“Sue Ciorletti,” the woman said, barely getting the words out before her mouth snapped back to its previous tightness, like a rubber band returning to shape. She seemed too cranky to wear a pink sweatsuit that read COOL GRANDMA.
Elvira continued, “Sue and me were talkin’ to Rita when the school called, and Sue gave her a ride here ’cause we didn’t want her drivin’ so upset. Amrita’s in there with the doctors now.” Elvira gestured at the closed door behind them, with a gnarled hand. “She’s been in there for a long time. Fifteen minutes, maybe twenty, right, Sue?”
Mrs. Ciorletti didn’t answer, maintaining her silence, and Mary assumed it was another neighbor who hated her.
“You okay, Mrs. Ciorletti?”
Elvira answered, “Sue don’t like hospitals because you could get an infection. Even if you’re just vistin’. She heard a report on the TV news.”
“I see,” Mary said. “Mrs. Ciorletti, you don’t have to stay if you don’t want to. I have a car and I’ll take Elvira home.”
“I’ll stay,” Mrs. Ciorletti answered. The door opened as if on cue, and the women watched as two young male doctors came out, led by an attractive woman doctor with an authoritative air, Dr. Sharon Satterfield, according to the red script embroidered on her white jacket. Three young male interns followed her, with weary faces and professional smiles.
Amrita came out behind them, her eyebrows a crestfallen slope, her large eyes somber, and her mouth a line. She shook the woman doctor’s hand. “Thanks, Dr. Satterfield. I appreciate all you’re doing for Dhiren.”
“We’ll get back to you when we have the results.” The doctor left, trailing interns.
Amrita sighed, then collected herself. “Mary, how kind of you to come.”
Mary gave her a big hug. “Sorry it took so long. How is he?”
“He’s fine, and they think he’ll be fully recovered in a month.”
“A month?” Mary groaned, but Amrita shook her head.
“No, that’s good. When they first called me, I was terrified.” She didn’t elaborate, and her dark eyes betrayed little emotion. But Elvira misted up with enough emotion for both of them, in addition to much of the eastern seaboard.
“We all thought Dhiren was gonna die,” Elvira blurted out, and Mary slid an arm around her.
“It’s okay now.”
Mrs. Ciorletti’s lips stretched tight, under control. “Be strong, El. We’re here for Rita, remember?”
“Yeah, I know, I’m sorry.” Elvira bit her lip not to cry.
Mary asked, “Amrita, can I see him?”
“Sure, come in. He’s asleep, still under sedation.” Amrita went back inside the hospital room, then stood aside to let Mary enter. She tried not to gasp at the sight.
The little boy looked so small, and his skin was dark against the sheets and thin white blankets. His head was bandaged, his black hair rumpled, and his left cheek was purplish and swollen. His left arm was propped up and away from his body in a cast, and the large lump under the sheets suggested that there was a cast on the leg as well.
“Thank God, he’s alive.” Amrita went over to Dhiren’s bed and touched the playground-dirty fingers that curved out of the sleeve of his cast. She stroked his hand, though he didn’t move. He was completely asleep, his head to the side. His bed sat on the left side of the room, on the same side as a sink, a small white counter, and a cork bulletin board with a crayoned drawing left behind. The other bed was empty, and the divider curtain, covered with happy giraffes and laughing cartoon tigers, drawn halfway back. A TV was mounted high in the corner, its screen black, and a largish monitor protruded from metal brackets on the wall, above an array of high-tech gauges and greenish tubes that led to Dhiren.
“So he’s gonna be okay,” Mary said, confirming it for herself. “When will he wake up?”
“The doctor said it would take a couple of hours for him to come around completely.” Amrita checked an institutional clock on the wall. “Barton should be here any minute.”
“Amrita, how did it happen, exactly?”
“At recess, they told me. You know how the morning went. I sent him anyway. The boys were restless in class. But I left, right before recess.” Amrita shook her head. “Right before it happened. I feel so terrible.”
“It’s not your fault.”
“No?” Amrita looked up sharply, her lips tight. “If I had been there, it wouldn’t have happened.”
“You can’t be there all the time. No parent can. And two can play that game. If I had gotten him some help sooner, I could have prevented this.”
“Not at all. You did what you could. The school did not. The school let him down.”
Mary didn’t agree. It was her job to make the school do right by Dhiren, and she hadn’t fought hard enough. She had only lucked out in getting him the appointment, and even that was too little, too late. But right now, it was about Dhiren. “You were telling me how it happened.”
“His teacher told me it started in the schoolyard. They were mocking him, and he ran away, so they gave chase. Usually he goes to the teacher, that’s what I tell him to do, but this time he ran into the street.” Amrita paused, but remained in control. “He wasn’t looking, and then the car came around the corner and hit him.”
Mary shuddered. “How awful.”
“The impact was on his left side.” Amrita gestured at her own body. “Luckily, his head wasn’t injured too badly, just some cuts and a concussion. That was their main concern, as it was mine. His leg and arm are broken, and a few ribs. But those bones can mend.”
“He must have been in so much pain.”
“Yes.” Amrita winced. “The car was driven by a mother of a boy in the school, one of the older children, a sixth-grader. She even came to the hospital, very upset. She blames herself, but Dhiren darted in front of her. She was going under the limit because she was dropping off her child, after a dentist’s appointment. If she hadn’t been, Dhiren’s injuries would’ve been far worse.”
Mary marveled at Amrita’s grace. Her own mother would have beaten the driver senseless with a wooden spoon.
“But I am so furious, Mary. I played by their rules. For weeks they told me I was crazy, that he was fine. Then they told me he is simply naughty, that boys will be boys.” Amrita frowned deeply. “Then I hired you, and we continued to play by the rules. All of this good behavior has gotten my son in the hospital.”
“I know,” Mary said, saddened.
“It’s a miracle he’s still alive. It’s sheer luck she wasn’t going faster or that it wasn’t a bus that hit him.” Amrita’s tone hardened to steel. “I cannot send him back to that school. He will not go back to that school.”
Suddenly the door opened, and a tall, scruffy blond man in a white shirt and maroon windbreaker burst into the room. He looked at the bed, and his brown eyes widened with alarm and anger.
“Barton, you’re here!” Amrita said, moving toward him, her arms outstretched, but her husband hugged her only briefly, his gaze fixed over her head, on Dhiren.
“My God!” he said. “What have they done to him?”
“He’s going to be fine, Barton.” Amrita released him and gave him a calm rundown of their son’s injuries, but Mary could see he was barely listening. He crossed to the bed.
“This is outrageous. He could have been killed.” Barton snapped his head up, his eyes flashing. “They permitted him to be bullied for years. They did nothing.”
“I know, Barton,” Amrita said, her voice soothing. She gestured at Mary and introduced her. “This is our lawyer. She’s been helping to get him tested. She even got him an appointment for tomorrow.”
“Fat lot of good it will do him now.”
“Barton, please. Mary is on our side.”
“Then she’ll understand my frustration with the bloody school district that doesn’t give a damn about a child who needs extra help.” Barton turned on Mary, his lips taut with emotion. “If you’re our lawyer, I want you to sue them. This is negligence. They permitted this to happen. They’re on notice, yet they permit it. He could be dead.”
“I know, I understand,” Mary said, but she could see she wasn’t reaching him. The anxiety he had about Dhiren’s condition was being channeled into anger.
