I’m happy just to be competing in New Orleans. Jeremy and I are going to take in the jazz clubs and Bourbon Street. I finally started listening to the tapes Jeremy kept forcing on me, so I’m starting to get into jazz a little bit.
It helped that I saw the TV special about Preservation Hall, which is a place where a lot of jazz musicians, beginners and old-timers both, play. I never would have watched it if I weren’t going to New Orleans, but it was very interesting. I can picture myself there, listening to a jazz saxophonist, someone like John Coltrane maybe. It’s packed in there, hot, but I don’t care. The music surrounds me. I am lost in my fantasy when an insistent note overcomes my imagined saxophone riff. The phone.
“Hello.”
“Jeffrey?”
“Yes,” I say, recognizing Mrs. Calderon’s voice. “Christy’s blood pressure is too high. They’ve scheduled a cesarean for two-thirty this afternoon.” There is a long pause, and then, between sobs, she says, “I thought you should know.”
“But they were supposed to hold off for at least another week!”
“Yes, but the blood pressure. It is too risky.”
“But will the baby be okay? This early?”
“I pray for them both, mi hijo,” she says, and then the phone goes dead.
A cesarean at two-thirty. My plane leaves at eleven. Mom knocks on my bedroom door and opens it a crack. She’s still in her nurse’s uniform, just home from the night shift at Hamilton Hospital. She smiles when she sees my suitcase all packed and ready to go.
“You’re going to have a wonderful time, Jeff. I’m so excited for you—and proud . . . Who was on the phone?”
“Christy’s mom,” I say.
“Oh? Anything wrong?”
I tell her about the scheduled surgery.
“It’s pretty routine,” my mom says. “It can be serious, but usually these things turn out okay.”
“I don’t know what to do,” I say. “I’ve wanted this for so long . . .”
“I know. You’ve had your heart set on going to a national competition. And in such a wonderful, exciting city . . .”
“Yeah. And I don’t want to let Mr. Rogers down, either, or the rest of the team.”
“Or Jeremy . . .”
“Yeah. But I don’t know. I mean, it’s not like I can do anything here. Christy doesn’t even want to see me. I’d just be in the way . . .”
Mom doesn’t say anything more—just stands there looking at me. Then she comes over to where I’m sitting on the bed, puts her arms around me and hugs me long and hard. “I wish things were different for you. And poor Christy—I still wish she’d consider adoption. That’s a strange thing for a grandmother to say, but I feel so sorry for this little guy coming into the world where no one is really prepared to take care of him. I always thought how much fun I’d have as a grandmother, how much I would love your children, but I wasn’t expecting it to be like this.”
I don’t want to look at my mom. I’m afraid I’ll see tears in her eyes. For about the millionth time I wonder how I let my life get so messed up, and for about the billionth time I’m pissed at Christy. But what can I do? What can anyone do now?
Mom sighs and shakes her head sadly. As if she’d read my mind she says, “I wish I had an easy answer for you, Jeffie, but there’s no such thing at this stage of the game.” We sit next to each other on the edge of the bed, not talking. Finally she says, “I’m going to hop in the shower. Let me know what you decide to do.”
I go over and over stuff in my head. I can’t be of any help to Christy or the baby. I’ve got my ticket, my hotel room, my dreams. Damn it! I’ve got my dreams!
I sit for a long time, trying to convince myself that going to New Orleans is the right thing to do. But a refrain starts in my head that is stronger than any free-floating melody I would hear at Preservation Hall. My son will be born today. My son will be born today. Over and over again, drowning out the story I’m telling myself about how I will go on to New Orleans. My son will be born today.
Why can’t I find anything? I know I’ve got Mr. Rogers’ phone number around here somewhere. It’s on one of those little yellow Post-it things. I look under my books, in my jacket pocket. Where is it? Shit! I throw the clothes from my suitcase on the floor and grab one item at a time, checking all the pockets and throwing it back again.
Mom comes into my room, wrapped in her oversized terry-cloth robe, towel-drying her hair. She stops and looks down at the pile of clothes in the middle of my room.
“Aren’t you going?” she asks.
“Does it look like I’m going?” I shout, rummaging through the pockets of my jeans.
“Hey, Jeff. Remember me? I’m with you.”
I throw the jeans back on the floor and empty my backpack out onto the bed.
“Looking for something?” Mom asks.
“Yeah. I can’t find Mr. Rogers’ phone number.”
She walks over to my desk and picks up a piece of paper from next to my phone.
“Is this it?”
“I hate this shit!” I say.
“What shit?” she asks, neatly stacking the books and papers I’ve just dumped from my backpack and sitting on the edge of my bed.
“All of this shit! How you can always find stuff and I can’t! How I’m going to miss the debate tournament. I hate letting everybody down. What if Christy dies? What if the baby doesn’t come out right—like what if he doesn’t have a brain, or a heart or something?”
Mom stands and puts her arms around me. “Remember when Steve was going to that support group, I think it was called a grief group, after Janie died?”
“I remember.”
“And remember the famous prayer he had taped to his bathroom mirror?”
“Sort of.”
“God grant me the serenity to accept that which I cannot change, the courage to change that which I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.”
“I don’t even think there is a god,” I say.
“It doesn’t matter. Think of the prayer as good advice.” Mom moves away from me, toward the door.
“I’m going to take a short rest now. I’m pooped. But wake me after you’ve made your phone calls and before you go wherever it is you end up going this morning.”
First I call Mr. Rogers. When I tell him I can’t go to New Orleans because the baby is going to be born today, there is a long silence. Then he says, “I’d heard you weren’t going to have anything to do with this baby—it was all Christy’s fault, so it was only her baby.”
“I can’t help it,” I say. “I can’t explain how I feel. I just know I have to be at the hospital when the baby is born.”
There is another long silence, then, “Of course babies are more important than debate tournaments. But I’m disappointed that you won’t be there, Jeff. This will make a big difference in how Hamilton places.”
“I know,” I say. “I’m sorry.”
“Well, follow your conscience. I hope everything goes fine for Christy and the baby. I’ll talk to you when we get back.”
He hangs up without saying goodbye. I sit holding the phone, staring at the clothes still in a heap in the middle of the floor. It would have been easier if Rogers had yelled at me—told me what a fool I was for messing things up.
I punch in Jeremy’s number. He answers. I tell him I’m going to the hospital instead of New Orleans.
“You can’t do that,” he says. “That screws up the whole tournament for Hamilton High.”
“I’ve already been through that with Mr. Rogers,” I say. Jeremy tells me the same stuff I started out telling myself, that there’s nothing I can do to help at the hospital, that New Orleans is a once-in-a-lifetime chance, that I probably can’t get a refund on my ticket, everything I’ve already thought about.
Finally, we wish each other luck and I hang up.
I pick my clothes up off the floor and stuff my suitcase into the back of my closet. I go into the den and flop down on the couch in
front of the TV. I punch the remote, unthinkingly spinning past “Family Feud” and “I Love Lucy,” “Sesame Street,” and something with Daffy Duck quacking his head off.
After about ten boring runs through the channels, I pause at “Oprah.” I stop there because she’s interviewing some guys who look to be about my age. It turns out that they’re all teen dads involved in custody battles. I shut off the TV and sit staring at the blank screen. There’s a lot I don’t want to think about.
By noon I decide I might as well head on down to the hospital. Jeremy and the rest of the debaters are probably somewhere over Arizona by now, and I’m headed for the same old freeway in the same old L.A. Basin. Maybe they’re over the Grand Canyon and Jeremy is trying to convince the pilot to fly low.
It isn’t until I’ve backed halfway down the driveway that I remember Mom asked me to wake her before I leave. I turn off the ignition, go back into the house and tiptoe into her bedroom. She is lying on her bed, staring at the ceiling. One of her big nursing books is open beside her.
“I’m leaving now. I’m going to the hospital.”
“Let me throw some clothes on. I’ll go, too.”
“You don’t need to do that, Mom. You’re tired.”
“But I’m a nurse. I know the right questions to ask. Besides, I guess I’m about to become a grandmother.”
I wait in the car while mom gets dressed. She comes out carrying a brush and a make-up bag.
“By the time we get there I’ll be presentable,” she says. We drive in silence, the San Bernardino Freeway to the 605, then south toward Anaheim. My mom never looks like she wears much make-up. Not like Barb, down at Barb and Edie’s, who looks like she applies the stuff with a spatula. But I guess Mom wears more than I think, because each time I glance at her she’s adding something to her face—lipstick, blush, eye stuff. She’s using the mirror that Christy bought and attached to the back of the visor on the passenger side, a long, long time ago, after we’d first started kissing off her lipstick and getting her hair messed up.
“I reviewed the ob/gyn section of my nursing book this morning,” Mom says, folding back the visor and putting her make-up in her purse.
“What section?”
“Obstetrical, you know, having to do with pregnancy and birth. Apparently high blood pressure is a very common thing with young mothers. And girls seventeen and younger are at higher risk for premature labor. How far along is Christy?”
“The doctor said thirty-one on Grad Nite.”
“So . . . almost thirty-three weeks,” Mom says, as much to herself as to me. “They really like to hold things off until at least thirty-four weeks.”
“So why are they doing surgery then?” I ask.
“High blood pressure can be very dangerous to Christy. Her system may be poisoning her, so they have to risk taking the baby this early.”
“But only about a week earlier than they first said. A week won’t make much difference, will it?”
“Every day counts at this stage. Brain cells are still being formed, the lungs are still developing. A lot happens during the last six weeks of a normal pregnancy.”
Is she saying he won’t have a brain that works right if he’s born today? I’m afraid to ask. We’re quiet for about ten miles, then Mom says, “I remember the day you were born. I thought you were the most beautiful baby in the world. So did your dad. He was nuts about you when you were born.”
“Then what happened?” I asked. “Didn’t he like the way I was turning out by the time I was five?”
“No, I don’t think that. I think he still loves you in his own limited way. He’s so immature, he doesn’t know how to care deeply for someone else.”
“I’m immature. I’m too young to be a dad.”
“So . . . how about working on the serenity to accept that which you cannot change?”
How about butting out, I think but don’t say. I know none of this is my mom’s fault, but everything annoys me right now. I’m in a really bad mood, but I’m afraid it’s not my mood. It’s my life.
I turn the news station on and hear that we’re breathing the stuff that makes for third stage smog alerts. Also, there’s been a fatal accident on the San Diego Freeway, south of Laguna Beach. I turn the radio off. Just past the place where my grandma always says how there used to be nothing but orange groves here, I get off the freeway.
At the hospital Mom and I find the waiting room where Dashan and I hung out when we first brought Christy here on Grad Nite. Mr. Calderon is sitting in there flipping the pages of an old Life magazine. I was hoping to see Mrs. Calderon instead, but why should I expect to be lucky? He looks up at us as we walk into the room.
“They were able to take Christy to surgery early,” he says. “She went in about one. Olga is in the chapel.”
“What do the doctors say?” Mom asks.
“I don’t know. Doctors. Who can understand what they’re saying? ‘Don’t worry,’ they’re saying, but it’s not their daughter.”
“They told us one of us could be in there, for the birth, but I knew I couldn’t stand to see them cut into my daughter, and neither could Olga.”
It’s strange, I think, how worried he is about a knife cut, under anesthetic, when he seems to enjoy hurting people so much with his words. I’ll never understand this guy.
“I think I’ll go see what I can find out,” Mom says. “Do you mind?”
Mr. Calderon shakes his head. My mom walks out, leaving the two of us alone. As much as I don’t like Christy’s dad, I see the worry and sadness in his face and my attitude toward him softens. He goes back to Life magazine and I pick up a dog-eared copy of People.
When my mom comes back Mrs. Calderon is with her. “I talked with one of the nurses,” Mom says. “Christy should be out of surgery in another thirty minutes or so.” Mrs. Calderon sinks into the chair next to Christy’s dad. They hold hands, not looking at one another.
It seems forever before the doctor comes into the waiting room. We all stand. I don’t know why, we just do.
“Everything looks good,” she says. “They’ll be moving Christy to her room in a few minutes. Her vital signs have stabilized and her blood pressure is approaching a normal range. The baby, a boy, as you already knew, weighs three pounds fifteen ounces. He’s already in the N.I.C.U.
“Where?” I ask.
“N.I.C.U.,” Mom says. “Neonatal Intensive Care Unit. That’s where all premature babies go at first, so they can be closely monitored.”
“Right,” the doctor says. “You’re welcome to go take a look at him. Just follow the signs and buzz the nurse when you get to the double doors.”
Mrs. Calderon is crying, saying over and over, “Is she all right? Is he all right? Doctor?”
“As I said, everything looks good. She’s stabilized. As for the baby, with preemies the first twenty-four hours tells a lot, but he’s been checked out by the neonatologist and he doesn’t seem to have any major problems. . . Come on, I’ll take you to see your daughter,” the doctor says, taking Mrs. Calderon by the arm. Mr. Calderon follows along.
“I’m going to see the baby,” I say.
“It’s this way,” Mom says, slipping her arm around my shoulder and steering me in the direction of the N.I.C.U. place. ‘You know, Jeff, he won’t look like one of those Gerber babies.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, preemies are so small and fragile looking they aren’t exactly cute.”
Chapter
17
A nurse meets us at the double doors. “Which baby would you like to see?” she asks. “Who’s the mother?”
“Christina Calderon,” Mom answers.
“Are you family?”
“Father and grandmother,” Mom says.
The nurse motions us through the door and points to a large sink. “You’ll have to scrub up and wear a sterile gown,” she says. “It’s very important to keep a sterile environment for these babies. Take off any rings, watches or b
racelets and put them in your pockets or purse. If you’re carrying a purse you can leave it over there at the desk before you scrub.”
My mom takes off her rings and watch, puts them in her jeans pocket, steps up to the sink and begins washing.
“Use plenty of soap,” the nurse says. “Backs and fronts of hands, wrists and forearms up to elbows, between fingers . . .”
She isn’t even looking as she talks. She probably says the same thing about forty times a day. It’s like a recording.
Mom finishes scrubbing and dons a sterile gown. Smiling, she says to the nurse. “I’m a nurse, too, so I know the routine.”
It’s as if my mom has said the magic word. The nurse, who has so far been like a robot, suddenly turns human. While I scrub and put on a gown she chats away.
“Your first grandchild?”
“Yes.”
“You’re a very young grandmother.”
“Younger than I expected to be when I got that title.”
The nurse laughs. “Our kids surprise us sometimes, don’t they? Have you ever worked N.I.C.U.?”
“No. Except for a brief stint during training. Actually, I must confess I’ve only been a nurse for a few weeks.”
“Well, but you know what to expect with the babies, don’t you?”
Mom nods. God. I hope they’re not a bunch of freaks or something. The way they talk, I’m afraid to go in there. Maybe I should wait outside and just have my mom go in. What can I do? She’s the nurse. But all the time I’m thinking this, mom is gripping the sleeve of my hospital gown, pulling me along to where the babies are kept.
“I don’t know if I want to see him or not,” I say.
“You’ve come this far. I’ll go in with you.”
The nurse, who now is acting like she and my mom are best friends, leads us into a room where there are about fifteen plastic containers, not much bigger than milk crates, all with babies in them.
Too Soon for Jeff Page 14