She held it up in both hands.
« Mommy says if she can’t wake up, I should ask for you. »
Chapter 3: Ask for Marsha
I took the card from her hands.
It was an ordinary index card, laminated at the pharmacy, with the plastic peeling at one corner.
The writing was blue marker, in block capitals, careful and slightly slanted, the way you write when you are tired and don’t want to make a mistake.
I read it silently first.
See more on the next page
Then my voice came out of me in a way I couldn’t have stopped.
« IF MOMMY WON’T WAKE UP.
One. Don’t open the door for anybody.
Two. Keep the babies warm. Write down when they eat.
Three. The phone doesn’t work. If the babies get quiet, take them to the big hospital on Route 9. Follow Fairlane Road past the red mailbox.
Four. Ask for Miss Marsha at the front desk. She is the one with the peppermints.
Five. Don’t let them send you home until somebody listens. »
My voice broke on the last word.
The lobby, which I would have said couldn’t get any quieter, did.
Maisie tilted her head.
« You’re the peppermint lady, » she said.
I knelt on the lobby tile, in my scrubs, with my badge still dangling from my fingers, and reached into the pocket of my cardigan.
There was one in there, as there is always one in there.
Red and white, in a crinkly wrapper.
She took it in both hands like it was a coin from a king.
« The phone’s been off since June, » she said, matter-of-fact. « Mommy said it costs too much. »
Behind me, somebody started crying quietly.
I think it was the commissioner.
Gilbert Stroud cleared his throat.
« That is very touching, » he said. « Security. »
Nobody moved.
« Security, » he said again, louder.
Then Ginger’s radio crackled.
It was Virgil Yoder, and he sounded like a man who had been running.
« Medic Two to Dobbs County. We’re at eleven-eighty Fairlane. Female patient, early thirties, down in the upstairs bedroom. She has a pulse. Shallow, but she has a pulse. We’re bringing her in hot. »
A long breath went out of the room, sixty people letting go at once.
« Tell the little girl, » Virgil’s voice said, and I heard him swallow, « that the house was spotless. That she wrote the feeding times on the refrigerator door in crayon. Every one. »
