House of Wonder (25 page)

The Emergency Room

T
he driver pulled swiftly into the ambulance bay at Hewn Memorial, where Rose was rushed to a cold white room with bright lights. Another mask was placed over her mouth and nose, and patches were affixed as she wailed weakly. Nurses rushed past me, their arms full of warm packs and blankets. They wrapped them around her, having pulled away the sodden blue ones. Bobby and other doctors swirled about, using a language all their own. I heard their words, I heard them talking to the nurses, but it was as if I were underwater with Rose, and their conversations were happening somewhere above the surface. All I could do was watch the monitor above her head, and the lines pulsing rhythmically up and down, showing the beating of her heart.

Rose's eyes were still closed when they inserted the IV, but the volume of her cries spiked as they began to pump warm fluids into her body. I found Rose's hand and held it as color returned to her cheeks, as the tip of her nose turned pink. Though she was still crying, it had become a whine rather than a wail. And I stayed silent as I looked at her, as I sat beside her bed, resting my cheek against the mattress, feeling the rigid plastic underneath the sheet. Every minute or so, I'd turn my face and wipe my wet eyes against the stiff, rough, white cotton; black lines of mascara streaked my face, the bed. Then from down the hallway, I heard a nurse's voice. “Dr. Vanni wants her transferred to pediatrics to watch for respiratory distress.”

Finally, Rose was silent, her body still. From beneath all the blankets she peered at me, the clear mask still covering her mouth. I reached up and adjusted it. It was warm to the touch. The nurses returned. They were walking more slowly now. Unearthing one of her feet, one of them repositioned the blood oxygen monitor on her big toe.

“So,” said the nurse, as she watched the small red numbers flash ninety-seven, then ninety-eight. She was soft and well cushioned, like a grandmother from a cookie commercial. “She sneak out on you?”

A fresh wave of terror rose up my chest and burst through my eyes. I could only nod, pressing my lips tightly together.

•   •   •

After the nurses came in once and once again to take vital signs, after Rose sat up and drank some apple juice, after they picked up her chart and put it down, I was told that she would be admitted overnight for observation.

“Oh, thank you,” I said, in awe of medicine and grateful that my daughter would be in its hands for at least a little while longer. “Thank you so much.”

“They'll be down to bring her to Peds in just a minute.”

I felt a sudden desperation. “Can I talk to Dr. Vanni?” I asked. “Before we go?”

She took a resigned breath. “I'll see if I can find him.”

But when the orderly came, Bobby still hadn't returned.

“Wait,” I told him. “I need to talk to her doctor.”

Sticking my head from the doorway to Rose's room, I spotted the grandmotherly nurse and waved her down. She ambled over to me with no great urgency. “I was hoping to talk to Dr. Vanni?” I said hopefully. “Before we left?”

She crossed her arms loosely in front of her. “He's not available.”

And from behind me, I heard the squeak of small, plastic wheels as Rose's bed was rolled out of the room.

Rose was brought up to the pediatric floor, into a bright wing with sunny murals and smiling nurses, and was placed in room 777. “Lucky number seven!” said a friendly young nurse with chin-length blond hair and apple-colored lips as she helped Rose into bed. She brought her graham crackers and a menu. “Everybody likes the chicken tenders,” she said with a wink.

As I watched Rose nibble the crackers, I knew that I needed to call my mother and Warren, to tell them that Rose was all right. Just as urgently, I needed to know why Detective Dunn's car had been speeding down Royal Court as the ambulance was speeding up it. But my cell phone wasn't with me. It had been in the pocket of the coat that I had wrapped around Rose
in the park, the one the paramedics had pulled off and replaced with dry blankets.

Lifting the receiver of the old beige phone in Rose's room, I dialed my mother's number. After seven rings, her machine picked up. I hung up and tried again. This time I left a message. “Mom,” I said. “It's me. I'm here at the hospital. Rose is okay.” I looked at my daughter, saw her legs begin to bounce under the blankets. “Just call me when you can,” I said, then left the room number and hung up.

Rose is okay.
The more I believed it, the more my mind allowed other thoughts to flood in. And as I sat next to my daughter's bed, with my shoulders hunched and my hand propping up my chin, I thought about my grandmother. I thought about my mother and how she had spent her entire life trying to replace the irreplaceable, trying to fill a starving void.

And then I thought of Warren.

I remembered the way he looked when he was running to Rose. Like a superhero. Like a warrior. I wondered how long it would have taken me to get to that pond, to have realized that's where I needed to go, if it weren't for Warren and his strange, brilliant mind. I wondered where he was now. Again, I pictured Detective Dunn's car.

Needing something to do with my hands, I straightened and picked up the menu. “Okay, Rosie,” I said, a crack in my voice. “Let's see.” I scanned the choices. “They have ravioli,” I suggested. “And they have grilled cheese.” I looked at Rose.

“Can you get a grilled cheese for me and chicken tenders for Uncle Warren?” she asked. “But with
no
ketchup.”

“Oh, honey,” I started, with a falling face. “I don't think Uncle Warren is going to be coming.” I didn't know how I was
going to tell her that Uncle Warren was in trouble. That he had done something bad and was caught.

Then from down the hall, I heard a sound, faint at first but distinct and unmistakable. And my heart gave a sudden thump of recognition as I waited, still and quiet, for the squeak of rubber-soled sneakers on the shiny hard floor to draw closer. I let out a single hopeful breath when I heard my mother's voice. “It's right in here,” she said. “Number seven-seven-seven.”

My mother burst into the room. She rushed over to Rose and pulled her against her warm chest. But my eyes stayed on the threshold, waiting, praying I hadn't been mistaken.
Warren,
I whispered. As if in response, there came a whistle just before his face leaned in past the doorframe. He looked directly at me, with his small, curious smile, as if we had planned to meet at this very spot, at this very moment. And he hadn't let me down.

Rose brought her hand over her mouth, her giggles spilling through her fingers like bubbles as she turned to me. “Told you,” she said.

Warren's body followed his head into the room, where he planted his hands on his hips and looked at Rose. And though his intended expression was probably something close to stern, his innate gentleness belied his furrowed brow.

Standing, I strode over to him. “War,” I said. He was in profile, still facing Rose, and though he didn't turn, he looked at me from the corner of his eye. Then tucking my head into the crook of his neck, I pulled him into me, feeling the slightness of his frame. “Thank you,” I said.

He emitted his pained-sounding chuckle, the one he used whenever anyone forced him to submit to affection on their
terms. “Oh boy,” he said, reaching up and patting my arm. “Okay.”

With my arms still around my brother, I heard my mother's voice. “They arrested that Zack Castro.”

“What?!” I said, my head shooting up.

Mom was standing at the head of Rose's bed, her hand resting on its plastic railings. “For the burglaries.”

“But his bike was stolen,” I said, trying to recalibrate what I thought I knew.

Mom shook her head, her face heavy. “No,” she said. “He didn't. He said it was stolen, but”—she swatted the air in front of her with the back of her hand, then let it drop to her thigh—“he sold it.”

I glanced at Warren, who didn't move. “And everything else?” I asked my mother. “He took it all?”

“That's what it looks like.”

I remembered the night Warren had come home with his face cut and bloodied. I remembered the way his hand had hung at his side, clutching his plane.
Sometimes after work at night, I fly it in the park.
I turned back to my brother. “War, did you see . . . ?”

Warren, still focused on the floor, lifted his chin and let it drop back down. It was his acknowledgment. His admission that the night Zack had beat him up, he'd seen him take something.

“I guess it was Zack and a
friend
,” said my mother. “After they did what they did to your brother, they figured . . .” She stopped, tightening her lips.
They figured they could make it look like it was him.

“Warren,” I whispered. “Why didn't you
tell
us?”

With his head cocked to one side, my brother looked at me. We stared at each other until, without answering, he turned and walked slowly over to Rose's bed and stood beside her. Again, he planted his hand on his hip and tried to look displeased. “You were supposed to come find Uncle Warren,” he said. “I would have taken you to the tree.” Rose's green eyes looked chastened before she let her head dip down. Then suddenly, she reached up and wrapped her arms around his waist, the force of her embrace causing Warren to wobble a bit. Mechanically, he rubbed the top of her head.

“You know it was your uncle Warren that got you out of that pond, don't you, Rose?” asked my mother.

“Yeah,” she said. “I called him.” With her face still pressed to Warren's belly, her words muffled, she took her earlobe between her fingers and pulled. “Like this.”

Warren emitted one of his laughs and sat on the edge of Rose's bed, his body barely making a depression on the mattress. He looked at Rose for a moment, his lips curved into a small, quizzical smile, then reached for a photocopied list of movies that were available. “Let's see,” he said, as he scanned the titles. Warren, it seemed, was ready to move on from news of thefts and arrests, from talk of brave deeds and almost-magic rescues.

Over Warren's hunched frame, my eyes found my mother's. Mom only smiled before looking back at her son. “Do they have
Goonies
?” she asked. Warren's brow gathered as his fingertip ran back over the columns. “You used to love that movie,” said my mother, leaning in to see the list better.

And when it came—the brisk knock-knock on the door—I
assumed it was the nurse with the apple-colored lips come to take Rose's temperature and blood pressure. But the polite smile that was ready on my lips dropped away as I turned to watch the door push open, and Detective Dunn emerged. My mother rose, her legs straightening as if they were being slowly inflated, and her gaze did not leave the detective's face. I looked at my mother.
Why is he here?
Wasn't this supposed to be over?

“I'm sorry to bother you all,” he said, his already red face seeming to brighten slightly. “But I heard about what happened.” He nodded toward Rose and Warren on the bed. “And I was in the neighborhood.” He looked at my brother's back. “Hero of the day, huh, Warren?”

And though Warren tried to fight it, tried to hide it, I saw his chest fill, his lips curve into a smile. Detective Dunn stepped forward and gave him a locker-room slap on the back. “So, I wanted to thank you,” he said. He paused for a moment and seemed to consider my brother's form, the bumps of vertebrae visible through his shirt, the way one shoulder rose higher than the other. “For your cooperation.”

“Warren,” I said. “You were helping the police?”

He nodded once, seeming pleased by my surprise. I turned toward the detective. “I thought Warren was a suspect.”

From the look on Detective Dunn's face as his gaze dropped away, I realized that that was the whole idea. “With petty stuff like this,” he said, “the Castro kid just needed to think he was in the clear long enough to get caught.”

I looked at my mother for further explanation. “They found Gina Loost's watch in Zack's room,” she said. “And there were a bunch of those coins in one of the basketball sneakers in his closet.”

The detective allowed himself a chuckle. “I think next he was going to try for collectible spoons.”

“But what about that frame?” I asked, not yet clear on how the thefts that had loomed so large over King's Knoll had deflated in importance to that of a precinct joke. “The one that you found in my mother's house?”

Mom answered for Detective Dunn. “Zack put it there,” she said. “Bill Kotch saw him.”

“Did you know about all this?” I asked, wondering if I was the only Parsons who hadn't been aware that Warren was working with the police and not against them. But Mom shook her head. Had Warren given her any information, she wouldn't have been able to contain it. She wouldn't have been able to resist riding it out, waving it like a flag, all in his defense.

“So Warren was bait?” I asked the detective. “Zack put him in the hospital a few weeks ago. Was that part of the plan, too?”

“No, no, no,” said Detective Dunn, seeking to clarify. “We never put Warren in any danger. Warren and I only spoke after the assault. When I came to the house.” He gestured toward me. “You remember.”

I looked at Warren. Though his back was still turned toward us, he appeared to be entirely, though not altogether happily, attuned to our conversation. With his civic responsibility fulfilled, Warren seemed ready to be rid of Detective Dunn.

It was Rose who provided him with the opportunity. “Uncle Warren,” she whined, “let's watch something.”

Detective Dunn took that as his cue. “I'll leave you folks alone,” he said, backing toward the hallway. To him, the investigation had been a nuisance, a trifling matter attended to
between more serious cases. Attended to at all because of phone calls from the likes of Beth Castro. The detective had done his duty and done it well and was now ready to be finished with King's Knoll.