Finally, Ellie said, “I blame you for this. If he dies, I’ll never get past it.”
He clenched and unclenched his jaw. He would not take the bait. He was not going to fight with his estranged wife at Mount Sinai in front of their comatose son. She blamed him. So join the club.
“For the record,” he said, “I’ll never get past what you did to Toby, either.”
A vertical crease materialized between her eyebrows and she screwed up her features, as if she had no idea what he was talking about. It took five full seconds before her face went slack. She bowed her head almost imperceptibly and nodded.
Neither said anything for a long time. “Oh my God, Sean. What if he dies?” He’d been so careful not to say the words. She started to shake, then put her head in her hands. As she sobbed, she rocked miserably back and forth. He hesitated. Just how mad was he? Could he really fight the Pavlovian response to comfort her? He just wasn’t that much of a jerk. He put his arm around her. She was smaller, frailer than he’d remembered. They sat that way, watching Toby for a long time. When she’d cried herself out, she was exhausted and didn’t seem to have any fight left in her. She blew her nose. “I don’t know what I’ll do if he …”
Sean cut her off. “Don’t say it again, okay? Don’t ever say it.”
She nodded and wiped her nose as delicately as she could with the back of her hand. For the first time since she’d left, he actually felt sorry for her. No one on earth could understand what this was like for him. Except possibly Ellie. No matter what other shit had gone on between them, they were Toby’s parents. They’d become Toby’s parents in this very hospital eight years ago. He and Ellie had vowed to protect him, to love each other, to be a family.
“I’ve got to tell you something,” he said, and forced himself to tell her about how the school had pressured him to give Toby the medication. He told her what Noah had said on the phone.
Ellie’s nostrils flared and the tendons in her neck bulged. “The school didn’t give him the drugs. You did.” She let out a disgusted sigh. “This isn’t the Grassy Knoll. It’s a top-tier school—my alma mater, for God’s sake. Half a dozen supreme court justices went there.”
It was close to the speech he’d expected. “Forget it.” Her condescension was the last thing he needed right now. “You’re right and I’m always wrong.”
He looked at her and tried to see the woman he’d married, but all he could see was an enemy.
“This is all your fault.” She glared at him so hard it hurt.
“I’m not the one who wanted him at that fucking school,” he yelled.
“Jesus Christ, you’re such an infant.”
“Fuck you, Ellie.” It felt great to finally be able to yell at her. “Fuck you if you don’t care why this happened and who did it to him.”
“The only thing I want—and the only thing you should want,” she hissed in a loud whisper, “is for Toby to come out of this fucking nightmare alive and healthy.”
That’s when he heard it. It was barely a murmur.
Ellie was too busy yelling at him to hear. She’d stopped only to suck in more breath. “And if you think that I’m—”
“Shh,” he cut her off, and stared at Toby. It hadn’t even been a sound. It was the start of a sound, combined with the faintest rustle of hospital sheets. Sean had almost missed it, with all the accusations they were hurling at each other. But in that room, where there had been no jumping on beds, no throwing of pillows, no noise or movement of any kind for almost four days, that rustle and beginning of a sound screamed of hope. He held his breath and listened harder.
Ellie, still animated from the fight, turned too. It may have been the only thing on earth that could make her drop an argument midstream. They stayed that way for a moment, frozen with anticipation and the terror that they hadn’t heard what they’d wanted so badly to hear. Then they heard it again. The sound was a little louder this time. Toby was trying to say something, but it was as if his voice were stuck too far down in his throat.
Sean sprinted the four feet to Toby’s side and grabbed his hand. Toby was moving, just a little, like he was disoriented after a deep sleep. Sean realized now that he’d been preparing himself for the real possibility that he might never see his son move again. He gasped out air as if he’d been holding his breath for days. Warm tears rushed from behind his eyes and blurred his vision. Ellie was there a heartbeat later, peppering Toby’s head with kisses and thanking God. “The doctor,” he said, hoping she’d volunteer to get him. He knew that nothing, not even the sensible idea of finding a doctor could force him to let Toby out of his sight right now. Ellie wasn’t budging, so he reached for the buzzer and squeezed the button frantically.
The rest of the night was a blur of doctors, tests, and Toby’s progressive recovery. By late morning, he was sitting up and drinking orange juice from a straw. Sean saw the color return to his cheeks. He finally saw the smile he’d been waiting for, filled with a hodgepodge of adult and baby teeth. Now that he looked so normal, it was hard to believe the last few days had ever happened.
“How do you feel?” the doctor asked.
Toby shrugged. “Good.” It was so simple. So Toby. He was good. The doctors ordered endless diagnostic tests, which showed that Toby’s brain was functioning normally. And he’d thought miracles were bullshit. They had him back. Still, there was something different about Toby. Every once in a while his son looked at him with the gaze of an old man, a look devoid of the sweetness and innocence of an eight-year-old. Toby napped throughout the day, and at dinnertime he asked for the Knicks scores. Sean climbed onto the bed and read him every sports page in every paper he could get his hands on. Halfway through the Post’s game coverage, he noticed that Toby’s eyes were closed.
He didn’t know when it had happened, how it had happened, why it had happened. He should have been paying closer attention. How could he have had him and lost him again, just like that? His finger was on the call button before he realized Toby was only sleeping, his warm body curled next to Sean’s, dreaming, resting, living. Nothing vegetative about him. Maybe when Toby woke up his eyes would be clear again and whatever he’d seen—whatever had happened to him over the past few days—would recede with time and be forgotten with the other devastating passages of his childhood, like toilet training and birth.
Over the course of the day, Toby’s room filled with gifts. When Dick and Maureen returned from their cruise, they brought over a dozen silver balloons, and the school sent a huge basket of gourmet food from Dean and Deluca that Sean promptly deposited on the nurse’s station. Cards, flowers, and stuffed animals arrived every half hour, it seemed. Sean wondered how the news had spread so fast. He’d snuck in a call to Jess, but other than Ellie’s parents and Nicole, he hadn’t told anybody. He hadn’t wanted to waste time on the phone when he could be with his conscious, smiling son.
The doctor nodded as if he’d known all along that this was how it would turn out. “Children are resilient,” he declared.
When he announced that Toby was going to be fine and could go home within the week, Ellie threw her arms around Sean’s neck. “He’s back,” she sobbed. “He’s going to be okay.” Her wet cheek against his face, the feel of her hair, her smell—he’d wanted to forget those things, but there they were, as close as the breath on his neck. He squeezed her tightly. The near miss had left him weak, humbled, relieved. Clinging to her, he had the vivid realization that this was a second chance. He knew they should try to be a family again. He knew that if he didn’t try, he would be fucking with some delicate balance of fate and luck and whatever powers existed beyond all that.
The fact that he didn’t want to be with Ellie wasn’t relevant at the moment. What was relevant—the only thing that mattered in fact—was that Toby was awake, alive, healthy.
A smile melted onto Ellie’s face. Sh
e turned to Sean. “Dad and I are going to have to talk about that.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
TOBY STAYED AT THE HOSPITAL FOR FOUR MORE DAYS OF TESTS. When the doctors were satisfied that Toby was recovered, they discharged him with instructions to keep activity to a minimum. He’d been through the wringer and he was going to need lots of rest. No school, they said, until after spring break, and they wanted to monitor his heart for the next few months, just to make sure. They were being cautiously optimistic, but Sean could tell Toby was getting better every day.
On the cab ride home from the hospital, Toby sat between him and Ellie with a hand on each of their legs, oozing happiness.
“Toby needs someone to stay with him while you’re at work,” Ellie had whispered in the hallway outside Toby’s room. “It should be me. Not some stranger.”
“I don’t want to get his hopes up,” he said, though he knew Toby’s hopes were already up.
“I don’t want to leave him. I don’t think I could do it.”
“Okay”, he said. “For a little while. Until he’s stronger.”
Ellie had reached for his hand and squeezed it. “Thank you.”
When the taxi pulled up to their building, Sean lifted him onto his back. He knew Toby could walk into the building and up to their apartment. But why not give him a piggy back ride? Why not spoil him for the rest of his life?
“I’m taller than everybody,” Toby announced. He felt lighter than Sean remembered, smaller. Ellie, who carried the balloons and flowers and cards from the hospital, smiled up at Toby dreamily, looking past Sean.
When they got out of the elevator, he dug into his pocket for the front door key, but Ellie beat him to it. “I’ve got mine.” She jingled them and his throat constricted. Of course she had keys. She’d come back to shower and to leave her things. She opened the door—his door—and ushered them in. When she dumped all the stuff, she looked around and let out a satisfied sigh.
He let Toby slide down his back to the floor. “Good to be home?” Toby nodded happily and ran off toward his room. Which left Sean and Ellie alone. “So,” he said.
“So.” She smiled awkwardly. “I guess I’ll—”
“What should we—” he said over her. “Oh. What were you—”
“Oh, nothing. I just …” She ran her eyes over the living room, lingering on the paintings. “I missed them. Especially the sunset.”
It wasn’t a sunset. It had started out as a sunset, but he’d worked over it fifteen times until it was an abstract expression of the moody internal landscape of their life together; dark and cloudy with deep, intense colors buried far beneath the surface.
“Whoa,” Toby yelled from his room, and Sean froze.
A second later he was next to Toby. “Are you okay? Did something happen?”
“Look.” Toby said, pointing up. The solar system—stars, planets, the whole thing—covered the ceiling.
Ellie peeked around the corner. “Like it?”
He nodded. “It’s really cool.”
“When did you … how …?”
“Remember the night I came back to pick up some clothes for him? I just had the idea and went for it.” She wrapped her arms around Toby. “Do you really like it?”
“It’s perfect. Now the totem pole guys have something to look at when I’m asleep.”
“I love you sweetie pie,” she said. “I’m so glad you’re home and well, and that we’re here together.”
It was pretty clear Toby was happy to have them all together, too. He took Monopoly off the shelf. “Can we?” he asked. “It’s better with three people. I’ll be the race car.” He tried to stifle a yawn.
“We’ll play tomorrow,” Sean said. “Let’s get you some food, then bedtime.”
“Yeah, I’m hungry.”
He loved the idea of feeding Toby. “Let’s see what there is. Come on.” But Ellie had beaten him to the kitchen.
“Can I have graham crackers?” Toby had already figured out Sean would never be able to say no to him again.
“Absolutely,” he said. “For dessert.”
“So what’ll it be?” He clapped his hands together. “We can order. Anything you want. Ollie’s? V & T’s? Famiglia?”
Toby stared at the takeout menus Sean had fanned out on the counter and shrugged. “Can you make Arthur mac and cheese?”
“You sure?”
Toby nodded.
“Okay, coming up.” He stepped toward the cabinet where Ellie was banging around reorganizing things. Ellie tried to move out of the way, but she must have thought he was going for the fridge and bumped him.
“Sorry,” he said. He found a box of macaroni and cheese in the cupboard and held it up for approval.
Toby nodded vigorously.
Ellie was already filling up a pot with water. “I got it,” she said with a smile.
He could get it. He’d gotten it without her for months. He wanted to get it. But making a scene over the mac and cheese would be infantile.
“Come on Tobe,” he said. “I’ll run you a bath.”
“Can I have guys in the bath tonight?”
He wondered if all boys washed with their superhero collection or if this was unique to his comic-obsessed son. “As many as you want.”
He didn’t even yell at Toby when the warring defenders of truth and justice soaked the bathroom floor. Toby was home and happy. Nothing else mattered. He ate half his mac and cheese and announced he was tired.
Ellie tucked him into bed while Sean mopped up the bathwater.
Then it was Sean’s turn. He pulled the covers tight around Toby and tucked them in just the way he liked. He focused on this happy scene, and tried not to dwell on how it would be when Toby was asleep and he and Ellie were alone.
“It’s just like before.” Toby closed his eyes, but the smile stayed.
Kids really couldn’t tell. All you had to do was paste on a smile and they’d believe you were the happiest person alive. He wondered how long he and Ellie could keep it civil. He kissed Toby on the head. “Love you, Tobe,” he said, and left the door ajar.
Ellie was trying to find room to unpack, but her old drawers were filled with brushes, charcoal and acrylic paint. One drawer was filled with sliced up photos of their life together.
“I’ll go to the grocery store,” she said.
“I can go.”
“No, it’s fine,” she said. “I want to.”
They were on their best behavior. It was nice. But he knew all that anger and resentment that had bubbled up at the hospital lay just beneath the surface. A scratch could set it free.
As soon as she was gone, he put on some music, lay on the couch, and checked his email. Not having to worry about being on his best behavior was a relief.
She was back half an hour later with bags of groceries containing what looked like a lifetime supply of lentils and tofu.
“I’m a vegan now,” she said.
“Oh God, Ellie.”
“I know you’ll like it.” She held up a steak. “But I got this for you, just in case.”
“No, that’s okay,” he said. “I’ll have whatever you’re making.”
As she cooked, the apartment filled with the unfamiliar smell of curry. It wasn’t a bad smell, but his home no longer smelled or felt like his. “I know it’s strange,” she said, as she stirred enough lentils to feed a small Indian village. “We have to get used to each other again.”
He’d just gotten used to being without her. To sleeping without her. He’d expected all‐out war, but she was more like the old Ellie than ever. He took a set of sheets from the linen closet and threw them on the coach. “You should take the bed.”
“No, I’ll sleep out here.”
“I’m not going to let you sleep on the couch,” he said. “I’m just not.”
“Don’t be silly, I’m fine on the—”
He shook his head. “I’m here.”
“Okay,” she said. “Thank you.” She watched him
throw the cushions on the floor. “You going back to work tomorrow?”
Small talk. It was brilliant. They could make small talk and ease into whatever it was they were doing. “I wish I didn’t have to.”
She stared at the cooking lentils like they were the most fascinating things in the universe. For two people who had everything to discuss, they seemed to have nothing to talk about.
“Staying home with Toby will be a treat,” she said. “I really missed him.”
Was she blaming him for that?
“And I’m glad I can help you out, too,” she said. “I know this has all been hard on you.”
Her lack of sarcasm was throwing him. “Um, thanks.”
She grabbed the pot handle. “Fuck!” she yelled loudly, pulling her hand off the scalding pot. “Fuck! Fuck!” She ran her hand under cold water saying “Fuck.”
As she cursed and yelled, his phone rang. He snatched it up and heard Cheryl’s voice. She’d never called, and hearing the voice detached from the body was all wrong. “Jesus,” she said. “Thank fucking Christ Toby is okay. How are you doing?”
“Good,” he said. “Okay.” Having Ellie in his kitchen cooking lentils was weird enough without Cheryl on the phone. He had to push the bathroom sex out of his head. “Thanks.”
“I had no clue Toby was allergic,” she went on. “Scary.”
“Allergic?”
“I mean, it’s a friggin’ peanut—how can it poison so many kids? I can’t even imagine what a hellish ordeal that must have been. God, I’m glad he’s okay.”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
“Shit, was that a secret? I thought—”
“Who said it was an allergy?” His voice rose unexpectedly.
“It went out in an email. Or maybe someone from the class told me. I can’t remember. Why?”
While he was sitting in the hospital room wondering if Toby would live, the class parents were gossiping, speculating. It made his stomach turn. “Toby isn’t allergic to nuts or anything else,” he said. Ellie was watching him, trying to figure out who he was talking to.