No, no, no!
The hallway ceiling had collapsed. Debris burned on the floor. Smoke billowed black and thick. Sprinklers squirted sideways, uselessly. Aluminum ductwork hung at bizarre angles. The handicapped bathroom was on the other side. The flames blazed too high to jump and would get higher still. Ceiling tiles, insulation, and studs burned.
Rose spotted a piece of wood sticking out of the debris, grabbed the end, and yanked. It came free, trailing burning debris. She coughed and coughed. Tears flowed from her eyes. She swung the stud like a flaming baseball bat, knocking aside smoky insulation to make a path.
Sparks flew. Smoke filled her nose. She spit dry filth from her mouth. Stirring the debris fed the fire. It roared in response.
She redoubled her efforts, whacking to clear a path. She could barely see or breathe. Her throat felt tight, closing. Her eyes streamed with tears. The stud caught fire at the end. She kept whacking until she’d cleared a fiery path. If she waited any longer, she wouldn’t be able to run through.
She dropped the stud, got a running start, and leapt over the fire. Flames licked at her clogs and ankles but she was too adrenalized to feel anything. She charged ahead, running through an oven. It lasted forever, but she got through, the fire behind her.
She raced through the smoke to the end of the hall. A conflagration raged to her left, the kitchen and the teachers’ lounge ablaze.
She reached the handicapped bathroom. Smoke was being sucked under its door. Melly would suffocate.
“Melly!” Rose tried the lever, hot to the touch. The door was locked, so Melly had to be inside.
“Melly!” Rose shrieked, frantic. She yanked on the lever. It didn’t open. Tears of fright poured down her cheeks. She coughed and coughed. Black smoke rolled along the floor, enveloping her.
Fire flared closer. She pulled on the lever with all her might. She felt hotter and hotter. She couldn’t breathe, her lungs choked with smoke.
“Melly!” Rose screamed, at the top of her lungs.
There was no reply.
Chapter Four
“Help!” Rose screamed. Nobody was in the corridor. The alarm bells rang continuously. Sirens sounded far away. She was on her own.
She threw herself against the bathroom door. It didn’t budge. She raked at the hinges to see if she could take the door off, but no. She told herself to stay in control. She couldn’t surrender to panic. She coughed and coughed. Tears blurred her vision.
She knelt down to look at the lever. It had a hole underneath. It locked from the inside, by pushing a button. She could unlock it if she could stick something in the hole. She tried her finger. The hole was too small. She needed something thin enough to fit through.
She looked wildly around. Smoke billowed everywhere. The blaze in the teachers’ lounge was spreading. She had to hurry. She got up, bolted to the library, and burst through the doors. Smoke filtered the air, less than in the hallway.
She ran to the librarian’s desk and tore open a drawer. It held pens, pencils, rulers, orange Tic-Tacs. She grabbed a pair of scissors. The blades were too big. She threw them aside. She whirled around, then saw a coat rack holding a red cardigan and a few wire hangers.
She ran to the rack, snatched off one of the hangers, and twisted it out of shape on the run. She bolted out of the library, horrified at the sight in the hallway. The fire was spreading to the handicapped bathroom. Fingers of flames stretched from the teachers’ lounge. Black smoke enclosed the door.
“Melly!” Rose shrieked, agonized. She ran to the bathroom and threw herself on her knees in front of the door. She couldn’t see the hole for the smoke and her tears.
She wrenched the hanger out of shape, slicing her palm with the pointy end. She bent the wire and tried to shove the end into the hole. Her hand shook too much. She tried again and again, her face next to the lever. She finally rammed it through. She felt a click.
She yanked on the lever. The door opened wide. Heat surged behind her, the flames sucked forward by new oxygen. Smoke filled the bathroom.
“Melly!” Rose screamed, but Melly sat slumped beside the toilet in the clouds of smoke, her head to the side, unmoving. Her arms hung down. Her feet flopped apart.
Rose rushed to her side and scooped her up. She couldn’t tell if Melly was breathing, but black soot covered her cheeks and ringed her nostrils and mouth. Her body was limp, her eyes closed. Rose knew CPR but had to get her out while she still could.
She gathered Melly up, staggered to her feet, and ran out of the smoky bathroom. She bolted to the library, burst through the doors, and tore through the stacks to the exit, which led her down one smoky hallway, then another. She’d never been in that part of the school. She followed the sound of teachers shouting. Melly remained silent, lifeless.
Rose barreled toward the noise and saw an EXIT sign over double doors. Twenty feet away, then ten. Then five. She exploded through the doors into a stairwell, where a teacher was evacuating older kids, hurrying down the concrete stairs toward the exit for the teachers’ parking lot.
“It’s my daughter!” Rose shouted on the run, and the teacher blanched.
“Let her through!” she called to the kids, who parted as Rose wedged her way out of the exit and into the sunshine.
“Help!” Rose screamed, and the school librarian and a teacher came running. Smoke clouded the parking lot, and beyond it thronged teachers, staff, and students, abuzz with shouting, crying, and head counts.
Rose raced to a patch of grass, laid Melly on the ground, and put an ear to her chest to listen for a heartbeat. She couldn’t hear breathing because the alarms were too loud. She put her cheek to Melly’s face to feel breathing, but no. She began CPR, tilting Melly’s head back, opening her mouth, and breathing for her, ignoring the stench of smoke on her lips.
Suddenly, Melly started coughing. Soot puffed from her mouth, a horrifying sight.
“Honey!” Rose cried with joy, but Melly’s eyelids fluttered and her eyes rolled backwards into her head. “Melly, wake up! Please!” She shook Melly to rouse her, to no avail.
“Here’s the ambulance!” The school librarian touched Rose’s arm. The teacher stood behind. “Let us help.”
“Thanks!” Rose scooped Melly into her arms, and the librarian steadied her as they ran through the parked cars.
The crowd surged forward, craning their necks, but the teacher and custodians with walkie-talkies shooed them back. Parents and neighbors held up cell phones and BlackBerrys, snapping pictures and taking videos. The ambulance sped onto the long driveway, and people shouted to flag it down until it veered into the teachers’ parking lot.
Rose and the librarian hustled to meet the ambulance, which zoomed to a stop. A paramedic in a black uniform jumped from the cab and raced toward Melly. The back doors flew open, and two other uniformed paramedics, a male and a female, hustled out with a stretcher and a portable oxygen tank.
“She’s my daughter.” Rose met a male paramedic at the curb. “She’s breathing but she’s not conscious.”
“I got her.” The male paramedic took Melly from Rose as the two others materialized at his side. He laid Melly on the cushioned stretcher while the others hurried to fit a translucent oxygen mask over her face and secure her with two orange straps. They all rushed the stretcher to the ambulance, sliding it inside.
Rose was about to climb in behind, but shouted to the librarian, “Please get word to my husband, Leo Ingrassia. He’s a lawyer, his office is in King of Prussia.”
“Will do!”
Rose hoisted herself inside the ambulance, hurried to Melly’s side, and picked up her hand. It felt limp and oddly cool to the touch, but she clung to it, making a human tether to keep Melly in this world.
Please God let her live.
Chapter Five
“I’m locking, Jim!” the female paramedic shouted to the driver, to be heard over the sirens and the radio crackling in the cab. She twisted a large handle under the steel corrugation on th
e ambulance doors. “Go, go, go!”
“Is my daughter going to be okay?” Rose shouted, lifting up her oxygen mask to speak. They’d made her wear one and sit belted to a cushioned jump seat, but she could still reach Melly’s hand. She held on as the ambulance lurched off. “I did CPR, and she was awake. Why is she unconscious?”
“Please keep your mask on.” The female paramedic hurried to Melly’s side. “You can ask the ER doc all your questions.”
The male paramedic scrambled to Rose, shouting, “Let me see that ankle, Mom.”
“I’m fine,” Rose yelled, under her mask. “Take care of her, please.”
“We have to treat you, too. You’ve got burns on your ankle and hand.” The male paramedic slipped on exam gloves, grabbed a square white bag that read ROEHAMPTON STERILE BURNS DRESSING, and squatted at Rose’s feet. “I’ll start here. This might be uncomfortable.”
“Please, take care of my daughter instead.”
“My partner has her, don’t worry. We have to treat you. It’s the law.” The male paramedic zipped open the white bag, but Rose kept her eyes glued to Melly, who looked so pale under the oxygen mask. The female paramedic was attaching circular electrodes to her chest, leading to an EKG monitor that began spitting out a spiky graph, almost instantly.
Rose shouted to the female paramedic, “She was trapped in a bathroom full of smoke. That means she was deprived of oxygen. How do you know if there’s brain damage?”
“I’m doing everything I can.” The female paramedic grabbed a transparent saline bag, hung it on a hook, and reached for Melly’s hand, glancing over at Rose. “Sorry, may I have her hand? I need to start an IV line.”
“Sure.” Rose let go of Melly’s hand, trying not to tear up. She held onto her stretcher instead, watching the female paramedic tapping Melly’s skin to find a vein, then sliding the IV needle in, with a speed born of skill and practice.
“I’m dressing your burn now.” The male paramedic unrolled yellow dressing and wrapped it around her ankle, keeping his balance in the moving ambulance. “It doesn’t look too bad.”
“Do you think my daughter has brain damage?” Rose shouted at him, through her mask. “Is that why she’s unconscious?”
“Don’t worry, the docs will do everything they can. Reesburgh is a great trauma center. Our job is to get her ready, so they can hit the ground running.”
Rose could see they needed to work, so she shut up and kept an eye on Melly while the male paramedic finished dressing the burns on her ankle. The female paramedic was wrapping a blood pressure cuff around Melly’s arm, but Melly’s eyes were still closed, and she didn’t move or react. A layer of coarse soot blanketed her face, arms, and legs, obscuring the Gothic lettering on her Harry Potter T-shirt and the flowery pattern of her shorts. A deep gash bled through her hairline, blackening its dark blond strands. Her eyelids looked swollen, and tears made heartbreaking tracks in the filth on her cheeks.
“Here, Mom,” the male paramedic said, offering her a Kleenex.
Rose hadn’t known she was crying. She nodded thanks, swabbing at her eyes, and the Kleenex got damp and sooty. The female paramedic blocked Melly from view, and the male paramedic dressed the burn on Rose’s hand. She looked around the back of the ambulance, noticing things that didn’t matter:
The windows in the back doors were tiny. There were six round dome lights in the ceiling. The first-aid bag was orange, and the plastic defibrillator was yellow. A half-open cabinet held plush teddy bears, with the sales tags still on.
Rose felt a wave of sadness. She wouldn’t have expected to find toys in an ambulance, but she should have. Children got hurt every day in this world. Now it was her child, and her world.
Her gaze fell on a chart posted above eye-level. It read, EMERGENCY MEDICAL SERVICES FOR CHILDREN, and she found the line for School Age, 6–12 Years. It read, Respiratory Rate, 18–30. Heart Rate, 70–120. Systolic Blood B/P, Over 80. She looked over at the monitors attached to Melly, displaying her vital signs in multi-colored digits, but she wasn’t able to decipher them.
She looked at the other wall, but there was only another chart. PEDIATRIC ASSESSMENT, said the top, and underneath, GLASGOW COMA SCALE. She read the three criteria for a coma. Eye Opening, Best Verbal Response, and Best Motor Response. The chart assigned point values to each of the criteria, and she applied the criteria to Melly, like a nightmare laundry list. Melly’s eyes remained closed. Zero points. She had no verbal response. Zero points. She had no motor response. Zero points. Melly had no points. Zero, zero, zero.
Rose felt a bolt of fright. New tears filled her eyes. She craned her neck but couldn’t see Melly. The female paramedic was bent over her, lifting her eyelid and shining a light in her pupils.
Rose kept her fingertips on the stainless steel of Melly’s stretcher. The male paramedic dressed the burn on her hand. The female paramedic shifted position, and Melly’s hand popped into view. Blood and bruises covered her little palm, and Rose realized that Melly must have bloodied her hands, banging on the bathroom door. Trying to get out. Pounding with her fists. Waiting to be rescued. Calling for her mother.
Mommy!
Rose wanted to scream at herself. If she had run to the handicapped bathroom first, Melly would be fine now. It was a matter of time, of minutes and seconds. Of oxygen deprivation to the brain. Of points on the Glasgow Coma Scale. Why had she spent those minutes on Amanda, and not on her own daughter? Why had she chosen to save Amanda over Melly?
She held tight to Melly’s stretcher. Any mother would have saved her own child. So what if Amanda was standing closer? What difference did that make? What was she thinking?
Rose wiped her eyes. She’d thought she hadn’t chosen, but she had, and she’d chosen wrong. She loved Melly more than life. If Melly didn’t come through this, she would never forgive herself. She could never justify it to herself or Leo. He was Melly’s stepfather, but he loved her like his own. He’d been her only father since she was four, when her father died. A wave of guilt washed over Rose, and she felt as if she were drowning in it, going under.
The ambulance raced down Allen Road. The hospital was only twenty minutes away. She tried not to count the seconds. The male paramedic finished treating the cut on her cheek. Her chest felt tight. She wasn’t even sure she was breathing. She could only pray.
“Here we are, good luck!” The male paramedic hurried to the door, the ambulance lurched to a stop, and everything else happened in a blur. The back doors of the ambulance opened into the blinding sun, and the paramedics hurried Melly’s stretcher out of the back, with Rose right behind, with portable oxygen. The legs on the stretcher snapped down, and they were all running to the entrance of the emergency department, where the doors slid open and a crowd of medical personnel fluttered to them like angels, bearing Melly away.
Rose didn’t let go of her until the very last minute.
Chapter Six
Rose slumped in a cushioned seat, alone in the empty waiting room. Smoke clung to her damp clothes and hair. Her throat felt dry, and her eyes smarted despite the drops they’d given her. Melly had been in one of the ER examination rooms for half an hour, and still no word. The doctors hadn’t wanted to discuss Melly’s condition until they’d examined her thoroughly, and Rose had been sent to the waiting room after the nurses had cleaned her up and given her a tetanus shot. She’d left her purse and cell phone in the car, so she’d used the hospital phone to call the sitter, who’d said she could stay with John until tonight, if needed.
Rose sighed, telling herself to stay calm. Framed prints of generic pastures covered the pastel blue walls, and the sun streamed through the windows, whiting out the screen of the muted TV. She didn’t bother picking up the wrinkled copies of People, Time, or the other magazines on the coffee table. She watched idly as dust motes floated through a shaft of sunlight, rudderless. A pot of stale decaf sat in a Bunn coffeemaker on a side table.
Her gaze fell to her lap. Her right hand was freshly
bandaged, and the left had residual soot etched into the back of her hand, black and thick as ground peppercorns. She flashed on Melly, covered with the same grime, and imagined her beating on the bathroom door, calling out, like Amanda.
Mommy!
Rose got up and crossed to the bathroom, walking gingerly because of the bandage on her ankle. She closed the door behind her, using her good hand to flick on the light. A mirror hung over the sink, and in her reflection, she looked like a cleaned-up coal miner. Soot underlined her crow’s feet, the wrinkles under her eyes, and each nostril, like parentheses. A small cut on her left cheek glistened with Neosporin, and her forehead was as gray as a stormcloud. Her long, dark hair was a dirty mop, weighed down by dust, water, and filth.
She didn’t want to miss the doctor, so she opened the bathroom door in case he came back. She twisted on the faucets, popped the bulb of antibacterial soap, and washed her face as best she could. She dried off with paper towels, checked the mirror again. She looked nothing like the model she’d once been, if only in catalogs. Her blue eyes, wide-set, large, and bloodshot, tilted down at the corners, and her nose, slim and straight, had turned red at its bony tip, from crying. Her mouth, wide with thinnish lips, was drawn into a frown. She remembered what her ex-husband Bernardo always used to say.
You look like somebody’s mom.
She sighed at the memory, bittersweet. Bernardo Cadiz was a handsome photographer she’d met on a shoot, and he’d always wanted more for her career, a better agent, bigger bookings, an exclusive with Almay or Dove. Rose knew she wasn’t pretty enough for the big leagues, though her Black Irish features and wholesome suburban look made her perfect for the Land’s End and L.L. Bean catalogs, and she regularly dolled-up as Snow White to model adult Halloween costumes. She wasn’t vain about her looks, because they were God-given; she viewed them as a way to earn a living. She’d never wanted a big career; what she really wanted was to be somebody’s mom, and when they’d gotten married, Bernardo had promised he’d leave behind his partying ways and downtown friends. What had happened after Melly was born surprised no one but her.