Chapter Two
The two chubby pseudo-cops from the Fairfield Patrol put the pickup truck's clearly-toasted driver in handcuffs. Or, at least they tried to. After some trouble getting the cuffs to lock into place, which they put down to rust, the cuffs had just fallen off his wrists for the third time. It was plain to see that this was their first experience with any actual crime. "Yo, dudes, I don't wanna be no more trouble than I've already been, but these damn things just fell off me again," he slurred, as if commenting on the weather. "You're lucky I'm too wasted to run."
Tony gave the idiot a double-take. "Um, these guys did tell you you've got the right to remain silent, right?"
The stoner shrugged helplessly. "No point in lying. They're gonna test me, and they're gonna know exactly what I've been smoking. You know the old saying. Blood will tell." The guy choked a hysterical laugh. Then he glanced at the bloodstains on the pavement. Then he threw up and fainted.
"Ugh!" one of the glorified Rent-A-Cops on the scene groaned, jumping out of the splash zone. "Hey, you!" he hollered at one of the EMTs who had recently arrived on the scene. This was the third ambulance that had pulled up in the few short minutes since Jonathan's heart had started up again. "Load up this sack of human garbage and haul it away before it gets any leakier."
"Yeah, get it out of my sight, before I introduce it to my compactor," Tony growled.
The donut muncher took a nervous step away from Tony. "Look, I know you're upset, mister, and I don't blame you one bit. But do you think you could answer some questions? The only other witnesses are both unconscious." He indicated the junkie's prone carcass, currently being rolled onto a stretcher by the two latest EMTs to have arrived on the scene. One of the cops climbed into the back of the ambulance with him, trying to cuff him to the gurney. The results were mixed, at best.
"I can't really tell you much, officer," said Tony absently, trying his best to catch a glimpse of Jonathan through the swarm of paramedics that had converged on the boy. Samantha was clinging to him with white knuckles. The presence of a loved one, and their shared grief should have been a comfort to him at a time like this. But the fact that his teenaged daughter was willing to publicly hug her father just drove home how truly scary the situation was. "The kid went out to ride his bike. A couple of minutes later, I heard the scream, and ran out to do CPR, while this one called 9-1-1." The officer nodded, jotting a note on a small legal pad.
"The scream didn't sound like it came from Jonathan, though," Sam put in. "His screams are a lot more girly. I think they're higher-pitched than mine, actually. Remember that time I walked in on him dancing the tango with Freddy Fuzzy-Face?" Sam stared at the jumble of people on the sidewalk mindlessly, her eyes glazed over as if she was remembering a past life. "I thought he was going to break windows"
"Excuse me, officer?" Yet another paramedic ventured, coming over to join the huddle. "If you don't mind, I need to speak with the patient's family and gather some information."
The pseudo-cop nodded. "The victim's medical needs take priority." He gave Tony a pat on the back. "We'll send the real police to the hospital and continue the interview there."
I can hardly wait. "Thanks, officer."
"Hi. I'm Anton." The paramedic was a wiry, olive-skinned man with a short crew cut, and a voice so low and soothing it would have made Mr. Rogers jealous.
"I'm Tony, and this is Samantha." He pointed at the broken body lying in the road. "That's Jonathan."
"That answers my first question. You're already doing great," said Anton with a gentle smile, jotting his patient's name on a clipboard. "Does Jonathan have a last name?"
"His full name is Jonathan Lee Bower," Sam offered. "But don't call him that. He'll think he's in trouble."
"Perish the thought. He's got enough troubles as it is." Anton filled in the rest of the name. "Tony, do you happen to know your son's blood type?"
Tony wasn't sure why everyone was assuming him to be Jonathan's father. They didn't look anything alike. Then again, Jonathan didn't look anything like his actual father, either. He was all his mother. Tony stomach twisted painfully at the thought of Angela. No, don't think about her until you know what you're dealing with. Hopefully, the kid will wake up with a few broken bones, she'll yell at you again, and Mona will talk her down again. And if it was anything more serious, God help them all. "He's A positive. Our little A-plus student, in blood and deed." Jeez, did I just tell a dad joke? At a time like this? No wonder they think I'm his old man.
Anton chuckled politely. "Does he have any medication allergies, that you're aware of?"
"Penicillin-based antibiotics. They won't kill him or nothing, but they give him some pretty nasty hives. Last time he took 'em, everyone thought the kid had chicken pox. All the other moms kept giving me the stink eye when I dropped him off at school."
"One of 'em actually spit on him," Sam recalled with a faint smile.
"Jonathan got her back for me though," said Tony proudly. "He went up and gave her a great big hug, and she ran off yelling about how she needed a bleach bath."
Anton nodded encouragingly. "And how old is he? Can you tell me his height and weight?"
"He just turned eleven last Friday," said Tony, his gaze drifting to the twisted hunk of metal lying in the gutter. "The bike was actually a birthday gift."
"I told Angela we should have gotten him the telescope he'd been hinting around for." Sam's voice broke a bit. "She was worried he'd use it to spy on the neighbors."
A reasonable fear, given the boy's lineage. Mona and her binoculars were infamous. "He was four foot four and about seventy pounds at his last check up, which was two months ago," Tony added.
"Any family history of stroke or blood clots?"
"Not that I know of," said Tony, his eyes flitting back to check on Jonathan for the umpteenth time. His already-racing heart somehow managing to quicken at the sight of the unconscious child, now in a heavy plastic neck collar that looked like something a vet might put on a dog to keep it from gnawing its own leg off, being bound tightly to a board with heavy Velcro straps. "Hey, what are they doing to him?" he barked.
"It's for his own safety, sir."
"Jonathan's a good patient, he'll hold still without being tied up! He ain't even awake, for crying out loud!" Tony instinctively ran to the boy's side and was a hair's breadth away from slugging his way through the thicket of attending paramedics when Anton seized his wrist.
"Sir, I know this is much easier said than done, but please try to calm down."
"Dad, listen to the man. You're no good to us in a straitjacket," Sam pleaded, tugging at the arm not held in Anton's iron grip.
It was his daughter's voice, more than the other man's strong hands, that held Tony back. "Sorry. I'll be good. You can let me go now."
"We're just trying to help, I promise." Anton patted him on the shoulder and ushered him out of the other EMTs' path as they toted Jonathan into the first of the ambulances that had arrived on scene. "I'm sure Jonathan's a great kid, and preventing misbehavior is the last thing on anyone's mind right now. From the look of him, there's both a very good chance he's got a spinal injury, and a very good chance he's got a traumatic brain injury. It's a dangerous mix. If he has a seizure and starts thrashing around…"
Tony flinched at the picture Anton was painting. "Stop. You've made your point. Can I ride with him?"
"That would be best, I think," said the driver as he ran around to the front cab of the ambulance. "Anton, can you tag along with us and finish taking down his medical information? From the look of him, the trauma surgeons won't have a second to spare when we arrive."
"Besides, we'll want his father here to keep him calm if he should come to on the way," the lady locking Jonathan's gurney into place agreed.
"Okay, you heard 'em, Tony," said Anton with a decisive nod. "I'll sit up front with Ethan and you and me can get this paperwork knocked out so that Jonathan can hit the ground running when we get to Fairfield General. You'll sit in the back bay with Jonathan and Janet."
"Can I come, too?" Samantha asked.
"No, Sam, I need you here." Tony quickly hopped aboard and sat on the side bench Anton had indicated, not wanting to give them a chance to change their minds. "Angela and Mona will already have left the office, so there's no calling them to tell them what's happening. When they get home, let them know Jonathan's hurt and we're at Fairfield General."
"Okay, but I'm riding over with them!" Sam insisted, as if she expected him to argue.
"You'd better. And turn off the stove, before we have to call the fire department, too!" Tony remembered in the last second before the ambulance's back doors slammed shut.
Anton plugged the blood pressure cuff and and pulse oximeter dangling from Jonathan's right arm and hand, respectively, into a digital monitor. The cuff hummed for a moment, then began to beep obnoxiously as it came up with a reading. "Heartrate a hundred thirty beats per second, blood pressure…seventy over forty-two?" Tony blinked. He was no doctor, but as someone passionate about physical fitness, he knew enough to realize those vitals should not be possible. "Them numbers can't be right, are you sure your machine is working?"
"It's working," Janet promised, squeezing air down Jonathan's throat via some kind of large rubber bulb with her right hand, and hooking one of the pads on his chest to a heart monitor with the other. A thin green line made a rapid series of very small bumps on the screen. "This is about what we'd expect from a kid freshly returned from the dead. Time for another shock, I'm afraid." She flipped a switch on a large box hooked to Jonathan's gurney. "Clear!" She turned a knob on the same device and the boy convulsed, every muscle in his body twitching at once as he unconsciously strained against his bonds. The Velcro held firm.
Tony grabbed Jonathan's left hand and clutched it tightly, as if to somehow shield him. "Was that really necessary?"
"Only if you want his heart to keep beating," Ethan replied, keeping his eyes straight ahead as he piloted the ambulance right down the middle of the two-lane residential street, sirens screaming.
"Hey, Ethan, be cool," Janet snapped. "He's just worried about his kid."
"Don't worry, Tony. Ethan's got better driving skills than he does bedside manner." Anton rolled his eyes derisively.
"He's going to have some serious muscle aches when he comes to," Janet informed him honestly, "but that's the least of his problems."
Same reason I broke his ribs, Tony admitted to himself. Stop flipping out on them, just because you need a target and the schmuck who did this ain't here. "His pulse is slowing down. Is that good?"
"Very good," said Janet. "As long as it doesn't slow down too much." She glanced over her shoulder at the monitor. "A hundred and one! He's almost back in normal range."
"His blood pressure just got even weirder, though," Tony observed uneasily. "Sixty-four over forty-eight? His top number and his bottom number are gonna be the same number soon, at this rate. Are you sure—"
"The machine's working, Tony," Janet promised him, sounding a little frustrated now. "I think your son's got some internal bleeding going on. Blood pressure drops with loss of volume"
"I could take a look at the machine and make sure it ain't on the fritz, if you want," Tony half-offered, half-begged. "Medical equipment ain't my specialty, but I'm pretty handy with a screwdriver."
"Not necessary, Tony," said Anton. "Now, let's get this done. Do you know when he last ate or drank?"
"He had a glass of orange juice when he got home, about three. His class has lunch at 12:30, and I don't think he's eaten anything since. He threw up some, while I was doing CPR," Tony recalled, traces of the disgusting taste still in his mouth.
"I've been there, bro." Anton wrinkled his nose and gave him a stick of Doublemint. "Here, this'll help."
"Thanks." Tony popped it in his mouth and chewed mechanically.
Janet ceased her slow, steady pumping for a moment and placed a careful hand on Jonathan's chest. "Is he breathing?" Ethan asked, glancing at his partner in the rearview mirror.
Janet nodded. "The respirations are shallow, but they're definitely there."
"Are you sure it's not just agonal breathing?"
"Shut up, Ethan!" Tony barked, placing a hand on the boy's chest to feel for himself. Janet was right. Tony could hear and feel the telltale crackle of shards of bone moving against each other. It was both disgusting and beautiful.
"Atta boy," said Janet, detaching the pump from the tube in Jonathan's mouth. "We're almost to the hospital. Just keep on keeping on, little buddy."
"Does this mean we can take the tube out of his throat?" Tony asked hopefully. The thought of that thing crammed all the way down Jonathan's throat was giving him the willies.
"Not just yet," Anton apologized.
"Buddy, can you hear me?" Tony shouted hopefully into Jonathan's ear. There was no reaction. "Jonathan, I think I hear Sam breaking open your piggy bank." Nothing. "Damn." If that didn't wake him, nothing would. Janet gave him a sympathetic smile.
"A few more questions, if you don't mind," said Anton. "Does he take any maintenance medications?"
"Not really, unless you count Flintstones chewable vitamins." Tony looked expectantly at Jonathan, waiting for the kid to wake up and yell at him for revealing he still took those. "Pebbles is his favorite." Still no response.
"Good, good," said Anton, checking off another box on his charts. "Any significant medical conditions, past or present? Any previous surgeries?"
Tony shook his head. "He had his tonsils out when he was five, chickenpox when he was seven, and a nasty case of headlice a few months ago. But other than that, nothing. He's been a pretty lucky kid, till now."
"I don't know about that. He did just come back from the dead, as Janet says." Anton gave Tony a friendly punch in the arm. "If you ask me, his luck hasn't run out yet."
That was a good point, and Tony really wanted to believe it, so he nodded, squeezing Jonathan's limp hand more tightly.
"His blood pressure's still falling," Janet reported with a glance at the monitor. Indeed, it had dropped to sixty over forty. "He's going to need a transfusion the moment he lands. Did you get his blood type?"
Anton nodded. "A positive."
"Good, because I hear the O-neg's been pretty scarce around here lately," said Janet. Her left hand seized a grab bar to steady herself as Ethan pulled into the ambulance bay with a mighty screech, her right resting protectively at the head of Jonathan's gurney.
A familiar blonde in a lab coat, flanked by several nurses in blue scrubs, was waiting for them at the door, holding a half-eaten popsicle in one hand and impatiently grabbing the clipboard from Anton with the other. "Was the poor child like this when you found him, or are these the results of Ethan's so-called driving?" she sniped at them. Tony felt the adrenaline shooting through his veins ebb ever so slightly. Beyond the fact that he knew Dr. Ferguson was trustworthy and took her job seriously, it was a relief to know that Jonathan would be in the hands of a doctor who knew him as something more than a lifeless pile of meat.
"Very cute, Dr. Ferguson," said Ethan, rolling his eyes as he and Janet hefted the gurney out of the ambulance and popped its wheels into place. One of the trauma nurses quickly transferred the wires dangling from his arm to a new monitor, and then they gingerly scooted him onto a new gurney.
"Got an eleven year old male cyclist post-MVA. Head injury, suspected spinal fracture, most recent vitals showed blood pressure sixty over forty, pulse one hundred and one, oxygen eighty-two," Anton rattled off at warp speed.
"The patient's father found him on the scene pretty much immediately, from what I can tell, in both cardiac and respiratory arrest," Janet continued. "He started CPR and return of spontaneous circulation occurred about the time we arrived on the scene. We had to use the defibrillator on him twice. Spontaneous respirations resumed in transit to the hospital."
"Victim was wearing a helmet at the time of impact," Anton picked up as Janet paused to take a breath. "No obvious cranial fractures, but he's got some swelling around his left temple that seems to be growing by the minute."
"Between that and the blood pressure, sounds like we've got a brain bleed on our hands. Though that wouldn't account for a BP that low. Given the spinal injury, I have to wonder if maybe his aorta or vena cava have been punctured." Dr. Ferguson thrust the clipboard at one of her nurses and took her first good look at her patient. She squinted, as if she thought her eyes may be playing tricks on her. "Jonathan?"
"It's him," Tony piped up, not wanting her to waste any more time than necessary verifying her patient's identity.
Dr. Ferguson noticed him for the first time, and seemed to physically deflate as she realized what was going on. "Oh, Tony. Does Angela know?"
Tony shook his head. "We'll flip a coin later for who gets to tell her. Hopefully by then we'll have some good news for her, right?" he prodded hopefully.
"Right." Dr. Ferguson slipped back into professional mode with impressive speed, finishing off the remnants of her popsicle in one last massive bite. "David, call Dr. Adams," she barked at a nearby orderly. "I'm going to need an experienced trauma surgeon with me on this one. Georgia, Hannah, take him straight to the OR and prep him for surgery." Her eyes skimmed Jonathan's chart with lightning speed. "Nicole, I suspect this young man's going to need a transfusion, though how much of a transfusion is anyone's guess till we open him up. Hang four units of plasma and four units of packed red cells, type…" She glanced at the clipboard one last time. "A positive."
"You think he needs that much?" said Nicole uncertainly, glancing at his chart. "He's only seventy pounds. That's enough to replace every drop of blood in his body twice over."
"And we will, if we have to," Dr. Ferguson replied sharply. Nicole put up her hands defensively and scurried off down a nearby corridor.
"Don't tell your husband, but I think I love you," Tony told the good doctor.
"It'll be our little secret," Dr. Ferguson assured him. "I have to go scrub up. Tony, seriously, call Angela! I can't do it, I'm busy, remember?" She tilted her head toward the large set of doors Jonathan had just been wheeled through.
"This time of day, she's in Manhattan rush hour traffic," Tony reminded her. "I don't think God himself could reach her there. I left Sam behind, she's going to send Angela and Mona here to meet us the second they get home." He couldn't help but swallow nervously at the prospect. What am I gonna say when I see Angela? How the hell am I supposed to look her in the eye? She was ready to behead me when he busted his arm on my watch. When she gets wind of this, she'll probably vivisect me or peel off all my skin before she allows me the sweet mercy of death.
"Tony, relax. You did everything right," Isabelle assured him. "And if I can do as well as you did, Jonathan's got a decent shot."
"She's right. You did a great job," said Janet as she gathered up some of her equipment and piled it onto the gurney Jonathan had just vacated. "CPR's got something like a seven percent success rate. The odds weren't good, but you beat them."
"Just remember what I told you, Tony. Keep your wits about you, and remember that everyone here is on your son's side," Anton reminded him one last time, before following Janet back outside.
"Your son?" Dr. Ferguson looked briefly confused, and then carefully schooled her features into a neutral expression. "Right. Your son." She leaned over to whisper in Tony's ear. "I don't know whether you've been telling people that you're his father, or whether they just assumed, based on the fact that you're panicking like a father. But it might be best not to disabuse anyone of that notion for now, if you want access to him and his information. I know his mother, and I know she'd want someone she trusts looking out for him at a time like this, so I'm not going to rat you out."
If she still trusts me. If she ever will again. "Good advice," said Tony numbly.
"You didn't hear it from me," Dr. Ferguson replied. "I'll do my best to keep you posted."
"Is there anything I can do for him?"
"You already saved his life," said Dr. Ferguson with the faintest twinge of amusement in her voice. "Isn't that enough for you?"
"C'mon, Isabelle, I'm serious!" Tony persisted. "Anything at all?"
"If you're a praying man, we have a chapel." She gave him a quick hug and hurried through the heavy pair of doors at the back of the ER.
"Mother, for the last time," Angela grated as she turned onto Oak Hills Drive. "I'm not interested in dating right now, and even if I were, I wouldn't want to start with a man named Scud."
"Are you telling me you don't support our nation's missile program?" Mona feigned shock. "And here I thought you were a patriot."
That insult didn't even make sense. "Aren't Scud missiles a Russian thing?"
"Hm. That would explain Scuddy's sexy European accent." Mona licked her lips, as if savoring the memory of a particularly delectable treat. "And his fondness for the color red." She stroked her hair thoughtfully.
"Mother, your matchmaking skills need work. I'm a businesswoman, and communists tend to frown on entrepreneurship. Forget about getting lucky. I'd be lucky if he didn't take me to a reeducation camp for our honeymoon." A glimmer of emergency lights in the distance caught her eye. "Someone's getting a ticket. Oh, I hope it's that obnoxious boy with the muskrat tail on his antenna!"
"Pfft. Like the sleepyheads on the Fairfield Patrol could bestir themselves to run him down?" Mona scoffed. "Nah, they're probably just picking on some litterbug."
"I don't know," said Angela, a growing feeling of unease blooming deep inside her as they drew closer. "That's an awful lot of lights. How many patrolmen does it take to ticket a litterbug?"
"Maybe they're trying to pin down some fugitive." Mona gasped. "Do you think they found out who's been leaving those flaming bags of dog poop all over the neighborhood?"
"No, Mother, I'm pretty sure your secret's still safe." Angela narrowed her eyes, trying to get a better look, but it was no use. The early twilight of winter and her smudged eyeglasses were conspiring to blur the red and blue lights into a near-indistinguishable glow. A few sections of the glow were higher off the ground than others, though. "Mother, your eyes are better than mine. Are those fire trucks?" There was no smell of smoke in the air.
"Mm. As delightful as it would be to come home to a crowd of sweaty firemen, I don't think so. They look more like ambulances to me."
"Oh dear," Angela lamented. "Do you think Mr. Silverstein's had another heart attack?"
"No, Mrs. Silverstein threw away all her skimpy lingerie after the first one," Mona replied flatly.
"Mother, be serious!" Angela was getting irritated now. "This isn't a joke. Someone's hurt. One of our neighbors, no less." Someone pretty close to home, judging from where the tangle of emergency vehicles was parked. Though she didn't recognize the clunky brown Ford pickup with the dented hood, sitting askew in the middle of the road and surrounded by skid marks. Must have been a stranger passing through the neighborhood.
"Now really, this is too much!" Mona complained. "They've got crime scene tape blocking off the whole street! Would it kill them to scoot over and open up a lane for passing traffic? For crying out loud, it's only one car, and it doesn't even look that banged up."
"One car and one bicycle," Angela pointed at the mangled bike lying in the gutter, being photographed from varying angles by two different cops at once. Those policemen look like Tony and me at Sam's last ballet recital, she recalled with a faint smile. "Well, what do we do now? Do you think they'll let us through if we explain that we live between those two lines of tape they've set up?"
"You'd better let me do the asking, dear." Mona unbuttoned her heavy winter coat and hiked up her bra. "Watch and learn."
Having witnessed enough of her mother's seductions to last several lifetimes, Angela swiftly and deliberately turned her head the other way, pretending to examine the damaged car and bicycle. The ugly brown pickup was certainly no loss. The muddy paint had completely worn away in several places to reveal bare steel, rust spots bloomed on both bumpers and the front grill, there were several cracks in the windshield, and a black trash bag duct-taped over one of the back windows in lieu of glass. That thing belongs on the same junk heap as Tony's van, she observed ungraciously.
The bicycle the truck had apparently hit was probably worth more than the truck itself. The sissy bar was bent into an uppercase L, and the front wheel was crumpled into a taco-shell shape, but…but it looked brand new otherwise, its cherry-red paint still glossy. A yellow reflector dangled from the crossbar between the handlebars winking as it swayed in the evening breeze. She felt her blood turn to ice in her veins as her eyes, entirely against her will, traveled down to the bicycle's seat. What they found confirmed her worst fear. There it was, the little blue novelty license plate Samantha had picked out at the mall—the name "JONATHAN" stamped on it in bold yellow letters.
She wasn't entirely sure how it happened, but the next thing she knew, she was standing in the middle of the road, a length of plastic police line tape tangled around her waist, shaking a scared-looking policeman by the collar of his jacket. "Where is he?!" she screamed. "Where's my baby?"
"Hey, none of that!" a second cop, probably her victim's partner, ordered.
"Angela, for the love of God, put him down before they tase you!" Wendy Wittener yelled, running to her side and prying the hapless cop loose. Angela's fingers clasped around Wendy's wrists instead, her survival instincts convinced "Sorry, officer. This is the boy's mother."
"Oh." The officer gave her a look of pity she didn't care for at all. "I'm so sorry. Your son was in an accident earlier this evening. I take it your husband wasn't able to get ahold of you?"
"I'm not married!" Angela snapped.
"Sorry, your boyfriend, whatever. The kid's father."
"He means Tony," Wendy offered helpfully. "I got here just as he was climbing into the ambulance with Jonathan. Brace yourself, Angela. Your boy was hurt pretty badly."
Hurt, not dead. Angela's knees nearly buckled with relief. And wherever he was, Tony was with him. That was good, she told herself. Tony watching over him was the next best thing to being there herself. He wouldn't let any harm come to their—her son. "Where's Samantha?" Angela demanded, her fingers twitching with the urge to shake someone again. "Is she okay?"
"I'm fine, Angela." Samantha came running from the same direction as Wendy.
Angela wrapped her arms around the girl and clung to her like a drowning sailor who had just found a rock. "Are you sure?"
"Yeah, I was inside when it happened," said Sam with the air of one making some sort of horrible confession. "Dad left me behind so that I could send you to meet him and Jonathan when you got home. Mrs. Wittener's been waiting with me."
"Why didn't anybody call me?"
The question hadn't been directed at Samantha, but the girl flinched as if she'd been accused, just the same. "It was less than an hour ago. Dad figured you were already on the road."
"I was." Angela blinked back tears. I was fighting Mother for control of the radio and checking my makeup in the rearview mirror while my son's been fighting for his life. She had never felt lower.
"Angela, you're hurting the poor kid, let go," her mother's voice snapped coldly, while laying a an incongruously warm and gentle arm around her shoulders.
"Sorry, Sam," Angela loosened her grip. "Where did they take him?"
"Fairfield General," Samantha reported, already running toward the Jag. "Let's move!"
I raised that girl well. Angela made a beeline for the driver's seat she had just vacated, the motor still running and the light still on.