Paris by the Book(61)

The American Hospital, which I’d not mentioned, is excellent. And 30 minutes away.

“Mom,” Ellie said.

“Honey, I’m sorry—I’m so sorry—and I’m so sorry you had to hear that imbécile lecture us,” I said.

“Where were you?” Ellie said.

I looked at Daphne. Ellie looked at me.

“I wasn’t there,” I said. Enough with tallying costs. I’d done it constantly in Paris. And I’d added it up different ways, different times, what Robert had paid for airfare, what we’d paid for the store, how much food cost and school supplies and secret cigarettes and cafés and tickets for the Métro. Thousands, tens of thousands, of dollars, euros. It had cost all that, and now it had cost this. Daphne would not have fallen ill had we stayed in Milwaukee. And we would have never left Milwaukee had Robert stayed. If he really were around now, if Daphne or Ellie really had seen him—now, right now, would be an excellent time for him to appear. I thought this thought until my head hurt. I wondered if Daphne had, too, if this wasn’t meningitis but some kind of stroke, an aneurysm caused by a longing that had tugged too long.

“I know you weren’t there,” Ellie said. “Remember? Because I was.”

We parents worry so much about our children doing, or saying, the wrong things. What we should fear more are those times when they’re right, when we’re found wanting, when all we want to do is apologize—and they’re not yet old enough to know that’s what they want from us, and deserve.

“I’m sorry,” I said. I was conscious of people outside the glass. I was conscious of them waiting, like Ellie, for me to do the right thing. “I’m sorry I wasn’t there. I’m sorry I sometimes haven’t even been there when I’ve been there. I’m sorry I took us to Paris—”

She flicked a hand at me.

“I’m sorry I’ve put so much on you—” I said.

“And Daphne!” Ellie said. “Why do you think she’s sick?”

“That’s not why!” I said, which I didn’t know, but I saw something flicker back into Ellie’s eyes—a sense that here might be an adult after all, someone who could say something and make it so. So I said something else I didn’t know. “And she’s going to be all right.”

Ellie looked at me, at Daphne, around the room, and then fell into me, crying. I put my arms around her. “I’m sorry, El,” I said, and got ready to repeat it a hundred times more, but the second syllable was hardly out before she pulled away.

“And listen,” she said. She blotted her eyes as best she could with the gown. “Stop getting angry with the doctors, okay? We need friends here.” We weren’t even close enough to hug now, but I felt her physically shrugging me off again all the same. She went to Daphne’s left side. I went to her right.

I touched Daphne’s hand, her face. They had said not to. Through the gloves, she felt hot, but not too hot. Her color was that same otherworldly absence of color, and her breathing was rapid. She had an IV in, and a display attached to the pole provided a maze of numbers. I had no idea what was good or bad. Only that Daphne was motionless. I wanted to shake her awake. I wanted to scream. I wanted to throw up. I wanted to do all these things, but knew if I did any one of them, I’d be thrown out and Ellie would be left alone, in charge, again.

Why wasn’t the doctor here right now? Why wasn’t a nurse with her at all times? I turned around to look at someone to be angry at, and when I turned back, Ellie was easing her way onto the bed beside Daphne.

“Ellie,” I hissed. “You can’t do that.”

“I got the shot,” she said. “You said.” She was lying beside her sister now, on her side, her eyes wide open and staring at Daphne, just inches away.

“Ellie—it’s not—it doesn’t work like—you’re going to get us in such—what if Daphne—”

Ellie said nothing. I looked around, scanning for a doctor or nurse or, one last time, for Robert. Ellie would listen to him.

And he—he did this so well—would listen to her.

And he would lie down.

I found a way to drop the railing, I got a hip on the mattress, a leg, I scooted in, one centimeter, two, right next to her. I was apt to fall out at any moment and upset the whole business—IV pole, display, tubes, curtain—but I didn’t fall. I was finally next to Daphne, who, for her thirteenth birthday, just two months ago, had asked for “one book of my choosing” as well as “something special,” which for her was two croissants. One was standard in our family. Two was unheard of. I’d bought her six and she’d said, “too many,” but she’d smiled. I’d hoarded that smile.

“Daphne,” I whispered. Around us, the quietest hospital in the world clacked and clicked and murmured on.

“Ellie,” I said. All that hair of hers barely fit in the scrub cap; it billowed just beyond the horizon of Daphne’s profile, a great crinkly blue cloud.

“It’s okay,” Ellie said, so softly I wasn’t sure if I’d imagined the words.

“Thank you,” I said.

“For what?” she said, her voice distant, drifting. This was no place to sleep, but it was so late, she’d been through so much.