Should she call 911?—it looks as if Katya is struggling to breathe.

  No: Better to drive Katya to the ER herself. She and Ismelda. She dreads strangers bursting into the house, rushing upstairs, carrying the terrified child away on a stretcher.

  A traumatic experience Katya might remember all her life.

  You weren’t home, I had to make a quick decision, not the ambulance, Ismelda and I drove her to the ER.

  That is, I drove her. Ismelda came with me.

  Hannah has made a decision: tries to lift Katya, a hot, tense little body, heavier than Hannah expects stooping over her. Telling herself Katya is not a baby, she is not in danger of dying before her mother’s appalled eyes.

  But Katya whimpers with pain, her skin hurts. Hannah doesn’t know whether to remove her sweat-soaked pink pajamas imprinted with tiny white kittens, to risk hurting her further, or to wrap her in a blanket and carry her downstairs …

  No time to change the pajamas. Can’t bear hearing Katya whimper with pain.

  No time for Hannah to change out of her own slept-in clothes, still less time for Hannah to shower or wash herself. Her hair is matted, her makeup of the previous day has worn off, mascara smudges around her eyes, cheap pathos in the stark morning light.

  Hannah does take precious time to use the bathroom. It’s almost an emergency: Her bladder has been aching. In desperation she leans to the mirror, smears maroon lipstick on her mouth—otherwise can’t face the world outside her house.

  What a slut you are! But you are paying for it.

  “God, forgive me. Don’t punish Katya.”

  God in whom Hannah hasn’t believed for thirty years. What a joke!

  In haste, scarcely needing to communicate, Hannah and Ismelda manage to get the children into Hannah’s car, to drive to the ER. For of course Conor must come with them, can’t be left behind alone in the house.

  Ismelda buckles the fretting uncooperative little boy in the child seat in the back of the Buick Riviera but will hold Katya on her lap, in the passenger seat, as Hannah drives to the Beaumont Hospital in Birmingham several miles away.

  Behind the steering wheel Hannah is terrified. Her tongue has gone numb, the interior of her mouth has lost all sensation. At the same time Hannah thinks, with a thrill of elation—I will do it. I am doing it!

  Daddy isn’t here. Isn’t home. Away overnight, Hannah thinks in Chicago. Of course. And so Mommy is driving the children to the ER.

  Wes will be returning home soon—Hannah thinks. Not sure when, probably in the late morning. He would have taken an early flight.

  In her haste to leave the house Hannah has forgotten to leave a note for Wes, to explain where they are. She will call him, she thinks. When she can.

  It’s Ismelda she depends upon, not Wes. Very hard to be a mother in Far Hills without an Ismelda in the household.

  Such intimacy between the women, like sisters in their concern for the children. Much of their joint effort is without speech. Household routines, the children’s schedules, baths, meals, the ritual of dressing, socks and shoes. Chattering children, linking the women to each other though (of course) they scarcely know each other.

  As in a fairy tale one of the sisters is rich, the other is a beggar maid dependent upon the generosity of the rich sister. Looking for a housekeeper Hannah had interviewed several Filipina women who’d resembled one another so closely they might have been sisters; she’d decided to hire Ismelda, the one who’d smiled the most and was the least assertive, with fewer questions for her (white) employer, who’d been too shy (Hannah had thought) to actually look Hannah in the face. Often, Hannah has wanted Ismelda to “like” her—spontaneously, voluntarily; at other times, she wants Ismelda to be grateful to her, impressed by Hannah’s generosity. (Christmas bonuses, impulsive gifts of items no longer wanted by Hannah, including cast-off clothing, Ismelda is free to mail home to relatives.) Over all, Hannah has begun to fear that Ismelda knows her too intimately, in unflattering ways. And Ismelda is “foreign”—it’s a mild shock to hear her speaking on the phone in a language unintelligible to Hannah, reminded of this obvious fact as if it were an obscure insult.

  Hannah had asked if Ismelda was speaking—Filipinese? But Ismelda hadn’t seemed to understand the question; she’d smiled uncertainly, no idea how to reply.

  You resent them, Hannah thinks. Because they know so much of you, of which you have no idea.

  Failings as a mother, particularly.

  Of course Ismelda noted: How Hannah took the children to school when they were running fevers. To meet her lover at the downtown hotel.

  The man, Ismelda could smell on Hannah. That oystery smell, unmistakable.

  And the drunken aftermath, Hannah sprawled on her bed comatose. All of this, Ismelda has noted.

  But Ismelda seems to forgive Hannah, as one might forgive a reckless fool. For all that matters is the children: protecting the children.

  That is Ismelda’s task, essentially. And in emergencies, Ismelda is unerring. She is quick, determined, capable. For a woman with the delicate bones of a bird, she is impressively strong: She can lift Conor more readily than Hannah though she is inches shorter than Hannah and weighs twenty pounds less.

  Now that she has become a mother herself, Hannah can understand why her own mother felt overwhelmed with her life, resentful, stymied: Three children, only a few years apart. Two girls, a boy. Health issues. Never free.

  Basically, you dread that your child will die on you. And you will be blamed.

  Meningitis. That terrible word.

  Virulent infection: viral or bacterial. One of the symptoms is muscular rigidity, a stiff neck. High temperature, brain damage. Does the brain swell? Does the brain boil?

  Have there been recent cases of meningitis in Oakland County? In Detroit? Wouldn’t Hannah have heard, if there were?

  It is totally unnatural, that a child should die. In Far Hills, in the affluent suburbs north of the city. So different from the mortality rate in inner-city Detroit.

  Rarely do white mothers die in childbirth. Much more frequently, Black mothers.

  Can’t happen to us. No.

  Yet, a cousin of Hannah’s had died of meningitis when they were children. Lizzie had been nine, Hannah six or seven.

  Not that Hannah had been told at the time, none of the children had known what happened to Lizzie, where Lizzie had gone—“Away.” Eventually, Hannah doesn’t even know when, they’d learned that Lizzie had died.

  A terrible and mysterious death: meningitis.

  And it is she, Hannah, who has brought this contagion into their lives. She, the child’s mother!

  “Ma’am—I’ll take her.”

  Gently Katya is lifted from Hannah’s arms by a male attendant. Carried away into the interior of the ER.

  Hannah follows behind stumbling, dazed. An olive-skinned young woman, a very young doctor, possibly an intern, walks with her asking her about Katya’s symptoms, medical history. She is taking notes, she is superbly professional.

  Hannah tries to enunciate words clearly. Her tongue is so strangely numb, she is having difficulty speaking.

  Determined not to ask about meningitis, she will not utter the dread word.

  In a haze of anxiety she’d filled out forms at the receptionist’s desk. Looking frantically through her wallet for her medical insurance card, so distracted she’d misspelled her daughter’s name—Kayta.

  She perceives that “Katya” is a pretentious name, there’s a faux-ethnicity to it, incongruous with “Jarrett.”

  Everything about you: faux.

  Except the bruises on your neck.

  Instinctively Hannah touches her neck, which feels slightly sore. But there are no visible bruises—are there? She’d seen none that morning.

  By now the previous day is nearly forgotten. Might’ve happened months ago, years.

  Now, nothing matters except the child—both children. Hannah’s brain is close to shutting down.

  “Mrs. Jarrett?”—a nurse escorts Hannah into the ER where Katya is being examined. Rows of cubicles, white curtains drawn around them for privacy, still you can hear a child cry. You can hear a child scream.

  Hearing herself ask the nurse the very question she has vowed not to ask: Could it be—meningitis?

  Waiting

  Anteroom of Hell.

  Hannah has failed to leave a message for Wes. Hannah has forgotten Wes almost entirely. In her panicked state having trouble breathing. As Katya is having trouble breathing.

  Bargaining with God. Take her life, let Katya live.

  “Mrs. Jarrett? Would you like me to call—?”

  Ismelda asks her not once but twice, three times. Hannah says no, of course not, she will call. But, she forgets.

  “Mr. Jarrett will wonder where we are …”

  Hesitantly Ismelda reminds Hannah. Rouses her from her state of torpor. At last locating a telephone for Hannah, a pay phone, to call home.

  How much easier if she’d left a message on the kitchen table. On the side door. Explaining. But of course, she hadn’t thought, too much was happening.

  It is 11:20 A.M. No answer, the phone rings in the empty house.

  Evidently Wes hasn’t returned from wherever he’d been on a business trip—Chicago?—he seems often to be in Chicago.

  A relief, Wes isn’t back. Hannah knows that he will blame her.

  Trying to remember if Wes had called her the previous night. Yes? No? He must have, he always does. Her head feels hollowed out.

  When Wes is away he will sometimes leave a voicemail: for Mommy, Conor, Katya. He will call, Ismelda will answer, he will tell her to hang up and let him call to leave a message.

  So often this happens, Hannah has the impression that Wes prefers to leave a lighthearted little Daddy-message than to actually speak in person with his family. For Daddy is invariably in a hurry, on his way to—dinner with a client? a business associate?

  Lighthearted as a TV Daddy but a bit harried. Missing you! Love you!

  Hannah has heard. Some stories. Well, rumors.

  High-priced “escorts.” Provided by companies, for visiting out-of-town clients. VIP clients.

  High-priced “escorts” in high-priced “luxury” suites in high-priced hotels but only for VIP clients.

  She’d seen them, she is sure. Impossibly beautiful flawless young women at the Renaissance Grand, in the lobby bar. Approaching the elevators in stiletto heels as Hannah had approached on her way to her lover.

  Avoiding each other’s eyes. Avoiding each other.

  The previous night, at about nine, when Hannah was lying in bed drowsy with migraine tablets, a glass (or two) of wine, to forestall a fierce headache, a call had come from Wes. Quickly she’d picked up the ringing phone warning herself beforehand—Don’t be disappointed, it will not be him.

  And so it was not him, it was her husband.

  The children bathed, put to bed. Daddy had missed speaking with them, unfortunately.

  A meeting had run late, or a dinner. Or, no—dinner came next.

  A late dinner, at an exclusive restaurant. Or maybe Wes was already there, at the exclusive restaurant, a faint din of happy voices in the background.

  Hannah listens sympathetically. These are not unfamiliar conversations.

  “Well, we’re all disappointed but we’ll all be here when you return, Wes—as always.”

  Trying for the bright tone, sometimes you miss and it’s brittle, ironic.

  Not good: irony. Husbands do not appreciate irony.

  Never reproach a man. Never criticize, or seem to be criticizing. It will only rebound to you, the man will come to detest you.

  Never criticize a man, never say no to a man if he initiates lovemaking.

  Never appear to be avoiding a man, he will take revenge.

  When Hannah calls home again, half an hour later, Wes picks up the phone agitated, annoyed—“Hannah? Is that you? Where the hell is everyone …”

  Hastily Hannah explains. Katya, fever, difficulty with breathing. ER, Beaumont Hospital.

  “We left in a rush. We didn’t think to leave a message for you. She’s in the ER now, they’re running tests …”

  Hannah tells Wes that Conor is with Ismelda in the hospital cafeteria having breakfast.

  No, Conor isn’t ill—but he has a bad cold, he’s running a mild fever, a nurse examined him.

  Stunned silence as Wes absorbs this information.

  “Just come here, Wes! We need you.”

  Hannah feels a deep throb of gratification, a grim sort of satisfaction, that Wes will be made to realize that their daughter may have become gravely ill in his absence while she, Hannah, the mother, the responsible parent, has been home.

  Wes drives to the hospital at once. In the ER reception area they embrace.

  A scene in a film, Hannah thinks: frightened parents, in each face a glimmer of guilt, and the secrecy of guilt.

  They are waiting, Hannah says, for the diagnosis. But it’s definite, Katya will not be going home today. She will be hospitalized for more tests. Her high temperature and rapid pulse must be treated immediately.

  Hannah does not utter the fatal word—meningitis.

  Wes surprises Hannah by not firing questions at her. Instead, he stammers an apology, for being away when this happened. For not having called Hannah that morning as he’d promised. (Had he promised? Hannah had forgotten entirely.)

  Quickly Hannah assures him—No, no! This is no one’s fault. Katya picked up some sort of infection at school that got really bad during the night.

  How easily Hannah lies. Breathless little-girl-earnest lies. How much more fluent she is, lying, than she would be confessing the truth.

  I was with another man. I neglected Katya, to be with him.

  I did a desperate thing, there is no one to blame but me.

  Waiting with Wes, in the ER reception. Anxious parents, gripping hands.

  Feeling young again, the married couple. Helpless.

  Wes glances about, looking for Conor. Or aware that there is someone else, another child, for whom he is responsible … Hannah explains that Conor is with Ismelda in the hospital cafeteria.

  “He’s all right?”—Wes asks anxiously.

  Hannah assures Wes, yes. She cannot consider that Conor, too, might become ill.

  In the early afternoon the younger doctor emerges from the ER to speak with them. Through a roaring like a cataract in her ears Hannah hears that Katya has something called sinusitis—“A viral infection in her sinus.”

  At first Hannah hears a viral infection in her brain.

  It’s a “severe” case, she and Wes are told. But the condition is treatable with antibiotics. As soon as a bed is free Katya will be moved to the adjacent Children’s Hospital. She will be in the hospital for at least three days.

  Katya’s prognosis is “promising,” the parents are told. Hannah listens humbly, the doctor’s words seemed chosen to flatter, soothe. “You did the right thing to bring her in when you did. She is likely to make a full recovery.”

  You seems to be Wes, to whom the doctor is speaking, not Hannah. But Hannah isn’t offended, Hannah is weak with relief. She’d expected so very different a diagnosis.

  Wes, too, is enormously relieved. He has many questions for the doctor, he has assumed a father’s authority, concern edged with doubt, a suspicion that he isn’t being given the complete story. When can he see Katya?—he wants to see her as soon as possible.

  Hannah feels herself begin to shrink, deflate. So tired! Wes will take charge, Wes is the child’s father, the medical staff will defer to Wes Jarrett.

  All that matters is: not meningitis—sinusitis.

  Hannah will cling to this revelation as to a reprieve.

  Ismelda returns with Conor, who runs to his daddy with a cry to be hugged. Hannah is surprised to see the boy’s face light up with surprise and pleasure, she’d been thinking that Conor has come to resent Wes, away so often.

  Conor is told that Katya is going to be all right, she will have to stay in the hospital for a few days but she will be all right; needy for attention the boy seems scarcely to hear the good news as Daddy squats to embrace him.

  “How’s my little guy! How’s he doing!”

  Excitedly Conor tells Daddy about something he’d seen on TV in the cafeteria—a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier. Conor has no questions about his sister, no curiosity. Hannah can see, the boy looks to Wes for protection, authority. Not to Mommy.

  If Daddy is present Conor has no need even to look to Mommy. He has Mommy all the time, it is Daddy who is special.

  Hannah, watching her husband with their son, concedes that yes, Wes is the more dynamic of the two of them. Wes is authority, certainty. One of those Matisse figures outlined in black, that never exist in life. Hannah lacks definition, a watercolor that has begun to fade.

  When Daddy is away the children are possessive of Mommy. They are eager to be with her, disappointed when she leaves the house, relieved when she returns, chattering and excited. Hannah has basked in such childish attention, delighted to be so cherished, secure in the knowledge that, for the moment at least, they love their mother more than they love their father; but such moments don’t last.

  Absence, presence. It’s no surprise, it should not be wounding to Hannah, children tend to take their mothers for granted. Mommy is the one who is always there.

  I don’t feel that I exist to them. I am not real to them.

  With you, I feel that I am real …

  She will tell him. If indeed, which is doubtful, she will see him again.

  Not drunk but feeling drunk. Mouth twisting in a grimace of a smile.

  “‘Sinusitis’! Thank God it isn’t ‘meningitis.’”

  Why has Hannah said this, out of her mouth these unintended words, no wonder Wes looks appalled. “Why do you say such things, Hannah? Christ.”

  “I—I don’t say ‘such things.’ I was sick with worry … I mean, I’m so, so happy that it isn’t.”

  “But why exaggerate? Expect the worst? That’s just like you.”

  “It is?”—Hannah is hurt, apologetic.