(For Raymond Carver)

 

When this all started yesterday afternoon, Ann never imagined she and her husband, Howard, would be waiting and worrying like this – overnight, well into a new morning, and continuing today, still unresolved.

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“Ann, I’m going to quick run to the grocery and then stop back home,” Howard said. “We’re out of milk and almost out of bread. Can I pick up anything for you?”

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Ann just nodded, no. She was so tired. No, she nodded.

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“We could use some coffee and kitchen trash bags, too,” he said. “Sit tight. I’ll be back. I shouldn’t be more than an hour.”

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Ann and Howard Weiss had been sitting together in the day room of the old Women’s Lying-In Hospital, a faded landmark in the center of town that years earlier had closed and then reopened and was renamed as the “Annex” to the Dumont Medical Center of which it had become a part. There Ann and Howard waited and wondered and tried to distract themselves, as Howard was doing with this trip to the grocery, each slipping silently and unbeknownst to the other into prayer.

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There was something about the old building, something about the light and the antiseptic smell and the muffled sound that carried down narrow corridors that was familiar and comforting to Ann. It wasn’t just the childhood visit she recalled from so many years ago. It was as though the old hospital had been a setting for a recurring daydream she could fleetingly summon but not quite bring into focus. She had been inside the building that one other time, for sure. Her memory of it was clear. She was a little girl and had come to see her Aunt Lily, and to meet Aunt Lily’s baby, Ann’s newborn cousin, Constance.

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The old hospital was one of a row of landmarks that lined Lockwood Ave. , the library, the old post office, the big elm tree that stood by the Civil War monument, the stone church with its carillon bells, and the Somerset grammar school where the Boy attended, and Ann and Howard had, too. Though it had been demoted to a “facility for patient observation,” the old hospital still was thought of as the place where most townspeople of a certain age had been brought into the world.

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Ann kept running through her mind the call she had received from police notifying her of the accident. It had come as a shock. She had been at home, tidying, when the phone rang. A woman was on the other end of the line. The woman said her name and identified herself, but Ann couldn’t make out the words. Ann had asked, “who is this?” and then asked again.

“Mrs. Weiss,” the woman said with a firmer tone after clearing her throat, “this is Sgt. Janet Murrow from the Dartmouth Woods Police. Your son, Scott, has been injured in an accident on his walk home from school. He was taken to Dumont. I don’t have details, other than that he hit his head. The ambulance responded in a hurry, and he appeared to be stable, but is unconscious. We have his book bag. We would be happy to run it by your house when you are ready. No rush.”

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The Boy had indeed been taken to Dumont, first to the emergency department and wheeled to the far end of the observation floor of the Annex. Ann received word of the Boy’s transfer to the Annex as a good sign. Surely the doctors would keep the most serious cases at the main Dumont facility.

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*

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Ann had been waiting for the doctor in a corridor when she overheard one nurse say to another the words “dart out”. Ann was certain she heard the nurse say those words. She was sure the nurses were talking about the Boy and the accident. The more she thought about it the more it upset her.

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“Dart out.” Of all the things to say about a child who has been injured on a busy street. How callous, and just plain wrong. To say “dart out” is to suggest the Boy had ignored the most basic safety advice children receive: Be extra careful when you cross a street. Stop, look, and listen, in all directions, before stepping down from a curb.

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Is it not enough that the child is in a hospital bed? Ann considered what she consistently had been told about the accident: The Boy had been at the intersection of Girard and Oak Streets. He was waiting next to a parked car at the corner, by the crosswalk at Oak. He stepped down from the curb. He did not dart out. No one said he “darted out,” not the child with whom the Boy was walking, not the man in the car who was coming down the street from the opposite direction and who had stopped. No one.

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Nothing suggested the Boy had been anything but careful. He was a fourth grader and had been walking the five blocks to and from school since first grade. He always was careful. He was a careful and cautious boy. He was a boy who listened to and followed directions. He was happy and kept busy in his room. He loved his room.

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Howard marveled about how the Boy lined up his baseball cards across his bedroom floor, separating the hundreds of cards he had collected by team and then by the players’ places of birth, laying them out geographically from west to east. He imagined how each player must be revered in his hometown, from Walla Walla, Washington, to Castine, Maine. He imagined the players being asked to march in their home town’s Founders Day parade dressed in their big league uniforms. Ann and Howard had purchased a set of newly issued cards to add to the Boy’s collection. The cards had been gift wrapped for his birthday.

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The doctors had yet to determine the extent of the Boy’s injuries. An older doctor observed how the Boy’s injury was consistent with a slip and fall backward while crossing the street. Maybe on some dampened leaves. That would account for the swelling to the back of his head. Yes, he may have slipped, lost his balance, fell back and hit his head, leaving a large bump and fracture to the skull, but no wound or blood.

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It was wrong, unforgivable really, for the nurses to say the Boy had “darted out.” To blame this boy when possibly he was in earshot. Even unconscious, the Boy might have heard them talking. People who are in a coma, they say – and nobody even had hinted that the Boy is in a coma – can be aware of what is being said around them. People need to be careful about what they say, especially when everyone is waiting and hoping and praying for the Boy to awaken, to come back, to please come back. Please, dear God.

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Ann’s face was flush, her eyes were red. She had heard in movies or on television actors with English accents talking about keeping “a stiff upper lip.” Her lips quivered, her eyes filled with

tears, and she hadn’t been brave enough to control it.

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The evening manager at the Annex invited Ann to spend the night in an empty patient room rather than continue to wait up in the day room. He said it was a guest room and she was welcome to stay there. Then she wouldn’t have to sit up all night. She agreed being nearby, right at hand, could promote peace of mind, and she would know right away if there was any update.

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She remembered lying down on the bed, but not falling asleep. She realized, now, she had slept deeply, for at least a part of the night. When she awoke the day was bright and morning seemed to pass quickly and, indeed, it was nearly midday when she realized she was wearing the terry cloth bathrobe that had been laid out with towels and a washcloth on the bed in the room she had been given. She had put the robe over her clothing. Howard must have brought the other overnight things she found in her room. She looked around the day room and noticed that two other women were wearing bathrobes. They must have been overnight guests, too.

 

*

Ann recalled being alone in the guest room much of the night. She couldn’t remember Howard leaving, and she figured he must have left her in the guest room and decided to wait in the day room, where there was an information desk staffed 24 hours, and a table with a coffee pot, non-dairy creamer, and Styrofoam cups.

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Ann was sure she had looked in on the Boy sometime in the middle of the night. She understood that his room was situated on the same floor as hers, at the far end of the building. She recalled the hallways leading to the Boy’s room being lit only by old fashioned wall sconces, and the lighting was dim. She wasn’t clear on how she knew to find the Boy’s room, or her way back to her room, yet somehow she had made her way. The Boy was sleeping, covered by a sheet, and a blue blanket. When he was a baby, and she would look in on him sleeping in his crib, she would watch his ribs for movement to make sure he was breathing. She had no reason to think he would not be breathing.

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She remembered from last night that he was breathing.

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*

Ann grew frustrated that she was not receiving any updates. She remembered Dr. Gilman making clear that closed-head injury takes time to resolve, he said, sometimes days.

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The day room had wood paneling, a tall ceiling and a thick rug. It was quiet. It was a peaceful room. It had the smell of pine needles. A gallery of framed black and white photos covered one of the walls. They depicted the Annex from its days as a part of a maternity hospital. One photo showed a vast nursery with rows of bassinets. The information desk had a telephone that constantly was in use. It did not have a conventional ring. Incoming calls were signaled by a chime, such as you might hear in the lobby of a symphony hall as means by which patrons were informed intermission was coming to an end and that they should return to their seats.

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Ann sat in an upholstered chair in the middle of the room. Her hands were folded in her lap. She rose to her feet with a start when she thought she heard the attendant at the information desk, an older lady with white hair and a pink sweater, say “Weiss.”

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“Did you say, Weiss?” Ann asked, as she stepped lively toward the attendant. “I am Ann Weiss. My son is Scotty Weiss. That’s Scott Weiss. Do you have some news?”

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“No, Mrs. Weiss. I was on a call concerning a different patient. Sorry to have alarmed you. Your husband told us you are waiting on your son.”

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“Yes, please forgive me. I am so tired. I will stay here, right in this chair, here.”

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“Don’t worry, Ma’am. Make yourself comfortable. Have you been out to the patio and seen the new garden?”

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The woman pointed to the bright sunlight shining through the windows of the French doors at the far end of the room. “It has turned out to be a lovely day,” the woman said. “You may find it refreshing if you step out even for just a few minutes.”

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*

As Ann waited at the hospital and Howard stopped by the house to unload groceries, three counties away two small girls were secured in car seats in the back of their family SUV. Their father was in the front passenger seat. Their mother was driving. The car pulled into the drop off curb at the commuter train station.

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“Give Grandma Anne and Grandpa Howard big hugs for us, Daddy” the older girl said. “Yeah! Big hug for Grandma and Grandpa!” the younger girl echoed, in her baby voice, emulating the exaggerated hug she sought to convey by wrapping her arms around her big sister.

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*

The train arrived 20 minutes late into Dartmouth Woods. A taxicab and two other automobiles waited in the small parking lot next to the platform as Howard drove up. The young father was the last passenger to exit the train. He carried a small overnight bag and walked with a slight limp.

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The two men embraced. Howard clapped the younger man on the back. “Things are looking up, son,” Howard said. Things stabilized quickly, this time. ”

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Howard took the overnight bag from the young man and carried it to the car.

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*

The improved patio and garden at the Annex were paved with blue-grey flagstones. A gurgling fountain, low to the ground, was at the center, with stone benches situated on two sides. The set up was surrounded by beds of autumn mums of lavender, red and bronze. The garden perimeter was protected by deep, tall, lush hedges. The well-tended shrubbery provided privacy to Ann, such that she was not self-conscious about being dressed in her bathrobe and slippers. The sound of the water reminded her of how she and the Boy, before he was of school age, would go mornings to the municipal park and sit on a bench by the pond which had a bubbling drinking fountain.

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She and the Boy would bundle up on brisk fall days, many of which carried a faint smell of burning wood in a distant fireplace, up against a fresh breeze, warmed by the bright sun when the air was still.

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She brought a bag with ladies’ magazines, McCall’s, and Ladies Home Journal, along with a snack for the Boy, usually a small box of raisins and a few animal crackers wrapped in cellophane. They went to their regular bench with green wooden slats, the boy sitting in his mother’s lap and they “read” the magazines, looking at the pictures, finding and pointing at things in the pictures.

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Before they headed home, the two walked around the pond. She held the Boy’s hand, allowing him to walk on top of the wall that bordered the path that circled the pond.

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The light today, as she remembered from those days, was high in the sky. It illuminated a world that was shadow free. It confirmed for her, for the moment at least, how care and worry can be deferred. Back then she had taken the Boy’s small warm hand in hers. She realized he was safe and, so long as the sun was bright and she could remember the feeling of his warm hand, he would remain safe. She sat down on one of the benches next to the fountain and softly cried. They were tears of gratitude for the calm that now quieted her mind as she knew she soon would be holding the Boy's hand.