"Excuse me. Excuse me, ma'am?" His voice sounded small, even to him. Please, he thought, let her hear me. Her eyes met his right away, just as he'd hoped they would.
"Can I help you, honey?" Nora smiled at the little boy in front of her. Small and skinny, his blond hair in need of a cut, he shifted from one battered sneaker to the other, looking like a 'Save the Children' ad. There was a beseeching expression in his eyes. "Are you all right?"
The boy nodded. I'm eight, he told himself. I'm eight years old. I'm not a little baby anymore. I can do this.
"My. . . my brother needs help," he managed. "He's real sick."
"Okay," Nora said. "Have you been waiting a long time?"
Again, he nodded. "About three hours."
Nora looked surprised. "Three hours? Did your mother or father check in with the receptionist?"
Inside his ill-fitting jacket, the little boy squirmed uncomfortably. "My mother's not here," he explained. "She's at work. She doesn't know I took Taylor down here."
"What's the matter with him?" Nora asked. "Did she know he was sick?"
He shook his head. "He was sick for a few days, but not this sick. Now he says that it hurts when he breathes, and he's saying things that don't make sense."
"How old is he?" Nora asked.
His eyes met hers. "Five."
"How old are you?"
"Eight," he whispered.
"What's your name?"
"Isaac."
"I'm Dr. Nora," Nora said. She felt 'Dr. Conway' was too intimidating, especially for this little boy. "Isaac, show me where your brother is."
Taylor was small for five, a slip of a thing, Dan's grandmother would have observed. His eyes were huge and blue, luminous despite the glaze of fever. His blond hair was plastered to his forehead with sweat, his breathing ragged and choking. Pneumonia, Nora thought. It was common enough among kids who never got enough to eat, who slept in unheated rooms and caught every cold that came along. There was another little boy with Taylor, no more than two or three. He, too, was blond, with eyes as dark as milk chocolate. His expression was dubious as he regarded this strange new doctor. "Are you going to help him?"
"I am," Nora said, with certainty. She lifted Taylor from the hard plastic chair and settled him into her arms. "Come with me, you two, and we'll go into a treatment room."
The "rooms" were actually partitions, sectioned off from one another by pastel colored curtains. Taylor didn't resist as Nora settled him onto the bed and unzipped his coat, easing his arms out of the sleeves. Isaac and the other little boy watched silently. Isaac was biting his lip.
Nora smiled at them. "Sit down, you two." She indicated the two uncomfortable-looking chairs in the corner of the partition. "I'm just going to take a look at him."
Taylor's skin was searingly hot. It prickled into goose bumps as Nora removed his shirt. He grimaced.
"Sorry, baby," Nora murmured. "But this won't take too long." She let him lie back against the pillows as she pulled a blanket around him. She wished she knew how much he was aware of. She was willing to bet it was more than she thought. Isaac remained impassive, his brow furrowed into an expression of worry. The other little boy appeared on the other side of the bed as she listened to Taylor's heart. "You're helping my brother," he observed. "What's your name?"
"Nora," she said. "What's yours?"
"Zac," he said. "He's real sick, isn't he?"
"Yeah," Nora admitted. "He's pretty sick."
Isaac looked up, terrified. "Is he. . . Is he. . . Is he gonna be all right?"
"Yeah," Nora assured him. "He'll be fine."
Isaac sighed. "Will he have to go in the hospital?"
"He might," Nora allowed, thinking unless your mother shows up and proves that she's fit to take care of him, which I highly doubt.
"I don't know if we can afford it." One of Isaac's cuticles was bleeding. His nails were red-rimmed and sore-looking. His eyes were trained on the floor. "I don't think we can."
"That's all right," Nora told him. "This hospital takes people who don't have insurance." Even if they didn't, she thought illogically, I'd make them. Because I have to help these little boys.
Isaac looked worried. "My mother doesn't know I took him here," he said. "What if she gets mad at me?"
"I'll talk to her," Nora said. "Someone will talk to her. When she understands how sick Taylor is, she won't mind."
She thought she saw Isaac's lip quiver. "But. . . but what if she gets mad at me for letting him get this sick?" he asked.
"You didn't let him get this sick," Nora assured him.
Isaac's voice quavered. "But what if I did? I knew that he was sick. I made him go to school yesterday."
"Isaac, that probably wasn't what made him this sick. Did he go to school today?"
Isaac shook his head. "None of us did."
"Does your mother know that?" The question slipped out before Nora could check it. That was the wrong thing to say, she thought.
"She doesn't," Isaac whispered. "I haven't decided how to explain it to her yet."
Nora nodded. "She wasn't home when you decided Taylor was too sick to go to school?"
Isaac nodded. "She was already at work. I didn't want to leave Tay by himself. He was real sick."
"I would have been there," Zac pointed out.
Isaac sighed. "Yeah, but it was my responsibility."
"Your 'sponsibility," Zac agreed. "I can be 'sponsible."
"Do you know what time your mother will be back?" Nora asked.
Isaac shook his head. "No."
All that responsibility and he has no idea what time his mother comes home from work, Nora thought. Something's wrong here.
"We should call her," Nora said. "She'll worry if you're not home when she gets there."
Isaac nodded. "Yeah," he agreed, half-heartedly.
"Do you know where she is?" Zac's eyes were large and hopeful. "She told you?"
Isaac looked terrified. "Zac!" he exclaimed.
"Don't you know where your mother works?" Nora inquired, her voice even, non-judgmental. "Do you know the number?"
"No," Isaac admitted. "They don't let her have phone calls where she works."
"Okay." Nora nodded, thinking of sweatshops. "That's all right. We'll call your house. Can you give me the number?"
Isaac flushed. "The phone. . . The phone. . . The phone is disconnected," he whispered. He looked like he was shaking. Nora longed to put an arm around him, to tell him that he didn't have to be ashamed. Not everything was his responsibility, not everything was his fault.
"Isaac," she said, understandingly, "it's all right."
He swallowed hard. "I told her to pay the bill," he said, "but sometimes she forgets." His skin grew a few shades paler. "She's a good mother, though. She loves us. She doesn't want anyone to split us up. But I have to do my job, too. I have to watch Taylor and Zac."
"You do a good job," Nora said. "I can tell."
Isaac shook his head, "No, I don't," he whispered. "I didn't do a good job at all."
"I can tell that that isn't true," Nora assured him. "Don't worry."
"I am worried," Isaac murmured. Nora hoped she'd heard him clearly. The poor thing, she thought. What's his life like?
Zac tugged at Nora's lab coat. "Do you got any kids?" he asked her.
Nora smiled. "No. Not one."
"If you had kids, would you ever go away and leave them?" Zac persisted. Isaac's eyes grew wide.
"Zac. . ."
"Of course not," Nora said.
"See?" Zac shot a knowing look at Isaac, who sighed, putting his head in his hands.
"Isaac," Nora asked, a chill of realization running down her spine, "I have to ask you an important question."
Isaac bit his lip, folding his arms across his chest. "I might not be able to answer it," he told her. "There are some questions I can't answer."
"It's all right," Nora said. "But I'd like you to try to answer it for me, because, it's very important. It's about your mother."
Isaac flinched. "That might not be. . . I mean. . . well, I don't know if I can. . . if I can. . . I can't tell you anything." "Yes you can," Zac said. "You needs to tell her." "Tell me what?" Nora asked. "I. . . I . . . I think. . . is there a bathroom anywhere around here?" Isaac felt bile rise in his throat. He squeezed his eyes shut.
"Are you going to throw up?" Nora asked him.
He nodded.
"The bathroom's over there," Nora told him. "Do you need any help?"
Isaac shook his head as he raced for the door. He slammed it shut behind him, not even bothering to turn on the light. The world spun around him, spots of light flickering in front of his eyes. He'd had this headache for the past five days, on and off. Now, a pulsing rhythm throbbed inside his skull, the pressure building. God, he couldn't tell her. He couldn't tell that doctor anything.
There was a knock on the door. "Isaac?" called a voice, "are you all right in there?"
"Yeah," he managed. "I'll be out in a second." He rose shakily to his feet, feeling along the wall for the light switch. He blew his nose and flushed the toilet, rinsed his mouth out with water from the sink. There was a mirror affixed to the wall, and he studied his reflection for a moment. Two eyes, dark circled and scared, met his. "Tell," a voice inside his head whispered.
"Don't tell!" screamed the army of demons who ruled him.
"I can't tell," Isaac whispered. "I'm sorry."
Isaac took a deep breath, straightened up and, twisting the door knob, stepped out into the bright lights of the emergency room corridor. Nora was waiting for him. He looked up at her.
"Isaac," she said, kneeling down so that her eyes met his, "I know this isn't easy for you." She put her hands on his shoulders, feeling the fragileness of his body, the way the bones moved under the skin. "But, whatever is going on, you're going to have to tell someone at some point. It isn't good for you to keep something like this inside. It hurts you, and it hurts Taylor and Zac."
Isaac took a deep breath. "If I tell you," he said, "will you tell anybody else?"
Nora sighed. "Honey, it depends on what it is. There are laws that say I have to tell certain things to people whose job is to help with certain problems. If I don't, it's breaking the law."
"If I don't tell you, you won't have to break the law," Isaac reasoned.
"If you don't tell me, Isaac, I won't know what to do," Nora told him. "I'll have to do what I think is best, and it might be the wrong thing. I don't want to hurt you, honey. I want to figure out what the best way is to help you. If you don't tell me the story, I won't be able to do that."
Isaac nodded, swallowing hard. "Okay," he said. "But, if I tell you, you can't split us up. Can you promise?"
"I promise," Nora said, ready to do everything in her power to do what he asked. "I promise you I'll try as hard as I can to keep you from being split up."
"Thank you," Isaac murmured. He took a deep breath. "We haven't. . . I mean, we don't. . . We don't know where my mother is."
"What do you mean?" Nora asked him. "Has she been gone a long time?"
"Since last Sunday," Isaac admitted. "Sometimes she goes away for a long time." He paused. "She always comes back, though."
"And you're in charge of Taylor and Zac when she's gone?" Nora asked.
Isaac nodded. "Yeah."
"Isaac," Nora said, "thank you for telling me. It was incredibly brave of you."
His lower lip quivered. "I . . . I wasn't supposed to tell anyone. They'll split us up now, I know."
Overcome with a need to protect him, Nora put her arms around Isaac. She felt his body stiffen, then relax. "I'll do whatever I can to keep that from happening."
Back in the cubicle, a nurse had started an IV in Taylor's arm and given Zac a coloring book. Zac looked up as Isaac walked into the room. "Did you tell her?"
Isaac took a deep breath. "I told her."
Zac looked scared. "Are they going to split us up?"
Isaac studied the floor. "I hope not." Unburdened of his terrible secret, he felt suddenly weak and sank into a chair. Nora squinted at him, laying a cool hand against his damp forehead.
"Are you all right?" There was concern in her voice, worry even. Shoot, she thought. Shoot, shoot, shoot. The one thing she'd learned in the emergency room was that you should never become attached to any patient, no matter what the situation. Still, the raw vulnerability of these three little boys was awe-inspiring. She had to do something to protect them.
A hospital social worker had been called, and was appointed temporary guardian. She listened to Taylor's labored breathing, the coughing that racked his body and sent him into spasms of pain. "You're going to have to admit him, aren't you?" she asked.
Nora nodded. "Yeah, I think that would be the best idea." She turned to Isaac. "Taylor might have to spend a few days in the hospital, because of how sick he is. Even if your mother were here, I'd put him in the hospital, because we can give him more medicine and different tests that will help him get better faster."
Isaac nodded. The social worker, Mary, smiled at him. "Isaac," she said, "it actually gives us some time to find a foster home that would take the three of you. That can be hard to do."
Isaac swallowed. "Okay," he murmured. Zac, who was playing with Ritz Bits on the chair next to him, put an arm around his older brother.
"Don't worry, Ike," he said. "We'll be all right. Like you said. If we just stay together, than at least we got somebody."
Nora and Mary exchanged a glance. It wasn't hard to imagine this little boy comforting himself with those words, sustaining himself through endless days and nights when he wasn't sure what would happen next. "Dr. Conway," Mary said, "can I talk to you a moment?"
"Sure." Nora stepped outside the cubicle, drawing the curtain shut. She was expecting the worst, but she didn't want to hear the words spoken aloud. "What's the matter?"
Mary sighed. "I can tell these three need to stay together," she said. "But it's not that simple."
"Nothing ever is," Nora sighed.
"Not one foster home in the county has an opening," Mary said. "The only possible place to put them would be to board them in Trevorford for as long as it took to get an opening, and even then, they aren't going to end up together."
Nora sucked in her breath. "Oh, lord. Isaac- I mean, I just get the impression that something like that would kill him. He's scarcely holding up as it is. And Trevorford? The juvenile delinquent center? For an eight year old and a three year old?"
"I'd take them in myself, if I could," Mary said.
Nora paused. "This is probably the most far-fetched idea on earth," she said, "but Dan and I were approved by the state to adopt a child at some point. . ."
"Oh, that's wonderful!" Mary exclaimed.
"Thanks," Nora smiled. "But my sister had a car accident six months ago, and we had my niece with us until last month. We haven't moved any further in adoption proceedings, so now we're open. Do you think we could keep the boys with us a few days- at least until Taylor gets out of the hospital?"
"If you're already approved to adopt," Mary said, "I think we could justify it. I'll have to make a few phone calls. Were you approved through a state agency?"
"Yes." Nora asked a nurse to keep an eye on the boys while she slipped to the telephone to answer questions for Mary. When she returned to the cubicle, it was with a triumphant smile on her face.
Isaac didn't look up. "I guess if they have to split us up, they have to split us up." He coughed, blinking hard. "I'll be all right. I told Taylor and Zac that they'll be okay."
"I'll be okay," Zac echoed, his brown eyes solemn.
"Isaac," Nora knelt and put her hand on his shoulder. "Nobody's going to split you up."
"What?" his eyes met hers, as if he didn't believe what he was hearing. "They're not?"
"No," Nora assured him. "See, we've pulled a few strings, and you guys are going to stay with my husband and me for a few days, at least until a more permanent placement can be found."
"Really?" Isaac was incredulous. "I mean, are you sure?"
"I'm sure." Nora brushed a strand of his hair out of his eyes. "I wouldn't tell you that unless I was completely sure."
"Thank you," Isaac murmured, feeling dizzy. "Thank you so much."
Nora called her husband. She had a lot of explaining to do.