I towel-dried my hands and pocketed two types of bug spray since Audrey's skin hated the brand that Percy liked, courtesy of the frog on the bottle. With the leash draped around my neck, I checked the locks on the back and side doors—old New England homes had so many fucking doors—and let myself out through the front.
Audrey watched while Percy tried to climb the cherry blossom tree and Bagel rolled in the grass nearby. As far as we could tell, the thought of running away hadn't crossed Bagel's mind. Even if another dog walked by, he'd go on minding his own business. We knew that theory could collapse at anymoment, which was why I was quick to clip the leash to his collar.
Percy gave up on the tree, landing on the grass in a heap. "Can I hold him?" he signed, a hand grasping for the leash.
"Not until you're properly weaponized against ticks and mosquitoes," I said.
Percy met me on the walkway, his arms outstretched in the optimal bug spray application pose. Audrey wandered down to the street, busy snapping dead blooms off the dense masses of flower bushes bordering the yard.
"I'll take care of that tomorrow," I said to her.
"You don't have to," she said, still focused on her flowers. "I like this. These hydrangeas were the first things I planted when I moved in. I didn't know if they'd make it. I couldn't figure out whether this qualified as full sun or partial sun, and I had no idea what the soil or drainage was like. This makes me happy. And sometimes I just like putting on an audiobook and dissociating with my garden."
There were a lot of missed opportunities in my life. A lot of times when one thing could've happened but something else did, and I couldn't change any of that. I just had to watch those moments drift by and try not to let myself be angry about it.
I'd always kicked myself for not tracking down Audrey immediately after her divorce. The only reason for following those filings had been to know precisely when she was free of him. But it struck me now that I'd needed to miss that opportunity. Not the time for us.
Moving across the country, settling into this house and planting these bushes—that was what she'd needed then. Not me and all the resentment I'd carried around like a vestigial organ. She needed the teacher friends who became her second family. She needed to bake bread and take on foster dogs and be herself—perhaps for the first time ever—without anyone getting in the way.
Even me.
When I was finished with Percy, I walked back to the door to leave the bug spray bottles on the steps, saying, "Go ahead and grab Bagel now."
I wiped the residual bug spray on my calves and turned back in time to watch Percy racing down the walkway, Bagel galloping after him. Percy laughed, his head thrown back and his cheeks red, and I saw the instant the toe of his sneaker connected with an uneven edge of concrete.
Time slowed down to small, fractional parts and all I could see was the forward motion of his body and the handful of steps ahead of him. I yelled something, I was certain I did, but it didn't matter because he was already pitching forward. And then everything happened within a blink of an eye.
He tumbled down the stairs, his head connecting with the concrete at least once before rolling to a nauseating stop on the sidewalk. He sat up quickly—thank fucking god—but blood gushed down his face. Audrey was there, gathering him up and keeping his hands from his head, but she couldn't hide the blood from him. When he saw it on his shirt, on his glasses, on the sidewalk, he looked up at me and let out a deep, shattering scream.
chapter fifty-five
Jude
Today's vocabulary word: bond
Gettingto the hospital was a blur. I knew we'd taken a highway—maybe two—and I remembered Audrey pulling up to the emergency room and saying she'd park and meet us inside. But all I really knew was that my hands and these dish towels were soaked with my son's blood. I watched tears pour down his cheeks and I saw the fear in his eyes.
A nurse once told me that some NICU babies experienced a form of post-traumatic stress. They'd panic at doctor's visits. They'd melt the fuck down if they had to have a procedure or stay in a hospital. Their bodies remembered what they'd been through even if their minds had been too young to remember. Percy hadn't been a NICU baby but he'd spent enough time in pediatric intensive care for those rules to apply.
That nurse also told me that NICUparentsweren't so different. I knew that was true because I didn't think I'd ever shake off the sopping wet weight of watching them wheel Percy into surgery to put his leg back together. I'd never recover fromholding his chubby little hand while he lingered in a medically-induced coma and bargaining with gods I'd never believed in.
In other words, Audrey found me sprint-pacing the length of the waiting room and glaring murder at anyone who crossed my path. This poor kid had been through enough. The car accident, the fire at Brenda's house—and now this.
She steered me into a seat and said, "I'm going to ask for some gauze. Stay right here." She must've asked for more than gauze because she came back and hooked an arm through my elbow, leading us toward a nurse waiting at an open door. "Let's go, guys."
"We're going to make a stop in triage first," the nurse said, "and then we'll get you into a room."
Audrey handled all the questions, even reaching into my back pocket to fish out my wallet and insurance cards at one point. I knew I needed to get it together but I couldn't stop seeing him fly down those stairs or hearing that scream. The worst part was that I kept thinking about the custody hearing.
The nurse replaced the dish towel with a thick wedge of gauze and some tape. "This way, you won't have to hold it." She guided us to a curtained-off room and instructed me to recline back on the gurney with Percy, saying, "That'll help slow the bleeding."
She helped get us situated, despite my son's disinterest in having anyone touch him, and pulled a warm blanket up to his shoulders. I didn't know why that eased the gathered tension in my chest but I felt myself deflate just a bit. She pointed out the basin in case he puked and which button to press on the gurney's railing if he blacked out or bled through the gauze. She adjusted the pillow behind me and gave my forearm a squeeze, and I could almost hear my brain coming back online.
I didn't know if it was the blanket or the knowledge that there were people here who could help my kid or just lying back and forcing some air into my lungs but I wasn't standing onthat walkway anymore, powerless to stop him from hitting the ground.
The nurse headed for the curtain divider with a promise that the doctor would be in soon. "You're very lucky," she said, leaning in close to Audrey. "You're getting one of my favorites tonight. But don't let him know that. He doesn't need to know my secrets. I'll be around if you need anything."
When the curtain clattered shut behind the nurse, I said to Audrey, "Thank you. For all of that."
