When He Fell (9 page)

Taking a deep breath, I answer the phone. “Hello?”

“Ms. Reese?”

“Yes.”

“I wanted to update you on what happened on the playground,” she says, and my hand tenses around my cell.

“Yes?”

“I spoke to Mrs. Rollins yesterday and discovered that she had talked to some of the children who were on the playground when Ben fell.” A pause, and I can tell she’s considering her words carefully. “It appears Ben might have been pushed by another student.”

“
Pushed?
”

“Apparently they were having an argument.”

That doesn’t really surprise me, because Ben is always annoying other kids, elbowing them out of the way, shouting in their face. But I don’t like the thought that she might be blaming Ben. “Where was he pushed?” I ask. “How did he fall? What did he hit his head on?”

“I don’t yet know the answers to those questions—”

“A report must have been filed,” I cut across her, my voice sharp. I feel like Mrs. James is keeping something back, and I want to know what it is.

“I’ve looked at the report,” she says. “It says Ben fell from the climbing structure.” Which was what I had expected, but why didn’t Mrs. James tell me this earlier? Why didn’t Juliet tell me? Mrs. James continues briskly, “I can assure you, we have dealt with the matter. The student in question is being suspended for a week. Any further acts of aggression will result in expulsion.”

“Okay.” I feel slightly heartened that they’re taking this seriously, even as I recognize the double standard in play. Ben has committed a few
acts of aggression
during his time at Burgdorf, and thankfully he’s never been suspended. But clearly this is a more serious matter. Accident or not, Ben’s life has been changed. So has mine. Someone needs to pay the price besides me and Ben, even if it’s just some nameless kid.

“Of course, if there is anything else we can do…” Mrs. James says, trailing off delicately. “How is Ben?” I hear a slight nervous note in her tone, and I think she realizes she should have asked this earlier.

“They’re going to attempt to bring him out of the coma soon,” I say. “So hopefully in a few days we’ll know how much damage his brain has sustained.” I manage to say this without my voice wobbling.

“That’s good news,” Mrs. James says with more warmth than I’ve ever heard in her voice before, and I wonder how that could be considered good news. We don’t actually
know
anything yet.

“Yes, well.” I clear my throat. “We’ll see.”

With a few more pleasantries Mrs. James ends the call, and I sit there, the phone in my lap, wondering why I feel like I am still missing information. Why didn’t Juliet tell me Ben fell from the climbing structure? She must have been involved in the accident report. Or did the paramedics just assume? Did someone else see Ben fall?

What don’t I know?

After lunch I sit with Ben for a while and study his face for signs that he is swimming towards consciousness. The machines beep and his breathing is faint but even. He still seems deeply asleep, with no movement, not even a flicker under his eyelids.

How can this man-boy of mine, who has so much irrepressible energy, who has driven me crazy because he is always bouncing and careening around, be so incredibly
still?
Sitting there I tell myself if Ben comes out of this,
when
Ben comes out of this, I will never begrudge him his hyperactivity, his endless energy. I will never scold him for knocking into furniture or kicking his ball in the apartment or shouting inside.
Never.

But then maybe I won’t get the chance.

At six o’clock that evening I get a meal courtesy of Juliet, a Styrofoam carton of chicken Marsala with angel hair pasta. It smells delicious, and yet I can’t make myself eat it. She can send me meals, but she won’t call or visit, and I need a friend, not a meal service. She texted me once today:
hope there’s good news.
I didn’t text back.

I give the meal to the nurse on duty. The ward has started to quiet down. The night nurse switches off overhead lights and it almost feels peaceful. Peaceful but lonely. I ache with loneliness, with the need to share what I am going through with someone. For a second I imagine a husband,
my
husband, coming in the room and putting his hand on my shoulder, rubbing my neck. Letting me lean into his strength. I imagine someone being there who loves Ben like I do, who is as invested and frightened and emotionally exhausted as I am. But there is only emptiness around me.

I sit by Ben’s bedside until ten o’clock, when I decide to go home for the night. The nurse on duty promises she’ll call me if anything changes, good or bad.

Outside it is dark, this area of midtown shut down for the night. A few taxicabs cruise the near-empty streets, but I ignore them and start walking.

I am just turning into my street when I get another text, and my heart lurches to see it is from Lewis.

How are you doing?

Not great
, I text back.
Pretty awful, actually.

How’s Ben?
he texts, and as I don’t want to launch into a lengthy explanation via text, I just type,
Still in a coma.

Which hospital?
Lewis texts back, and my heart lifts. Maybe he’ll visit.
Finally.

But when I text back
Mount Sinai Roosevelt
, I get no response. I walk into my building and get in the elevator, and my phone remains dark and silent even as I stare at it, willing it to light up with an incoming text from Lewis.

It’s almost eleven by the time I reach my apartment. I dread its quiet solitude, even though I once would have reveled in a Ben-free evening. The thought makes tears sting my eyes. How could I have been so
selfish?
Because I recognize that now; I have not been a great mother to Ben. Perhaps I haven’t even been a good mother.

I’ve been tired and cranky and overwhelmed, struggling to figure out to handle this boy of mine who is so different from me in so many ways. He doesn’t even look like me, with his sandy brown hair and big, gangly frame. I am petite and dark-eyed, dark-haired. In another year or two, God willing, Ben will be taller than me.

I am just fitting the key into the lock when the door next to mine opens, and Spandex Man stands there. He’s not in spandex now, and I realize I’ve never seen him in casual clothes. Running clothes, yes, and the snazzy suits he wears to work. He has a slightly ostentatious gold and silver Rolex and in the confines of the elevator his aftershave, although not unpleasant, can seem overpowering at seven o’clock in the morning.

Now he just wears faded jeans and a gray t-shirt. His feet are bare.

“Hey.” He gives me an uncertain, lopsided smile. “How are things? Has your son started to wake up?”

It touches me, way more than it should, that he’s taken the time to come out of his apartment and ask. I shake my head. “No, not yet. But he’s not reacting badly to the reduced medication, so…” I shrug and spread my hands, unable to say any more, or offer some optimism I don’t really feel. I am so, so tired.

“Maybe tomorrow, then?” Spandex Man says hopefully, and I shrug again.

“I have no idea. The doctors don’t deal in promises.”

“If they did, they’d make a ton more money,” he says, and I manage a smile. He winces. “Sorry, that was a lame joke, especially considering…”

“I’m not made of glass,” I say, even though I feel like I am. Broken glass. “I can handle a joke.” At least I think I can. I want to be able to. I want to be normal again, even in just some small way.

“It’s hard to know what to say in these situations,” he says. “When my mom died people avoided me rather than have to deal with the awkwardness.”

I think of Juliet. Is that what her staying away is about? Awkwardness? “When did your mom die?”

“I was seventeen. She had cancer.”

“I’m sorry.”

He shrugs it off. “It was a long time ago.” He braces his shoulder against the frame of his front door. “But how are you doing? How are you coping?”

“Coping is the right word, I guess. It’s not easy. I don’t…I don’t have any backup.” I give him a quick, tense smile, because I’m sure he’s wondering why that is. “Ben’s dad isn’t in the picture.” And then I feel like I’ve said too much. I see a change on Spandex Man’s face, a discomfort, and I turn back to my door. “Anyway, thanks for asking.” I push open the door. “I appreciate it. But it’s late and I’m really tired. So…”

He nods and steps back into his apartment. “Let me know how it goes with Ben,” he says. “If you want to, that is.”

I nod, and then we both close our doors. My phone buzzes, but it’s just a reminder for a dentist appointment next week. And as I stand there alone in my darkened apartment, I realize that this is the most emotional support I’ve received from anyone since this happened, and I don’t even know his name.

8
JOANNA

“Hey, buddy.” I smile at Josh as I sit across from him at the breakfast table. It’s nine o’clock on Thursday morning, and Josh finally wandered out of his room with a serious case of bedhead and sleep in his eyes. He smiles back at me, uncertainly, because this is new territory. Enforced vacation. At least, that’s how I’m determined to look at it, rather than an unfair punishment for an
accident.

Lewis and I spoke about Ben’s fall last night. I told him what Josh told me, and he nodded grimly. “All right, fine, he pushed him. We already figured that’s what happened. But kids push, Jo. It was an accident.”

“I know that,” I said. “And I think Burgdorf knows it, too. But I guess they feel they need a scapegoat.” Lewis shook his head in derision. “Maybe they’re afraid of a lawsuit,” I suggested. “Maybe Maddie feels someone at school was negligent.”

“Maddie’s in the hospital with Ben,” Lewis said. “I don’t think she’s in a place to think about a lawsuit.”

“Maybe Burgdorf is just covering the bases.” I paused. “I asked Josh about visiting Ben.” Another pause. “He didn’t want to.”

Lewis shrugged this aside. “Hospitals are scary places, and he has to feel guilty, even though he shouldn’t. Let’s not push him to do anything he’s not comfortable with, Jo.” Lewis smiled, and then pulled me toward him. I went willingly, craving the comfort of his arms around me.

“Lewis, I’m worried,” I whispered and he tightened his embrace.

“I know.”

We left it at that; we always do. But I felt a little better.

“So waffles for breakfast,” I tell Josh chirpily, cringing at my slightly manic cheerfulness. I know I’m trying too hard, and yet I can’t keep myself from it. I so desperately want to make this okay for my son. “And whipped cream. Your favorite.”

Josh gives me a halfhearted smile, but at least it’s something. “Thanks, Mom,” he says softly, and I struggle not to cry.
This isn’t fair.
It’s the cry of a child, the petulant whine of a six-year-old who didn’t get as big a cookie as someone else. I know life isn’t fair. But the injustice of Mrs. James’s treatment of Josh burns with a holy fire; I do not want to accept it. I
won’t.
But I don’t know how to fight it, either. The last thing I want to do is jeopardize Josh’s place at Burgdorf, or make him feel even more uncomfortable when he returns to school.

“So I thought we could do something fun today,” I say. I pour myself a cup of coffee and sit across from him. The smile on my face feels too wide, but I can’t keep my reactions in check. I have always overcompensated, even as a child. It never worked, and deep down I knew it never would, but I still kept trying, in my own inept way. I still keep trying now.

“So where do you think you’d like to go? Anywhere in the city. Sky’s the limit.” I’ve put two waffles on Josh’s plate while I’m talking and topped them with strawberries and whipped cream. I’ve even cut up his waffles into neat, even pieces before I realize what I’m doing. I hand him his knife and fork and sit back. “So? What do you think? Any ideas of where you’d like to go, Josh?”

“The Lego Store,” Josh says, and I nod, unsurprised, because that’s where we always go for a day out. The Lego Store at Rockefeller Center.

“Okay. Great,” I say, as if this is a novel idea. “Let’s go there.”

Josh spends the rest of the meal in silence, but at least he eats his waffles. When he’s finished he goes to get dressed and I tidy up. I’ve canceled all my appointments for the next three days, which is bad for business and makes me tense. But I know it’s worth it. I would do anything to help Josh.
Anything.

Fifteen minutes later he emerges from his room, dressed in baggy jeans and a Minecraft sweatshirt. He scuffs the soles of his sneakers as he walks, his head lowered so his shaggy hair—he definitely needs a haircut—hides his face.

“Okay!” My voice comes out like the crack of a pistol. “Let’s do this!” I want to slap myself.

We head out into the crisp brightness of an autumn day. Fall in New York is always amazing: crystalline blue skies, and the trees in Central Park ablaze with color. I love autumn, but I wonder now if I will continue to love it, or if the smell of dry leaves and the sharp sting of frosty air will forever remind me of this episode in our lives.

But it
is
an episode, I remind myself. We will get past it. We’ve survived harder times than this.

We don’t talk on the subway down to Rockefeller Center. With the rattling train and the handful of late commuters it’s impossible. In any case I tell myself I’m going to give Josh this day to enjoy himself, to relax. We are not going to talk about Burgdorf or Ben at all. We are just going to
be.

The Lego Store at Rockefeller Center is filled with tourists, as it always is, even on a weekday morning. Josh squeezes between two Japanese adults taking photos of the Incredible Hulk made entirely from Lego in the front of the store.

This is what Josh loves about the store: the huge Lego creations that, I know from him, are built by Lego ‘Master Builders’. Last year Josh asked to be enrolled in Lego’s online ‘Master Builder Academy’. We agreed, and he bought a Master Builder Set that he never actually built; he just wanted the membership code on the box. As far as I know, when he’s online, he just looks at other people’s Master Builder creations. He never builds anything of his own.