This Fragile Life. Кейт Хьюит
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has a paintbrush and is actually putting paint to paper rather than to something else.
I pause, look around, tense. No Ramon. I think back quickly through the day, trying to remember if I saw him. When I saw him, because I want to have seen him even as I accept, the knowledge like a stone inside me, that I didn’t.
Somehow I get through the class, my mind numb, the kids around me a blur. The camp ends at lunch time on the last day and for the last hour we have a party in the gym with families invited, and as I circulate through the hyper kids and the tables with platters of supermarket cookies and watery red fruit punch I keep looking for Ramon. Thinking that maybe he will show up for the party, at least. He doesn’t.
While everyone is busy in the gym I go to Jim’s office and look through the registration files, find Ramon’s address. I’m working on instinct even as I’m wildly, savagely hoping that this is pointless, that it’s nothing. I feel a heavy certainty inside me that it isn’t.
Ramon lives in a housing project on Avenue D. In daylight it’s not really dangerous, but as the only white person I can see I feel both conspicuous and uncomfortable. Rap music blares from balconies, and a bunch of teen boys lounge in the doorway of Ramon’s building, drinking beer from forty-ounce bottles and laughing in a way that has alarm prickling between my shoulder blades. I have to squeeze by them, and they don’t move out of the way.
I’ve been to places like this before, but even so I am always astonished at how in just a few blocks I feel as if I’ve entered another country. I take the concrete stairs up to the third floor, and then down a narrow, urine-smelling corridor to Apartment 3F. The doorbell is broken and I knock.
No answer, and I knock again, my heart thudding in time with the loud raps on the door. Finally I hear someone shuffle to the door, open it with the chain still drawn across. My hope dies when I see Ramon’s mother glare at me from behind a tangle of dark hair. She has a black eye.
“I’m looking for Ramon,” I say, my voice croaky. “He didn’t show up to camp today and we’ve been concerned—”
She tries to slam the door in my face. I press my palm up against it, doing my best to keep her from shutting me out even as my heart rate skitters in sudden fear. “Please—”
“Go away.” Her English is thickly accented, but I can hear the helpless rage in her voice.
From behind her I hear a man’s voice, a low growl of Spanish. The chain rattles and the door swings wide open; a surly-looking man, no more than twenty-five, glares at me and I feel my heart pound in my chest.
“I’m looking for Ramon.”
“Véte,” he growls, which I know means something like ‘get the hell out of here’.
I swallow, make sure to still meet his eye. I am terrified of this man, of this situation, and of how vulnerable I am, with this fragile life pulsing faintly within me. The surge of protectiveness is sudden and undeniable, and I want to put a hand to my belly and shield my own child in a way I wasn’t able to shield Ramon. I resist the revealing gesture, but only just.
“Is he here?” I ask, and my voice trembles.
The man’s mouth thins. He takes a step towards me, one hand now clenched into a fist. “Rajá“
I take a step back and the door slams. I swallow, my mouth dry, and my stomach cramps. Swallowing again, choking back bile, I turn back down the corridor.
I keep my head down as I hurry down the stairs, through the projects, out onto Avenue D and then across to the center. The party is over, and the other staff are mopping the floor with its scattering of crumbs and pale puddles of spilled punch.
Jim glances at me from across the room, his face caught in a frown. “Alex—”
“I need to talk to you, Jim,” I say, starting towards him, but there is something wrong because he is shaking his head as he points to me.
That’s when I feel the stickiness on my thighs I hadn’t noticed before, and when I look down I see that my shorts are covered in blood.
Chapter 13
MARTHA
As soon as my cell phone rings at work I know it’s Alex. I set her number to a different ringtone, a soothing cricket chirp because God knows I’m tense enough already.
And I’m even tenser when I answer the call, because I hear the ragged note of tears in her voice.
“Martha—”
“Alex? Alex, what’s—?”
“I’m bleeding, Martha.”
“Bleeding?” Everything in me freezes. “What? What happened—?”
“It just started all of a sudden.” She makes a choking sound, as if she’s holding back a sob. “There’s a lot of blood.”
“Where are you?” My voice is high, sharp with anxiety. With terror.
“I’m at the center.”
Way downtown. I feel icy with adrenalin and shock. “Let me call the OB,” I say, striving for calm. “I’ve met with her before. I could get you an appointment today.”
“I’ll call,” Alex says after a moment, her voice still shaky.
“Okay. You have the number? You’ll call me when you hear?” My voice is sharp again.
“Yes,” she says, subdued now. “Yes, I’ll call you.”
I spend the next twenty minutes staring at my computer screen, simply waiting. Finally the phone rings and I snatch at it. “Alex?”
“They’ll see me today,” she says quietly. “At four.”
“I’ll be there.” Too late I realize that Alex might not want me there. But I need to be there. Still I force myself to say, “Only if you want me to. If you want somebody to go to the appointment with.”
Alex is silent for a long moment and I wait, my breath held, my heart beating hard. “I’d like that,” she finally says, softly, and I try to let my breath out slowly, so she doesn’t hear my rush of relief.
I leave the office at three-thirty and run into my direct supervisor, Mark Sheehan, in the corridor. He sees me obviously on the way out and raises his eyebrows.
“Going somewhere, Martha? We’re meeting in five upstairs, I thought.”
Shit. There is a pitch meeting for our newest account. I gave the main pitch to one of my juniors but I absolutely should be there, backing him up and adding my own spin. But I can’t. I can’’t.
“I’m really sorry, Mark,” I say. “I have a family emergency.”
“Family emergency,” he repeats, and I can tell he doesn’t believe me, which pisses me off. I haven’t taken all of my vacation days in any of the last three years. And most of the ones I took were for IVF appointments.
“Yes,” I say firmly, and meet his eye. “Family emergency.”
His mouth thinning, he nods, and I hurry towards the elevators, everything forgotten except for Alex—and my baby.
Chapter 14
ALEX
Martha meets me outside the OB’s office on York Avenue; she looks pale and tense, but as soon as she sees me she gives me a quick, tight hug, lasting only a few seconds, which is still a lot for her. And I’m glad of it; I need the contact. When I realized I was bleeding she was the first person I thought of calling. I knew I needed her strength, her sensibility, and I’m glad she’s here now.
“You okay?” she asks and I shake my head.