“How old were you when you got a big-boy bed?”
“I dunno,” Phil shrugged. “Two? I don’t remember. I was really little.”
“Interesting,” Howie said. “You were really little. Because cribs are for babies, right?”
“Uh, yeah,” Phil said, having no idea what Howie was driving at with this exchange.
“Stop right now,” Nathan warned. “Don’t say anything else, Howard.”
“Whatsa matter, Nathan?” Howie smirked, looking over his shoulder. “You don’t want me to tell Phil here that you still sleep in a baby crib?”
“What?!” Phil burst out laughing. “No way! Nate, you don’t really still sleep in a baby crib, do you?”
A muscle in Nathan’s tiny jaw twitched. They had reached the school, and he steamed past them, saying nothing.
But the exchange wasn’t over.
At recess, Phil pointed at Nathan, whispering something to some of the other first graders. Word spread, and soon what felt like the entire schoolyard began haranguing Nathan.
Weirdo sleeps in a baby crib.
Hey, baby crib. Do you also suck your thumb?
Do you wet your bed? Ooooh, sorry, I mean do you wet your crib?
Or does it stay dry because of your diapers?
Baby. Baby. Baby!
Nathan didn’t respond as a normal six-year-old might have. He didn’t cry. Didn’t hit. Didn’t go looking for a teacher. Instead, he got on a swing, and pumped his little legs as fierce and hard and fast as he could. He put himself above the fray, swinging higher, and higher, above the other children, above their barbs.
From the other corner of the playground, Howie watched as Nathan swung back and forth, frantic, too high—and then, as if in slow motion, Howie watched Nathan slide forward off the seat of the swing, let go of the chains, and plummet from the highest arc of his swing toward the crowd of swarming children and the hard-packed dirt below.
“NO!” Howie yelled, racing toward his brother.
Too slow. Too late. No way to reach him in time.
The children parted like the Red Sea, only a few caught by the small boy’s flailing limbs as he dropped like a cannonball toward them. Nathan landed with a hard thud and a loud crack. He screamed, once, and then went silent.
The scattered children stared for a moment, and then gasps and cries and nervous laughter and hiccuping sobs of terror rose up in popping bursts of sound. Several of them took off running to find a teacher. Others just stared. Howie shoved the staring bystanders aside, making his way to his baby brother’s side.
“Nathan,” Howie panted. “Nathan, are you okay?”
“No. I’m not.”
“What’s wrong? Tell me where it hurts. They’re getting a teacher—”
“Shut up,” Nathan said.
“Nathan—”
“Shut. Up.” Nathan repeated. “You betrayed me.”
“I was just trying to get you to understand—”
“I know what you were trying to do.”
Mrs. Matthews came running outside, her oversized round Coke-bottle glasses emphasizing the wide-eyed look of shocked concern on her face.
“Oh, my goodness! Nathan Fell, you stay right there and just stay still. The vice-principal is getting the school nurse, and we’ll see if you need to go to the hospital or maybe just come in and see the nurse for a Band-Aid, or—”
Then she let out a shrill little shriek. Howie followed her gaze, and blanched at the unnatural angle of the pale, grisly bone protruding from Nathan’s small leg.
“You’re going to need to go to the hospital, Nathan,” managed Mrs. Matthews, whose face was suddenly as pale as the exposed bone staring up at her. “You’re going to need to go to the hospital.”
“I’m sorry, Nathan,” whispered Howie desperately. “I’m sorry.”
Nathan turned his head, looking away from his brother. His voice was soft but clear, and laced with anger: “I’ll have to get a real bed now. I won’t be able to get into my crib. I can’t scrunch up my knees. You won, Howard.”
“Nathan…”
Nathan ignored Howie, gritting his teeth against the pain but reciting lines as if from a script: “I also guess I won’t be able to go to school, so we won’t walk together anymore.”
Tears welled in Howie’s eyes and spilled hotly down his cheek. He hadn’t meant for it to escalate like this; hadn’t meant to hurt his brother so badly, emotionally and physically. He felt terrible. He hated himself; abhorred himself.
“Nathan, I’m sorry. Please, look at me. I’m sorry, all right? I’m really, really sorry.”
Nathan turned his steely eyes toward Howie. Though his face was red from the pain, his eyes were dry and cold. He did not smile, nor did he glare. He simply looked at Howie levelly, as if confirming that this moment was something he would never be able to forget, and would never attempt to forgive.
10
Chapter 9: NIRUPA
Mrs. Agrawal?” The doctor asked, eyes on his clipboard.
“Doctor.”
“Yes?”
“No, not you,” Nirupa said, testy. “Me. It’s Doctor Agrawal, not Mrs.”
“Oh,” said the doctor. He was in his fifties, maybe sixty, a forgettable white man, hairline retreating, eyes bored behind frameless glasses. Nirupa noted his mild surprise at her interjection, at the assertion of her nomenclature. “Oh. Well. What are you a doctor of, then, Dr. Agrawal?”
“Anthropology,” Nirupa said. “And—”
“Oh, a Ph.D.,” the doctor said, returning to both his clipboard and his judgment.
“Yes,” Nirupa said icily. “I found medical school dull.”
That was true. Throughout undergrad, Nirupa planned on being a physician. She took and aced the courses everyone else hated—biology, physical chemistry, organic chemistry. Pre-med was a breeze and medical school, a foregone conclusion. But after the first two years of medical school, Nirupa realized she was not built for the medical life. The knowledge part was fine. But being in hospitals, dealing with insurance paperwork, talking slowly and patiently and kindly to people in pain and/or simply incapable of comprehending what she was telling them—everything she saw the doctors around her doing, she knew she could not do. She also found her fellow students mostly blandly competitive, without the savvy to back it up.
So she shifted gears, and decided to study people rather than try to fix them. A much better fit.
“Well,” said the doctor, nonplussed. “You’re pregnant.”
The words slammed into her like a semi-truck. Dazed, she twitched her head, shaking off the news.
Somehow, it was a total shock—despite her swollen breasts, despite her morning sickness, despite the “sign” that when she called