Pennsylvania
Delores and Arch were on either side of Rebecca’s hospital bed. She was surrounded by so much equipment that she looked tiny, like one of her dolls. Occasionally one of the monitors, connected to her body by thick, gray cords, beeped or chirped, and they would turn their gaze in alarm to the bank of equipment, not knowing which of the pieces had sounded, or why.
The doctor had explained that there was swelling on Rebecca’s brain, but he was less concerned about that than the fluid buildup in her lungs. What he said about her unconsciousness was less clear to them, but as he spoke Delores kept looking down at Rebecca. Her face was exceptionally pale, and the tube down her throat had left her thin lips white and dry. Every time the doctor finished a thought, Delores looked down at Rebecca and smiled, as if to reassure her that these were all good things they were hearing.
They were uncertain how much longer they could remain in the room. Visiting hours were over in a few minutes—at nine o’clock—as one of the nurses had said earlier, but were parents considered visitors? They hadn’t thought to ask. Delores couldn’t imagine stepping away for anything besides getting a Coke from the machine around the corner, and the waiting room down the hall might as well have been the next town over. She didn’t know when the doctor would be back to check on Rebecca, or whether he would do so again until the morning, unless her condition changed. She should have asked him about that, she thought now. Her mind felt emptied out, as if someone had turned her upside down, like a purse. All she and Arch had been able to manage was to nod and say thank you whenever the doctor or nurse came in. She hoped that Arch better understood everything they had been told.
Arch hadn’t asked much about the accident itself, and it was clear now that Delores’s version of the day would get no further scrutiny. She had explained that she called Carlos about the tire only because she knew how busy Arch was on Saturday, and hearing this he had simply shaken his head in agreement.
“You hungry?” Arch asked. “I don’t know what they have in the cafeteria. Cafeteria food. But I can go get you something, if you want.”
“No, you go. I can’t eat.”
Arch didn’t move. “You know, the last time we were in the hospital, she was seven pounds, eleven ounces. Seven-eleven. That was always easy to remember.”
“She came right out, didn’t she? About an hour of pushing, and whoosh.” Delores’s mouth began to quiver, and Arch reached over and held her hand. With her other hand Delores gripped her face.
“Hey, hey, she’s going to make it through this, Delores,” Arch said. He squeezed until Delores could look at him. “She’s going to wake up. They think she’s going to.”
“If I had brought her to the doctor right away, she wouldn’t be like this. We wouldn’t be here.” Delores had kept circling back to this point, and each time Arch tried a variation to the same response. There was something almost soothing about the repetition of it, like the way the nurse kept coming in to check Rebecca’s vitals, or the constant paging of another doctor over the floor intercom.
“It’s nobody’s fault, D,” Arch said. “Children fall. Children have accidents.” Then he added: “And sometimes parents have to bring them to the hospital.”
For a time they listened to the low drone of the machinery in the room, and then Delores thought to ask, “What do the boys know?”
“I told Mama to just tell them that they want to keep her overnight, just to watch her, and that I’d bring them over if she’s still here after the morning. So that’s what I’ll do.”
Across the hall, they could hear two nurses complaining about a doctor’s handwriting.
“Her doll is still in our car,” Delores said. “I wish she had it with her.”
“We’ll get it,” Arch said.
“She pretended that the doll had gotten hurt, and she was taking care of her.”
“I’ll pick it up.”
Delores gripped Rebecca’s hand and got to her feet, hovering just a few inches from Rebecca’s face. One of the nurses across the hall was telling someone that visiting hours were almost over.
“We’re right here, Rebecca,” Delores said, and then she heard the nurse knock on the door in the next room over.
“His color looks so much better than it did this morning,” they could hear the nurse saying. “I think the doctor is going to be surprised that you’ve been on your feet like that. You’re already ready to leave us, aren’t you, Mr. Miller?” Mr. Miller, in a fatigued hum, said that he was.
Arch stood up and reached over to put his hand against Rebecca’s cheek. He began to speak but stopped himself; his face caved in all at once.
The nurse had shuffled over in her sensible shoes. She knocked lightly on the door. “Visiting hours are just about over, I’m afraid.” Arch’s body stilled immediately, as if he’d been caught at something.
Arch and Delores looked at each other, each searching for some response they could offer. “But we’re her parents,” Arch said at last.
“I know it’s hard,” said the nurse, who had found in her sixteen years as a nurse that there was no reply more effective. “And we’re going to take good care of her.”
The bell of the elevator down the hall rang through. It was the only pleasant sound produced in the entire building.
The three of them stood there, not moving, until the nurse stepped out; she’d be back in a few minutes to lead them out.
Arch reached across the bed and put his hand on Delores’s shoulder, patting, squeezing some more. Delores nodded, as if he had said something neither of them had thought of, something wise and reassuring.
In the hallway, one of the nurses said to another, “I still have to get trained in that,” which reminded Delores of Ethel and the train for the first time in hours. That morning, Delores had asked, “How in the world is she supposed to get through this?” Angela had replied, “She’s a Kennedy,” and in that she was communicating some truth that only women could understand.
Despite everything Arch had said and done from the minute he had arrived, she had never felt so alone. The thought of stepping into the house with Arch and the boys, without Rebecca, made her feel nauseated, and she leaned back into the chair. That was when she caught sight of the wheels on the bed. She couldn’t block out the image of Rebecca being pushed quickly from hallway to hallway, a sheet pulled over her face, and the multitudes of nurses and visitors stepping out of the way, their backs pushed against the white walls, their eyes cast downward at the speckled tile floor as a tribute to the dead in the only way they could offer.
“You okay?” Arch asked, but Delores couldn’t answer. She knew without looking that the nurse was standing in the doorway, but not yet ready to speak. She was waiting. They were all waiting.