Medical Kidnap Files 1-6, page 87
He realized as the dopiness started to pass away that he wasn’t in his bed in Uncle Kris’s room, but in a hospital. He’d been in enough hospitals to immediately recognize his surroundings. But it wasn’t the Sick Kids hospital, where his mother usually took him. She said that even though he wasn’t a little kid anymore, they were still the best hospital to take care of him.
He started to move around restlessly, but his hands were in soft cuffs affixed to the bed, so he couldn’t get up or change his position other than to squirm around a little bit.
A doctor came to see him after a while, smiling and pulling the curtain back and talking to Caleb. Caleb shook his head. The doctor put down his clipboard and made hand gestures at Caleb, but Caleb shook his head again, still not understanding. He and Mom had some gestures that they used between them when he didn’t have his sound processor on, but they were just things like ‘have a drink?’ or ‘go to sleep.’ He had never learned ASL. Caleb looked around for his sound processor. If his Mom had been there, she would have left it all charged up and ready to go for him when he woke up.
The sound processor was on the little shelf beside the bed. Caleb nodded to it. “Need that.”
The doctor fetched it for him. Caleb lay still while the doctor figured out how to connect it up, and wrapped it around Caleb’s ear. It wasn’t sitting properly, so it wasn’t comfortable, but at least it was turned on.
“Is that better?”
Caleb nodded. “Better.”
“How are you feeling today?”
Caleb wanted to rub his eyes. He was still feeling muzzy and disoriented. “What happened?”
“You had a meltdown. You were hitting your head. You hurt yourself.”
Caleb turned his head back and forth, feeling the place on the back of his head that rested on his pillow. It was bandaged and swollen. His head was uncomfortable and he had shimmery edges around his vision that weren’t usually there. He thought back to why he would have hurt himself, and gradually the memory of the visit with Mom and Dad and his meltdown when Searle said it was time to go home seeped back into his brain.
“Yeah. Caleb remember.”
The doctor sat down on the edge of Caleb’s bed, like they were family or friends having a visit. “Do you want to tell me what you were so upset about?”
“Wanted to go home. With Mom.”
The doctor nodded slowly. “But you’re not living with them anymore.”
“Live with Uncle Kris.”
“And that’s not the same, is it? Even if he is good to you, you still miss your mom.”
Caleb nodded. “Miss Mom and Dad.”
“Well, we want to see if we can help you to not have a meltdown like that again. We don’t want you to hurt yourself. You don’t want to hurt yourself, do you?”
“Want Mom.”
“We can prescribe you some pills that will help you to be calmer and not get upset so fast. How does that sound?”
Caleb shook his head.
“You want to feel better, don’t you?” the doctor prompted.
Caleb couldn’t think of a way to argue with that. “Yes.”
“We want to help you.”
“Don’t want pills. Don’t need them.”
“There’s nothing wrong with taking something to help even you out. No one wants to have a meltdown and hurt themselves like that.”
Caleb pulled on the wrist restraints. “Take these off?”
“Are you calm? You’re not going to hurt yourself again?”
Caleb shook his head, not sure how to answer both questions at once. The doctor leaned over and removed one restraint, and then the other. Caleb pulled his wrists free and held them close to his body, rubbing them.
The doctor watched him, not getting up to go. “You have other bruises on your body too. We couldn’t help noticing when we changed you.”
Caleb looked down at his hospital gown, his face getting hot. He didn’t like thinking about the doctor and nurses taking his clothes off. He flapped his fingers in front of his eye, trying to dissipate the anxiety. The doctor didn’t make him stop.
“Can you tell me how you got the other bruises?”
Caleb shook his head. “Caleb is clumsy. Runs into things. Falls down.”
The doctor nodded slowly. “I see. I wondered if maybe you were being bothered by kids at school…?”
Caleb had been pushed around and hit by the other boys at school before. He wasn’t like them and they didn’t like people who were different.
“Some kids hit,” he agreed.
“Yes, they do. Can you talk to your teacher or a counselor at school about the kids who hit?”
“No. They’ll hit more.”
He’d been through that before. He didn’t need to have them targeting him again.
“We don’t want you getting hurt. Some of those bruises look like they really hurt.”
“No.”
“They don’t hurt?”
Caleb shook his head.
“Who do you live with? Do you live with other kids?”
“No. Just Caleb.”
“Who takes care of you?”
“Uncle Kris.”
“Does Uncle Kris hit you?”
Caleb’s head was bothering him, making him feel like the room was rising and falling, like a boat on the water. He concentrated on the right answer.
“Caleb likes Uncle Kris. We have fun.”
“Are you sure?”
The doctor stared at him hard, trying to hold his gaze. Caleb turned his head to the side, avoiding the searchlight gaze. “Are you sure?” he echoed, uncertain how to answer the query. He didn’t have any doubt about whether Uncle Kris hit him, or what the right answer was to the question.
“Your Uncle Kris never hits you? Or hurts you in other ways?”
“We have fun. Caleb likes it. Don’t want to move.”
“Okay… if you change your mind, you need to tell your social worker, okay? Do you understand that? You can tell him anytime. Or tell your teacher at school or another adult that you trust. If Uncle Kris or someone else is hurting you, you need to tell someone. And if kids at school are bullying you, you need to tell that, or it’s not going to stop.”
Caleb pressed his fingertips to his temples. “You fix my head?”
“Are you in a lot of pain? I can increase the painkillers.”
The circling darkness was not far away. Caleb’s body was restless and uncomfortable. The pressure in his head made it feel like his ears were going to pop.
If Mom were there, she’d be able to tell him whether he had a headache or if he was sick. She always figured it out first and told the doctors what to do.
“Want Mom.”
“I’ll increase your painkillers a little. We’ll see if that helps.”
CHAPTER TWENTY
Gabriel and Renata had separated for the day, with Renata making phone calls and looking into possible living arrangements for the winter and Gabriel panhandling and making a visit to the hospital to see how Caleb was doing.
Gabriel was thrown back to his own time in the hospital. He’d had a lot of hospital visits over the years, but the last time he had woken up in hospital, it had been without his mother at his side and his life had changed forever. He couldn’t help but see the similarities between himself and Caleb, alone and scared and trying to figure out why everything was happening to them. Caleb was, at least, not locked in psych, but he easily could have been, with his self-harming behavior. Instead, he was in a children’s ward, and when Gabriel looked in on him, the restraint straps drooped empty and Caleb was able to move around in his bed, if not in the ward.
“Who are you?” Caleb asked Gabriel, looking him over with wide eyes. Gabriel was obviously not a doctor or nurse, and he wasn’t anyone that Caleb knew from before.
“My name is Gabriel. I’m a friend. I just came to see how you are doing.”
Caleb stared at Gabriel blankly, and Gabriel wondered for a moment whether he had understood what Gabriel said, or whether his cochlear implant was acting up or he was feeling the effects of whatever drugs they had him on.
“Want to go home,” Caleb said finally, his voice breaking.
“I know, Caleb. It’s never any fun being in hospital, is it?”
Caleb rubbed his stomach, looking anxious and uncomfortable. “Miss Mom.”
“Yeah, I’ll bet you do. She misses you too and wants you to know that she loves you.”
“You talk to her?”
“Not today, but I have talked to her. She feels bad that you’re so unhappy. It really scared her when you had that… meltdown, and she couldn’t help you.”
“Caleb…” The boy trailed off and couldn’t seem to find his train of thought. There were tears in his eyes. He rubbed his stomach again.
Gabriel realized seconds before it happened that Caleb was going to be sick. He looked around quickly, grabbing a bedpan and thrusting it into Caleb’s lap an instant before Caleb let out a cough and then acrid vomit gushed from his mouth. Miraculously, he managed to hit the bullseye and get it into the bedpan. Gabriel looked away and backed up, trying not to trigger his own gag reflex.
When Caleb finished throwing up, he started to cry. He coughed and spat and thrust the bedpan toward Gabriel. Gabriel took it gingerly to dump and rinse out. He hit the call button beside the bed before going into the bathroom. When he returned, Caleb was wiping and blowing his nose with copious amounts of tissue from the bedside shelf and a nurse came in to see what was wrong.
“He’s throwing up,” Gabriel told her.
The nurse startled, not expecting someone else to be in the room.
“Sorry,” Gabriel apologized, putting his hands up. He handed the bedpan back to Caleb. “What’s wrong? Does he have the flu?”
“He won’t keep anything down,” she said in irritation. “I don’t know what to do with him. It doesn’t seem to be a virus. He says he’s hungry and wants to eat, but then he just squirms and cries until he throws up again.”
She talked about Caleb like he wasn’t even there. She took his wrist and checked his pulse. She shook her head.
“What’s he been eating?” Gabriel asked.
“We’ve been trying to keep it bland. Toast, crackers, oatmeal. Liquids. But it just won’t stay down, will it, Caleb?”
Caleb nodded, tears running down his cheeks. Gabriel felt bad for him. He rubbed Caleb’s head.
“You know he’s celiac, right?”
The nurse stared at Gabriel. She looked over at Caleb, then back at Gabriel again. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”
Gabriel gave an apologetic shrug. “Somebody should have told you. Toast and crackers are just going to make it worse.”
“I’ll say. Caleb, why didn’t you tell me you couldn’t eat those things?”
“Caleb can eat toast,” Caleb said sullenly.
“But your mom buys special bread for you, doesn’t she?” Gabriel asked.
Caleb nodded.
“You need to make sure people know that,” the nurse said, shaking her head again. “Why didn’t the social worker or his uncle tell us?”
Gabriel looked over at Caleb. “Did you tell Uncle Kris you had to have special bread?”
“No.”
“You’ve just been eating normal bread at Uncle Kris’s?”
Caleb nodded.
“Well, it’s no wonder he’s so malnourished.” The nurse picked up his chart and made a notation on it. “We’ll get Special Diets up here to do up a new meal plan. Have you been throwing up at home too, Caleb? Or had diarrhea?”
“Sick lots,” Caleb agreed. He put his hand over his stomach.
“Are you going to get sick again?” Gabriel asked worriedly.
“Again?” Caleb echoed. “Get sick again?”
“He doesn’t seem to have any idea when he’s going to throw up, poor boy,” the nurse said. “We have to keep changing him.” She straightened Caleb’s sheets and checked his pulse again. “You try going back to sleep,” she suggested. “Being sick takes a lot out of you.” She walked briskly out, leaving Caleb and Gabriel alone together.
Gabriel stroked Caleb’s head, trying to comfort him. “Once they get you back on your special diet, you should feel a lot better.”
“Then go home.”
“Back to Uncle Kris.”
Caleb’s face crumpled. “Caleb go home.”
“Don’t you like it at Uncle Kris’s?”
“Home.” Caleb seemed to be at the end of his tether. “Just go home.”
“We’re going to help you to get home as soon as we can. Until then, Uncle Kris’s is probably the best place for you. He takes good care of you, doesn’t he?”
Caleb picked at his sheets, making a low moaning noise in his throat.
“Uncle Kris feeds you and helps you get ready for school?” Gabriel prompted. “Takes you to the doctor?”
Caleb shook his head. Gabriel frowned.
“What do you and Uncle Kris like to do together?”
Caleb considered seriously, his finger tracing the hem of the sheet. “Go eat. Pizza. Wings.”
“Gluten-free pizza. You need to get gluten-free.”
“Uncle Kris’s is better.”
“I’ll bet it is. But we need to tell him to get you gluten-free.”
Caleb shook his head. “Uncle Kris get mad.”
“What does Uncle Kris do when he gets mad?”
Caleb bit his lip and didn’t look at Gabriel. Gabriel pulled a chair over so he could sit down to talk to Caleb.
“Does he shout?”
Caleb gave an infinitesimal nod and a grimace.
“Yeah? I’m sorry he yells at you. He shouldn’t do that, should he?”
Caleb nodded more definitely. Gabriel considered how to approach the subject further without putting ideas into Caleb’s head.
“Does Uncle Kris do anything else when he yells? Maybe when he gets mad, he thinks you can’t hear him.” Gabriel motioned to the cochlear implant. “Or… some people are just really loud.”
Caleb looked at Gabriel sideways and didn’t answer.
“What does Uncle Kris get mad about?”
“Don’t know,” Caleb said forcefully, his frustration obvious. “Looking wrong. Insub…” he struggled to form the word properly. “Insub-or-nance.”
Gabriel studied him. “Insubordination?”
Caleb frowned, not sure. “What’s it mean?”
“Not doing what you’re told… disobeying an order.”
“Yes. That.”
“But you’re trying, aren’t you? You’re trying to do what he says, not to be disobedient.”
Caleb sniffled, several more tears running down his face. “I try,” he agreed, “but Uncle Kris gets mad. Lots.”
“You don’t like being yelled at.”
Caleb wiped his nose with the back of his hand. “Or hit!”
Gabriel swore in his head, but was careful not to change his expression. He didn’t want Caleb to reconsider what he had said and stop talking.
“No,” he agreed. “No one likes to be hit. You shouldn’t have to stay somewhere you’re getting hit.”
“Should go back home.”
“What about your dad, though. Doesn’t your dad hit you?”
Caleb’s shock at the question was undoubtedly genuine. His eyes widened and his mouth dropped open. “No! Dad doesn’t hit!”
“Never? Not even when he’s really mad?”
“No. He yells… he goes away… never hits!”
Gabriel could remember his discussion with Wes on the subject. He decided to push it just a little further. He didn’t want to have another case like Seth’s, where they had reunited a boy with his abuser instead of keeping him safe. Social Services had been right and Gabriel had been wrong, letting personal opinion cloud his objectivity.
“But your dad grew up in a home where they hit him. That’s why Uncle Kris hits. So your dad must hit too.”
“No!” Caleb started snapping his fingers in front of his face. “Dad never!”
“Okay. Okay, I believe you. I’m sorry. I just had to make sure.”
“Dad never,” Caleb repeated softly.
“Just Uncle Kris.”
Caleb nodded solemnly.
It was with a heavy heart that Gabriel went back to meet up with Renata. He had hoped that Caleb would be in a safe place, so that they could work with the Hibberts within the law, helping them to successfully challenge DCFS and have Caleb returned to them. As exciting as it was to spirit away a child to reunite him with his parents, Gabriel wanted to be able to change things within DCFS too. Renata didn’t believe that they could ever be changed. Foster care and medical experimentation brought too much money into the organization for them to want to change anything.
He found Renata at the library, in an animated discussion with Ray, one of their original team of four. Nick had died, and for a while they thought they had lost Ray too, but he had made an unexpected reappearance and sometimes helped them out a bit before disappearing again. Gabriel and Renata were the ones running the Underground Railroad, Ray only helping occasionally. Dark-haired and handsome, Ray usually wore a dark hoodie to hide his face and stay anonymous. The hood was down and he looked comfortable and relaxed.
“Hey, Gabe!” Ray greeted heartily. “Long time, no see!”
“Well… you keep disappearing, so how are we supposed to keep track of you?”
“You’re not.” Ray made no apology for his absences. “But I’m here now, and I was just getting caught up with Renny.”
Gabriel nodded. He tried to signal to Renata with his eyes that he wanted a few minutes alone with her, but she was hyped up by whatever she and Ray had been discussing and wasn’t ready to leave.
“I just got back from seeing Caleb,” Gabriel said.
“Yeah. How’s he doing?”
“Not great. Apparently no one knew he was celiac, so he’s been sick.”
“At the hospital?”
“At home with Kris too. Either Kris didn’t know, or he didn’t think there was any need to follow a special diet. Been taking Caleb out for pizza and junk.”
