It came to a stop in front of the porch. The driver and his partner jumped out of the van simultaneously and Alice Peck yelled for the driver to get back behind the wheel. He did as he was told. The partner was already opening the back doors. They swung past their hinges and locked in place.
At first, Sweeney couldn’t see Danny. A third paramedic jumped out of the ambulance and began to talk to Alice. Sweeney couldn’t hear a word. The nurse practitioner he’d hired from the St. Joseph was on her knees next to the stretcher. Alice climbed inside the van and knelt on the opposite side. Her two crones moved to the lip and stood at the ready with supplies.
Sweeney came up behind them and leaned over their shoulders. Now he caught a glimpse of his son, the body in its familiar hunch, covered with a sheet to the waist. One of the nurses felt his presence, turned, and said, “You’ll have to stand back, sir.”
He said, “That’s my boy,” but he did as he was told.
Dr. Peck had her hands on Danny’s head and she was speaking in a low voice to the nurse practitioner, whose name was Mrs. Heller. Mrs. Heller had a blood pressure cuff on Danny and she was staring at her watch while nodding her head to everything Dr. Peck said.
On Danny’s second day in the St. Joseph, there had been a problem with the shunt. It had blocked off or backed up. Something went wrong. Two doctors and two nurses had gone to work on the boy and Sweeney had overreacted, yelling obscenities at the LPN who had tried to lead him into the solarium. The doctors had fixed the problem and Sweeney had spent weeks apologizing to the young woman.
That panic came back to him now and he tried to work on his breathing. It didn’t help and he shouted out, “Get him to the hospital.”
One of the EMTs gave him a look. Everyone else ignored him. Dr. Peck came up off her knees into a squat, pivoted, and started grabbing some things from the nurse’s toolbox. Sweeney saw latex gloves on her hands — when had she put those on? Mrs. Heller said something about blood pressure that Sweeney couldn’t make out. He moved to touch the shoulder of the paramedic to ask what had been said. He stopped himself, tried to breathe again.
Now the doctor had a handful of gauze panels, thick and soaked. She handed them to one nurse and took a fresh supply from the other. In her free hand, Sweeney saw what looked like a pair of pliers.
That was when he turned around, sat down on the porch steps, and supported his head with his hands.
That second night at St. Joe’s — when the shunt had blocked off or backed up, when the doctors had walked quickly into Danny’s room and asked Sweeney to wait outside. When he’d called that patient young nurse a fucking bitch — that night had ended with Kerry saying to him It would’ve been better if he’d died. And with him slapping her across the cheek.
He had never hit a woman in his life. He had rarely raised his voice to his wife. He did not hit her hard. There was no bruise. She had run away from him. And he had made his way to the men’s room and sat down in an empty stall and wept and gagged and punched the partitioning wall until he couldn’t feel his fist.
Now he felt a hand on his arm and looked up to see Alice Peck in front of him. He stood and almost bumped into her and she steadied him.
“He’s okay,” she said.
“Thank you,” he said, too loud. And then, “You’re sure?”
“You can go to him,” she said.
Mrs. Heller was climbing out of the van, looking more angry than relieved, with the Limbo backpack slung awkwardly over her shoulder. Sweeney started to climb in where she’d been and a paramedic said, “Why don’t you let us get him out? You can see him better.”
Sweeney nodded and stepped back. The driver and his partner were in the rear of the ambulance now, throwing latches and sliding free the gurney. They held it above the driveway and one of them kicked loose and lowered the retractable wheels.
Danny was in his standard position, on his side, arms bent up to his chest, hands balled and tucked just below the chin. He was dressed in a johnny, and Sweeney made a note to ask what had happened to his pajamas. He had specifically laid out the Limbo pajamas. He leaned down over the boy, his chest shrouding most of Danny’s body. He kissed the boy’s cheek, brought his lips to the boy’s ear. He said, “Dad’s here,” and felt himself start to slip.
Coming upright, a little too quickly, he said to no one in particular, “Can we get him into his room now?”
There was a moment of group hesitation before Alice said, “We’ll be right along.” Then they wheeled the boy around the stairs and up the handicapped ramp and the crones followed behind with Mrs. Heller bringing up the rear, lugging a small travel bag.
As the group negotiated the front doors, Dr. Peck said, “Are you all right?”
He nodded and swallowed and said, “You’re sure he doesn’t have to go to the hospital?”
“I’m sure,” she said. “It wasn’t as serious as it looked. But if you’d like us to arrange for a consult with Dr. Siegel, we can do that.”
“If you say he’s okay,” he said, “I believe you.”
“And how about you?” she asked as she stripped off the latex gloves. “Are you going to be okay?”
“I’m just a little off balance. A lot of changes.”
She put her hands in the pockets of her lab coat. “Must be a big move.”
“We’ve been in Cleveland for almost ten years,” he said.
“I know,” she said. “The St. Joseph is a good facility. I know Dr. Roth pretty well.”
“I’ve heard the name, but I never met her.” After a second or two of silence Sweeney said, “So you’re Dr. Peck’s daughter?”
She smiled and her eyes widened a bit and she said, “My father’s the head of the Clinic, yes.”
He saw no resemblance.
“So it’s a family business?” he said and flinched at how lame it sounded.
“Not quite,” she said. “The Clinic’s a privately held corporation but we both sit on the board.”
Sweeney laughed before he could stop himself. “I was just making a little joke there.”
Alice leaned her head forward a bit and said, “I know.”
Sweeney couldn’t think of anything to say but “Oh.”
Alice Peck motioned to the front door with her head and said, “Listen, I’m going to collect all your son’s paperwork and get his new files going. We’ll give him a day to rest up from his trip before we start his assessments.” She put out her hand and said, “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Mr. Sweeney.”
He took the hand and said, “Thanks for taking care of Danny, Dr. Peck.”
She started to walk away, turned back, and said, “I look forward to working with you.”
HE SAT DOWN on the steps so that he wouldn’t be following on Dr. Peck’s heels. He tried the breathing again. He put his hand on his knee and realized he was still shaking. He inhaled, held the breath, exhaled. He rolled his head around his neck. He took in and let out another breath. He smelled apples and Alice Peck’s perfume.
Over the last year, he’d read a couple of books on stress reduction. Both texts agreed that breathing correctly was key. Breathing was the answer. You learn the techniques. You practice them and make them reflexive. You become conscious of your breathing and you learn to alter it. You do all these things and you’ll manage to relax both your body and your mind.
So far it was bullshit.
The attacks were happening more frequently, not less. They manifested in two ways. Either he panicked, as he had this morning in the cafeteria, or he became enraged. As he had last month, when he got into an argument with a retiree over the cost of a prescription. He ended up screaming at the old man, opening the customer’s vial, and throwing the pills at his back as he ran down the stationery aisle.