The Painted Drum - Louise Erdrich [92]
“Morris knows,” Ira blurted.
“Morris knows what?”
“I’m really tired,” said Ira, wiping her hand across her face. “Can I go back to my kids? I lost my daughter’s school pictures in the fire.”
“I just have a few more questions.”
Ira leaned across the desk, put her head on her fist. “Okay.”
But Seraphine didn’t ask about why John gave her money or why Morris gave her a ride. She was more interested in where Ira thought she might stay while she applied for emergency housing and got on the waiting list for permanent housing.
“I don’t know yet,” said Ira.
“Well, you’ve got to find somewhere,” said Seraphine. “We can put you and your children in the women’s shelter for a month, maybe, starting in a couple of weeks, but before that we’d have to put them in foster care and you, I don’t know…” She touched the scar on her lips.
“I’ll find a place,” Ira said. “Bernard maybe. He might let us stay with him. I don’t know. It’s pretty far out there.”
“That’s a problem.” Seraphine nodded. “You with no transportation. I’m going to ask your daughters some questions now. I need to find out how the fire started.”
And do you need to check my story out, Ira wondered, see if they saw me getting high on drugs or I beat them up or fucked Morris on the living room rug while they were eating breakfast, not that we have a rug anymore, or a living room, and the whole thing that started it was there was only breakfast, only oatmeal.
“Okay,” said Ira. “You go talk to them.”
Ira went back to Apitchi’s room. He was hot, limp, in a very deep sleep. He didn’t stir when Ira kissed his forehead. Ira peered closely at him. Then she pushed the nurse’s call button and went out the door.
“There’s something wrong with him,” she said to a nurse. “Come in here. Please. You’ve got to get the doctor to look at him. There’s something wrong.”
“We’ve got a chest X ray ordered,” said the nurse, brushing past her, “and we’ll probably get him on IV antibiotics. The doctor was here while you were gone and they think he maybe has pneumonia. It’s probably pneumonia,” the nurse said, as though that was reassuring. “Do you want to help me,” she said, seeing that Ira looked stunned, eyes filling with tears, “do you want to help me get him ready for the X ray?”
Ira nodded and tucked his blanket in around his feet.
“We can wheel him out,” the nurse said.
Ira kept her hand on Apitchi’s head as they made their way down the hall. His hair was rough, thick, and matted. They had given him a sponge bath but there was still soot behind his ears, she saw, and a black line at his hairline, and soot in the corners of his nose. He didn’t smell like ash, though, she thought, bending over to kiss him again as the elevator took them down. He smelled like a little boy. He was named Apitchi for the robin that made its nest just over the door and raised its babies the summer she was pregnant. Alice was named for her mother and Shawnee for the prophet. Ira’s father had been religious, he had named them with spirit names, too, and he had brought Ira back from the Cities when her husband left her. He had helped her obtain a legal divorce and he had given them all of his veteran’s pension money and his social security.
They went down to the X-ray room. Ira had to stand behind a lead shield. Apitchi was shrinking, she thought, into his sleep. But the nurse assured her that she’d seen plenty of children with pneumonia and every one of them had gotten well.
Once Apitchi was settled back in his room and got his antibiotics, Ira thought she’d better go back and see the girls. Shawnee was sitting up in bed when Ira entered the room. Her hands were wound in soft clubs of gauze and she was trying to work the remote control on the television. The TV was suspended between the girls, opposite them on the wall.
“Here,” said Ira, taking the remote control, “what do you want?