The Second Silence Read Free Page A

fever.’ Mary marched over to show Charlie that at least one of them had a handle on the situation, however tenuously. An hour ago the baby’s temperature had been only a little over a hundred. Yet when she felt Noelle’s cheek, it was immediately evident things had taken a drastic turn for the worse.
    Mary dashed into the bathroom for the thermometer. The bathroom had been tacked on in the early thirties, back when the bunkhouse was converted into living quarters. Consequently, the floor slanted at an angle where the supports on which it rested had sunk into the dirt below. As she fumbled with the drop latch on the old-fashioned medicine chest, Mary caught a glimpse of her reflection, canted at an angle in the speckled mirror: enormous eyes staring out of a stricken white face, like those on the evening news of people who’d survived some terrible devastation.
    Awkwardly Charlie positioned their howling daughter facedown across his lap while Mary undid the snaps on her terry sleeper and removed her plastic pants and diaper. They both held their breaths as the silver line in the thermometer began to creep up. After several minutes Mary held it to the light. The mercury had topped off at 104.
    ‘My God, she’s burning up! Charlie, we’ve got to do something. We’ve got to get her to a doctor.’ Mary dashed to the corner by the stove, where Noelle’s crib was tucked alongside the lumpy foldout sofa on which they slept. She grabbed the crocheted afghan given to them by their landlord’s kindhearted wife and frantically bundled the baby in it.
    Yet Charlie remained motionless by the door. Slashes of color stood out on his cheekbones. ‘The heater in the truck’s not working. She could—Christ, we could all freeze.’
    He didn’t have to remind her that the nearest doctor was in Schenectady, twenty minutes away. But what other choice did they have? ‘If we stay here, she could go into convulsions and die, ’ Mary shrieked in a high, nearly breathless voice.
    Charlie thought for a moment, raking a hand over his head, front to back, as he’d been in the habit of doing when his hair was long. Its spiky ends bristled like the sleek pelt of some lithe, long-bodied animal. His face was as ghostly white as the naked lightbulb that dangled overhead. Then, as if coming to some sort of decision, he abruptly wrenched open the door. ‘There’s only one thing to do,’ he said.
    Mary followed him outside, the baby clutched tightly in her arms and a corner of the afghan dragging on the snowy ground. Her panic receded a bit. She told herself, He’ll borrow a car … or find someone to take us. Of course, why didn’t I think of it?
    The light flurries that had been falling all day spun and drifted overhead. In the part of her mind that was still functioning, she dimly recalled the weatherman’s reporting several more inches by nightfall. The trouble was they were still digging out from under the storm of two days ago. Ice-crusted drifts were piled up against the fence, and slushy ruts in the driveway had frozen over. Across the way horses with shaggy winter pelts nosed at clumps of frozen snow cake-frosting the rails of their corral. The truck, a ’59 Ford pickup, once green but now the indeterminate shade of a moss-grown boulder, stood nosed up against the tractor plow in front of the barn.
    He helped her into the frigid cab, then trotted around to the other side. ‘We’re taking her to your mother,’ he announced, scooting in behind the wheel. His breath bloomed in the chill air as he started the engine.
    Mary felt something lurch inside her. She grabbed his arm. ‘We can’t,’ she said through clenched, chattering teeth.
    Charlie shook her hand away and twisted around to look out the back window. ‘Your mother’s a nurse, isn’t she?’ He ground the gear into reverse and the truck jerked backward.
    ‘Retired nurse. She hasn’t worked in years, not since Dad got sick.’ Which they both knew was neither here