The Night Everyone Believed the Wrong Story About Wren Halstead Too Quickly

"""Officer Bellamy tore Wren Halstead off the baby on the seventh compression.

His forearm locked across her ribs, his hands hooked beneath her arms, and suddenly the carpet was sliding under her bare heels. Tobin Rusk lay where she had left him, eight months old and terribly still, his light-blue pajamas wrinkled beneath his shoulders. The white patterns on the fabric were tiny clouds. Wren had been counting because the dispatcher told her to count, because counting kept her hands in the right place, because if she stopped counting she might hear the silence inside him.

“Six, seven—no, no, put me down.”

Bellamy pulled harder. The apartment door swung against the wall behind him, its broken latch hanging from a splinter of painted wood. A second officer crowded the doorway. Red and blue light traveled over the gray couch, the white lamp, the family photographs, and the overturned bottle rolling lazily across the carpet as though the room had not understood what was happening.

Wren twisted so violently that one of Bellamy’s hands slipped to her shoulder. She reached toward Tobin with both arms.

“Don’t stop his heart to save him from me!”

The cracked phone beside the bottle answered before Bellamy did.

“Officer, she is not hurting that baby—she is the only person keeping him alive.”

The dispatcher’s voice filled the apartment, loud enough to cut through the police radio and Wren’s ragged breathing.

Bellamy stopped.

His grip loosened in stages, first from force to uncertainty, then from uncertainty to nothing. Wren dropped to her knees. She would later remember the carpet burning her skin and the blank shock on his face, but in that moment two paramedics were already pushing past him.

The woman carrying the red trauma bag said, “Move. Everybody move.”

Bellamy stumbled backward. His partner flattened himself against the wall. The lead paramedic knelt where Wren had been, put two gloved fingers against Tobin’s neck, and began issuing instructions in a voice that never rose. The male paramedic opened the bag, and its zipper sounded absurdly neat.

Wren crawled toward them.

“Stay back, honey,” the woman said.

“I was doing it right.”

“I know. Stay where I can see you.”

The words stopped Wren more effectively than Bellamy’s arms had. She sat against the couch with both hands held in front of her. They would not stop trembling. Her fingers kept striking each other, knuckle against knuckle, as if they were trying to continue without her.

The assistant paramedic pressed adhesive pads to Tobin’s chest. Red marks already showed beneath the pajama zipper where Wren had compressed. Bellamy stared at them. His face had changed, but the change did not matter yet. The oxygen mask mattered. The monitor mattered. The lead paramedic’s hand at Tobin’s jaw mattered.

“Come on, little man,” the assistant murmured.

The monitor came alive with a flat electronic complaint, then a broken series of tones. Wren watched the woman’s shoulders, trying to read the answer from them.

“His name is Tobin,” she whispered. Her throat hurt. She forced the rest louder. “His name is Tobin. Please don’t let him disappear.”

No one told her not to talk.

The apartment smelled of formula, hot lamp dust, and the rubbery plastic of medical equipment. A family photograph had fallen crooked on the side table when Bellamy forced the door. In it, Celia Rusk held Tobin at three months old, both of them wearing yellow. Tobin had been furious about the hat.

The lead paramedic looked at the monitor.

“We have a heartbeat.”

Wren’s breath caught so hard it felt like another person had struck her.

The paramedics did not celebrate. They moved faster. The assistant fitted the mask over Tobin’s face while the lead paramedic checked his pulse again and called numbers toward the doorway. The second officer repeated the numbers into his radio. Bellamy stood with his hands open at his sides.

He looked down at the red pressure marks on Tobin’s chest. Then he looked at Wren.

She turned her face away.

The paramedics lifted Tobin onto a small stretcher and carried him through the ruined doorway. Wren tried to stand. Her legs folded, and her shoulder hit the couch.

“Can I go with him?”

The lead paramedic paused just long enough to look back. “Are you his sister?”

“Babysitter.”

“His parent is meeting us there?”

“I don’t know. His mom isn’t answering.”

“Tell the officers everything you know. We’ll take care of him.”

That was the first promise anyone made. Wren believed it because she had no room left not to.

Then the paramedics were gone, their footsteps pounding down the hall. The apartment became quieter in a way that felt obscene. Police radio static crackled. The lamp still burned. The phone still lay face-up on the carpet, the emergency call timer advancing second by second.

The dispatcher said, “Wren? Are you still there?”

Wren crawled to the phone and picked it up. The cracked glass pressed sharp lines into her palm.

“I’m here.”

“Are you injured?”

She looked at Bellamy. A red line was rising across her upper arm where his thumb had dug in. Her chest hurt under both shoulders. She could breathe, though every breath shook.

“No.”

Bellamy flinched.

The dispatcher asked, “Is there an adult with you now?”

Wren almost laughed. The sound came out small and ugly.

“There are two police officers.”

The second officer turned his head toward the hallway, pretending to check whether the paramedics had cleared it. Bellamy remained in the center of the room.

“My name is Officer Bellamy,” he said. “I need to ask you some questions.”

The dispatcher’s voice sharpened. “Officer, the caller has been performing CPR for approximately six minutes. Please keep her seated and assess her for injury.”

Bellamy touched the radio clipped near his shoulder but did not transmit. “Understood.”

Wren lifted the phone closer to her face. “Can I hang up?”