it be cool if a star landed in the backyard? If we could find it when the sun came up and put it intoa fishbowl and use it as a night-light or a camping lantern?” I can almost see her doing it, combing the lawnfor the mark of burned grass. “Do you think Kate can see these, out her window?”
“I’m not sure.” I come up on an elbow and look at her carefully.
But Anna keeps her eyes glued to the upended bowl of the heavens. “I know you want to ask me why I’mdoing all this.”
“You don’t have to say anything if you don’t want to.”
Anna lies down, her head pillowed against my shoulder. Every second, another streak41 of silver glows:
parentheses42, exclamation43 points, commas—a whole grammar made of light, for words too hard to speak.
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1
kit
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| n.用具包，成套工具；随身携带物 | |
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apprentice
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| n.学徒，徒弟 | |
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shrug
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| v.耸肩(表示怀疑、冷漠、不知等) | |
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poker
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| n.扑克；vt.烙制 | |
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catching
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| adj.易传染的，有魅力的，迷人的，接住 | |
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bunked
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| v.（车、船等倚壁而设的）铺位( bunk的过去式和过去分词 )；空话，废话 | |
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shack
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| adj.简陋的小屋，窝棚 | |
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dangled
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| 悬吊着( dangle的过去式和过去分词 )； 摆动不定； 用某事物诱惑…； 吊胃口 | |
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hip
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| n.臀部，髋；屋脊 | |
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bonsai
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| n.盆栽，盆景 | |
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outgrow
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| vt.长大得使…不再适用；成长得不再要 | |
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remarkable
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| adj.显著的，异常的，非凡的，值得注意的 | |
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peek
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| vi.偷看，窥视；n.偷偷的一看，一瞥 | |
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fending
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| v.独立生活，照料自己( fend的现在分词 )；挡开，避开 | |
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chambers
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| n.房间( chamber的名词复数 )；（议会的）议院；卧室；会议厅 | |
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rummage
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| v./n.翻寻，仔细检查 | |
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strap
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| n.皮带，带子；v.用带扣住，束牢；用绷带包扎 | |
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strapping
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| adj. 魁伟的, 身材高大健壮的 n. 皮绳或皮带的材料, 裹伤胶带, 皮鞭 动词strap的现在分词形式 | |
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oozing
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| v.（浓液等）慢慢地冒出，渗出( ooze的现在分词 )；使（液体）缓缓流出；（浓液）渗出，慢慢流出 | |
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bowels
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| n.肠，内脏，内部；肠( bowel的名词复数 )；内部，最深处 | |
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winces
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| 避开，畏缩( wince的名词复数 ) | |
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crouches
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| n.蹲着的姿势( crouch的名词复数 )v.屈膝，蹲伏( crouch的第三人称单数 ) | |
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aligns
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| 使成一线( align的第三人称单数 )； 排整齐； 校准； 公开支持（某人、集体或观点） | |
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gush
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| v.喷，涌；滔滔不绝(说话)；n.喷，涌流；迸发 | |
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cramped
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| a.狭窄的 | |
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vein
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| n.血管，静脉；叶脉，纹理；情绪；vt.使成脉络 | |
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blueprint
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| n.蓝图，设计图，计划；vt.制成蓝图，计划 | |
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beads
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| n.（空心）小珠子( bead的名词复数 )；水珠；珠子项链 | |
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forth
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| adv.向前；向外，往外 | |
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cuffs
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| n.袖口( cuff的名词复数 )v.掌打，拳打( cuff的第三人称单数 ) | |
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standing
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| n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的 | |
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doorway
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| n.门口，(喻)入门；门路，途径 | |
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veins
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| n.纹理；矿脉( vein的名词复数 )；静脉；叶脉；纹理 | |
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fixed
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| adj.固定的，不变的，准备好的；(计算机)固定的 | |
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sipping
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| v.小口喝，呷，抿( sip的现在分词 ) | |
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frenzy
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| n.疯狂，狂热，极度的激动 | |
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spine
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| n.脊柱，脊椎；(动植物的)刺；书脊 | |
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friction
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| n.摩擦，摩擦力 | |
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debris
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| n.瓦砾堆，废墟，碎片 | |
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technically
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| adv.专门地，技术上地 | |
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streak
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| n.条理，斑纹，倾向，少许，痕迹；v.加条纹，变成条纹，奔驰，快速移动 | |
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42
parentheses
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| n.圆括号，插入语，插曲（ parenthesis的名词复数 ） | |
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exclamation
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| n.感叹号，惊呼，惊叹词 | |
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