Come with Me by Helen Schulman

Author:Helen Schulman
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2018-10-07T16:00:00+00:00

Part Three

AFTER FRENETICALLY WORKING THE TRANSIT search engines from Maryam’s hotel room, and some even more frustrating forays on the phone—those damned interactive voice responses—Dan was looking at two straight days of travel. (He’d screamed a series of expletives into the receiver: You fucking bitch, I want to speak to a fucking person! Did you ever notice that they’re all female operating systems?” Maryam whispered into his shoulder; she’d curled up beside him on the bed, to console him. “All part of a misogynistic global tech collusion.”)

Once again, Dan was spending money that he did not have, but finally there was a semblance of a plan as to how to get back to Palo Alto.

It was only a twenty-eight-hour time differential from his original departure date, but his sense of urgency was on overdrive after Amy and the school nurse had put him on speaker in the Paly infirmary out of complete and utter desperation. In between the mellow bass notes of his own (he’d hoped) soothing phrasing—take it easy, kid, take it easy—Dan could hear the agonizing contrapuntal sounds of his boy Jack frantically fighting for breath.

Through the chaos of it all, tears were streaming down Dan’s face, Maryam, alarmed but not flummoxed, intermittently kissed and stroked his back, and got up to get him tissues and water. He had proven himself totally useless in his efforts to settle Jack down, although his voice, the last vestige of his parental powers, remained preternaturally calm.

EMS arrived on the other end and Dan could pick up the gist of the male technician’s own practiced narration (“Hey, buddy, now we’re going to get you a little air”) as they strapped an oxygen mask on Jack and shot him full of Ativan, until Dan, absent and ineffectual (was this same phrase later to be engraved upon his tombstone?), was summarily disconnected. That’s when he made his plans, threw his clothes into his bag, had a quick fight with Maryam, and went to the Fukushima train station to wait for the next train, whenever it might come.

Now he was instead waiting for the bus, at the very same station, the Yokohama Tohoku overnight bus, the Suite, which would take him directly to Tokyo. The flight was longer from Tokyo, by forty-five minutes and $1,300, but at least he’d be on his way, because he’d already missed the Sunrise Seto/Izumo, Japan’s last surviving night train, which anyway required advance reservations.

“I understand you are upset, Dan, but the travel time save is truly negligible. You might as well come back with me and get some sleep. You’re going to need your strength for Jack’s sake and that poor boy’s family.” Maryam, in her nightie and bathrobe and slippers, had followed him across the street from the hotel to the train station.

“He couldn’t breathe! My son couldn’t breathe! And I wasn’t there to help him.”

“He heard your voice. The EMTs gave him oxygen. They gave him Ativan, hopefully that will give Jack a bit of relief. The doctors at the hospital are trained to talk to him.

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