Part 2
“We’re getting carbon monoxide readings,” the firefighter told Paul. “Your sister and the baby are being treated. Stay outside the gate until we finish accounting for everyone.”
Paul stopped with one boot on the curb. Talia had called him after the ambulance. Nancy knew that set of his shoulders; she had seen it whenever a machine went wrong. But he put his keys away and asked where they were taking Ben.
Nancy could see her grandson through the open ambulance doors. Leah was beside him, bent over so that her jacket hid everything except one small foot. Nancy tried to step closer, but the paramedic attending her guided her toward the other ambulance.
“You’re coming too.”
“I can ride with him.”
“His mom’s with him. We need to look after you.”
She wanted to tell the man that Leah was still frightened of hospital parking garages, that she forgot to eat when she worried, that she needed somebody to hold the paperwork while she held her son. But Leah was answering questions steadily. Nancy was the one who could not remember what time lunch had been.
Talia had clipped Otis’s leash to his collar. He leaned against her shin, quieter now, and Nancy asked whether the dog would be all right.
“We’ll get him checked,” Paul said. He took the leash from Talia and gave her his truck keys. “There’s a carrier blanket on the back seat. Find the emergency vet’s number. I’ll drive.”
The oxygen mask muffled Nancy’s next question. The paramedic asked her to leave it in place, and she watched Paul lift Otis into the truck with both arms. Her brother did not like dog hair on the seats. He spread the blanket anyway.
At the regional medical center, Nancy was given a bed separated from the next patient by a curtain the color of unripe melon. Someone drew blood. Someone asked about her symptoms, her medicines, whether she had fallen or lost consciousness. She knew the answers until the questions reached the apartment.
“Is there a carbon monoxide alarm?”
“There are alarms.”
The nurse waited. Nancy pictured the white disc in the upstairs hall, then another device, rectangular and yellowed at the edges. That one had been chirping during a load of restaurant tablecloths. She had put it in the kitchen drawer with the appliance booklets because she meant to replace it.
“I don’t know which kind,” she said.
The nurse wrote that down without reproach. Somehow the absence of reproach made it harder to look at her.
By evening, Nancy’s headache had eased enough for her to understand the television without following the captions. The doctor said her blood test supported carbon monoxide exposure. He did not tell her that a better-looking number erased what had happened, and he wanted her observed longer before she went home.
“Home isn’t available,” she said.
“Then we’ll make sure you have somewhere safe.”
Leah called from the pediatric unit upstairs. Ben was receiving oxygen and being watched closely; the team was consulting about his care. Nancy listened for certainty in her daughter’s voice and heard only concentration.
“Did he eat?”
“They’re handling it, Mom.”
“I know. I just thought—”
“I’ll tell you when there’s something to tell.”
After the call, Nancy lay with her phone on her stomach. She had been the person who knew what to bring, which office to call, how to get a frightened child through an ordinary door. Now her daughter was one floor above her, and knowing the building’s address did not help her reach them.
Paul came after taking Otis to the emergency veterinary clinic. The dog would stay there for treatment and observation. Paul had a charge slip folded in his pocket, but when Nancy reached for it, he said they could handle money tomorrow.
“The gas is shut off. They’re keeping the building closed until it’s inspected.”
“Customers have clothes in there.”
“They can wait.”
“Some of those uniforms—”
“Nance. They can wait.”
He put her reading glasses on the tray. Talia had found the case in Nancy’s apron when the paramedic helped her remove it, and Paul had thought to bring them. One lens carried a thumbprint. She cleaned it on the sheet, an old, useless motion that steadied her a little.
Near midnight, Leah sent a photograph without words. Ben was awake, looking past the edge of the frame. Nancy enlarged it until his ear filled the screen, then reduced it again because she needed to see all of him.
She typed Thank God, erased it, and wrote Thank you for sending this.
The next morning, a nurse brought discharge instructions and asked Nancy where she would stay. Paul had arranged his spare room. He lived fifteen miles from Bellwether, and the drive would make it inconvenient for her to come back to the hospital, but Nancy nodded. She was suddenly careful to agree with people who asked sensible questions.
Before leaving, she was allowed to visit Ben. Leah had washed her face but was still wearing yesterday’s shirt. A paper cup stood on the floor beneath her chair, precisely where somebody would kick it.
Nancy picked it up. “You need breakfast.”
“I’ve ordered something.”
Ben turned toward the movement of the cup. He had always watched hands more intently than faces, waiting to see what they might carry. Nancy made her fingers walk along the outside of the crib rail, and he followed them with his eyes.
For a moment she nearly reached in and lifted him. Her body had already begun the motion: feet planted, elbows ready, a slight forward bend.
Leah moved her chair closer to the crib. She did not glare or tell Nancy to step back. She simply occupied the place from which she could reach her child first.
Nancy lowered her hands.
“May I hold him?” she asked.
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