Rescue - By Anita Shreve Page 0,35

officer and a coroner to meet them at the hospital. With SIDS, there had to be an autopsy.

“Ma’am, what’s your name?” he asked.

“Susan.”

“Susan, where is your husband?”

“He’s at work.”

“Where is that?”

“He’s on a construction site near Rutland.”

Her answers were quick and lucid. Her hair was dirty, and her teeth were a bad shade of yellow. Webster could smell the foul breath from six feet away. Despite the sunny day, it was gloomy by the sofa.

The woman pulled the sides of her pink cardigan closer together with her fists. “Why aren’t you working on my baby?”

Webster squatted in front of the woman. “We are working on your baby. See that medic there?” Webster was sweating through his uniform shirt. “What’s the baby’s name?” he asked.

“Britney.”

Webster wouldn’t be the one to break the horrific news. That would happen in the hospital. It was working on a dead baby that screwed with your head.

“She’s dead, isn’t she?” the woman said.

“We’re still working on her. We’re doing everything we can.”

“I know she’s dead.”

Grief hit the woman full force. Her face crumpled, and her body sagged to the sofa. She brought her hands to her mouth, beginning a series of Nos— wails tapering off to whimpers. Webster sat beside her and put a hand on her sleeve. She, not the baby, was his patient now.

Webster stood and quietly asked Burrows if meds were indicated for the mother, but he shook his head. “When the cops are done, we’ll see how she is, maybe bring her in then.”

“It’s unbearable,” Webster said.

“This your first SIDS?”

Webster nodded.

“It’s the worst,” Burrows, never a softie, said. “A whole life gone, and for no good reason. No matter how many times you’ve seen it, it makes you crazy.”

“The mother’s known for hours, hasn’t she?”

“You blame her for not wanting to face reality?”

“No, not at all.”

“You’re shaking,” Burrows said, suddenly examining his partner.

“I’m fine.”

“Look, it didn’t happen to you,” Burrows said. “Rowan is fine. She will be fine. She’s long past when you have to worry about that.”

“I know,” Webster said.

“You go outside and wait for the cops. I’ll sit here with the mother.”

“You sure?”

“Go,” Burrows said. “That’s an order.”

Webster walked outside. He felt tears popping into his eyes and stared up at the sky so that they could leak back into his head. He’d never live it down if Nye showed up and he was bawling. He thanked God out loud, wherever he was. With Rowan, there had been no SIDS, no respiratory distress, no abnormalities, no twisted cord, nothing. He could hear the cop car bumping along the dirt road. He had no excuse for why he was outside. He turned and walked back into the house. Things would happen fast now.

Webster shed his equipment as he walked, calling out, surprised not to see Sheila with Rowan in the living room. He called again and heard an answer from the bedroom. There, in the dark of a late October afternoon, Sheila sat on the bed nursing their fourteen-month-old daughter. Sheila had on a pair of jeans and a white button-down shirt that allowed Rowan easy access to Sheila’s breast. Webster pounced on the bed, joining them. He laid a finger against Rowan’s cheek.

“Don’t get her going,” Sheila said. “I’m trying to put her down. She hasn’t slept all day.”

Webster registered the snappish tone. Sheila’s hair was stringy, and there were dark shadows below her eyes. If Rowan hadn’t slept all day, neither had Sheila.

“As soon as she’s done,” Webster said, “put her down and then you can sleep. Or if she won’t go down, I’ll take her.”

“You’ve been working two shifts.”

“I’m in better shape than you are.”

Sheila nodded.

Webster stood and undressed. He didn’t want any part of his job to touch the baby. Taking off the uniform was a way of putting aside one life and taking up another.

He slipped on a pair of jeans and a black sweater, then went into the bathroom to wash his face and hands. Back in the bedroom, standing in front of the mirror at the dresser so that he could finger-comb his hair into place, he caught a cameo of Sheila and Rowan on the bed. On impulse, he turned and swooped in to give Sheila and the baby a kiss. His foot kicked a glass, and Sheila turned her head away.

He picked up the glass from the floor. It still had a residue of amber liquid in it. He smelled it. The whiskey shook him.

“Where is it?” he asked.

Sheila didn’t answer. He