My Grandson…

Someone had put an elastic band on my grandson.

“Call his parents,” Dr. Shah said to someone behind me. Then, after another pause, she added, “And notify social work.”

It was amazing how a single phrase could split your life in two.

Before notify social work.

After notify social work.

A young nurse handed me a cup of water. I took it, though my fingers were shaking so badly half of it spilled onto my blouse.

“Can I see him?” I asked.

“In a moment,” she said. “We’re moving him for imaging.”

I nodded because nodding was easier than breathing.

Then I pulled out my phone and called Daniel.

He didn’t answer.

I called Brooke.

Straight to voicemail.

I called Daniel again. On the third try he picked up, and the sound of mall music floated through the line behind him.

“Mom?”

“Get to Riverside right now.”

There was a pause. “Why?”

“Now, Daniel.” My voice came out so cold I almost didn’t recognize it. “Your son is in the emergency room.”

Everything on his end went silent.

“What happened?”

I closed my eyes. “If you don’t get here in ten minutes, I swear to God I will make you regret asking me that instead of getting in the car.”

Then I hung up.

I sat alone in that triage room for several minutes after the staff moved Noah down the hall. I could hear the muted beeping of machines and the wheels of carts and the normal sounds of a hospital that continue whether one family is being broken open or not.

I thought about Daniel at six years old, asleep on the couch with one sneaker still on after a Little League game.

I thought about Daniel at fourteen, crying into my shoulder after his father, Tom, died of a heart attack so sudden it felt like a cosmic clerical error.

I thought about Daniel at twenty-nine, standing in a rented tuxedo beside Brooke under a canopy of white roses, smiling so wide I had believed he was happy.

How do you get from there to here?

How does a child become someone a doctor has to call social work about?

The door opened. Dr. Shah stepped back in.

“We’ve stabilized him, and the specialist is on the way. I need to ask you some questions.”

I nodded.

“Who had care of the baby before you?”

“His parents.”

“How long?”

“They dropped him off around ten. He was already crying.”

“Did they say why?”

“Colic. Gas.”

“Did they mention any injury? Any treatment? Any device? Any concern with the diaper area?”

“No.”