All the Time in the World (7 page)

I carry him back to his room to sleep it off. It occurs to me that Gretchen could come home at any minute. I should probably double-check to make sure she doesn't want me to wake him up, feed him, and put him back to bed. Unlikely, but still her call. I send her a text. There is no reply. So I make myself a grilled cheese sandwich with organic Jarlsberg and Ezekiel bread, and sit down on the couch. I open my laptop and glance through the website that I e-mailed to myself earlier. None of the requirements have changed. My application is pretty much still complete, since I have nothing to add in the résumé section. I stare at the last question on the form, and my four-line, quippy answer. The question asked me to describe the most meaningful professional experience of my life thus far, and I had written an anecdote about watching an actor fall into the orchestra pit while I was doing my internship.

I scroll through the saved addresses in my e-mail, looking for my internship supervisor, but I stop when I get to the Fs. Fairchild, Jess. Her name might as well be the only one there. I feel the prickle of nerves all through me. What would happen if I e-mailed Jess and asked for a recommendation? Before I can fuss over this idea for another minute, I chicken out, close my in-box, and click on the TV to whatever Gretchen was watching last. HGTV.

One thirty comes and goes, and still no word from Gretchen or sleeping George. I go back to his room, open the blinds, and rattle the toys in his toy bin until he wakes up. He eats, he sits on the potty, we build a shining city out of Duplos, and now it has to be time to start getting ready to pick up Matt since Gretchen is not home. I send her another text (“will take G with me to pick up M, see you later”), and we bundle up, hop into the elevator, and start our second sprint of the day to North-Mad.

*   *   *

TWO OF MY
sweaters are in the dryer, along with all of the boys' clothes from earlier. They have bathed and are now eating cupcakes on beanbag chairs in front of the TV. I'm pretty sure I have a solid case for our Valentine's activity when Gretchen gets home, should she question it. It's almost 4:00. She hasn't yet told me if she would like me to start or order dinner. I decide to call her and see if I can get some quick answers.

I call her once and get her voice mail. I try her one more time before I leave a message. The second time I call, the phone is picked up after half a ring, and the voice on the other end of the line is not Gretchen's but that of a curt female I don't recognize.

“Who is this?” the woman clips.

“Ah, this is Charlotte. Who is
this
?”

“This is Rosie Ramsay in the Emergency department.” Rosie Ramsay? Is she kidding with that name?

“This is Gretchen McLean's phone,” I say, kind of dumbly.

“I know.” The woman's voice is not at all gentle, as in hindsight I think it should have been. “What is your relationship to Ms. McLean?”

“It's Mrs.,” I correct her, pointless and automatic and wary. “I'm her babysitter. I'm here with her two boys. Can I please talk to her?”

“Do you have a way to contact Mr. McLean?” Rosie Ramsay asks me.

“Isn't his number in her phone?” I ask.

“Her phone is locked with a passcode. You are the first phone call she's gotten since she got here. Texts came in, but we couldn't retrieve them because of the code.”

“Why do you have Gretchen's phone?” I can't force my mind to wade through the nerves and come up with an explanation, and Rosie Ramsay doesn't seem in a hurry to fill me in.

“Mrs. McLean is here with us in Emergency. The surgeon has just gone in to start a procedure.”

“Why? What happened?”

“I'm sorry,” says the harpy on the other end, “but I can't give out information to anyone who isn't next of kin.”

“Well. Okay. Would you like me to put her five-year-old son on the phone so that you can tell him what's happening?”

A brief moment of silence. “Mrs. McLean was hit by a taxi crossing Eighty-Sixth Street a few hours ago,” she tells me.

“You mean, you mean, what do you mean? She was in a taxi?” I lower my voice. “And they got hit?”

“Mrs. McLean was on foot,” says Rosie Ramsay. “And the driver of the taxi ran the red light.” I don't say anything to this because all I can think of are curse words. She says, “If you have a way to contact Mr. McLean, you really ought to do so, and have him come down to the ER right away.” She gives me an address and then hangs up.

I stand in the kitchen holding the silent phone to my ear, and it feels like that moment after all the warm water has drained out of the tub and you are paralyzed, shivering, unable to move since the extension of your limbs from your body will only make you colder.

Scotty. I snap out of it, and in the clarity of the snap, I realize that I don't have Scotty's phone number. Two years of working for them, and I've never had the need.

I look around for an emergency phone list, but I'm wasting time. I can't think of where it could be.

“Matt,” I call. “Do you know your Daddy's cell phone number?”

“No,” he calls back. Wall-E and Eve are dancing through time and space. Shit. I know the name of the firm he works for, so I grab my phone and Google the number for the switchboard.

The receptionist answers, and I interrupt her recitation of the firm's partners. “I need to speak to Scotty McLean. It's urgent.”

She puts me through to Scotty's secretary, and I repeat the request.

“I'm sorry,” she tells me in a melodious voice that has the perfect combination of gatekeeper and compassion, “Mr. McLean is on a conference call. May I take a message?”

“No! Please, I'm so sorry, but you have to interrupt him. This is his babysitter. It's an emergency.”

She takes a beat and must decide I'm telling the truth. “Hold for a moment,” she says, and then I hear Scotty's voice, and I am really starting to panic now, but trying not to. The kids. The kids, the kids.

“Charlotte?” he says. “Are you okay?”

“The boys are okay,” I say. “It's Gretchen. I just called her phone and got some woman from the emergency room. Apparently, they brought her in earlier today and didn't know how to contact anyone.”

“What happened to her?” he asks. I start to repeat what Rosie Ramsay told me, and then I worry that the boys will hear me. It's vitally important that my words come out at exactly the right volume, but my throat feels constricted. “Charlotte? Do you know what happened?”

“She was hit by a car, I think,” I say. “They wouldn't tell me much.”

In the other room, Wall-E is declaring his love for Eve, repeating her name over and over, and she is answering in a similar fashion. Matt thinks it's hilarious, and he is imitating their voices, making Georgie laugh. My entire capacity for thought is occupied by these sounds. I worry that Scotty might be fighting a similar distraction until I hear him speak again.

“Charlotte. Okay, Charlotte. I'm going to transfer you back to my assistant. Give her your cell phone number, then have the doorman call you a cab. I'll meet you at the hospital. You'll probably beat me, so I'll text you, and you can tell me where to meet you after you figure out where she is. Can you do that?”

“Yeah,” I say. “I mean, yes. See you there.” He clicks the phone over, and I give his secretary (who identifies herself as Eliza) my cell phone number. We hang up, and I grab a pad of paper. My mind is reeling, and something is going to slip through the cracks if I'm not meticulous.
Doorman call a cab
, I scribble.
Coats and hats. Water, juice, pretzels, bananas. Pup. Something for Matt to do? Locate Gretchen. Text Scotty back.
I throw the phone into my tote bag and move around the kitchen, burning through my list in a haze of unreality. The kids are oblivious to my actions until I pause the TV with no warning, and both their heads swivel to pin me with accusatory stares.

“I'm sorry,” I say to them. “We need to do something quickly. We had a change of plans, and we need to get in a car and go meet your mom and dad. I have all your stuff, but Matt, I need you to put on your shoes and coat while I get George ready.”

“Where are we going?”

“I need you to do it now, pal. I'll explain when we get downstairs.” He must hear something urgent in my voice because he obeys me for once in his life. Roughly five minutes have elapsed since I hung up with Scotty. I pick up my backpack and a tote full of their stuff, take a kid by each hand, and lock the door on the way out.

The elevator stops twice on the way down, and each time, I want to scream with fury. Matt keeps looking at me with increasing anxiety as I stifle these impulses, and he asks again where we're going. Georgie's eyes have teared up, which he doesn't want me to see, so he buries his face in my side.

I put Matt in the car first, then George. It takes a few minutes for my adrenaline-riddled hands to function properly and buckle their belts, but I do it, and I tell the driver where we're headed while simultaneously trying to impart the gravity of the situation to him, silently with widened eyes. Either he gets it, or he's a maniac.

As we whip downtown along Park, I am shocked to see the state of the trees. Branches are down everywhere, and some are dangling precariously from the tree that spawned the fallen limbs. It's a five-minute ride. I hand the driver a twenty and tell him he should keep the change. I hustle the kids through the automatic doors. We are about ten feet from the information desk when Matt stops, stock-still in the middle of the body traffic, and looks at me.

“Why are we at the hospital?”

I squat down. He deserves to have someone look him in the eye and tell him the truth. I'm unequal to the task, but there isn't anyone else here. I set Georgie down next to Matt and put my hands on both of their shoulders, because it has to be me, and I want them to remember that the messenger tried her best.

“Mommy is here at the hospital. She was in an accident, and the doctors need to look at her and check her out, and it might take a little while. Daddy is coming from work to meet us.”

Matt nods, and George indicates with his arms that he would like to be picked back up. I stand up, holding him, and we walk to the front desk.

“I'm looking for Gretchen McLean,” I tell the receptionist.

“Which department?”

“Emergency, I think. Or she might be in surgery now. Is that different?”

“When did she come in?”

“I'm not sure? A few hours ago.”

“Are you her next of kin?”

“These are her children, and I'm her babysitter.”

“I don't have a Gretchen McAbe listed in the system.”

“It's not—” I have to pause and swallow a shout. “The last name is McLean. If you could just point me toward emergency—”

“Could you spell that, Miss?”

“M-C-L-E-A-N.” She is typing and clicking, and typing some more, and suddenly I am hit with inspiration.

“What department does Rosie Ramsay work in?”

*   *   *

WE HAVE FINALLY
come to the waiting room at the end of the labyrinth that I was sure would never end, and I answer Scotty's text, telling him which entrance to use. A woman in scrubs walks over to greet us. She is tiny, and I know at once that this is her, Rosie, purveyor of horrifying news.

“Their father is on his way. Please, do you have anything that you can tell me?”

“She's still in surgery. Let one of the floor nurses know when Mr. McLean arrives, and I'll send her doctor out to talk to him.” She walks away, and I have a sudden urge to chuck a juice box at her head, which, for now, I squelch.

There are only five other people in the waiting room, and all of them seem to be alone. I set up Gretchen's iPad with a movie for the kids to watch and settle them into chairs, using their coats to cushion them. I give them each a juice box and open up the bag of pretzels, but neither of them even reaches for one. George is clutching his Pup, and Matt has his TV-trance face on. I wish I hadn't brought them here. Contemplation of mortality isn't a thing that happens frequently in the mind of a little kid, and here we are, bathing in the contemplation, Matt and I. George is too young to understand the implications of severity a hospital presents, but he does understand that his mother's body, while previously considered indestructible, must have been compromised in some way to land us here with all the doctors.

I can't sit down. If I sit down, do I accept that I have no power and can only wait? I can't sit down. I walk to the vending machine and get a Diet Coke.

I open it.

I drink it.

I read every bulletin board in the room.

I stand behind the boys and lose my mind in
The Lorax
for three minutes.

Then suddenly, Scotty is there, and he looks thunderous. Somehow, the normal mildness of his manner has escaped him. There is no iota of the silliness he usually displays for the kids, which is pretty much the only aspect of his personality I'm familiar with. Right now, he looks like he's made of deal breakers, held together by force and bringing it down the hall with him.

The minute he's inside I point him out to the head nurse, and she must see the same thing I do because she does not hesitate to pursue the immediate retrieval of Rosie Ramsay and the alleged doctor.

“She's going to get the doctor,” I say when he is near enough to hear my voice, and I indicate the retreating nurse.

“Thank you, Charlotte.” Scotty is holding his overcoat, and I wonder if he wore it here or carried it the whole way. He sets down his briefcase with the coat on top of it and buttons his suit jacket. “Hi, boys.”

Matt continues to stare at the screen and does not respond. Georgie slides down off his chair, holding Pup, and comes over to greet his father.

“We see Mommy now?”