When I Ran Away by Ilona Bannister (best books under 200 pages .TXT) 📕

side and carries the baby in the car seat on the other. He doesn’t look to see if I’m following, just runs into the hospital with my kids.

By the time I get out of the car, close the doors and shuffle inside they’ve already checked in. I don’t know where to go. An old man pulls his oxygen tank across the room like he’s walking a puppy, chatting to it until he reaches a seat. A woman and a teenage boy, faces like stone, sit together in winter coats even though it’s hot as shit in here. A skinny dude in a hoodie gets a Mars bar out of the vending machine. I want to cry.

“Are you Mum?”

“What?”

“Are you Mum? Of the baby that just came in?”

“Yes.”

“Come this way.”

The nurse shows me how to get to the pediatric section, hit the buzzer, go through the door. Follow the paw prints they put there for the kids. Buzz. Slam. Click. Locked in the hall. The lights pressing down. Don’t look up. Eyes on the floor, follow the yellow line and count the paw prints until you get to the door. I’m locked in here. You’re not locked in here, it’s a hospital. Get to the next door, count the prints. What if he’s dead before I get there? 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18. Hit the buzzer. Fuck. Hit the buzzer. Buzz. In. Slam. Click. There’s no windows here either but—Where do you go, just find out where to go. I shuffle to the desk. “Hi, I’m the mother—um, the baby?”

The nurse is a chubby blonde with her scrubs stretched tight across her hips, blue eyeliner smudged along with mascara in the craggy skin under her eyes. She’s tired and getting older, but she’s still fast in her white rubber Crocs. She starts to walk off to show me to the room but when she sees I can’t keep up she slows down. She gives me her arm. “It’s alright, love, take your time.” She’s got that East London way of talking, a punchline waiting under every sentence. Her voice matches her face—weathered, maternal. I’ve been a ghost since the day he was born but I feel like she’s just seen me and I could cry because she called me “love.” I say, “Thanks.” I would totally hug her right now but Brits aren’t huggers.

I get to the exam room. The doctor looks up. “Is this Mum?”

“Yes. Where were you?” Harry half-shouts, annoyed. It’s not like him. It must be bad.

“Harry, I can’t—”

“Jeej! Jeej! Rocky’s sick.” Johnny’s wide-eyed, taking in the room.

“OK, buddy, I know, sit over here, here’s my phone.” I sit him down in a chair, find his game on my phone, turn down the volume. “We’ve got to talk to the doctor, OK? Be real quiet, OK?”

“Jeej, is he alright?”

“I’m trying to find out, sweetie, don’t worry.”

But I’ve missed everything. The doctor’s been talking to Harry. I’m trying to focus on the words but I can’t slow down my heart so if I keep my eyes on him at least he’ll think I’m listening. Some kind of accent. What is he, Greek? Turkish? Iranian? Somewhere hot with glossy, black-haired, olive-skinned people. The lights press down. I try to listen. I have to lean on something. Don’t look up, Gigi. Dehydration. 14, 15, 16. Special Care Unit, observation. 17, 18. Chest infection. 19, 20, 21. Questions, feeding, how much is he taking? 25, 26. Rapid breathing indicates. 30, 31, 32, 33. Something, something…

“Jeej, Jeej, how do you make this game go back? Go back to the beginning?”

“Johnny, baby, just wait.” 37, 38, 39, 40. Shit. Shit.

“Jeej? Can you make this go back? The arrow won’t go.”

Doctor leaves, door slams. Shit, is it locked? Dammit, what’s the doctor’s name?

“I can’t get the arrow to go back. Please, Jeej, can you make it go back? Jeej, I need to pee. When can we go? Jeej?”

Harry’s voice like a thunderclap. “Johnny! That’s enough! Dammit, Gigi, can’t you make him shut up?”

50. 51. What? 52. What?

It’s the way he says the t in “shut.” When I say “shut up” it’s full of d’s and it’s all one word. When Harry says it it’s the t, razor sharp between the “shut” and the “up.” The “shut” and the “up” cut deep.

Rocky’s crying. Johnny’s crying too. He’s scared, it’s the middle of the night in the hospital and Harry never yells. But Johnny also heard it: “Can’t you make him shuT up.” Like he’s just my kid. Like we’re strangers on line at the checkout and he’s annoyed with my kid. He said Johnny would always be like his own. But now his actual own has come along and maybe he didn’t know what that was going to mean. Now the ship’s sinking and we’ve each chosen which one to save, Harry? Only thing is that I can’t swim, so you have to save Johnny too, even if your arms are already full.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry.” Harry gets down on his knees, pulls Johnny into him.

Johnny says, “It’s OK, Haribo.”

Johnny calls me Jeej, just like my brother, Frankie, used to, and he calls Harry by his name, or Haribo sometimes, like the candy. He asked me the other day if Rocky would call us Mom and Dad, well, Mummy and Daddy because Johnny speaks British now, or if he would call us Jeej and Harry too. In his seven-year-old head they had to call us the same thing to be brothers. “Of course,” I said, “of course he’ll call me Jeej.” When he says these things that’s when the old worry rises up that I haven’t done enough to make him believe he belongs to me. And here’s Johnny thinking that he’s not the same as this baby. He’s right. He’s not the same, but not why he thinks. It was never hard for me to love Johnny. I never had to fight to love him.

—

Rocky has to stay here so I have to