Justin

            It was noon already.  I walked quietly to his room to wake him up for lunch.  He was curled in a little ball on his racecar bed, pillow hugged tightly to his chest.  I gave him a gentle rub on his back and counted eight vertebrae before his eyes opened.

            “Hey there,” I said.  His eyes were sleepy. “Come on, I made PB&J for lunch, crusts cut off and everything.”  He smiled at me slyly in that way only toddlers can when they know they’re being crafty.  “Fine,” I said sighing, “but we can’t do this very much longer, you’re gonna get big.”

            I scooped him up in my arms, raced into the kitchen, and plopped him down on a stool.  He peered at the sandwich.

            “Oh no,” I said, “you’re eating this one all by yourself.” Out came the bottom lip.  “Alright! We’ll make it a team effort, and if you take big bites we can go to the park.” His eyes lit up.  We had a secret park we went to sometimes that hardly anyone knew about.  It was usually empty and he got to swing as long as he wanted without having to wait in line.

            The sandwich was gone.  After jostling him into a coat to keep the cold away and securing the buckles on the stroller, we were off.  The park was only a few blocks away and when we got there he nearly tumbled out of his seat in excitement, toddling precariously towards the swing set.   I caught up just in time and lifted him into the seat.

            “Don’t squirm this time, I can never get your feet through the holes.”  He smiled up at me and kicked his feet a couple times.  I shook my head and laughed.  “Justin, what am I going to do with you?”

            I lowered him into the child-swing and pushed him lightly.  His delighted giggle swam into my ears over the creaking of the old structure.  He wobbled back and forth in the swing which, even after years, was too big for him.

            The sun was bright for such a cold day.  I took a break from pushing and fished through my purse for his hat.  It was a Santa hat, no other hats ever fit him.  Luckily he never seemed to have a problem with being overly festive in the summer--even with the looks he got--and it got a lot of laughs around Christmas.  I secured it snuggly on his head, brining the fur lining down low to shield his eyes.  He protested, squirming around, but the hat fit more loosely than it had when I first got it.   It slipped on without too much trouble.

            He looked like a post card.   I wanted to take a picture of him there in his coat and his hat and send it to his dad.  Tom would like that.  He was living in a one room flat in one of those neighborhoods where there are rows and rows of houses that all look the same.  Occasionally you’d come across one that was big and beautiful and weathered, chiseled behemoths among the flats.  It was always a very old person who lived there.  They had relatives who were nice enough to keep their house in order for them, bring them flowers to liven up their front porches. 

I brought Tom flowers every once and a while at the beginning but he never forgave me.  He didn’t answer the door when I visited.  At first I cried and pled forgiveness and once I nearly kicked his door down in rage, but after a while I just wished I could talk to him again.  After every visit to his silent doorway I’d leave the flowers and a note and walk home.

            I looked down at my hands and realized I was still fiddling with the Santa hat.  Justin had stopped swinging and was getting impatient, tilting his head back to look at me.   I didn’t know how long I’d been standing there.

            “Hey, you.” I touched his nose with my finger. “Are you done on the swings for today?”  He didn’t protest so I picked him out of the seat gingerly and held him in the crook of my arm.  “Hmmm,” I wondered aloud. “Do you want a story for the walk home?”  He perked up immediately and I knew what he was going to ask before he said anything.

            “Haha, yes,” I smiled at him, pushing the empty stroller in front of me. “We can hear that story.” It was his favorite.  “Once upon a time,” I began, “there was a little boy in the dark.  He wanted desperately to get out deep blackness but he could not find his way…”  I situated him more comfortably in my arms as we walked.

***

            “…and his mother was so proud.  She gave him a gigantic hug, and he knew she loved him more than anything else.”  We had reached our front doorstep and I glanced down at him to see if he was still listening.  “And do you know what happened when they got home?” I asked.  His eyes became curious and thereThere was a head shake in return. “His mom gave him a snack and a blanket and put one of his favorite movies on TV for him to watch.”  Suddenly I had an excited toddler in my arms so I rushed into the house before the wiggling got out of control, put him on top of the comforter on the couch, and slipped in the video.

While he was momentarily appeased I took my time in the kitchen.  I got out the cracker snacks slowly, listening as they plinked into the bowl one by one.  The sun scattered lazy shadows around the kitchen and I was suddenly filled with an overpowering sense of being alone.  I shook my head.  That helped a little.

            I heard Justin calling me over the bubbly dialogue of his video.  Snacks in hand, I walked back to the couch and set them down next to him. Just seeing him made the cobwebs of loneliness vanish.

            He still looked cold even with the blanket.  I gave him a pat on the back of his head and padded towards the cupboard on the other side of the room.  The child-sized blanket I’d knit for him was in the very back.  I stood on my toes and reached as far as I could.

            My heart jumped before I even recognized the high-pitched whine.  

Déjà vu, whispered my sluggish brain.  My body turned in slow motion of its own accord.

 “Déjà vu?” I asked out loud to no one in particular.

            Time snapped back into place, almost moving too fast like it had to make up for the momentary lull. My heart screamed as my muscles felt the surge of adrenaline like a jolt of life.  I grabbed the phone and ran to Justin.  My fingers pressed three buttons.  I crammed the phone against my ear with one hand, holding Justin limply with the other, the high whine of air escaping from his throat growing increasingly louder. 

Cracker snacks, said my brain.

            “I need an ambulance!” said my mouth, “My son is choking,” I paused, staring at his face. “Justin!” Yelling now, I began pushing on his chest, trying to dislodge the cracker.  Every time I pushed an impossible amount of air raced out of his lungs.  The male voice on the other end of the line began to speak.

            “Ma’am, this is the fourth time this month we’ve received a call from this line, are you sure there’s a problem?”  I had no idea what he was talking about.  The shrill squealing noise continued to pour from Justin’s throat, amplifying.  Above the whine I heard my own voice shrieking into the receiver, becoming more and more hysteric as I repeated myself.

            The voice on the other end of the phone was back.

            “Ma’am…yes…we’re on our way ma’am, hold on.”

            The receiver dropped.  I held Justin in my hands.  Watched in silent horror as his features began to sink.  Listened as the screams in his throat grew quieter.  Watched as he deflated.  Closed my eyes.

***

            It was my first night on-call.  I was pretty sure they only let me ride in the ambulance because this woman had a history of crying wolf.  The guys didn’t give me the details of their last visits there, but it didn’t matter.  As we approached the front door of the house all I could hear was the pulse in my ears.

            By the time I got into the house two of the guys were already leaving to get a gurney. I moved past the doorway and walked around the couch.  She was lying on the ground, curled up, barely moving except for her shallow breathing.  In her arms she clutched a deflated football wearing a Santa hat.  I might have laughed if I hadn’t seen the way she was looking at that football; like it had been everything once.

            They don’t prepare you for the human part of this job.  They try to, but it doesn’t work.  I stood against a wall and stayed out of the way.  The guys put her on a stretcher and carried her out.  I followed them into the back of the ambulance.  They tried to communicate with her for the first couple of minutes but she made no noise.  Even with the sirens on I felt the pressure of the silence inside the ambulance.  At one point I tried to reach out and touch her hand, but the moment I made contact she screamed and pulled the football closer to her chest.

            I sat alone in the ambulance for a while after the guys took her through the glass doors of the ER.  Once I had collected myself enough to walk through the doors the woman and the guys were gone.  I meandered aimlessly down the halls, and stopped at a water fountain.  I wasn’t thirsty but I drank anyway.

            “…she’s a tragic story.” Two doctors were talking outside of a room down the hall from me,

            “Any family?”

            “Nope, husband and son both died in a car crash two years ago.  The car apparently ran off the road into the woods during the night.  The police came across it a week later.  The husband was buried in the cemetery just outside of town, but her son’s body was never found.”

“So what’s with the Christmas football?”

“We’re not sure yet, she’s still sedated.  We’re transferring her to the mental

health ward until she’s stable.”

I looked up when I heard the creaking of gurney joints.  A pair of nurses rolled

her towards my end of the hall.  I looked for the football as she passed but someone had taken it.  I walked into the room they’d just taken her out of.  There it was, sitting on a tray next to where they must have kept her temporarily.  I slipped off the Santa hat, there was a name written neatly on the inside. Justin Mently.

Symbol Explanation

·         She counts eight vertebrae because there are eight laces on a football.

·         He never walks or speaks or is seen in the action of eating because he’s a football.  The only time we hear him ‘speak’ is when there is other noise happening.

·         She can never get his feet through the holes in the swing because he doesn’t have feet, and he’s still too small for the child swing because he never grows.

·         Santa hats are the only hats that fit him because footballs are pointy.

·         The father’s one room apartment is a grave, he lives in a modern grave yard with rows of those flat headstones.  She brings him flowers (get it?).  If you’ve ever walked around a graveyard like that you’ll notice that the older the grave the larger and more magnificent they tend to be, hence the entire discussion about old people and their big houses and the family that comes to visit them.  Her kicking down the door (kicking at the headstone) signifies her going through the various stages of grief.