WHOEVER CREATED THESE little hospital chairs that fold out into sleeping cots should be executed. After lying on it for five hours, the muscles of my back have now constricted into a long string of knots, like that rope we used to climb up in gym class. I’m amazed the chairs haven’t gone through any major improvements in the fourteen years since I last slept on one, when Ellie was born. My heart seizes as I think of her scrunched-up face, the tiny mews emanating from her puckered lips. That night, I couldn’t sleep, not because of the uncomfortable chair, but in the event something happened with Ellie—what if she suddenly stopped breathing, or rolled over, or somehow managed to wrangle her way out of the straitjacket swaddle, up and over that terrible plastic encasement that was supposed to stand for a crib, and onto the floor? I lay awake for the entire night, listening to her every tiny breath and whimper, wondering how I would ever rest again. Now I peer through the darkness at Aja’s peaceful face, as if to remind myself that it’s this child I’m keeping vigil for.
His chest rises and falls with sleep, and I review the day’s events in my mind: driving all over the city with Connie searching for Aja, the relief and alarm flooding me instantaneously when I got the phone call alerting us to his location at St. Vincent’s Hospital following a near-drowning incident, the doctor telling us he was a “very lucky little boy” and would only need to be kept overnight for observation.
I’m trying to stay focused, on the hard lumps of the chair digging into my spine and hips, on the methodical beeping of Aja’s heart-rate monitor, on the footsteps of the janitor in the hallway, the swish of his mop sliding back and forth across the linoleum tile, on the streetlights peeking in through the gaps between the shoddy plastic blinds—on anything but the fact that Aja almost died. That I’m spectacularly failing at parenting with not just one but two children. That I would give anything for Ellie to start speaking to me again—if only to counteract some of my guilt over the current situation with Aja. In a moment of hopefulness, I wonder if maybe she tried to text during the evening while I was dealing with Aja. I sit up and dig my cell out of my pocket. The screen announces the time in glowing numbers—3:14 a.m.—but nothing else.
My fingers twitch over the keys, wanting to text her, but I know it’s much too late.
THE NEXT MORNING, the first thing I see when I open my eyes is Aja sitting up and licking chocolate pudding off a spoon. I blink, shocked that I actually fell asleep at some point.
“Hey, tiger,” I say, groaning as I try to maneuver my stiff body into a sitting position. Forgetting my hand injury, I push up on my bandaged palm and wince at the sharp pain.
“Hi,” he says, keeping his eyes trained on the pudding cup.
“How you feeling?”
“Good.”
I was bursting with questions by the time Connie dropped me off at the hospital last night before she went to get The Dog, but Aja was already asleep, his tiny body worn from exhaustion. Now that he’s awake, in the morning light, I have no idea what to say to him. Do I yell at him? Ground him? Hug him? Ask him what the hell he was thinking? I’m a jumble of emotions, the foremost being the familiar fear that I’ll say the wrong thing. That I’ll push him even further away from me. I made that mistake with Ellie, and I can’t afford to make it again.
I glance at the nurses’ white dry-erase board on the wall. It just says: Tricia—Ext. 2743. I look back at Aja.
“So. How was your swim?”
He stills the spoon on his tongue, midlick, and appears to ponder the question. Then he sets it down on his tray.
“Cold.”
I nod, running my hand over the coarse hairs on my face. “Aja, you gotta help me out here, buddy. What were you—”
“Where’s the librarian?” he asks, training his eyes on me.
“What?”
“The librarian. They took her away.”
The doctor said Aja was awake and alert when he arrived at the hospital, leaving little concern for any lasting neurological damage, but we haven’t been to the library in a week and I wonder if he’s having some kind of memory lapse. I glance back at Tricia’s number.
“Do you know what today is?” I ask, my brows knitting together.
Aja thinks about it. “Sunday.”
“Who’s the president?”
Aja looks at me with his liquid brown eyes. “Do you not know?”
A light rap at the door precedes a nurse opening it and walking in. “Good morning,” she trills. “And how is our patient this morning?”
She’s looking at a clipboard in her hand, so I’m not sure if she’s talking to me or Aja. Neither one of us responds. She looks up. “Let’s get that blood pressure, mmm?”
She lays the chart on the foot of the bed and wraps the cuff around Aja’s thin arm. Afterward she takes his temperature and listens to his chest with a stethoscope. Then she scrawls on the paper she came in with. “Dr. Reed will be by on rounds in the next hour or so, K?”
“Tricia?”
“Oh, nope.” She goes over to the board and wipes the name clean with her marker. “She was the night nurse. I’m Carolyn.”
“Oh. Sorry,” I say, and then nod in Aja’s direction. “How is he?”
She looks down at the chart, as if she’s already forgotten. “His vitals are great,” she says. “I imagine he’ll be able to go home sometime this afternoon.” She clutches the chart to her chest. “Any other questions?” she asks, and turns to Aja. “Do you need anything?”
“My glasses,” Aja says. “I can’t see anything.”
The nurse smiles and walks over to the counter where Aja’s glasses are sitting. She picks them up and hands them to him.
“And where’s the woman? The librarian?” he asks as he slides the hooks over his ears.
Well, here we go. I cover my face with my hands.
“The one who saved you?” My head shoots up.
Aja nods.
“She’s recovering on the fourth floor,” she says. “She had some, ah . . . complications.”
“Wait, what happened?” I realize I was so solely focused on Aja’s health last night that I don’t even know what really happened to him. I know he somehow fell in the river and some passersby spotted him and called 911. I didn’t think to ask anything else. Just like a man, I can hear Stephanie’s voice saying in my head.
“A woman riding by on a bicycle spotted your son and dove in after him. She performed CPR until someone called the ambulance.”
“It was that librarian. From the other day,” Aja chimes in, shooting me a blank expression that I take to mean I told you so.
My mouth feels dry and I’m strangely aware of my heart beating in my chest. Emily. I’m sure it’s not her real name, but it’s the only one I know her as. I have a sudden image of her swan-diving into the Passaic in her long white nightgown. I look at the nurse. “You said something about complications, though. Is she OK?”
“I’m sorry, I’m not really supposed to say.”
I can’t believe that woman—that timid wisp of a woman who was just reciting poetry and checking out our library books—saved Aja’s life. I feel indebted to her. And I need to make sure she’s OK. “Can I see her?”
The nurse pauses. “I’ll have to ask her. I’ll let you know.” She glances back at the chart. “Oh, and the social worker will be by later today.”
“Social worker?” I ask.
“Just standard protocol,” she says, but she doesn’t meet my gaze.
After she’s gone, I push the librarian from my mind and turn my attention back to Aja. “So. Are you going to tell me why you were on that bridge?”
He stares at the empty pudding cup as if willing it to refill with his mind. Hell, maybe that’s exactly what he’s trying.
“OK,” I say. “Why don’t we start with the coffee table?”
He doesn’t move.
“That wasn’t an accident, was it?”
He remains statuesque.
“Aja,” I say. “Look at me.” I can’t keep the desperation out of my voice and maybe that’s what drags his eyes upward until they lock with mine. “Talk to me.”
He opens his mouth and mumbles something.
“What?” I lean forward in my chair to try to hear him better.