Or so it seemed. He went to the baby’s bath and then knew the splashing sounds were being made by water dripping slowly from the whale-covered faucet into the little blue whale-shaped bath that Sammy could sit up in. But to Tony’s horror, Sammy was—under the water. The little arms that had been flailing and the legs that had been pushing stopped. In another second, Tony had pulled him out, Tony yelling for help, seeing the crumpled face smooth out into nothing and the mouth that had been trying to take in air and taken in only water close. Tony put the baby facedown on a folded towel, still yelling for help and pushing on Sammy’s back, not knowing how to give artificial respiration to a baby.

“Sammy!” Tony screamed.

Sammy couldn’t cry.

He yelled for help again, but neither voice nor footstep came rushing up the stairs. Where were they all?

Tony thought ambulance, and then that he could get to the hospital faster in his Alfa Romeo than any ambulance. The hospital was only five minutes and three stoplights away. He wrapped the baby in a blanket, pushed him under his overcoated right arm, ran down and out without shutting the door and jumped into his car, glad he’d left it by the curb and not in the driveway. He streaked off, horning through two red lights, knowing and not-knowing the little guy was dead, weeping all the way to the hospital.

He left the car directly outside the ER, ran inside, gave Sammy over to a nurse, who gave him to a doctor, and stood staring after them down the long, empty corridor.

It was less than two minutes before the doctor came out and towards Tony. The doctor was a kindly looking man, who said in low tones how sorry he was, but that the baby was dead.

Tony clutched at the doctor’s arms, then gave up and put his head on his shoulder and wept even more.

“His mother?” The doctor put his arm around the father and asked the only question he could think to ask.

Tony shook his head.

The doctor knew questions were pointless, anyway. Every answer would be a headshake. Nothing to convey.

He could only watch as Tony moved to a place in the waiting room, walking like a young man old.

26

He had sat in the hospital waiting room for a time he couldn’t measure, calling no one, doing nothing, staring. Finally, he had driven himself back to the house, trudged up the stair he had rushed down with Sammy, up to the front door and inside to be confronted by all of those faces absent—how long? Thirty, forty minutes ago? An hour? Two?

Suddenly, as if called back from an anywhere Tony couldn’t envision, they stood, rigid and heard the news: Sammy was dead.