CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

SEAN’S EYES BURNED. HE RUBBED THE BRILLO SPROUTING FROM his cheeks. Somewhere around three a.m. they’d moved Toby into the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit, or pick-you as everyone kept calling it, like Toby had been specially selected, chosen as the sickest of the sick kids. The PICU, which circled back on itself in an endless loop, existed outside the parameters of the real world where time, space, life, and death were clear-cut concepts. Here, even the basics seemed surreal. The sound was muted, the light unnatural. Nurses padded around the hallways to incessant beeps. They seemed unaware of day and night as they tended to patients who, though not dead, were not fully alive either. Definitions were blurred. Sean’s head hurt.

He kept checking his cell phone, but it had died at some point. He sat and watched Toby, waiting for something to happen while the math circled through his brain: Toby hadn’t moved in twenty-six hours. He had another twenty-two hours left—just under a day—to pull himself out of it.

The throbbing lodged in the fleshy base of his skull. Had Ellie called him back on his dead cell? Why the hell wasn’t she here? He’d tried one more time, but again the call went straight into voice mail. Maybe she’d lost her phone, or it had been stolen and she hadn’t gotten his messages. That thought was better than the alternative—that she simply didn’t give a shit.

Seeing Nicole and Kat in the doorway caused something inside him to crumble. “God I’m glad you’re here.”

When Kat saw Toby, she buried her head in her mother’s fleshy stomach.

“We talked about this,” she told Kat. “It’s okay.”

Kat nodded, looking at the floor. This would probably traumatize poor Kat, but right now he didn’t care. He needed family. He needed not to be alone.

“How you holding up?” Nicole asked.

He shrugged to show he wasn’t holding up at all.

“Sean,” a voice whispered from the doorway. Dr. Altherra had slipped into the room. He vaguely remembered leaving her a message in the middle of the night.

“I’m so sorry,” she said. “I thought I’d come by to see how he was doing. I hope you don’t mind.”

She’d been the one to diagnose Toby, turning all the school’s bullshit into reality. She was to blame, at least as much as he was, and she was going to have to answer some basic questions. “We need to talk.”

He led her around the loop of the hallway and into the lounge, a hodgepodge of chairs and couches upholstered in purple and turquoise, while Nicole kept watch over Toby. Now, face to face with the doctor, his rage had drained away and he was left with a profound sadness. What was it about shrinks? One look at them and all you wanted to do was cry.

“I’m terribly upset by this,” she said. “But there’s a very good chance this is all completely unrelated to the medication. I’ve given his doctor the pertinent information.”

“Come on, just admit you were wrong,” he said. He wanted to sound more angry, but desperation was winning out. “He never needed those drugs.”

“Sean, I understand your desire to reinterpret the facts.” She paused to show she was human. “I do.” She leaned forward in her chair. “But here’s how I saw it and still do see it. Toby was acting out because his lack of attention in class was causing him to fall behind. Three separate teachers filled out Conners scale questionnaires that without a doubt pointed to ADHD behavior. The medication focused him in class. His teachers saw results—that was clear from the questionnaires they completed. He was doing better. As for my part diagnosing the disorder, it was open and shut. I prescribe Ritalin and Metattent Junior frequently for ADHD and negative reactions are extremely rare. Extremely. Toby’s collapsing in gym class is very disturbing, and I’m honestly not sure what to make of it.”

The teacher questionnaires had factored heavily into the diagnosis and he realized he had no idea what they said. “I need to see the Conner things.”

“They’re in my office. I—”

“I need to see them.”

“I’ll send them to you this afternoon,” she said. “You’ll see that Toby—”

“Toby didn’t need those drugs.”

She set her mouth and stared at him impenetrably.

He didn’t know what to believe, and it didn’t matter anyway. Toby needed him and he was wasting his time with Dr. Altherra. “I need to get back.” There was nothing else to say. He pushed his chair away and headed into the hallway, which was unnaturally quiet for housing sixteen children. He tried not to look at the sick kids on his walk to Toby’s room, but the walls were made of glass so the nurses could see their delicate charges at every moment, from every possible location on the floor. These kids were not only sick, they were hanging on by a thread. He wondered how many of them would leave the floor alive. He wondered whether Toby would be one of them.

When he reached Toby’s room, Kat was sitting on the bed reading him a Magic Treehouse book about ninjas. She was good at reading. Better than Toby, despite her supposedly sub-par public school education. He realized now it made absolutely no difference. Reading was nothing. It didn’t mean anything. Nicole looked up from marking a brief.

“Any change?” he asked, even though it was pretty clear there’d been no change.

Nicole shook her head wearily. She’d been at the hospital with him until late last night and then at work all day. He hadn’t seen her this wrecked since their dad had died.

“You should go,” he said. “Take Kat home. This is no place for a healthy kid.”

Kat put the book next to Toby’s bed. “I’ll finish the story tomorrow,” she said to Toby. She paused, then gave him a kiss on the cheek. “Love you.”

“I’ll bring her to the neighbor’s and come back.” Nicole reached out and wrapped her arms around him. Nicole wasn’t a hugger, but she held on to him for a long time. Tears started to leak out of his eyes. There was no way to stop them so he didn’t even try.

When she let go, he saw she’d been crying, too. He picked up a Kleenex box and they both wiped their eyes.

When Nicole and Kat left, the room was achingly lonely. He’d brought a paper to read, but all he could do was stare at Toby. If he kept watching, Toby couldn’t stop living.

He stayed that way for what could have been fifteen minutes or an hour before he heard a tentative knock at the door. “Do you want me to leave?” Jess looked cold and red and alive, in stark contrast to everything else here.

He shook his head. “No.” He motioned her in.

She pulled off her hat. “Any news?”

He shook his head grimly, trying to fend off the leaking.

“I’m so sorry,” she said. “I should have called you yesterday as soon as I noticed Toby was acting funny. This is all my fault.”

“No, it’s my fault.” He stared at Toby. At the floor. “I shouldn’t have taken it out on you.”

They breathed together in the quiet. “Can I ask you a question?”

He nodded.

“Why were you so eager to have Toby evaluated? I’m just wondering.”

He laughed, but it wasn’t funny. “I was practically forced at gunpoint.”

“Bev said you insisted.”

“She made it pretty clear that if I didn’t do it, Toby’s Bradley tenure would be short.”

“But …” Jess was filtering everything through this new bit of information. “Bev said … I thought you …” She let out a long, sad sigh and stared at Toby. “I’m so sorry this happened. It’s the worst thing I can imagine.”

He put his hand on hers and held on to it. “I needed to blame someone. But this isn’t your fault.” Comforting Jess diffused his own misery. It gave him something useful to do. Before he realized he was doing it, he’d wrapped his arm around her and kissed the top of her head. “Thanks for being here,” he whispered.

She rested her head on his shoulder and he thought about Bradley and why Bev Shineman would tell Jess he’d wanted to get Toby evaluated. None of it made sense.

Jess’s body was warm and comforting and a new wave of exhaustion swept over him. He closed his eyes.