Page 77 of The Chaperones

Sofía, the single mom

“It’s Stella,” I tell Dave and the doctors, Karthik and Andrew, staring down at Stella’s battered face. Beneath the injuries I can see the teacher my son loves. My mind races with questions I don’t have time for. Right now, all that matters is reestablishing her breath. All that’s important is saving her life.

I tip Stella’s bottom lip down, then lean toward her face until our mouths are less than an inch apart. Nothing. I lean closer until my lips practically touch hers. There, I feel the faintest exhalation.

“She’s breathing.” Barely. There’s no time to waste. Now the work begins.

Andrew and Karthik bend down to lift the board from the rocks, but I stop them.

“What are you doing?” Karthik shouts. “We need to get her out of the elements.”

“I need to adjust her airway. Can you hold her neck?” I shine the light up at Karthik, who fidgets, annoyed. Beneath that irritation is fear. It just presents differently in him from how it does in me.

“I’ve got you,” Andrew says, holding Stella’s head as I reposition to find the angles of her jawbone. I use my index and middle fingers to apply pressure to the lower jaw as my thumbs push down on her chin to open her mouth. Then I place my head on Stella’s soaking-wet chest, praying for the rise and fall of her breath. It’s too still. I keep my head there, counting the seconds, fearing the worst with each one. Sure enough, when I get to five, her chest expands beneath my ear.

Now that she’s stable and breathing, I go about checking her peripheral pulses. I start with the left radial, the arm that is swan-necked, not surprised to find it without a pulse. I pull down on her wrist, hearing a little snap as the bone settles straight. Behind me, I feel Andrew wince, but he keeps her head still. In a few seconds, her pulse is restored at her wrist, and I let out a little sigh that Stella will not be losing her hand. Not on my watch.

The other pulse points that I can access are all steady, so it’s time to get Stella off this rocky coastline and inside, somewhere dry.

We walk slowly over the rocks, careful not to tip Stella. It’s hard work in the wind and the cold water that thrashes our ankles and makes the wet rocks even more slippery.

“Careful,” I shout to Karthik as he trips on a rock and angles the right side of the board down. Andrew has got a good grip on her neck, but that won’t help if we drop her.

“Stella, stay with us, okay? We’ll get you warm and dry. Just stay with us.”

This short walk back to the beach is taking too long. We are going too slow. It’s still too dark. Stella is still too close to death.

“Steady,” I shout again, when I mean hurry. I am not about to lose Stella.

When we lift Stella over the last boulder and arrive at the beach, there are too many flashlights to count. The parents race over, asking questions we don’t have time for, running their lights down Stella’s body, horrified yet transfixed by what they see.

“Get blankets, as many as you can,” I shout. With that, some of the parents scatter. Too many of them remain, eager for a more central job. “Do you have warm water bottles?” I ask the male ranger, who nods and charges over to his vehicle. “A splint, too, if you can find one,” I call as he turns on the engine. “Go boil as much water as you can,” I instruct the parents who stand there idly. “We need to get her warm.” They sprint off, and only a few of the mothers remain, helping me, Karthik, and Andrew carry Stella up the beach toward the Visitor Center. I have no idea what happened to Dave, when he wandered off. I can’t worry about him now.

Inside, the center is damper than I’d like. At least it’s out of the rain. And it has electricity. Someone switches on the overhead lights, and I squint at the sudden brightness, my eyes taking too long to adjust. A few of the mothers lead the way, guiding us into the back room, which is smaller and more protected. I inspect the room for somewhere to rest Stella. The only furniture is a small desk for visitor registration and a model of an old-fashioned ranch kitchen complete with a stove that might work if we had wood for it and a butcher block table that’s too narrow to hold Stella. We’ll keep her on the board, but it’s going to have to be on the cold cement floor.

The wind rattles the windows. No one is coming anytime soon, not by air or ocean, not in this weather. We are Stella’s best bet.

Behind us, someone rushes in. It’s the ranger with blankets and equipment.

“Scissors,” I shout at the ranger, who rifles through his emergency equipment until he finds a pair. Now that Stella’s inside, her airway clear, her breath reestablished, my main focus is on injuries and exposure. I begin cutting the left leg of her pants, tearing it open to check for wounds, but mostly to get these wet clothes off of her. While she has more bruising along her legs than I’d like, I don’t see any broken bones. I can’t do anything for the possible internal injuries that may have caused the bruising, so I focus on what I can fix: her cold body.

As I pull Stella’s pants away and begin to cut her jacket, I notice the doctors standing too close. More of the mothers have returned with stoves and pots, eager for something to do as they wait for the water to boil. “Guys, why don’t you go check on everyone else. I’d like to give Stella some privacy here.”

“I’ll check on the mainland again,” the ranger says. Andrew and Karthik are quick to accompany him, even though this is a job he can do on his own.

As the men rush off, I ask some of the mothers to fill the water bottles while I instruct the others to carefully place blankets around Stella.

I take one blanket and twist it into a u-shape, which I put beneath Stella’s neck. Yoo-Jin wipes Stella’s face, dropping bloody gauze on the ground.

“It’s still bleeding,” she says, dabbing at Stella’s head wound. I show her how to apply pressure as I secure a splint to Stella’s left forearm.

“It won’t stop,” Yoo-Jin shouts.

I tell Yoo-Jin to go see about the water bottles and take over securing a bandage to Stella’s forehead. Once I’m satisfied that the dressing will stanch the blood flow, I shout for a thermometer, which one of the mothers locates, and take Stella’s axillary temperature under her right armpit. As I wait for the temperature to read, I stare at my patient. Her lips are blue; her pale face is absent of the rosiness I see when I think of Stella. Not the Stella here on the floor. Not the Stella whose temperature is only ninety-five degrees.

“That’s bad,” one of the mothers cries. “That’s really bad.”

It’s not as low as I feared. We can work with ninety-five.

I do a secondary survey to make sure I haven’t missed anything, but Stella’s pulse is steady at all her extremities. Her breath is regular. Her head wound hasn’t bled through the gauze and tape. I lean back against the wall and exhale for what feels like the first time in hours.

The other mothers sit around me, surrounding Stella with all the maternal support we have to give.

“Hang on, Stella,” I whisper as Yoo-Jin squeezes my hand. We keep our fingers entwined, our bodies closer than they’ve ever been before. There’s nothing else to do but watch and wait. And pray.