“Thanks!” I said with a slightly guilty smile.
“You know, if you didn’t have pepperoni stuck in your teeth and if I didn’t want to be friends with you and Adam, I’d lay one on you right here and now.”
“Really? I don’t think so.”
“Oh, yes, and you’d love it. And you’d beg for more!”
I flossed, giggling inside. I rinsed my mouth, turned around, and there he was. The next thing I knew he was kissing me. I did not respond, but I also didn’t completely resist.
Finally, he stepped back and said, “What’s wrong?”
“Are you serious?” I said. “I’m married and I don’t want to cheat on Adam.”
“Oh,” he said. “It’s just a kiss.”
Just then we heard “Carl! Come quickly! One of the kids is hurt! Carl!”
Panic set in and I nearly fought Carl to get out of the bathroom first. We both ran down the stairs. Adam was already running to the playground. Carl was on his heels.
Ted was there in the living room, out of breath.
“It happened so fast!” Ted said to Eve.
“Who’s hurt?” I almost screamed.
“It’s Max. He fell and hit his head.”
I turned on my heels and began running toward the swings and jungle gym, which were only a few buildings away. Eve followed me, jogging quickly, leaving Ted, who was still struggling to catch his breath, to return to the scene behind everyone else.
There was a small crowd gathered, both adults and children. There was a strange quiet to the group which frightened me even more. As I got there I saw Max’s limp body in Carl’s arms. He was unconscious. Max’s head was covered in blood and his arm dangled at an odd angle. I nearly fainted at the sight of him.
“Oh, my God! Max!” I screamed.
“Is he gonna die?” Luke said. He began to wail, and for the first time since he was a toddler, he reached up to me to be picked up.
Daphne began to cry, throwing her arms around Eve.
Adam put his arm around my waist and said, “It’s going to be all right.”
Of course, Adam knew no such thing, but I knew he wanted to believe it so badly he just kept repeating it over and over.
Eve said, “Shouldn’t we call an ambulance?”
Carl said, “There’s no time! Let’s go! Adam, come with me. Eve, you and Eliza stay here with the children.”
“Adam, take my purse! The children’s insurance cards are in my wallet!”
“We’ve got to get him to the hospital. Right now,” Carl said, looking into Max’s eye with his free hand, pulling Max’s lids apart. “Probable concussion. Fracture of the arm.”
Within a minute, Max’s bleeding head was wrapped in a towel and he was in the backseat of Adam’s car with Carl.
“Call me!” I yelled out to him.
Adam nodded to me solemnly and I knew that Adam was praying, begging God to make things right.
We all went back to Eve’s condo because that was where the evening had begun. Ted, Clarabeth, Cookie, and I sat at the dining room table.
Collapsing into a chair, Clarabeth shook her head back and forth as she wept into her handkerchief. “I feel terrible, just terrible. I wouldn’t let anything hurt that precious baby for all the money in this world! I feel so terrible! This is all my fault! I should’ve told him to come down.”
“I didn’t see a thing,” Cookie said.
“We did tell him to come down. He wouldn’t listen,” Ted said.
“He never listens,” Luke said and climbed onto my lap.
I put my arms around him and stroked his hair back from his face.
“Hush now,” I said. “What’s done is done.”
“All my fault,” Clarabeth repeated. “Oh, I wish it had been me, and not poor Max.”
“It’s no one’s fault, Clarabeth!” Ted said. “It was an accident.”
Cookie said, “Ted’s right. It was an accident.”
“What exactly happened?” I asked.
“He was climbing on the jungle gym,” Daphne said. “He got on top of it and I told him, you’d better come down or you’re going to fall!”
“We both told him to come down, but you know Max!” Luke said.
“It’s not so smart to be a daredevil, now, is it?” I said to Luke and Daphne.
“No, ma’am,” they said solemnly.
“I’ll make a pot of coffee,” Eve said.
She got up and went to the kitchen.
“He was pretending to be a tightrope walker,” Daphne said.
“Dear God,” I said.
“Dumb idea,” Luke said.
Naturally, Cookie, Clarabeth, and Ted were horrified that something like this had happened on their watch. Luke and Daphne were deeply frightened.
“I haven’t been so upset since Adam was a little boy and his appendix almost burst. What a nightmare! He had to get blood and oh Lord, I thought his mother would never calm down!”
Clarabeth said, “There’s nothing more terrifying than an injured child.”
I was in a total state of jangled nerves and struggling to quell my worst fears. What if? What if? My hands and feet were ice cold. I felt a little nauseated and disoriented and I couldn’t get the image of Max’s bloody head out of my mind. Concussion? What did that mean? And he was unconscious, which scared me to death. I knew they would set his arm and stitch up his head, but would he be okay? And where was I when this all happened? Snooping around in Eve’s bathroom and kissing her husband.
I would’ve gone back to my place to lie down, but I was afraid I would fall asleep and miss the phone call from Adam or Carl. So I sat there with the others. Eventually Daphne and Luke peeled away from the adults and went to the bedroom to play quietly. Luke was building a Lego fort and Daphne had dolls.
Eve said, “Listen to me, Eliza. Here is the reason I love Carl. He can move the world to make the right thing happen. There’s no one I’ve ever known like him. No one. When the chips are down? Carl takes over and everything works out fine. You’ll see.”
“God, I hope you’re right,” I said.
We drank cup after cup of coffee and pushed some second-rate apple pie from the grocery store around on dessert plates. I noticed that Eve opted to continue drinking wine. Ted moved to the sofa and drifted off, seated next to Clarabeth, who had become very quiet. Hours passed and there was still no word from Adam or Carl. Finally, at ten thirty, my cell phone rang. I answered it with shaking hands. It was Adam.
“Hey, sweetheart. It’s me.”
“How’s Max?”
“He’s going to be fine. He got about fifty stitches in his head and they set his arm, which was broken in two places.”
“Oh God! My poor baby!”
“They’re gonna let him come home in the morning because they just want to watch him overnight. He hit his head pretty darn hard.”
“Should I come and sit? I’ll come and sit!”
“If you want. I’ll tell you one thing, though.”