Rose lay in darkness, cuddling with Melly in her hospital bed, by now accustomed to the smoky smell in her hair. Leo had left at the end of visiting hours, gotten John from the sitter, and taken him home. Melly had been quiet during the evening, drowsy as a result of the drugs.
“You sleepy, honey?” Rose asked, and Melly looked over, resting her head on Rose’s left arm.
“A little. Are you going to sleep here?”
“I sure am. Want more water, or Jell-O?”
“No.”
“How’s your head?”
“Okay.
“Mom?” Melly’s voice sounded raspy, from the irritation. “When I was in the bathroom, the floor felt like an earthquake.”
Rose thought back. “Yes, it did.”
“Why?”
“Because of the explosion in the kitchen.” Rose and Leo had explained to Melly generally what had happened, but she wasn’t ready to hear about the deaths yet, or Amanda.
“Was it a bomb? It sounded like a bomb.”
“They don’t know for sure. Whatever it was, the fire is already out, and they’ll make it safe to go back.”
“Is it from a terrorist?”
“I doubt that very much.” Rose cursed modern times. When she was little, the only bombs she saw were in cartoons, round black bowling balls with wiggly cotton strings.
“It was a big noise.”
“Sure was. Did it scare you?”
“Yes. I didn’t come out of the bathroom.”
“I know. Is that why?”
“No. Remember Fire Safety Week?”
“Not really.” Rose remembered nothing, and Melly remembered everything.
“At our old school, we went to the firehouse on Fire Safety Week. You came, and we climbed on top of the firetruck, and they gave me a green sticker for my bedroom window and for Googie. It says, Save Our Dog.”
“Okay.”
“They said, don’t open the door if it’s hot. The bathroom door was hot, so I didn’t open it, then I couldn’t breathe. I hit the door and hollered so people would know I was inside, but nobody came to get me.”
Rose felt a pang. “Well, it’s all right now.”
“How did I get out?”
“I got you out.”
“Is that how you hurt your hand?”
“No,” Rose lied. She’d burned it when she’d picked up the burning stud. “It got burned in the cafeteria, but it’s nothing.”
“Remember when Quirrell gets burned by Harry’s scar? He gets burned on his hands, too.”
“This wasn’t that bad.” Rose flashed on the mothers making fun of Melly’s love of Harry Potter, then put it out of her mind. She and Melly had read the Potter books aloud before bedtime, and it was easy to see why Melly identified with a kid with a scar on his face.
“I’m sorry I ran to the bathroom, Mom.”
Rose felt a twinge. Sometimes she thought motherhood was full of twinges. “It’s okay, I understand why you’d be upset. Does Amanda tease you like that a lot?”
Melly fell silent.
“Huh, Mel? Does she?”
Melly didn’t answer. She wasn’t a whiner. She hadn’t complained about any of the teasing at their old school because she thought if they did anything about it, it would get worse, and she’d been right.
“Mel, I won’t do anything, I promise. I just want to know.” Rose looked over, but she could barely make out Melly’s profile in the dark. “What does Amanda do?”
“Yesterday we were finger-painting with Ms. Canton.”
“Okay,” Rose said, keeping her tone drama-free. Melly, Amanda, and two other children in Mrs. Nuru’s class were in the gifted program, spending an hour in the afternoons with Kristen Canton, twice a week.
“I was painting a picture of Dumbledore, and Amanda put poster paint on with her finger and painted on her cheek, like with the jelly. Ms. Canton told her it’s not funny or caring, and how we’re a community. I love Ms. Canton.”
“Me, too,” Rose said, hearing Melly’s voice warm.
“Her favorite Harry Potter is The Sorcerer’s Stone, and she has a cat named Hedwig and a Hermione wand. She says it looks just like it came from Ollivander’s. It doesn’t light up, but it sounds cool.”
“I bet.” Rose felt lucky that Melly had found a fellow Harry Potter fanatic in the gifted teacher. “Maybe we should get some sleep, honey.”
“I’m not tired.”
“Okay, we’ll just rest.” Rose held her closer, feeling her body grow heavier. In the next few minutes, Melly fell quiet, her breathing grew regular, and she fell asleep.
Rose lay awake in the dark, and found herself wishing that Melly had never had the birthmark. It wasn’t the first time she’d fantasized about how their life would be different, without. The birthmark had come to define Melly and their family, and they all revolved around the red circle as if it were the sun itself, setting them all in mad, dizzying orbit.
Rose let her thoughts run free, knowing it was forbidden, like a family dog running through an electric fence. It was the birthmark that had started the sequence of awful events today, whether Leo would say that was a but for cause or not. Funny, Rose hadn’t even seen the birthmark when Melly was first put on her chest, as a newborn. In her first instant as a mother, Rose felt suffused with such wonder and happiness that she saw only a beautiful baby. The nurses all cooed happily, but Bernardo had asked the doctor, in disgust:
What the hell is that red thing on her face?
His awful words had a hang time in the cold delivery room, chilling Rose to the marrow. The doctor had replied that it was a nevus even before he’d announced that the baby was a girl, and the nurses had receded, their tones newly subdued and their smiles stiffening at Bernardo’s reaction. Rose had gotten what she’d always wanted, a baby girl looking at the world with eyes the hue of heaven itself.
I love you, Rose had told the baby then, and when she saw the stain on her cheek, she’d added silently, I love all of you.
Rose’s parents were both gone by the time Melly was born, but her in-laws had flown in to see the baby, bringing their She’ll grow out of it, don’t worry. But the baby didn’t grow out of it, and Bernardo obsessed more and more on the birthmark, as if it marked him. He was a photographer, but rarely took pictures of Melly, and then only from her right side. Toddlers would stare at baby Melly in her stroller, and he would pull down the Perego’s top, hiding her in their walks through the West Village. Children would ask questions, and Bernardo would ignore them, leaving Rose to answer with the medical facts, much as Melly would later, fielding questions like the most patient of family doctors.
The teasing had started in pre-school, and Rose had watched as Melly’s grin disintegrated, bit by bit. She became withdrawn and quiet, wanting to stay home and avoid strangers, begging to quit Mommy & Me and Gymboree. Meanwhile, Bernardo scheduled her with Manhattan’s best dermatologists, who judged the birthmark too big for surgery, then he dragged them all over the city for more opinions and different treatments, shooting the birthmark with pulse-dye lasers, treating it with bipolar radio-frequencies, and even covering it with custom-made foundation, to no avail.
It was a thicker nevus than most, and all the time, Rose had hated the message they were sending Melly. Their marriage cracked under it and other strains, mainly Bernardo’s partying, and they divorced when Melly was three years old. Bernardo was killed the very next year, crashing his Porsche, and around that time, Rose and Melly met Leo on the train. They’d fallen in love and married the next year, and she’d left the city to move to southeastern Pennsylvania, near where Leo had grown up in Worhawk. On her own, she felt free to help Melly accept herself, even after her fifth Halloween, when she wouldn’t take off her Dora the Explorer mask.
Mommy, I hate being me.
Rose stared at the ceiling, then closed her eyes, and her thoughts returned to the room above. She wondered if Eileen was holding Amanda right now, or if that wasn’t permissible in Intensive Care. She tried to put it out of her mind, but gave up. She eased Melly off her chest, rolled quietly out of bed, and left the room. The hallway was empty at this hour, and there was only one nurse behind the desk. Rose crossed the polished hall, and the nurse looked up.
“Oh my God, I know you!” The nurse’s eyes sparkled. She was young and tanned, with short, sunbleached hair and a line of gold studs in one ear. “You’re the mom who saved her daughter, aren’t you?”
“Well, yes.” Rose felt her face warm.
“I have a baby at home, and I give you so much credit. How’d you do it?”
“It’s a long story, but I’m wondering if you could help me.” Rose leaned on the desk. “There’s another little girl who was caught in the fire. Her name’s Amanda Gigot, and I was wondering how she’s doing. Last I heard, she was in Intensive Care with a head injury. Can you find out how she is?”
“Hold on.” The nurse turned to a computer keyboard and pressed a few keys. “She’s still in Intensive Care.”
“Is there any way I could get some details on how she’s doing, or maybe you can?”
“We’re not supposed to divulge that information.”
“Please?” Rose put her hands together in mock prayer.
“Let me see.” The nurse shifted her gaze down the hallway, then picked up a desk phone and hit a few buttons, turning slightly away. “Suz, what up? Can you give me some info on the girl up there from the school? Name’s Gigot?”
Rose waited while the nurse nodded on the phone, listening for a few minutes, saying only “uh-huh” from time to time. When the nurse hung up, her expression was unreadable.
“Well?” Rose asked, breathless.
“I’m sorry, I can’t really say.”
“Please?” Rose begged, but the nurse shook her head.
“Sorry,” she answered, looking away.