Chapter Four #2
“Officer Longo,” Fazio says. Longo turns around, surprised to see us right there.
Fazio opens the back door of the cruiser and tells me to watch my head.
Then he walks around to the other side and gets in the back seat next to me.
As Longo pulls away from the curb, I watch three people, a woman and two men, jump out of a white van that has pulled up in front of the house.
I recognize her: one of the reporters from the local TV news.
Fazio watches them, too, shaking his head.
He advises me not to talk to any reporters, something I’m not about to do anyway.
“So why don’t you give me the particulars again on the way over in case you forgot something,” Fazio says. “That way you’ll have the sequence of events clear in your head when our detective interviews you.”
“But you’re interviewing me,” I say.
“Yeah, well, the thing is, you’ll probably have to go through everything two or three times. There has to be an investigation so they can rule things out.”
“What things?”
“Well, negligence, intentionality.”
“Intentionality? Like I might have injured him on purpose ? What kind of sick person would—”
“It happens, Mr. Ledbetter. You’d be surprised. But we’re not accusing you of anything. The opposite, actually. We just want to help you to get your story straight so that when our detective interviews you—”
Longo interrupts him. “They’ve assigned Sykes. She’s meeting us at the hospital.”
“Copy that,” Fazio says, as if his partner’s said it from a radio, not the front seat.
“So like I was saying, Corbin. Can I call you Corbin?” I shrug.
“You want to get your story straight so that when Detective Sykes talks to you, she can determine that the injury to your son happened accidentally. Especially if your boy doesn’t—”
“Don’t keep saying that! Because he will make it! He’s like a little bulldozer, that kid. Last week? He banged his head on the coffee table but got right up and kept going as if nothing happened. His sister’s a different story, but Niko—”
“How did he bump his head?” Fazio asks.
“What? He fell. Clunked his head on the way down.”
“What made him fall?”
“I don’t know. Kids that age fall all the time. Why am I getting the feeling that you’re reading into whatever I say?”
“I don’t know, Mr. Ledbetter. Why are you getting that feeling?”
“Look,” I tell him. “I don’t think you get what I’m going through right now.
I can’t focus on these things you want me to talk about when part of me is still trying to convince myself that any of this is really happening.
And all the other part can think about is what’s going on at the hospital and how I’m going to break all this to my wife.
And I’m trying not to lose it in front of you two, but…
but…” And then my anguish overtakes me and losing it in front of them is exactly what I do.
When I get ahold of my composure, Fazio says, “Okay, Corbin. We can talk more about this when we get to the hospital.”
“And what do you mean when you say I should get my story straight? I don’t need to practice anything because it’s not a story. It’s what happened.”
No reaction from the sergeant. Not so much as a fucking nod.
I lean forward. Address the driver’s right shoulder. “Officer? When you were talking on the radio before, what were those initials you said?”
He glances in the rearview mirror at me.
“ET something. You said you’d bet that he was an ET something.”
He keeps me waiting, then finally answers. “EtOH.”
“Yeah. What’s that stand for? Were you talking about my son’s condition?”
“No, I wasn’t. Hey, speaking of initials, I have a question for you, too. When I fed your information into the system, it said you got a DUI a while back. What was that about?”
Sergeant Fazio looks over at me, waiting for my response. I tell him it happened the day I lost my job. “Company downsized. I stopped off at that tavern on North Main Street to drown my sorrows.”
“Bid’s?” Fazio says. “Was that where you stopped?”
“Yeah. I ran into some guy I know and we took turns buying pitchers. I was feeling no pain when I left, but I was still able to drive. Thought I was anyway. Got about halfway home when they pulled me over.” I leave out the part about it being the twins’ first birthday party and forgetting to pick up their cake.
“Bid’s has great sandwiches, don’t they?” Fazio says. “The Astro, the Supreme. Good bread, too. I like a crusty grinder bread better than the soft kind. And how about Betty’s pickled eggs? Try not to pucker up when you’re eating one of those babies.” Up front, his partner is nodding.
It’s surreal. My kid is fighting for his life and he’s talking about sandwiches?
I still haven’t gotten an answer about what EtOH is, but I shut up after that.
Close my eyes and try to imagine I’m not riding in the back of this squad car.
That I dropped the kids off at Emily’s mother’s like we planned because I buckled both of them in and nothing bad has happened to Niko.
When I open my eyes again, we’re moving at a faster clip past the Wendy’s on Perkins Avenue, then the Little League field, then that laundromat Emily and I used to use before we could afford to buy our washer and dryer.
It dawns on me that this is the same route we took after I phoned Dr. Delgado to tell him her contractions were coming about five minutes apart and getting more intense.
“Time to rock ‘n’ roll then,” he said. “I’ll meet you there.
” Emily worked so hard in that delivery room.
… Have they gotten ahold of her or is she still in the dark?
Still on that bus heading to New Haven? She must be, or else she would have called me.
Oh God, this is going to wipe her out. If he ends up disabled, in a wheelchair or something, how is she ever going to forgive me?
How will I ever forgive myself ? I start shaking, just a little at first, then uncontrollably.
At the emergency room entrance, I get out of the cruiser and run on wobbly legs, passing through the sliding glass doors. Sergeant Fazio is a few steps behind me; Officer Longo has dropped us off and gone to park.
“Corby! Corby, wait !” Emily is running toward me.
“What’s going on? The vice principal flagged down the bus just as we were turning onto the highway, but all he’d say on the way here was that there’s a ‘family emergency.’ Is it my mother?
” When I shake my head, her eyes go wide with fear.
With a trembling hand, she reaches out and grabs my arm.
“Please tell me it’s not one of the kids. ”