Chris Adrian - The Children's Hospital

She put her head against the glass of the middle bay, where the boy was, and closed her eyes, aware of the brief attention paid to her by his nurse, who turned to look at her just for a moment before going back to her task of adding up his output of pee for the morning. The nurses were used to Jemma’s loitering, and seemed not to mind it very much, though she hadn’t proved herself very useful. She almost tried again, bringing her hands up and pressing her palms flat against the glass, but instead of letting the fire seep through the glass and ride on currents of air into the rooms, reaching a hundred thin fingers under the plastic and over the bed to strike their ailing flesh, she just stood their watching them and listening to them, not sure, when they started talking to each other, if she was imagining it or making it happen.

Are we going to die? Thelma asked.

Of course, Dolores said.

I knew we were in trouble, Wanda Sullivan said, when I smelled Sylvester’s poop. It was the worst ever, worse than any of the CF poops. It was pretty floaty, too. It floated right out of the toilet and hung in the air, and I saw how there was a ridge on it like a mouth that opened and said, Wanda, thou art stricken with the botch.

Don’t be fucking stupid, said Karen.

You weren’t there. You didn’t see how black the mouth was inside, like it went on and on forever, that blackness, even though it was rather a small poop, comparatively.

There are probably worse ways to die, said Cotton Chun. I’m glad I didn’t drown.

Maybe we still will, said Aloysius.

Shut the fuck up, said Cotton. I’m so sick of you, man. I’ve been sick of you since the day after I met you.

What did I ever do to you?

Cotton, everybody would say, what was wrong with you yesterday? I saw you in the hall and you looked like your dog just died. Are you okay? I was okay, motherfucker. I was always okay, and I always had to explain that it was you they saw, and that we weren’t related, or the same person on a good day or bad day, and that I didn’t have a fucking clue why you never smiled. What’s your problem, anyway? Would it ever have killed you to have smiled once or twice, or to have been nice to someone, just one single time?

I’m almost happy now.

I mean, someone asks you for an echo and you act like they want you to gouge out your eyeballs.

I can almost see it. Can you all see it?

The land? Thelma said. The new world?

That’s not for us, Aloysius said. There’s another place, a place not here. It is removed from suffering, though there is no happiness there.

What part of shut the fuck up do you not understand? asked Cotton.

There’s nothing out there, Dolores said. Not even a nothing.

I think I see it! Thelma said.

I see it too! Wanda said. Oh, I hope Sylvester comes soon. Is that selfish of me?

Completely, Cotton said.

All you see is what you want to see, Dolores said. I have learned to want nothing anymore, and expect nothing, and so I see the truth.

Spoken like a true surgical intern, said Cotton.

Maybe I don’t see it, Thelma admitted. But I wish I did.

Just waiting for it is its own sort of pleasure, said Aloysius.

I see her, though, Thelma said. Looking at us.

Staring like a freak, Karen said.

This isn’t the zoo! Cotton shouted.

Or the television, said Dolores. Stop gloating.

I’m not, Jemma said.

Gloating over how useless you are, Karen said. I’m the most useless girl in the world. No one is more useless than me.

Are you getting ready to not save us again? asked Wanda.

I could tell the first day I met her, Karen said. Useless. She had that look about her, and the big U on her forehead.

I told Sylvester it was too good to be true. Some days I could still smell it in him, but I never said. I should have told him, Everything will be the same again. Don’t get used to this.

Of course it could have stood for ugly, too.

I’m sick of you, too, said Cotton. Though I’m still more sick of him.

“I’m down here,” said another voice. Jemma opened her eyes and looked down. Sylvester Sullivan was standing at her hip, holding a bunch of daisies and a bottle of baby oil. “Can I go in yet?” he asked her. “I need to rub her feet.”

“Welcome,” said Helena Dufresne. “Where are your bags?”

“I’m just visiting,” Jemma said.

“That’s what everyone says, at first. I said it, too. We’ll just check it out, I said, because I felt a stirring, during the speech. I’m not used to that. Speeches and sermons and commercials and romance movies — they usually don’t touch me the least bit. But what she said — it was all squirmy in me, and I kept thinking about how people used to put gerbils up their bottoms, because I felt a squirminess that I was sure must be just like that, and I wondered, did people ever really do that, and I wondered, was that the reason, was that the last thing he noticed before he said, That’s it? Can you imagine the poor gerbil? I had a dream about it, of course. I was the gerbil, and I had to get out. I scrabbled with my little claws — everything was dark and warm and smelly and I couldn’t breathe. When I woke up I realized what it all meant. I had to get out of the world, I had to get closer than we were. I made up my mind. I told Tir, We’re going for a tour on the ninth floor. We’re just going to look. But I packed us a bag, just in case.”

“I’m really just visiting,” Jemma said. She put a hand on her belly. “It’s time for my checkup.”

“If you say so. Come on with me, I’ll take you to her.” She rose from behind the desk that Thelma had never given up until the botch took her to the PICU. The months had changed the lady: she was a little thinner, and didn’t huff and puff when she walked, and smiled all the time instead of scowling, and cursed more pleasantly if not less frequently, and had adopted a glamorous, sequin-based wardrobe, though today she was wearing the same plain linen dress that all the women on the ninth floor were wearing. “Walk this way!” she said, and Jemma considered imitating her bouncy gait. “Tir’s in class with the other kids,” she added, “or I’d take you to say hello. Maybe after your visit?”

“Okay,” Jemma said. They passed down the pastel halls of the old psych ward, each room was filled with adults sitting quietly on the bare floors, staring up at the ceiling or out the windows; they all seemed to be waiting patiently for something to happen. “What are they doing?” Jemma asked.

“Listening,” Helena said. “Trying to figure it out. I have a hard time being so calm about it. I sit there and think, Speak! Speak to me! Because it’s like a race, to listen hard enough to know what the worst thing was, and be sorry enough for it, and know what to do next, and save ourselves and everybody, before it’s too late. And it’s almost too late, now. “

“Heard anything yet?” Jemma asked.

“I’ll let her tell you.” They circled down the hall into the rehab ward. Jemma peeked in the window to the gym as they walked by and saw a room full of children who looked to be doing a very slow, swaying dance. Helena stopped outside the entry to the old gym. “We’ve got room in our bed,” she said, and winked in a way that struck Jemma as very innocent and strange, then bounced off down the hall.

Vivian was inside, sitting under the model sun on a little platform that hadn’t been there last time Jemma had visited up here. She was wearing a handsome linen pantsuit, her legs drawn up against her chest, and seemed to be staring at her feet. “I’ve never seen you wear a pantsuit before,” Jemma said.