“I’m calling 911.”
When he was at the phone, she tried to push up, grabbing the arm of the chair. Once again, she collapsed to the floor. Even as Isaac confirmed the address, a siren rose in the distance, and Evangeline loved this little town, loved everything about it—the haunted old buildings, teachers at bus stops on Saturday nights, how everything you needed was always near. How an ambulance might arrive in minutes to save you and your baby.
Isaac hung up, knelt beside her, and took her hand. “They’re almost here.” Something caught his eye, and he touched the chair’s arm. “Did Rufus bleed?” He yanked his hand from hers. “Dear God. You’re the one bleeding. Where?”
“Down there. Something happened.”
Isaac gripped her hand again. “It’s okay. Just breathe. Another minute.”
A siren careened up the drive, and he lumbered to a stand. “I’ll be right back,” he said, and went to direct them in. As she waited, she touched Rufus’s paw, but it wasn’t his paw any longer. It was something emptied and stuffed with hard cotton batting, like the old lumpy mattresses she’d slept on as a kid.
When three uniformed men burst in, she was wondering if she and the baby were dying. She couldn’t describe the men, other than to say one was old and the other two young. The young ones were at her side, touching her reassuringly, taking her blood pressure, listening to her heart and the baby’s. They kept asking questions, repeating them, but she was distracted by the older man a few feet back, with his energy of command and his radio that staticked on.
“Engine 19,” he said, “requesting dispatch PD.”
Static again. “What’s the nature?”
“Could use officer assistance.”
His voice, though not alarmed, was firm, and Evangeline realized how it must look with the dead dog and the blood smeared about. Isaac hadn’t mentioned blood in his call.
“Try to focus,” said the young one near her face. His breath smelled of peppermint and taco-truck burrito. “Tell us what happened.”
She answered their questions as best she could, but it seemed Rufus was key to it all, and they didn’t see it that way.
“We’re going to pull down your leggings, check things out, okay?” said the young one by her hips.
The older man took Isaac by the arm and led him across the room, and the young guy pulled at her leggings, each tug blinding her with pain. He stopped, and she heard scissors cutting, felt cool air on her belly and thighs. The one by her hips said to the one with Isaac, “Significant vaginal bleeding.”
“The baby?”
“Recommend transfer.”
* * *
—
EVANGELINE WASN’T SURE OF THE SEQUENCE AFTER THAT, except the words “placental abruption” appeared in the room and with them a flurry of activity. It was hardly a minute before a blanket was laid over her bare legs and she was lifted onto a gurney, placed on her left side, and rolled out the drive.
A police car swung in as she was being loaded into the ambulance. She couldn’t see the officer, but she heard his car door slam, the crunch of gravel under his steps.
“Isaac,” she called. “Isaac!”
“He won’t be coming with you,” said the officer, not bothering to come into view.
Already she hated him.
She started yelling, “He didn’t do anything! I was upset about the dog. Please.” But it was as if no sound came from her. One of the young guys placed an oxygen mask over her face as the other inserted an IV into her arm.
“They’re waiting for you in L&D, Labor and Delivery.”
The peppermint-burrito guy said that, and through the haze of oxygen and pain she thought he was sweet-faced, hardly yet shaving, like Jonah.
“Am I having the baby?” she said into her mask.
The guy lifted the mask, and she asked again.
“You will be. A C-section, I suspect.”
“Is the baby okay?”
“We hope so,” he said, but she heard the softness of doubt. “I’m putting this back on. Just try to relax.” When he’d secured the mask, he placed his hand on her wrist as if to take her pulse, but Evangeline was certain he just wanted to touch her.
“I was upset about the dog,” she whispered to herself.
She closed her eyes, blotted out the siren wailing, and let herself imagine—it seemed a reasonable enough allowance—that it was her mother’s fingertips searching out the beating of her heart.
67
Day of My Death
I take one last moment to listen to the world at night. A plane banks overhead as a distant cargo ship sounds across the water. Frogs bellow songs of love and battle and I wonder if in all that ruckus I’m hearing the one I caught for Red.
The coyotes start up, their throats churning bloody melodies, and I push myself upright, put the note in a plastic snack bag—in case things get soggy—and tuck it into my jacket pocket. My backpack is set with everything I need. I climb out my bedroom window and head to my truck. Earlier in the day, I parked it a few blocks away, at a road end where its engine won’t be heard.
I take my time walking. Always did like being out in these early-morning hours. How the dark and quiet make me feel part of it all, just one of nature’s animals. Thin clouds move across the nearly full moon, scattering its light into a bright patch of sky. A small animal darts across my path—a rabbit, I think. Always surprises me how fast they can move. I’ll miss it. Life. Because for everything that has happened, it can fucking make you cry sometimes how beautiful it is.
I stop then. I almost go back, but I would always smell Daniel on my skin, and Dad would always be pacing.
* * *
—
WE NEVER TALKED ABOUT IT, Mom and Nells and I, but we’d all noticed something was off that last morning. Nells elbowed me when Dad was busy yelling at Mom, mouthed, What the fuck?
Dad’s eyes were bloodshot, even more than usual. By the end of breakfast, he was on his fourth beer, ranting about how the motherfucking bureaucrats were jacking utility rates for no other reason than they could—how in the hell did they expect a man to take care of his family? And the doctors, now they were another story, acting like a man was lying when he said he was in pain, acting like he was some kind of addict. Had those sons of bitches ever had a rack of lumber crush the shit out of their spine? Turn their nerves into some goddamned torture chamber?
We’d seen him like this, lots of times, but never so early in the day, never so locked in. Then Brody had another accident, peeing all over the chair and floor. The old guy looked embarrassed like he always did. He tried to get up but collapsed in a heap, landing in the puddle. His eyes were so pathetic with shame and confusion that I almost understood why Dad did what he did. Why he walked out of the room, came back with the SIG Sauer, and shot Brody in the head.
Nells lost it, screaming, throwing herself on Brody. My father ripped her off, twisted her arm behind her back, held her there, that SIG pressed to her temple. “You love him so much? Do you? Want to join him?”
My mother and I leaped up, and the gun pointed at us. “Fifteen rounds. Plenty for all of us.” Tears were dripping down his cheeks, but he didn’t seem to know it.