"God knows what their lives have been like," Nora agreed.
"I wish I knew what to do." Dan sighed.
It was much later. Dan had taken Isaac and Zac home and gotten them to bed. Nora had decided to spend the night at the hospital with Taylor. He was five years old, Nora thought, and too young to be there alone. Knocked out with powerful antibiotics and fever reducer, she doubted he had any idea where he was, and was probably terrified. If someone had asked Taylor, he would have admitted that part of him was.
The other part of him though, the part of him that was vaguely sensing, through the medication, the pain and the fever, that something else was going on in the world around him, wasn't scared at all. What was scary, Taylor thought, waking up in the gray early morning light to see the lady from the emergency room last night asleep in the bed next to him, was when his mother left and they didn't know where she was, and when they had to pretend that she was at work. It was scary when his mother was home and she had a boyfriend with her, or when she was acting crazy and beating him and his brothers up. Taylor didn't mind the beatings as much as he did the fact that he could never rely on his mother, that he never knew, from day to day, exactly how she'd act. Sometimes, she was really nice. Other times, she wasn't like his mother at all.
The lady by the bed, though, Taylor sensed good things about her. He didn't think she was like his mother. Her hands were soft and warm, gentle when she touched him. Her voice was calm and level. He wondered, gazing at her through the cover of darkness, if she had stayed with him because he was sick. If she had, she was nothing like his mother.
Taylor's mother didn't like it when her kids bothered her. That was why she left, Taylor thought. They made too much noise and bothered her. He tried to be quiet, but he didn't remember all the time. That was why it was his fault that his mother didn't love him. When Taylor was sick, he never told his mother. He'd tell Isaac. If Taylor or Zac was really sick, sometimes Ike would have to go ask his mother for money to go buy Tylenol. Sometimes she'd get really mad, because she didn't have the money, or she didn't want to give it to him. Times like that, Taylor thought, were when his mother was the scariest.
Taylor knew that sometimes his older brother stole money from his mother. He didn't think that was right. Still, she'd only spend it on drugs, or she'd go out to a bar. If Ike didn't take the money out of her purse, they'd never have groceries, or pay the rent, and the lights would go out again. Sometimes the phone didn't work, either. They had to pay money for that, too. Taylor didn't understand all of that, about money. He didn't understand why people needed it, or what it meant. Sometimes he thought that maybe Isaac didn't, either. Still, his brother took care of things because he had to, because his mother wouldn't.
Taylor knew that because Isaac had told him. Isaac told him lots of things, but not everything. Still, Taylor usually knew what his brother was thinking, even if nobody else did. He was good at reading people. If you watched them carefully, they told you more than they ever could in words.
Like the lady in the chair by the bed. She was definitely someone who didn't go out and get drunk, not even on the weekends. She was probably like the mother on The Cosby Show, Taylor thought, someone who was always nice to her kids, if she had any. Maybe they made her mad, sometimes, but she never hit them.
Then again, Taylor thought, maybe everyone's mother hit them. Maybe the Cosby Show mother hit her kids as soon as the show was over. He wondered about that. Did the mother and father on the Cosby Show ever get drunk and start beating their kids? That was what his own mother would do. No, Taylor thought. The Cosby Show parents were too nice. He wished he could go live at their house. He was probably the wrong color, but maybe the neighbors were nice, too. Taylor was convinced that the Cosbys were an actual family, and that you could go visit them, if you had their address. Cosby. He rolled the name around in his mouth, not speaking it aloud. Taylor Cosby. It had a nice ring to it.
Nora awoke to find herself riveted in the intense, very serious gaze of a little boy whose wide blue eyes seemed to take in the world. "Hi, Taylor," she whispered, not wanting to scare him.
"Hi," he answered back, a small smile flickering across his face.
"How are you feeling?"
"Better than I was before." He yawned. "Where's Ike and Zac?"
"They went back to my house," Nora told him. "My name is Nora, and the three of you are going to be staying with me and my husband Dan for a few days."
"Does my mommy know?" Taylor asked the question guilelessly, an almost hopeful look in his eyes.
Nora sighed. "No, honey. I'm sorry."
Taylor took a deep breath, closing his eyes for a moment. "It's okay."
"You're really tired," Nora observed.
"Yeah, a little bit," he agreed.
"You should go to sleep now," she told him.
"Okay," he whispered. Obediently, he closed his eyes.