The Weight of Him(70)

The female gorilla stopped on the rocks and hunkered in submission beneath the silverback. He mounted her from behind and thumped his bulk against her. People pointed and laughed. The silverback pumped faster, harder. The female turned her head to look at the massive male, seeming distressed.

Billy’s scalp crawled. Back when he and Tricia were still physical, whenever he’d reached for her during those last months of intimacy, she’d worn a similar look and often refused him. Whenever she had tolerated him near her, she insisted he not mount her, saying she couldn’t breathe. Instead, she’d straddled him, her hand working his penis into her, a disturbed look on her face.

The silverback pulled out of the female. Billy’s mother made some outraged sound.

“Okay, let’s go,” Tricia said, hurrying off. She tossed her half-eaten ice cream into the green litter bin, looking repulsed. Billy stared after the ice cream, wanting it back. Wanting everything back.

Minutes later, they stood watching the elephants. When one of the four deadened-looking creatures raised its trunk, it seemed like a silent cry for help. Billy searched Ivor’s backpack, finding shortbread biscuits, the plainest treat in the boy’s stash. He fired four biscuits into the enclosure, hoping each of the elephants would get one, not knowing how else to make them feel better, if only for a few seconds. Anna and Ivor also clamored to feed them, laughing at how the giant animals hoovered the treat from the ground. “That’s enough for them,” Billy said. “We don’t want to harm them.”

Billy’s mother sat down on a bench. “Are you all right, Maura?” Tricia asked.

“I just need to sit for a minute.” His mother didn’t sound well. Billy glanced over. She looked tired and pale.

“Come on, let’s keep going,” Tricia said. “Before we’re thrown out.” She jutted her chin toward the Do Not Feed signs.

After a tour of the African Plains, Tricia again consulted the map. If they hurried, she announced, they would catch the keepers feeding the seals and then they could go get lunch. Hands sprouted in Billy’s stomach, slow-clapping. Just as quickly, his anticipation died. He was pretty much the same size now as he was on his last visit to the zoo almost eight years ago, when they were celebrating Michael’s tenth birthday and taking for granted all the life and goodness the boy still had ahead.

It would stay with Billy forever how the newborn lion cub on that visit had opened its mouth so many times in so many minutes while the seven Brennans watched, their breaths fogging the Plexiglas.

“Look, Dad,” Michael had said. “He’s hungry.”

It had bothered Billy that Michael assumed the cub felt hungry, just as Billy always felt hungry. But it bothered him much more now that it was obvious the cub was mimicking his parents and trying to roar. Monkey see, monkey do.

As they reached the seals, Billy’s mother complained of a sharp pain at her right temple. Moments later, she collapsed. Billy and Tricia dropped to their knees next to her. His mother groaned and held her hand to the side of her head.

Billy gripped her free hand, rushing her with questions. “Do you want water? Have you pain anywhere else? Are you able to sit up?”

A crowd pressed around them, and several called out for medical assistance. “You’re all right, Maura,” Tricia said. “You’re going to be okay.”

Someone spoke up behind them, saying an ambulance was on the way. His mother moaned again, her face pinched with pain and much too pale. Dr. Shaw had tried to tell Billy she wasn’t well. He should have listened.

“You hear that, Mammy?” he said. “Help is on the way. You’re going to be grand.” He had tried to make his voice match Tricia’s calm reassurance, but he heard his panic. Heard how he’d called her Mammy, something he hadn’t said since he was a boy.

*

The male paramedic pressed the flat of his blue-gloved hand against Billy’s chest, stopping him from entering the ambulance. “Whoa, there, big fella. You can’t travel with us.”

The female paramedic, much younger than her partner, must have seen the panic in Billy’s face, and the humiliation. “Let him try.” She looked at Billy. “You’ll have to stay in the back, though, and keep out of the way.” After several attempts solo, and then with the aid of both paramedics pulling on his arms, Billy managed to climb inside the vehicle, hot with shame. He sidestepped into the corner and made himself as small as he could. Outside, a female zookeeper urged the large crowd of onlookers to disperse.

As the ambulance sped toward the hospital, Billy’s mother went unconscious. Billy’s heart beat in time to the siren’s wail. Tricia had remained at the zoo with the children, trying to save the birthday celebrations. He had promised to phone her from the hospital once he knew more. On the street, people of a certain age blessed themselves as the ambulance passed.

Billy remained crouched over his mother’s feet, the only pose that made sense in the cramped space. His hand clasped her nylon-clad foot, just as he had clasped the ankle of the bronze sculpture of Michael’s Wellingtons. The female paramedic struggled to tap a vein in his mother’s arm. The repeated in-and-out of the needle made Billy squeamish. When the paramedic wiggled the needle inside his mother, still trying to stab a vein, he thought he would vomit. She then resorted to the back of his mother’s hand. The needle hit its target on the first try, but made his mother’s papery skin bulge like a stalk.