Cows made noises nearby. I concentrated on the cows.
As soon as Gatt took a breath, I told him, “I’ll have a story on your desk tomorrow morning. Consider it my resignation.”
“Shut the hell up, O’Hara, I’m not finished talking. And you aren’t going anywhere until my story is one hundred percent in the can, if you ever want to work again in this business…”
Blah, blah, blah. Heard all of this before. Nice cosmic irony, though. “‘Isolation is a powerful tool for behavior modification,’” I quoted.
“Don’t try to change the subject,” Gatt yelled right back. “What the shit am I supposed to tell my sister?”
“Tell her-her son’s a hero. Tell her I’m sorry. Tell her I quit.”
11:18:44 a.m.
I could hear the television through the door when I finally made it back to Jenny’s room at the hospital. Relief and regret hit me together. Jenny had woken and I’d missed it.
I should be so lucky.
“Where have you been?” Tonya sat propped up on the second bed, reading People magazine.
I swear her lime-green sweats were glowing. They hurt my eyes.
With relief, I saw Jenny was still flat out, shut-eyed, unconscious in the bed.
The television, mounted high in the corner of the room, was tuned to reruns of Little House on the Prairie.
I laughed. “Are you watching PAX channel?”
“Shut up, you. Don’t even start with me.” Tonya snapped her words like a nun’s ruler crack. “You’ve been gone for hours. Where’ve you been?”
“There was a fire at the farm. Everything took longer than I expected.” I considered elaborating but the details were not likely to help my case.
“A fire?”
“The Jost house burned to the ground. Ainsley went in and pulled the old man out. The doofus managed to burn his hands pretty badly in the process.”
“Oh Lord.”
“And then, Gatt called while I was out there.” I plopped down on the foot of the bed. “Then, I quit.”
“You what?” Tonya said. “I thought the point in sending you out there was to keep you from losing the job?”
I’d had three hours of sleep. I stunk of smoke. My favorite black pants were covered in mud, my shoes in cow shit. My motorcycle was still sitting in Curzon’s parking lot-in the rain. And both my young charges were currently receiving emergency medical attention. I think it’s fair to say my judgment was not operating at peak performance.
On the television, Laura and Pa casually led a cow up a grassy hill. With all the things on my mind, what came out of my mouth was, “When I was a kid, I loved this show.”
“What is the matter with you!” Tonya flapped an all-inclusive hand. “How could you let this happen?”
“Let what happen?”
“That poor baby-”
“Which one?”
“That is the most lame-ass-”
“They weren’t my drugs,” I pointed out.
“What is that supposed to mean?”
“They were anti-anxiety meds. And they were in a free sample pack.”
“Are you serious? Where did she get something like that?”
“I don’t know! You had a sample pack of meds in your gym bag. The stuff for your back, remember? Where did you get those?”
“From my doctor. That’s the only place you can get them.” Her voice dropped. “Oh Lord, did Jenny think she was taking something for pain?”
“That would be my bet.”
Tonya was paralyzed by the thought of contributing to Jenny’s condition. Her voice was a monotone. “I’d never forgive myself-”
“It’s not-” your fault, I started to say.
“Of course it is! Yours and mine-this child has no one else.”
“That I am fully aware of,” I said. Loudly.
We both turned and looked at Jenny. She kept right on sleeping.
“I do not understand you.” Tonya’s voice dropped to a steamy whisper. “Why do you prefer living in hell?”
How did she do that? Stick me where I never expect, and bleed a wound I didn’t even realize was open. I clapped my mouth shut and started counting to one hundred, while gesturing in large useless motions.
Tonya went into nurse-mode, fluffing pillows with double-fisted punches, snapping the sheets smooth and tucking them under the mattress with a kung-fu chop. Normally, she was the kind of person who flowed in motion, never looked off-balance or clumsy. At that moment, she looked like dry sticks animated. I didn’t get up from the bed. I made her work around me. As she jerked the blanket into position, I nearly fell off the edge.
“You have a life, a beautiful, precious girl-child put in your hands. Something other people would die for.” She waved at Jenny, laid out like an effigy. I knew she was speaking of herself. Tonya would have gladly accepted Jenny into her life. Through me, she already had.
“What else am I supposed to do, T? I don’t know how to be the mom.”
“There are only two requirements,” she said with all the patience of someone explaining the how-to of bar soap. “You commit to the long haul. And you consider her needs first. She won’t always get top priority, but she always gets first consideration.”
“I’m committed.”
“You haven’t even moved out of your apartment yet! How committed is that?” Tonya’s voice amplified with every word.
My eyes kept drifting toward the television screen. It was impossible to turn away from the flash and comfort of those familiar images-the smiling faces and sugary landscapes, figments of our collective, mass-consuming unconscious. Even knowing all that I know, doing all that I do, I sighed. Little House had shimmered before me in childhood reruns, like the mirage of heaven hammered into me on Sunday mornings. There was the wise, kind father, the patient, loving mother, and the sisters who all lived together in a land where truth was known, justice was served and love begat love, never suffering.
Behind me, Tonya spat, “If you don’t stop looking at that God-damned television and pay attention to me!” She whipped the plastic cup from Jenny’s bedside tray at my head. It clipped me, took a high bounce and smacked the bottom of the set. Must have caught the power button. The picture popped off; the screen a sudden darkling glass.
Empty.
Everything went out of me in the breath that followed. Busted, sucking comfort from a little house on the prairie. I swung my legs around to the side of the bed. The vent was blowing hospital AC right in my face. The cold burned the wet lines on my cheeks.
Tonya moved toward me, looking like she regretted every step.
“Careful,” I told her. “I stink.”
“Yeah, you do.” She put her arms around me anyway. I felt her shaking her head, her cheek pressed to my scalp.
Again, it was impossible to turn away.
Jenny woke up around lunchtime. There was a bit of bedlam at first-thrashing, tubes coming undone, machines beeping like crazy, but it didn’t last long.
The nurse said we got off easy. “Usually we see some projectile vomiting when they come around.”
Possible sign my life was on the rebound?
Hold that thought.
We had a visit from the doctor making rounds. Tonya sat in while we heard that they would probably keep her one more night “to see what happened with the seizures.” Jenny accepted it all with big eyes and nodding; she didn’t start to cry until the woman got to the part about the social worker who would be visiting before Jenny could check out of the hospital.
“Why did you leave school yesterday?” the nice-lady doctor asked.
Jenny shot me a worried look and shrugged.
“Where did you get the medicine?”
“Found it.”
“Where?”
“Mommy’s medicine box?” Jenny’s eyes filled with tears.