The Between Years

so healthy. How could something like this have happened? At first, I wanted to make excuses so I could absolve myself of all responsibility. Then I took a polar shift and blamed myself for everything. I was an unfit mother who was getting her comeuppance. If only I'd done this or not done that, I told myself as I paced the floor. I wished I'd read more parenting books so I could have known what to do. I even bargained with God.

    Once more, I stared out the window like a puppy awaiting its maser's homecoming, while sounds of Randy counting and pumping continued in the background. When I was ready to turn away, a set of headlights appeared, but I realized they belonged to a Cherokee trudging through the snow. I slapped the wall. My wound-up heart deflated each time I saw headlights, only to learn it wasn't am ambulance, yet it left me with hope that an ambulance could venture down our street.

    Finally, I sucked in a deep breath and accepted everything as it came to me. I had no choice but to deal with a freak storm, and no choice but to make do with being confined to my own home. And now, I would have to accept the consequences these variables would have on my son, no matter how awful or grey they might be.

CHAPTER 14
    After what felt like a lifetime, I heard sirens and saw red and blue flashing lights sweep across the snow. Our entire living room was illuminated. The ambulance wasn't alone. A fire truck and police cruiser had joined it and they crammed together in a small cluster in front of the house. Rhonda the 9-1-1 operator had come through in fine form.

    I rushed to the front door to let them in. The ambulance backed into the driveway as best they could and I prayed that they wouldn't get stuck. Two paramedics hopped out, trudged through the dense snow with a stretcher in tow, rushed past me, and headed straight for Kenny. One paramedic reminded me of the EMO kid who'd aided me after my fall at the college, save for the earrings. The other was an Asian man who couldn't have been more than thirty. He took over for Randy by lifting Kenny onto the stretcher then using a plastic device to blow air into Kenny's mouth. The EMO paramedic bundled Kenny up and they rushed him into the ambulance.

    Randy and I slipped our shoes on and flocked out into the snow to follow the paramedics into the ambulance. A third paramedic sat in the driver's seat and rolled out onto the street. As the lights flashed, and we inched through the snow, I collapsed into a mess of tears. The EMO paramedic glanced up at me with a questioning, but not unsympathetic, look.

    “ Is my baby going to die?” I couldn't hear my own words.

    “ Not today.”

    Isn't that what these guys are trained to say? No news was better than horrendous news, I'd supposed.

    The siren wailed, grinding my insides. My first ambulance ride, I was unprepared for the experience. Randy held my hand throughout. I tried speaking to the paramedics again, but (thankfully) their attention never left Kenny. I inched closer, so I could at least see him, but their backs blocked him out. Aside from asking me if he had any allergies, medical conditions or heart defects, they didn't speak to me at all.

    At the hospital, the siren died and the ambulance backed into an alcove. The paramedics popped out the back doors, rushed the stretcher through a set of sliding glass doors, and headed straight to the emergency warm. Randy and I trailed them, but a young black, bespectacled woman in a white lab coat blocked our path. Randy almost bowled over her but she stood her ground.

    “ You'll have to stay in the waiting area while our emergency physicians work on the boy,” she said. “They'll do everything they can but they'll need their space.”

    Finally, a very sympathetic look warmed over her face. “I'm sorry.”

    My leg muscles slackened and Randy threw up his hands. To that point, we'd done everything we humanly could for Kenny, and placing our faith in the doctors was our final card to play. Though I know I should have trusted them, actually doing so was the hard part. The churning in my stomach wouldn't subside even as a thirty-ish male nurse ushered us to a waiting area. I craned my neck around to see past him, but the stretcher had disappeared behind a curtain.

    Every ten minutes or so, the same nurse-I noticed the name 'Brent' on his scrubs-brought Randy and I coffee or water, but we waved it away each time. Later, I would write the hospital to commend Brent and his