The Kindness of Strangers (17 page)

He wrote “
epiphany,
” then a big question mark. He left a blank space, then wrote,
“Woke up in emergency room. Came in ambulance to Children’s Medical. Met Dr. Ali. Met Dr. Bryn.”

Dr. Bryn McConnel was one of the first people who came to his room. She was as short as he was, and she had more freckles than he’d ever seen. Her hair was brown and curly. Really curly, like a bunch of miniature Slinkies growing out of her head. As soon as she told him she was a psychologist, he hated her. That first day all she said was, “Hi, Jordan. I know you’re here because something bad happened to you.” He hadn’t said anything to her. He hadn’t even looked at her. He wanted her to go away. She paused for a while but then just kept talking. “I bet you wish I’d just go away and leave you alone. But this is my job. I want to help you get better. I care about you feeling better. You probably don’t want to talk about why you’re here right now, do you?”

She waited. He stared at the penguin border. She’d wait every time, like she really thought any minute he’d answer her. “That’s okay. I know it’s going to be hard to talk about. You probably don’t even want to think about it. I’ll be visiting you to help you with that. I’ll be back later on tonight.” And she was. When she came back, he was watching a big-cat special on Animal Planet. Dr. Bryn let him finish watching it, then talked about some zoo place near Dayton that rescued exotic animals. Animals that should never have been pets, like crocodiles and tigers that people thought would be fun to have, until they grew too big to control. Jordan would like to go there, but he didn’t tell Dr. Bryn. He didn’t plan to ever say anything to her, but then out of the blue she’d asked him, “Do you miss your parents?”

An alarm went off in his head. And that gerbil starting running on his wheel in Jordan’s rib cage.

“Do you want to see them?”

And before he could think, he was out of bed, on his feet, jerking on his IV stand, making the needle come out and the machine start beeping.

Dr. Bryn had reassured him that she didn’t mean right then, that his mom and dad were not there. While a nurse had fixed his IV, Bryn told him about his parents in her no-nonsense voice. She didn’t talk in that sugary voice people used on pets, the way a lot of people at the emergency room had. She told him how his mom had to talk to the police before she could come see him. And how the police were looking for his dad. How nobody, not even his parents, had the right to do what had been done to Jordan. It was hard to listen to her when the water-rushing sound started in his head.

He waited until Dr. Bryn was gone and then he asked one of the nurses if they locked the doors at night. He’d asked a different nurse if anyone could find his room. He asked Wendy, his favorite, if the hospital security men had guns. He knew that his dad would never let him get away with this. His dad would kill him for screwing everything up so bad.

Jordan wrote,
“Day #2. The nurses tell Dr. Bryn everything.”
She had come first thing in the morning and asked, “Are you worried about your dad hurting you? Do you think he’s going to come after you?”

Dr. Bryn and Dr. Ali and the nurses all tried to tell him he was safe. His room was right across from the nurses’ station. There was a little window so they could see in his room. A big sign was right outside his door that said all visitors must go to the nurses’ desk first. Jordan wanted to keep his door shut, but they wouldn’t let him. They said it was important for him to talk to people and not stay alone. They told him that security had been given pictures of his dad. Police were looking for his dad everywhere, not just here in Dayton.

Also under “
Day #2,
” Jordan wrote, “
CARE House.
” That second day Jordan had been given clothes to wear instead of his hospital pajamas. The nurses unhooked him from his cardiac monitor, telling him it was just for a little while. Dr. Ali made him ride in a wheelchair with his IV attached, and he’d been taken across the street to a place called CARE House. Dr. Bryn had explained it all to him, how he’d only have to talk to one lady interviewing him but that the police and Children’s Services would be able to see. He sat in a yellow room that was like Billy Porter’s living room, with a couch and a beanbag chair.

The lady showed him pictures of the other kids and asked if he knew them. He decided it wasn’t really a lie to shake his head no. He only knew the kids’ first names. And only once had he ever seen one of those kids outside the parties—Ashley, that blond girl, had been at the mall once when he was buying school clothes with his parents. All four parents had chatted at the food court, eating Chinese. Jordan and Ashley had sat in silence. The whole time, in his head, he heard that creepy gasping sound she made when she cried. He didn’t like to think about the other kids. Would they still have to have parties without him?

After his interview the lady thanked him for talking to her, which Jordan thought was stupid, because he hadn’t said anything; he’d only nodded or shook his head a couple times.

Back in his hospital room, Dr. Ali had told him about gonorrhea. Now he knew why he felt so sick all the time, why his knees and hips and elbows, even his wrists and fingers, ached. G-o-n—just one
n,
like “gone”—o-r-r—gotta remember two
r
’s—h-e-a. She told him how people got gonorrhea, but he didn’t want to talk about that. And knowing how he got it made him not want to know what it was called. He didn’t put the word on his list.

But he did write,
“Child Life.”
Dr. Ali and the nurses tried to get him to leave his room. They told him he could go to the Cyber Zone, where there were computers, or to the lounge or the courtyard anytime he wanted; he just had to tell the nurses so they could unhook him from his monitor. He said he didn’t want any visitors, and they said they wouldn’t make him. He waited to see if they would stick to their word, and it didn’t take long to find a catch. All the people at the hospital acted like
they
weren’t visitors themselves and bugged him all the time. The nurses kept coming in and asking him if he wanted to play checkers or cards. And these people from Child Life came and tried to get him to go down to the playroom. Please. Did they think he was a baby?

Jordan wrote, “
Day #3: Went to playroom.
”

On the third day, the Child Life people
made
him go—he knew eventually someone would make him do something—but it was cooler than he thought. He messed around with Play-Doh and made a cat, a really good one, even if it was green.

The Child Life lady must have told Dr. Bryn what he made, because when Dr. Bryn came for therapy that day, she said, “So I hear you’re quite an artist.”

Jordan added “
Family picture
” to his list.

Dr. Bryn said, “Today I’d like you to do one thing for me, okay? Then we can do something that you want to do. Which one do you want to do first?”

He looked at her warily, the water sound in his ears.

“I’d like you to draw a picture for me,” Dr. Bryn said. “That’s what I want.”

That was all? He didn’t believe her.

“I’d like you to draw a picture of your family.”

So Jordan had. He knew what to do. Bryn had given him paper and a pencil, and he’d spent a long time on the drawing. He’d drawn his mom and dad with himself in between them. Everyone smiled. He also drew a cat at his feet, rubbing against his shin. The faces really looked like his mom and dad. Jordan showed it to Bryn.

She’d praised it and talked about it for a long time. At first it was cool; Jordan knew he was good at drawing. Mr. Garcia, his art teacher, told Jordan he was talented. But then Bryn said, “I think you’ve done a very good job of drawing me what you think your family
should
be, but not what it really is. And I think you’ve worked very, very hard to do that in your life, not just this drawing. I think I’d be tired if I’d worked that hard for so long.”

Jordan stared at her, heart pounding. Then he snatched the drawing from her and wadded it up.

“Why did you do that?”

“You didn’t like it.”

“I didn’t say that. I do like it. I think you’re a very good artist.” Bryn took the wadded-up paper and smoothed it out with her hands. “May I keep it?”

Jordan shrugged.

She thanked him for doing the picture as she’d asked and said, “Okay. A deal’s a deal. Now we’ll do something that you want to do. What would you like?”

But Jordan couldn’t think of anything. And hanging out with her made him claustrophobic.

Later that day was the first time Dr. Ali told him Sarah Laden wanted to visit him. Mr. Garcia had come, too, and his principal, Ms. Zimmerman, but Jordan wouldn’t talk to any of them. That was the day the mail and the packages started to come. He wrote, “
Mail started.
” He asked Wendy how people knew he was here, and Wendy brought Dr. Bryn back to his room. Dr. Bryn showed him an article in the paper about his dad. Dr. Bryn said they had to put it in the news, because Jordan’s dad was a fugitive. Fugitive. Like in a movie. Only this wasn’t a movie. This was his life. Even though they never said Jordan’s name in the article, everyone figured it out and started sending him sweatshirts and crossword puzzles and Silly Putty and a yo-yo. A bunch of cards. The nurses seemed to think the mail would make him happy. Didn’t they get it? The mail ruined everything. He thought about what Dr. Bryn had said about his picture. But that made him mad, and he wished he hadn’t let her keep it.

There were some cards from his classmates and their parents, saying things like, “
We hope you get well fast
” and “
We hope you’re back soon.
” He could never go back. Not now.

The letters from his teachers bothered him the most.
“I wish I had known and could have helped you,”
Mr. Garcia’s card said. Miss Holt, his own classroom teacher, wrote,
“I’m sorry that I wasn’t aware . . .”
blah blah blah. How many times had he asked to go see the nurse? Or to go to the bathroom? Or to sit out in gym? He’d wanted someone to ask him and had been terrified someone would ask.

When he’d freaked out about the scoliosis test, the teachers had called his mom and dad in for a meeting. His parents had shown up looking worried and sad and had spoken to the teachers in quiet voices. Jordan’s grades hadn’t suffered; it was only his tantrum the teachers worried about. His parents thanked the teachers for bringing it to their attention.

His mom and dad didn’t say a word the whole way back to the house, but he didn’t like to think about what happened once inside. They’d made it really clear that he was never to draw attention to himself or them ever again. He pushed those memories out of his head. One memory in particular made his eyes sting. What would his mom and dad do
now
? This was way worse than a teacher’s meeting. If Jordan was lucky, they’d just kill him.

Jordan looked up at the ceiling. A red helium balloon was starting to shrink and sag in one corner. Sarah Laden had brought that balloon. It was all Sarah’s stupid fault that he was here. Dr. Ali said Sarah had taken him to the ER. If it wasn’t for her, he’d be dead.

Jordan looked down at his list. What else happened that third day? The days seemed to stretch out forever, and the nights were worse. He couldn’t keep track of all the people. He’d forgotten which day he’d met his social worker from the hospital. He also had a case manager from Children’s Services, Reece Carmichael. Reece had come a couple of days. And that detective. Kramble. He came almost every day, just to see how Jordan was doing. Jordan should go back and put those visits on his list. But his head ached.

He decided he could go back and add all the visits from people later. For now he would just list the main things that he remembered from each day. He was almost done. He wrote, “
Day #4,
” and wrote, “
New plan.
” He’d started leaving the room a lot, which he knew everyone wanted him to do. He didn’t tell them he was exploring all the ways in and out and good places to hide.

The IV stand came along with him no problem, but it was impossible to go outside the room with the cardiac monitor unless a nurse unhooked him. He was chained to the heavy metal box by five wire leads that attached to five different patches on his chest. Each patch had a metal knob, and the leads clamped onto those knobs like tiny metal chip clips. If he wanted to go for a walk, he had to call a nurse. They never seemed to mind unhooking him, but Jordan hated having to ask. He felt like a dog in someone’s yard.

He added to the list,
“Dr. Bryn’s office. Saw dragon. Broke the angel.”

That fourth day Dr. Bryn had asked a nurse to unhook Jordan and told him that they were going to her office for their talk, instead of just sitting in Jordan’s room. “I have some very cool stuff that I think you’d like. Plus, you need a road trip. Some new scenery.”

“A road trip?” Jordan didn’t want to leave the hospital. He knew he had to learn to get
out
of the hospital if he needed to, but he panicked at the thought of people seeing him. He never wanted people to look at him again.

“Just a figure of speech,” Bryn said, laughing. “It’s actually on the same floor, just on the other side of the hospital.”