Emergency
Katie didn't really understand why everybody got into their cars for something called Labor Day and cursed and screamed and complained. She'd come in for something to drink and was watching the 5:30 news and saw videos of long lines of traffic crawling along Route 93. No fun at all. Much more fun to hang around home.
Her mother was putting together hamburgers for supper in the kitchen. The sun was fierce outside. She drank slowly, looking at the cars, then the smiling face of a weatherman, then the serious face of someone reading the news. It didn't make much sense to her. A pot of potatoes boiled on the stove, getting ready for potato salad for the picnic tomorrow.
As she got up to put her glass back in the sink she heard a police siren in the distance. She didn't really take much notice of it. "Can I have something to eat, Mom?"
"No. We're going to have supper in a little while."
"But I'm hungry!" Sometimes this got her a cookie or some potato chips. Not today.
"Go outside and play. I'll call you in for supper."
"Can I help?"
Her mother looked distracted by the preparations for dinner. "Sure. You can cut the cucumbers for the salad." Katie got out the cutting board, the peeler, and the knife. This was something she knew how to do.
The siren had gotten a little closer - in fact, it sounded as if it were real close. Suddenly there was a whoosh of tires and the siren sound so loud that it felt like someone had set off a smoke alarm right next to her ear. Katie jumped up and looked out the window. She saw everyone running up the street after the siren and just through the trees she could see its flashing lights. It was just up the block. Just up the block. Right about where Elizabeth's house was. Elizabeth's house. "Mom," she shouted, "it's at Elizabeth's house!" She ran out of the kitchen and down the stairs as fast as she could. She never even heard her mother running right behind her.
For the last couple of weeks Katie had been visiting Elizabeth and Johanna steadily. Her mother had come two times and could understand why Katie wanted to go back. She allowed Katie to go as long as she didn't stay too long and bother them. Elizabeth and Katie had become good friends, and Johanna, as much as she was able, became part of that friendship.
The ambulance had pulled up in front of Elizabeth's house. A police car was there, too. Katie's friends were hanging around just outside the front lawn. A few people from the neighborhood trickled in. Katie could see Mandy mom, and Brie and Ryan and Brett's mom and dad walked up. Katie never even remembered shaking off her mother's hand as she walked toward the front door past the policeman and into the house. She never remembered that her mother followed her in. All she could remember is the scene in the living room.
Johanna was lying on the floor and two men hovered over her, one pressing on her chest and the other breathing into her mouth. Elizabeth was standing away from the action, near the window. She looked up and saw Katie and her mother and both of them crossed the room. "It happened so quickly," Elizabeth said. Her voice didn't sound worried at all, flat, as if she were reading off a grocery list. As if she'd expected this scene all along.
Katie had no idea what they were doing and the rushed voices of the men and the hiss and static of the radios made it all so blurry to her. Johanna had on her pink dress and white sneakers and her hair, usually so tightly coiled on her neck, was unfastened and spilled out on either side of her head. "We got a heartbeat, folks!! Watch out!!" They lifted her quickly and gently onto a stretcher and wheeled her out to the ambulance. The ambulance spun off. The policeman came over to her and spoke. Elizabeth turned to Katie's mother. "Would you mind giving me a ride to the hospital?" Again, the voice was flat, matter-of-fact, as if she were asking for a recipe. Katie's mother said yes without hesitation.
At the hospital they sat in a waiting room full of old magazines and a game show. Kara had stayed with Debbie downstairs. Katie and her mother sat silently together. Elizabeth was off checking on Johanna's status. Across from Katie was a young boy, still in diapers. His mother was leafing through a magazine and the boy sat on the floor between her feet. He was wearing OshKosh bib overalls and red sneakers and a tee-shirt which said "Under Construction". Katie found herself watching him fiercely, worried that he would do something that would hurt himself.
She almost jumped out of her chair when he got on his knees and started crawling under the row of chairs. There was just enough room for him to crawl and he slithered under the row of chairs from one end of the room to the other. Katie could hear the metal buttons on his overalls clink on the metal legs of the chairs. Her mother saw how closely Katie was watching the boy. She reached over and patted her knee. "She'll be okay." The boy got to the end of the row, slid out onto the hallway floor, turned around, and started making his way back. It didn't look like he was going to get stuck at all.
They waited an hour. They grabbed a bag of chips and a Coke from the vending machines and clapped out "Miss Susie Had A Steamboat" and "There's a Place Called Mars" and played "I Spy". Finally they saw Elizabeth shuffling down the hall, looking incredibly tired. Katie had the impression that she'd shrunk.
She didn't say anything, just kept walking toward the door. In the car she kept her silence and Katie and her mother didn't dare break it. Only when they were in front of her house did she say anything, and it wasn't what Katie wanted to hear. "I want to thank you for all your help. I don't know what I would have done without you." Her voice broke, just a little, the first time either of them heard some emotion in it. Then she caught it and her voice became logical again. "Johanna died." (Again, Katie noticed that Elizabeth didn't say "passed away" or "didn't make it" - just the straight phrase "Johanna died".) "She never regained consciousness. They're not sure what happened, but they suspect a stroke." She paused, adjusted the skirt of her coat, and then looked them both in the eye. "Again, thank you for your help." She got out of the car, and when Katie offered to walk her to the door Elizabeth politely said no. She disappeared into the house, a house that she now lived in completely alone.
"Well, what happens to her bones?" Kara asked.
"Will you be quiet?" Katie shouted at her.
"Don't talk to her like that, Katie. She just asked a question."
"But she's bugging me!"
"Her bones?" Kara said, glad to see Katie bugged.
"Kara, lay off on the questions. Katie, come here."
Her mother nestled Katie into her side and wrapped an arm around her shoulder. They watched television for a while, then went to bed. Her mother asked Katie if she wanted to talk about it, but she said no. And she really didn't. She wondered what she was supposed to be feeling. What she felt now felt like a black crayon, like a hole in the ground. She wondered what Elizabeth was doing, saw the three hats, and fell asleep.
