“Must have been.”
“Acapulco’s really neat. Can we go back there on my next vacation?”
“I don’t know why not. You glad to be getting back to school?”
“I refuse to answer on the grounds that it might incriminate me.”
In the middle of the afternoon, Jennifer was taking a deposition when Cynthia buzzed.
“I’m sorry to disturb you, but there’s a Mrs. Stout on the line and—”
Joshua’s homeroom teacher. “I’ll take it.”
Jennifer picked up the telephone. “Hello, Mrs. Stout. Is anything wrong?”
“Oh no, everything’s fine, Mrs. Parker. I didn’t mean to alarm you. I just thought I might suggest to you that it would be a good idea if Joshua got more sleep.”
“What do you mean?”
“He slept through most of his classes today. Miss Williams and Mrs. Toboco both mentioned it. Perhaps you could see to it that he gets to bed a bit earlier.”
Jennifer stared at the telephone. “I—yes, I’ll do that.”
Slowly, she replaced the receiver and turned to the people in the room watching her.
“I—I’m sorry,” she said. “Excuse me.”
She hurried out to the reception room. “Cynthia, find Dan. Ask him to finish the deposition for me. Something has come up.”
“All—” Jennifer was already out the door.
She drove home like a madwoman, exceeding the speed limit, going through red lights, her mind filled with visions of something terrible having happened to Joshua. The drive seemed interminable and when her house appeared in the distance, Jennifer half expected to see the driveway filled with ambulances and police cars. The driveway was deserted. Jennifer pulled up beside the front door and hurried into the house.
“Joshua!”
He was in the den watching a baseball game on television.
“Hi, Mom. You’re home early. Did you get fired?”
Jennifer stood in the doorway staring at him, her body flooding with relief. She felt like an idiot.
“You should have seen the last inning. Craig Swan was fantastic!”
“How do you feel, son?”
“Great.”
Jennifer put her hand on his forehead. He had no fever.
“You sure you’re all right?”
“Of course I am. Why do you look so funny? You worried about something? You want to have a man-to-man talk?”
She smiled. “No, darling, I just—does anything hurt you?”
He groaned. “I’ll say. The Mets are losing six to five. You know what happened in the first inning?”
He began an excited replay of his favorite team’s exploits. Jennifer stood there looking at him, adoring him, thinking, Damn my imagination! Of course he’s all right.
“You go on and watch the rest of the game. I’ll see about dinner.”
Jennifer went into the kitchen, lighthearted. She decided to make a banana cake, one of Joshua’s favorite desserts.
Thirty minutes later, when Jennifer returned to the study, Joshua was lying on the floor, unconscious.
The ride to Blinderman Memorial Hospital seemed to take forever. Jennifer sat in the back of the ambulance clutching Joshua’s band. An attendant was holding an oxygen mask over Joshua’s face. He had not regained consciousness. The ambulance’s siren was keening, but the traffic was heavy and the ambulance went slowly while curious people gaped through the windows, staring at the white-faced woman and the unconscious boy. It seemed to Jennifer a sickening violation of privacy.
“Why can’t they use one-way glass in ambulances?” Jennifer demanded.
The attendant looked up, startled. “Ma’am?”
“Nothing…nothing.”
After what seemed an eternity, the ambulance pulled up at the emergency entrance at the back of the hospital. Two interns were waiting at the door. Jennifer stood there helpless, watching as Joshua was removed from the ambulance and transferred to a gurney.
An attendant asked, “Are you the boy’s mother?”
“Yes.”
“This way, please.”
What followed was a blurred kaleidoscope of sound and light and movement. Jennifer watched Joshua being wheeled down a long, white corridor to an X-ray room.
She started to follow, but the attendant said, “You’ll have to check him in first.”
A thin woman at the front desk was saying to Jennifer, “How do you plan to pay for this? Do you have Blue Cross or some other form of insurance?”
Jennifer wanted to scream at the woman, wanted to get back to Joshua’s side, but she forced herself to answer the questions, and when they were over and Jennifer had filled out several forms, the woman allowed Jennifer to leave.