All the Things We Never Knew (9 page)

The mental health of the caregiver is also at risk during the time of acute care. Denholm advises taking care of yourself first, by eating well, exercising, and arranging assistance in order to get needed sleep. Denholm says if you become depressed, feel excessively guilty or angry, or fear becoming abusive, it is time to step away from your role, if only temporarily.

Chapter Five

May 21, 1998. Sophie's cry didn't sound right. It was too distressed, too high-pitched. She woke me from a superficial sleep. The clock said two o'clock; that meant I'd been dozing for roughly two hours after finishing my shift at the TV station. I grabbed my robe from the foot of the bed and ran to the nursery.

Sophie's skin was hot to my touch; she was running a high fever, burning up through her pajamas. Her skin was flushed, her face swollen and lips dry from dehydration.
Damn it
, I thought to myself. This had happened before with Sophie, and I knew what it meant: another trip to the emergency room.

I went back to the bedroom and dressed in the dark, quickly pulling on a pair of jeans and a zip-up hoodie. David stirred in the bed. “She's sick, D. I'm taking her in.”

He wiped his eyes, groaning. “Ugh, not again. Want me to come with you?”

“That's okay.” I gathered my purse and cell phone. “One of us should sleep.” I swaddled Sophie in a blanket, trying to remember how many ear infections she'd had this year. Three times her fever had spiked up above 102, the point at which her doctor said she needed to be seen. These days I could tell how serious it was just by feeling her skin.

Sophie was just short of her second birthday, and the ear specialist had warned us that her Eustachian tubes were still horizontal—the liquid in her ears didn't drain properly. If the infections persisted, he wanted to perform surgery to put in artificial tubes.

I tucked her in her car seat and drove through the night to the Legacy Emmanuel Emergency Room in North Portland. The pediatric waiting room was full of mothers just like me who looked worried, pensive, and haggard.

Three hours later, I drove home with Sophie's fever under control and a bag of pink bubblegum antibiotics by my side. The neighborhood stirred with the beginning of a new day. I made it home, exhausted, daunted. I let the car idle in the driveway, trying to gather the strength to carry Sophie inside.

The infections had started once we put Sophie in day care. David said he needed more uninterrupted time to see clients and architects, so for two hours a day, Sophie went to a neighborhood day care near our home. I wasn't worried at the time—I knew day care could be good for children. But now, with her susceptibility to infections, it felt dangerous every time we dropped her off. Maybe I should be the one to quit. I'd asked David about it once, telling him I'd be willing to take a break from my career to raise Sophie. He argued that I would miss my work, and we needed the money. Now, as I climbed the stairs to the house carrying Sophie in her car seat, my muscles ached.

David was getting out of the shower. He looked radiant, as if the sleep and the water had washed away anything troublesome in his life. His hair was wet, but tousled, as if he'd shaken it partly dry. A white towel was wrapped at his waist; his long legs looked strong and steady. Something inside me stirred for him, but the weight of the car seat, and Sophie's illness, stood between us. “Is she going to be okay?” he asked.

“She'll be fine.” I answered. “We're back to the bubblegum routine.”

He sighed and dropped his towel to find his clothes. His back was muscled from going to the gym at night after work; his skin
was smooth and tanned from swimming at the lake. Even though my ears were beginning to ring and my eyes felt dry and bloodshot, something shifted inside me—I wanted desperately to pull him to the bed with me right then, to make our lives better again, for the three of us.

“I'm late,” he said. “Let me put her to bed so you can rest.” He took Sophie from me, tenderly kissing her on the forehead. “My poor, sweet baby,” he whispered. I could hear the safety lock going up on her crib, the lights going off. I waited in bed, hoping he might return.

“See you this afternoon,” he yelled from downstairs. “I won't be late.”

The phone startled me. I'd drifted off, dreaming of waiting rooms filled with dozens of screaming sick babies. My assignment editor was on the other end. “We need you to pack a bag,” he said. “There's been a massacre at Thurston High in Springfield.”

I struggled to make sense of where I was, what was happening, why my assignment editor was calling me in the morning when I wasn't due at work for several more hours. The clock said 9:00 a.m. He rattled off more information, businesslike, uninterested in whether I was prepared to take notes.

“Nels,” I interrupted, “Sophie is really, really sick. I need to stay close to home.” I heard shouting in the background, the sound of television feeds, and computers rat-a-tap-tapping out the breaking news. On any other day, I would have loved the adrenalin rush. This morning, with my head banging and my body operating on so little sleep, I dreaded the idea that there was more chaos in the world to report on.

“I'm sorry to hear that, Sheila,” Nels said, “but we need our senior reporters there now. An hour ago. Really. Get here as soon as you can.”

I started to interrupt.

“And bring an overnight bag,” he said. “The networks want live shots for the eastern feed.”

Five minutes later, I was punching in David's number on the phone. “David,” I said on the voicemail, “I've got to go to Springfield. Call me immediately; it's an emergency.”

Sophie woke up, crying again, as I tried to track David down. I phoned him several times over as I hurriedly threw things in an overnight bag—my makeup, my hair curlers, the obscene amenities of television news that struck me as strangely out of place, given I was headed to a murder scene. When David phoned back, I breathlessly relayed the information to him.

“I've got to go to work now, David. I'm already late. Can you help?”

“Bring her to my job on Forty-second,” he said. “And don't worry. I've got it handled.”

“But she shouldn't be out of the house,” I argued. “You need to be home with her.”

David's voice stiffened. “Look—she's my responsibility now, right?”

I hung up, my heart beating wildly, my mind racing with horrible what-ifs. What if her fever worsened; what if she starts vomiting? Would he know what to do? I showered quickly, loaded a diaper bag with Tylenol and diapers and anything I could think of that might comfort her, and held her tight before loading her into her car seat.

David's job site was just a few blocks away. I checked my watch. Twenty-five minutes had already passed since my assignment editor called.

I pulled up outside a beautiful old Tudor that David was doubling in size for his clients. His pickup, along with his workers' trucks, were all parked in front of the home. I double-parked so I wouldn't have to walk several blocks with Sophie's things. She whimpered as soon as I took her from the calm of her car seat. The sound of saws and hammers, a radio blasting in the background as the men worked, and the dust of remodel greeted me at the door. I normally loved seeing David in his natural surroundings, but now, holding Sophie—who clutched her favorite stuffed animal, Bear—I felt miserable.

“Hi, Sheila,” one of David's longtime contractors said, nodding my way as he balanced himself on the two-by-fours that made up the addition.

I offered a fake smile back. “Is David here?”

David appeared from the back of the house, holding his cell phone to his ear. He motioned for me to hand Sophie to him. I wanted him to hang up, to give him all the instructions, everything he'd need to know to care for her, really care for her. He shrugged his shoulders as if he couldn't get off the phone.

I waited stubbornly until he finally hung up, exasperated.

“Here's the Tylenol, here's Bear, there's a few things in the bag you'll need . . .” I started down the list of what I thought were important instructions.

“I've got it handled,” he yelled above the noise, holding his arms out for Sophie. Her face was still splotchy, and her eyes darted around with nervousness from the loud sounds.

“Mama, Mama,” she cried when I handed her off. Bear dropped to the dusty floor. I reached for it, but David stopped me.

“Go, go, will you? I've got it handled.” His phone rang again.

I couldn't move. The noise, and the conflict inside me, made me dizzy, discombobulated. David looked distracted, annoyed by the interference. I squinted to keep the tears back. All I wanted to do was take her back from him and drive far, far away, to a place we could both rest. My cell phone rang. David widened his eyes and turned his chin, as if to say, “GO.” I picked up Bear, wiped him off on my suit, and tried to hand him back to Sophie, who arched her back and tried to push away from David.

The car I'd blocked by double-parking blew its horn loudly,
HONK, HONK, HONK!
I looked for a sign from David, any sign that he would say,
Don't go, don't go
.
Stay and take care of Sophie, of yourself.
Nothing. I forced myself to turn away, ignoring every instinct, including a loud ringing in my ears. I stumbled to the street, reached through David's open window, and put Bear behind the wheel of his seat.

The driver I'd blocked in the road held his hands in the air, as if to say,
What the hell?

I shook my head.
I'm sorry, so sorry. You'll never believe how sorry I am.

My cameraman and I loaded our gear into the back of the van. Normally, we'd be talking about the story we were headed to, what we knew, and what we needed to learn before reporting the story. I looked out the window instead, tears streaming down my face. Mike was a bearded teddy bear, a guy who left the priesthood to follow his dream of being a television photographer. He was the best in the business. We'd worked together since I'd come back from maternity leave, and we were deeply respectful of one another.

After about an hour, he said softly, “Everything okay at home?”

“You know, Mike,” I said, “I didn't expect it to be this hard.”

“You mean reporting?” he asked.

“Everything,” I answered. “Nothing comes easy anymore.”

We pulled up outside Thurston High School, a red brick school that reminded me of the type of school where I grew up, where nothing much important ever happened. The Thurston High Colt kicked its heels on the sign outside. The lawn was beginning to show signs of greening. There was just a month left until summer break.

Yellow police tape was strung around the school. There were blood spatters on the sidewalk. Our assignment editor said the crime took place just after eight o'clock. They'd found the shooter's car a block away. The boy, Kip, had worn a tan trench coat to conceal his weapons. That was about all we knew, along with the sobering statistics: two dead, area hospitals filled to capacity with teenagers suffering from gunshot wounds.

It was now just before noon, and a few groups of kids were still loitering around outside, talking about the event. Two television stations were already there with their huge satellite trucks. I knew by the end of the day there would be dozens more.

I avoided the teenagers who flocked to the cameramen, who wanted to be on TV just for the bragging rights. A couple of girls in big sweatshirts stood by a tree, ashen-faced, mascara stains around their eyes. I approached them respectfully. “Could you tell me what happened?” I asked.

They looked at me suspiciously, glancing also at the photographer who stayed several steps behind me, honoring their privacy.

“I'd rather not talk to the camera hogs,” I said, motioning to the boys crowded around the other television stations.

“Yeah,” said one of the girls, “they weren't even there.”

I convinced them it was important to tell the story accurately. Mike rolled tape while the girls carefully recounted the moment Kip Kinkel walked into the school cafeteria where kids gathered before class. They said they first thought it was a joke, or they would have ducked for cover sooner. While the surviving students scrambled for safety, Kinkel, who'd also murdered his parents the night before, loaded and unloaded the three weapons he'd brought with him, a .22 caliber rifle, a .22 caliber handgun, and a 9mm Glock automatic pistol. “He just kept shooting,” one of the girls said. “The sound is still ringing in my ears.”

By the time Kinkel was finished, two were dead, and twenty-five students were seriously wounded. “Jake finally stopped him,” one of the girls told me. “After Kip shot Jake, Jake must have thought, what the hell, we're all going to die anyway.” She pushed her shoe into the mud.

I thanked the girls and told them how sorry I was for their loss. “Do you know when our moms will be here?” they asked me. My throat seized up and my chest heaved.

“You mean you're still waiting for a ride home?” I asked.

The girl with the longest brown hair answered. “Our moms are at work.”

I rushed the tape to the live truck, where Mike and I fed it back to our station and then to the networks. I gathered myself for the live
shot and looked into the camera, “Kip Kinkel didn't have many friends at Springfield's Thurston High. His parents were both teachers, and Kip was known as a loner. He entered the school lunchroom and without saying a word, he started firing.”