How High We Go in the Dark(17)

*

“I don’t understand why you didn’t at least try to block him,” Dorrie said as she examined my scrapes and bruises. She told me the girl’s mother had collapsed in her arms when Dorrie gave her the urn filled with her daughter’s ashes, and the father apologized for hitting the mouse before they left.

“I’ve never been in a fight,” I said. I could hear the low hum of the nebulizer machine in Fitch’s room, the wet breaths he took as he inhaled medicated mist into his lungs.

“Fitch was calling for you today, by the way. He’s been bad since this morning. He has a headache and he’s struggling to breathe. The doctors said we’ll start to see other problems, since we’re weaning him off the drugs. There’s another trial next month at Johns Hopkins. I thought his father could pull some strings. He tried, but he hasn’t made any progress.”

I picked up a sketch that was sitting on the table—Dorrie, Fitch, and someone I assumed to be Fitch’s father in front of a lake. I could feel her studying me, as if I had stepped into a part of her world she’d never intended to share with me.

“We barely had any time at all. My husband, I guess I should be calling him my ex, has been saying he’s close to getting Fitch another lung, a heart, but he’s been saying that for months. I don’t know. I’m just so tired of this, Skip.”

Dorrie walked over to the glass partition that separated us from Fitch’s room, stood in the doorway. I went to the kitchen, poured her a glass of wine, marveled at the organization of her fridge and freezer: a week of meals in Tupperware, all of Fitch’s medicine labeled and separated. I came up behind her and handed her the glass. She drank half of it in one gulp. I stood there debating who she needed me to be at that moment. We stared at the lights of the machines surrounding her son, a toy planetarium projector shooting stars across the ceiling as he struggled to breathe. We both knew that without medical intervention, Fitch would last another month, maybe two.

Fitch’s crying woke us up at four the next morning. He complained of his head pounding, his insides burning. By the time Dorrie washed her hands, pulled on a mask and gloves, there was vomit in his bed. He said the pounding had gotten worse.

“Is there anything you want me to do?” I asked.

“No,” she said. “I’ll take care of him. I’ve already alerted the medical office. Just wait outside for the on-call doctor.”

I sat on the porch, stared at the lights that ran the length of Osiris like a lightning bolt, a judgment from the sky. The doctor came and went. I remained outside until late morning, when Dorrie said Fitch had finally settled down.

“So, he’s okay for now?” I asked.

Dorrie looked back toward the house, considered the question. The front porch was slowly filling with sunlight, heralding a new day at the City of Laughter. For this moment, we were caught in the silence, the sort of gravity the park did its best to hide.

“I don’t think he was ever really going to be okay,” she said.

*

The following day I was in charge of a small group of children—a little girl named Janey, who clutched her naked Barbie doll for dear life; Genevieve, with the loose front tooth; Phong, in the beat-up Bruins hat; and Madison, who just wanted to go home. It was a day like any other at the City of Laughter—which is to say that I laughed and told jokes during business hours and walked home feeling like a shell of myself after helping the crematory crew clear out the coaster cars. I stopped off at the Olive Garden after work to grab dinner for Dorrie and some ice cream for Fitch, in case he was feeling well enough to eat it. I had a beer while I waited for my order. The bartender told me I looked like shit.

“Well, shittier than the typical shit,” she said.

“Haven’t really been sleeping well,” I muttered, and left the conversation there. I played with my phone, slid past the screen saver of my brother, thought about texting or calling my family for the first time in weeks. What would I say? You were right? I’m in over my head? The television over the bar showed families and wildlife fleeing their homes in and around the San Francisco area—Muir Woods, an ancient forest on fire sparked by a summer of unprecedented heat. A commercial advertised a new funeral hotel for prolonged goodbyes. In the dining area, across the restaurant, a couple ate silently, an urn on the table between them. A group of waiters sang “Happy Birthday” to an old man dining alone in the corner.

When I arrived at Dorrie’s cottage, she was reading out loud from one of the comic books I’d given Fitch, nestled in bed beside him. I could tell from her bloodshot eyes that something else in his little body had failed him. Dorrie had painted a Martian landscape onto one of the walls—a barren red plain punctuated by a volcano in the distance and a solar-powered NASA rover.

“Can we talk for a minute?” she said. “Leave the ice cream.”

She kissed her son on the forehead and followed me outside. We sat on the swings of the playground, gently gliding above the sand.

“I gave him a double dose of the old trial medication. We only had a few doses left. He should feel a little better soon.”

“What happened?” I asked.

She looked down at the tracks from her feet, reached out for my hand. “I’ve been thinking. Maybe we should take him to the park while he’s well enough to enjoy it.”