tried to use the escalator even though it was going down. They simply sprinted aimlessly in all directions, like ants whose hill has been torn open by a farmer’s harrow. One woman in stilettos almost stepped on his daughter, a thing that would almost surely have killed her.
Abra was naked. Written on her chest was the number 175.
7
The Stones woke together, both initially convinced that the cries they heard were a remnant of the dreams they had been having. But no, the cries were in the room with them. Abby lay in her crib beneath her Shrek mobile, eyes wide, cheeks red, tiny fists pumping, howling her head off.
A change of diapers did not quiet her, nor did the breast, nor did what felt like miles of laps up and down the hall and at least a thousand verses of “The Wheels on the Bus.” At last, very frightened now—Abby was her first, and Lucy was at her wits’ end—she called Concetta in Boston. Although it was two in the morning, Momo answered on the second ring. She was eighty-five, and her sleep was as thin as her skin. She listened more closely to her wailing great-granddaughter than to Lucy’s confused recital of all the ordinary remedies they had tried, then asked the pertinent questions. “Is she running a fever? Pulling at one of her ears? Jerking her legs like she has to make merda?”
“No,” Lucy said, “none of that. She’s a little warm from crying, but I don’t think it’s a fever. Momo, what should I do?”
Chetta, now sitting at her desk, didn’t hesitate. “Give her another fifteen minutes. If she doesn’t quiet and begin feeding, take her to the hospital.”
“What? Brigham and Women’s?” Confused and upset, it was all Lucy could think of. It was where she had given birth. “That’s a hundred and fifty miles!”
“No, no. Bridgton. Across the border in Maine. That’s a little closer than CNH.”
“Are you sure?”
“Am I looking at my computer right now?”
Abra did not quiet. The crying was monotonous, maddening, terrifying. When they arrived at Bridgton Hospital, it was quarter of four, and Abra was still at full volume. Rides in the Acura were usually better than a sleeping pill, but not this morning. David thought about brain aneurysms and told himself he was out of his mind. Babies didn’t have strokes . . . did they?
“Davey?” Lucy asked in a small voice as they pulled up to the sign reading EMERGENCY DROP-OFF ONLY. “Babies don’t have strokes or heart attacks . . . do they?”
“No, I’m sure they don’t.”
But a new idea occurred to him then. Suppose the kiddo had somehow swallowed a safety pin, and it had popped open in her stomach? That’s stupid, we use Huggies, she’s never even been near a safety pin.
Something else, then. A bobby pin from Lucy’s hair. An errant tack that had fallen into the crib. Maybe even, God help them, a broken-off piece of plastic from Shrek, Donkey, or Princess Fiona.
“Davey? What are you thinking?”
“Nothing.”
The mobile was fine. He was sure of it.
Almost sure.
Abra continued to scream.
8
David hoped the doc on duty would give his daughter a sedative, but it was against protocol for infants who could not be diagnosed, and Abra Rafaella Stone seemed to have nothing wrong with her. She wasn’t running a fever, she wasn’t showing a rash, and ultrasound had ruled out pyloric stenosis. An X-ray showed no foreign objects in her throat or stomach, or a bowel obstruction. Basically, she just wouldn’t shut up. The Stones were the only patients in the ER at that hour on a Tuesday morning, and each of the three nurses on duty had a try at quieting her. Nothing worked.
“Shouldn’t you give her something to eat?” Lucy asked the doctor when he came back to check. The phrase Ringer’s lactate occurred to her, something she’d heard on one of the doctor shows she’d watched ever since her teenage crush on George Clooney. But for all she knew, Ringer’s lactate was foot lotion, or an anticoagulant, or something for stomach ulcers. “She won’t take the breast or the bottle.”
“When she gets hungry enough, she’ll eat,” the doctor said, but neither Lucy nor David was much comforted. For one thing, the doctor looked younger than they were. For another (this was far worse), he didn’t sound completely sure. “Have you called your pediatrician?” He checked the paperwork. “Dr. Dalton?”
“Left a message with his service,” David said. “We probably won’t hear from him until mid-morning,