Counting by 7s (14 page)

J
amison Children's Center is the county facility that provides emergency foster care.

Lenore Cole gives me a pamphlet.

I read it, but get the distinct feeling that the place is probably for kids who have parents who hit them or don't feed them real food because they are too busy taking drugs or stealing something.

As we drive up to the building, I put my index and middle fingers on my carotid artery just behind my ear to take my pulse.

I know for a fact that my heart rate is in some kind of danger zone.

We go inside.

They are processing my paperwork.

When I enter, I see that the doors have locks on both sides. They click shut.

There are surveillance cameras in every room.

People are watching.

It is a big mistake for me to be here.

All of a sudden, I have trouble breathing. I can't get air in. And I can't get air out.

I take a seat on a lime-and-purple upholstered couch and struggle to get a grip on my lungs.

Someone's left a copy of the morning edition of the
Bakersfield News Gazette
on the elephant-shaped metal coffee table.

A photograph takes up most of the space above the fold.

The headline reads:

FIERY CAR CRASH CLAIMS TWO LIVES

Third Person in a Coma

Below the caption I see my dad's demolished pickup, in pieces and burned black, conjoined with a mangled medical truck.

And then everything in my field of vision disappears.

I hit my head on the elephant-shaped coffee table when I experienced syncope, or a transient loss of consciousness, more commonly known as passing out.

Yes, I fainted.

And when I did, the sharp edge of the pachyderm's trunk sliced right into my glabella.

Blood suddenly is everywhere because blows to the head bleed profusely.

I'm in and out of consciousness, and the confusion feels good.

Suddenly there are all kinds of announcements being shouted on the P.A. system.

And then I can hear someone say I need stitches since it's a deep cut and it is right between my eyebrows and it will likely scar.

I murmur:

“My glabella . . .”

But the staff doesn't know that the glabella is the name of the space between your eyebrows.

I hear someone whisper:

“She's asking for Bella!”

I shut my eyes again.

So many things in life are distressing.

The brow of the head is formed specifically to guard against these kinds of injuries.

It is bone, and like the bumper of a car, it's designed to take a blow.

So this is a freak accident to faint and then collapse in such a way as to get sliced between the eyes by the surprisingly dangerous trunk of the elephant coffee table.

But I did.

And now there is blood.

My blood.

Hemoglobin is iron-containing protein that makes up 97 percent of every red blood cell's content, when dry.

But when mixed with water, which is how it courses through the human body, it is only about thirty-five percent.

Hemoglobin is what binds the oxygen.

Now that Jimmy and Roberta Chance are gone, what binds me to this world?

They take me to Mercy Hospital because I am a twelve-year-old girl and they don't want me to have facial disfigurement.

At least that's what I hear someone whisper in the hallway.

The nurse at Jamison puts a bandage over the laceration and asks me to hold an icy compress on my wound, which I do.

And then Lenore Cole and I get back in her car and drive together to Mercy Hospital.

Twice she asks if I'm still bleeding, and I'm wondering if she's worried about her upholstery.

It would look pretty messed up to be a social worker and have dried kid blood as a permanent stain in your vehicle.

They didn't request an ambulance because it wasn't that kind of injury, but I wouldn't have minded riding in one.

At Mercy, I sit in the waiting room of the E.R. and it doesn't take much to realize that this place doesn't have double locks on the doors or surveillance cameras everywhere like at Jamison.

I get nine stitches.

The old me would have asked for 7, because that was my number.

But the doctor puts in nine.

I don't say anything when he tells me.

It now looks like I have a caterpillar between my eyes.

Yet this is not the most important thing that happens after I collapse onto the now-established-as-dangerous elephant coffee table.

Because after I have a drink of water and, for the fourth time, view my medical chart, I ask to use the bathroom.

I tell Lenore Cole that I'll be right back.

And the woman believes me.

I don't go down the hall to the restroom.

Instead, I take an elevator up to the third floor, and then walk to the other wing of the hospital and use the back stairs to get to the cafeteria.

Once I'm there, I ask a grief-stricken woman (I know the look) wearing a fuzzy green bathrobe and ski boots if I can use her cell phone.

She doesn't say yes, but she doesn't say no.

And after an awkward amount of time where I just stare at her, she hands me her mobile device.

I dial the number for Mexicano Taxi and make a special request for Jairo Hernandez.

I know his taxi license number and give that to the dispatcher. I say I want to be picked up in front of Century 21 Premier Realty on the corner of Truxton and A Street.

That is one block from the hospital.

When I hand the phone back to the woman in the bathrobe, I notice that she has a hospital band on her wrist.

So she's a patient.

Before everything in my life changed, I would have sat down to discuss her condition.

But now I just say in a voice that sounds automated:

“Get some rest. It is critical to recovery.”

And I'm gone.

J
airo was spooked.

This girl was some kind of mystic.

As she'd suggested, he'd been to see a doctor. And the mole on his neck had been removed
that morning.
He was now waiting for the report. The biopsy.

But the doctor had made it clear that the ugly black hunk of skin was something bad.

He hadn't told anyone at work, and he had a scarf around his neck to cover the bandage.

He looked down at his right hand and realized it was shaking.

Jairo shut his eyes and mouthed a prayer. He never did that. But this was serious.

Even a non-believer would believe.

Now, as he pulled up to the curb, he could see that she'd been in some kind of accident, because she had a line of stitches between her eyes, which were both puffy and red.

It looked like she'd been doing a lot of big-time crying.

He wanted to know what happened.

Had someone hurt her?

He felt a wave of anger roll over him. If someone did this girl wrong, they would have
him
to deal with.

The undersized twelve-year-old got into his taxi, and in a whisper of a voice said that she did not have the money to pay for the fare.

She asked if she could get it to him later in the week, or by mail—whatever worked better for his schedule.

Jairo said yes, of course, he would take her anywhere.

No charge.

She wanted to go to Beale Memorial Library.

That was only a few miles away, but it was hot out and she said that she wasn't up to walking anywhere.

Jairo asked if she was okay, and she only nodded and then shut her eyes.

He put on his turn indicator and pulled back out into the lane. He realized that he'd lived in Bakersfield for eleven years and he'd never been inside the library.

That was wrong.

It was for the public and it was filled with knowledge.

Jairo understood as he drove that he needed to stop listening to crazy guys yell at each other on sports radio and start thinking about something that had consequences that were real and important.

She was guiding him.

He knew that now.

Yes.

She was his angel.

As they neared her destination, Jairo glanced into the rearview mirror. The ghost/prophet/inspector/angel was gnawing some kind of plastic strip off her wrist.

A hospital band?

That's what it looked like.

Why was he just now seeing that?

He was going to have to learn to be a better observer of all things.

But most especially of his own life.

When she got out of his taxi, she told him that he would hear from her.

He didn't doubt that.

And then as he watched, she headed into the library.

In the backseat there was a small trash bag. Jairo reached inside and pulled out the plastic hospital scrap.

On the band was written:

Willow Chance I.D. number 080758-7

He would play those numbers at Lotto for the rest of his life.