Little Mercies. Heather Gudenkauf

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       Chapter 9

      My hands, now empty of my daughter, feel numb and are shaking violently. I paw at Jade, trying to retrieve my daughter’s wilted form. “No,” Jade says sharply, blocking my efforts. She has Avery lying on her back on the cracked concrete of the sidewalk and for a moment I imagine that it must be so uncomfortable for Avery, lying there, the ground hard and unyielding. Jade leans over, tilts Avery’s head back and lifts her chin. Oh my God, she’s not breathing, I realize as Jade presses her mouth over my daughter’s lips and pushes her own air into Avery’s lungs.

      I notice Anthony standing near his mother, tears running down his cheeks. I have little to offer him. No comfort, no reassuring words, but without thinking, I reach for his hand and he tumbles into me, burying his face in my knees. Jade presses two fingers on Avery’s breastbone and pushes down in quick, purposeful thrusts. I should be doing this. Giving my daughter CPR, saving her life. This is something I know how to do automatically, without even thinking. Clear airway. Two breaths. Thirty compressions. Two more breaths. Place your ear against the child’s mouth. Listen for breathing. Can you see the rise and fall of the chest? Can you feel the tickle of breath against your cheek? Check for a pulse. Still not breathing? Still no pulse? Repeat. I know how to do this. Every social worker knows how to do this. It’s part of our training. But I just stand here, swaying on wobbly legs until a pair of hands steadies me. I do nothing. Nothing. It occurs to me that I am watching my daughter die.

      Again and again, Jade breathes, presses, checks, breathes, presses, checks until finally, finally she looks up at me. “I’ve got a pulse,” she says with relief. In the distance I hear more sirens. An ambulance.

      Jade must have learned CPR in the parenting class she was required to take by the Department of Human Services, required by me to complete in order for her to regain custody of Anthony and I am so grateful. So indebted to this woman who was unable to care for her own child for a time. That his suffering has become my salvation. I fall to the ground, barely noticing my knees scraping against the jagged concrete. I reach out and lift Avery’s tiny hand into my own and whisper a prayer for my daughter, who, to me, remains terrifyingly still.

      Again I am nudged aside, this time more gently, by two paramedics. “Tell me what happened,” one says, her voice clipped and businesslike. I can’t answer her. I have absolutely no idea what has happened here. I close my eyes and run the events of the morning through my head over and over again. Did I put Avery in the car? I would remember, wouldn’t I? Such a crazy morning. Overslept, showered, got dressed, kissed the kids goodbye, ran back upstairs to get my bag. No, I definitely did not put Avery in the car. It must have been Adam. I rarely take the kids to the sitter in the summer; this is one of Adam’s tasks because he doesn’t teach during the summer months and typically spends his days at home with the kids. If he has baseball practice or another commitment he takes the kids over to the babysitter’s house. But still, how could I miss her sitting right behind me in her car seat? She is under a year old—we still have her in a rear-facing car seat, making it harder to see her and know she was behind me, I rationalize. Little consolation. I realize I’ve hesitated too long.

      The paramedic looks to Jade, who quickly explains. “The little girl was in the van. Old John, there—” she nods at the wizened man watching them “—broke the window and they pulled her out.” The entirety of what has happened seems to settle on Jade and her voice quivers with emotion. “She stopped breathing for a minute, but I did CPR.”

      “Heatstroke?” the female paramedic asks aloud, then turns to me. “Are you the girl’s mother?” I nod dumbly. “How long was she in the van, ma’am?” I try to shake the confusion and disbelief from my head. I check my watch, the one that Adam and the kids presented to me last Christmas. The watch band, custom-made with each child’s name spelled out in in tiny, delicate silver beads, hangs loosely on my wrist.

      “See,” Adam had said when he placed it around my wrist and lightly kissed the palm of my hand, “there’s room to add more names.”

      “Ma’am,” I hear again, this time more incessantly. “How long was she in the car?”

      “Forty, forty-five minutes, I think,” I say, the words sounding rough and jagged, as if they lost the fight to stay unsaid. Forty-five minutes where no one was watching over my daughter. Forty-five interminable minutes where she sat, ensnared within a rear-facing car seat, unseen and unable to free herself, while the temperature around her climbed.

      “Temperature is one hundred and five point six,” an EMT says, and they immediately begin to remove Avery’s clothes. First the pink dress that Leah had chosen for her this morning, then her tennis shoes and, finally, sliding off her white socks edged with lace trim, revealing her tiny pink toes. I reach out, cupping her bare foot in the palm of my hand. “Ma’am,” the paramedic says. “You will need to give us a little room here to work. We need to get her to the hospital as quickly as we can.”

      “Can I go with you?” I ask, fearful that they are going to tell me no, that I’ve neglected my child and have lost that right. I am a social worker, I know about these things.

      The other paramedic is placing ice packs beneath her neck, beneath each armpit, over her groin. Avery’s eyes flutter open briefly and I whimper in thanks. She is still breathing. СКАЧАТЬ