Emergency Room (12 page)

A male nurse came out to take the baby to the pediatric ER. “Good, you’re gloved,” he said.

“Why did I have to glove?”

“Addicts mostly are HIV positive,” he said. “So probably her baby is, too.” Gently he scooped the baby into his arms. He held the child — they didn’t know yet whether it was a boy or a girl — and rocked it. He talked to the baby as he walked away, cuddling and nestling the tiny person the way the mother had not been able to. “Let’s get you fixed up, sweetheart.” He kissed its tiny forehead and snuggled the baby up to him as if it were his own.

But right now, the baby
is
his, thought Diana, and she was filled with awe.
He loves that baby
. I want to be a good person like that. I want to love other people’s babies instead of being scared of them. Diana stared at her gloved hands.

“Don’t worry,” said her friend. “You can’t get AIDS holding the baby. You’d have to share needles with the mama. You’re safe.”

Diana’s eyes suddenly filled with tears. She felt like a little girl, not a college woman. “But what will happen to the baby?”

The black woman put a gentle arm around Diana’s shoulder and said nothing.

They both knew what would happen to the baby.

It would die.

“T
HIS PLACE IS SUCH
a zoo,” said the angry couple. They had been taken to a treatment room, but nobody had ever come to administer any treatment, or even to
look
at their son. Back and forth they stalked in the tiny room, seething with fury. If there had been anybody to hit, they would have gotten into fistfights. But there was only Seth, and the color of the pink jacket told them Seth was nobody and could accomplish nothing.

“I hate this place!” hissed the mother. “This disgusting zoo with these incompetent people!”

Seth heard this constantly. “What a zoo,” people would say, as the flow and ebb of patients and professionals passed them by. “Is it always like this?” they would ask Seth, their lips curled in anger and shock.

Sometimes they didn’t call it a zoo, but instead talked about how they hated this place. “I hate this hospital,” people said many times every night. “I hate everybody in it. They make you wait; they’re no good; they don’t know what they’re doing; it’s too crowded and it costs too much.”

Sure enough the mother brushed tears from her cheeks and said in a high-pitched, nearly hysterical voice, “If I had known what a zoo it was going to be, I wouldn’t have come.”

She had had to come. Her son was in such bad shape she had had no choice, and she knew it. Eventually, he would get the attention he needed, but the doctors weren’t free right now. That was that. But nobody could stand the idea that their child didn’t come first. Especially when their child was as desperate as this one.

“I hate this place,” agreed the father.

Only the son said nothing. How could he? The pain and fear must have been unbearable. He just sat very still on the edge of the stretcher, feet hanging down, holding his mother’s hand. He was about twelve. Seth had never even been hurt, let alone experienced anything like what this kid was going through. Would he have been this brave when he was in sixth grade?

The father moved into the hall to do some more swearing, as if four-letter words would bring a doctor on the run. By now Seth knew that doctors really didn’t hear anything like that; their patient load was so heavy, and they had so many other worries, that the swearing and the anger just blended into the general chaos.

Seth never knew what to say when people swore at the hospital. He loved this place. He loved everything about it, but most of all, actually, he loved the zoo-ness. So much to see and stare at and learn from! And although it probably was a mean and low comparison, there
was
something zoo-y about the patients on display in their many cubicles. Curtains instead of bars, doctors instead of keepers. It was a teaching hospital, and the patients really were exhibits.

Sure enough, the medical students who a moment ago had been in the Family Room finding out how to tell elderly parents that their thirty-year-old son was permanently comatose, now gathered at the door of the Ophthalmologic Room. Gently maneuvering the parents out of their way, the specialist and the Attending began to lecture. “And this is an avulsed eyeball from a tumor.…”

This
. A terrified twelve-year-old whose brain tumor was pushing his eye right out of his head.
This
— his sobbing mother and his stunned father. Here, they were just people to shift over to make room for the medical students.
This
was just an eyeball. In this inner-city ER, there was no such thing as bedside manner. You counted yourself lucky to have a doctor reach the bedside at all.

The very pretty medical student leaned over the boy, examining him with a sort of fascinated greed. Then she shifted, letting the nerdy one with the glasses have his turn. Nobody spoke to the boy, nor to his parents. They were concerned only with the eyeball. This time Seth had to agree when the mother whispered, “I hate this place,” and the father added, “It’s such a zoo.”

Seth wanted to tell them, “But even if we are a zoo, we’ll save your son!” But he could not, because he did not know if anybody or anything could save their son.

Half wanting to catch the pretty woman’s eye — see if he rated an air kiss again — and half wanting to hear everything the Attending said, Seth slid into the lineup.

The Attending gave Seth a look of pure annoyance. “We’re busy here,” he said coldly. “Go find an errand to run.”

I hate them, too, thought Seth. A flush rose up on his face as he stumbled past the pretty doctor. She never glanced at him. Had she forgotten him? Did the pink jacket really turn him into so much volunteer wallpaper? Or was she, too, irked that he was taking up valuable floor space?

He was deeply glad he had not tried to fake being a medical student; that particular Attending would have called the police.

He glanced into the cubicle where Robert Searle lay.

The space was empty. No bed at all, which meant the patient had been rolled to X-ray, or CAT scan, or Operating Room, or possibly admitted to a regular floor in the hospital. Had Diana ever spoken to him? Or even walked into the room just to look at the guy?

He tried to imagine himself doing nothing in such a situation. Was not investigating a girl kind of reaction? Or an abandoned child reaction? Was Diana being very mature or very juvenile?

He stared at the empty room. Many times in Seth’s childhood he had wished his father would disappear. His father had had such high standards: Whether it was soccer or algebra, doing dishes or writing term papers, Seth’s father expected the best. He had always been on Seth’s ease, hounding, nagging, tutoring, working alongside.

In fact, on the September day Seth flew to college, the best thing had been leaving his father seven hundred miles away.

He was stunned to find his eyes filling with tears. He who never cried. He who could not cry even if it was an assignment, like that weird time in psychology class when the professor actually required crying to see who could do it on demand. Most of the girls could. Most of the boys could not.

Oh, Dad! thought Seth, his eyes spilling like his heart.

He had a father who had never skipped a birthday or a Christmas, that was for sure. A father who never skipped dinner or breakfast either. A father who was so
there
that Seth had had hideouts to avoid him.

“Volunteer!” yelled Meggie.

Seth brushed his face on his sleeve and walked blindly toward Meggie. He would telephone Dad tonight. He had never told his parents about his ER volunteering, although they would be very proud. His parents had orchestrated so much of his life that Seth had opted for privacy on his choices at college. He could no longer imagine why. He had parents who wanted to know! He was three hundred sixty-five days times many years luckier than Diana.

“Volunteer.” A nurse called out. “Take this patient up to seven three.”

The patient was nine years old, an adorable little pigtailed child who looked and acted as healthy as Seth. Healthier. The mother, on the other hand, was acting as if the little girl were on her deathbed, wringing her hands, hyperventilating, begging the nurse to accompany them. “You’ll be fine,” said the nurse, walking away.

“I hate this hospital!” muttered the mother, right on cue.

Seth could not imagine why the child was being admitted. Any fool could see there was nothing wrong. He collected the chart and set out for seven three, the mother whining, and the little girl — by hospital rule in a wheelchair — bouncing and chattering.

“Asthma,” explained the mother, spitting out the words with wrath. “We were here all last night because Mandy had such a severe attack, but they sent us home.” The mother made this sound like a staff crime that ought to be punishable by death. “Then Mandy had another attack this afternoon, which of course wouldn’t have happened if anybody in this zoo had even a pea-sized brain and admitted her back last night. I knew they had to admit her! But would they listen to me, her mother? Oh, no! Not those arrogant worthless doctors! So of course she has another attack, and they act as if it’s my fault, but this time they told us we wouldn’t have a second chance.”

No second chance? Was that a euphemism for dying? Couldn’t be. Plain old wheezing couldn’t kill a healthy little girl. No way. The mom was an hysteric. “She looks fine now,” he said.

“It’s temporary. They gave her oxygen and medication. Hurry up.” The mother tugged at Seth’s jacket and gave him a little push. “We have to get to the pediatric floor.”

“It’s true,” Mandy told Seth. “I’ve been nearly dead twice now.” She was as proud of this as the gunshot victim had been of his wound.

He would research asthma when he got back to the college library. Could you really die of asthma?

They got on the elevator. Seth punched 7, and up they went. Too late, he realized he had gotten on the wrong elevator. This was the way to CAT scan. There were four separate banks of elevators in the hospital. He was in a building that did have a seventh floor, but not the pediatric seventh floor. Were these buildings connected on any floor but ground level? Or should he just go back down and start over?

Seth hated being a confused amateur. He did not want this panicky mother to know they were on the wrong elevator.

They got off at 7.

He pushed the wheelchair forward to the nearest nursing desk where the secretary (Meggie’s twin) said irritably, “Seven pediatric? You took the wrong elevator.”

“Oh, my god!” shrieked the mother. “We aren’t even in the right building? What if Mandy has an attack?”

“You can get there from here,” said the secretary irritably. “It’s just stupid, that’s all. Go down that hall all the way to the end, take two lefts, going all the way to the end of each of those halls, and then a hard right at the third drinking fountain.”

A ridiculously long hall stretched before them. What were they doing — crossing the state line? He pushed the wheelchair past dozens of doors.

“This is taking too long!” cried the mother. “Mandy, don’t have an attack!” Now she was clutching at Seth’s jacket and Mandy’s sweater. “
Whatever you do
,
don’t have an attack right now!
” she shrieked.

Mandy began to cry. Seth could hear her sucking breath in to accommodate the crying. Her chest sounded as if it were full of bubbly water.

“Oh my god,” said the mother. “She’s going to have an attack right now! And we don’t have oxygen and all because they gave me some volunteer kid instead of a real person!”

Seth took the second left and prayed he would locate all three drinking fountains.

“You don’t know what you’re doing!” cried the mother. “Mandy,
don’t have an attack
.”

Seth found the first drinking fountain, which was good because he was about to have an attack himself. Mandy was crying harder.

The mother launched herself at somebody in a uniform. “Where is pediatric seven?” she shrieked.

The janitor jerked a thumb in the direction Seth was already going but did not look up and said nothing.

“I hate this hospital,” said the mother, striding on ahead. “I hate everybody in it. I hate the doctors and the nurses and the whole staff and every single stupid, worthless, uninformed volunteer. Mandy’s going to have an attack right here, where we’re completely lost and there’s no oxygen.”

Seth pushed the wheelchair faster and accidentally rammed the heavy metal footrests into the back of the mother’s heels.

She screamed in pain, threatening to sue Seth and sue the hospital and sue the whole world.

“I’m sorry,” said Seth desperately. “It was an accident, I’m really sorry, but here we are at the third drinking fountain.” Except of course he could no longer remember whether to go left or right.

He paused, looking both ways, hoping for a sign that said
PEDIATRICS
. No, Nothing. This hospital believed you should have been born knowing where you were.

Having her mother turn into a basket case apparently satisfied Mandy. She stopped crying and pointed to an unexpected corridor that went sort of backward. There in the distance was the pediatric nursing desk.

The mother limped after Seth, cursing, while Seth whipped forward. He turned Mandy and her chart over to the nurse and fled, keeping his hand over his ID so that the mother would not know his name when she filed suit.

T
HIS DIANA. YOU COULD
tell from her haircut and her perfect makeup, the very slight flowery scent of her expensive perfume, the lovely tiny earrings which — knowing what college she went to — had to be real emeralds…you could tell that this girl Diana had everything and always would have everything.

Roo had half thought that maybe she and this Diana would talk about things like cheerleading and pompom squads. English papers and gym class. Boyfriends and hairstyles.

But Diana never looked her way.

Why should she? thought Roo. I’ve ruined my life. She doesn’t want to catch it. I’m like a bad cold. Nobody wants to get near me.