69
While the nurses were transferring Evangeline to recovery, I tracked the baby to intensive care. The hospital was too small for a neonatal ICU, and it seemed odd going by rooms filled with elderly patients in search of a newborn.
A nurse saw me heading into the baby’s room and stepped between me and the door. When I asked why the baby was there, she said I’d have to ask the doctor. As I turned to leave, an older nurse approached. She walked down the hall with me a few stations, chatting about the weather, then stopped and lowered her wire-rimmed glasses.
“The doctor was worried about possible hypoxia, decreased oxygen. But all her signs are great. Honestly, I’m not sure why she’s here. As far as I can see, she’s eight pounds, twelve ounces of healthy baby.”
“Eight pounds, twelve ounces? Isn’t that huge for a baby this early?”
The nurse seemed confused. “Early? A couple days past . . .” She caught herself, “What matters is that she’s a healthy infant.”
* * *
—
IN RECOVERY, EVANGELINE WAS SLEEPING SOUNDLY, her mouth open, spittle on her cheek. Several hours passed before she woke, and when she did, she was terribly groggy, her speech slurred.
They’d probably upped her morphine after the baby was delivered. Around eight thirty, she roused herself to lucidity, sat up clear-eyed, and said, “I’m going to go get Emma.”
“Emma?”
“Emma Lorrie McKensey. And I’m going to get her now.”
The evening nurse, a quietly efficient young woman who was hanging fluids at Evangeline’s side, said, “Afraid not. Another hour at least before you’re ready to get up.”
“Could someone bring her to me? Could Isaac?”
“Not right now. We’ll see in an hour or so.”
At ten, a nurse brought in a swaddled, sleeping Emma. Evangeline held out her arms, her mouth open in wonder. The baby struggled against the blanket, making soft sounds of discomfort. Evangeline told me to turn away. When I could look again, she’d unwrapped Emma and placed the naked baby against her own skin, arranged the blanket modestly. She stared at the baby, then at me. She moved her mouth as if to speak but nothing came out, and she laughed instead.
I can’t describe what happened between mother and child in the next hour. It occurred at a level I know nothing of. They spent the time passing messages in secret code, tales from the millennia. When the lactation nurse arrived at eleven, I was dismissed from the room.
In the empty reception area, I bought a candy bar from a machine, took a bite of stale nuts and caramel, and threw it away. I hated my gender then, hated that I could never give Evangeline the mother she needed.
I didn’t know how long to wait. When I got back, it was nearly midnight and Evangeline was asleep, the baby returned to the nursery. I patted Evangeline’s hair as if she were Rufus, and remembering him I nearly cried. I don’t know why I touched her like that except I needed her to know, even as she slept, that she was loved, and I was at a loss as to how to express it. I left quietly and asked the nurse at the station to tell Evangeline I’d be back by seven.
As I drove home, I thought of what I would confront. I was too exhausted to deal with Rufus and the blood, too exhausted to even grieve, but I couldn’t imagine walking past him and on to bed.
On arriving, I flipped on the kitchen light, hesitant to look. When I did, Rufus was gone. Even the blood was missing. I was questioning my sanity when I saw the note on the table.
Isaac,
When I got home a little after seven, Nells told me about the ambulance. I came over to check in and saw dear old Rufus had died. Looked like he’d had another bad bleed at the end. I cleaned up as best I could. I would have buried him (I was so thankful you buried Brody for me), but I thought you might want to say good-bye. He’s wrapped in a blanket in our shed, where it’s cool. I can bury him tomorrow after work if that’s okay. I know this was terribly presumptuous, but with the ambulance and all, with maybe a new baby coming home, I didn’t want that to be your first sight. I’m so sorry about Rufus. I’m praying for you and Evangeline and the baby.
Lorrie
I called her. Though it was nearly one in the morning, I didn’t hesitate. It seemed the most natural thing in the world, as if we often woke each other in the middle of the night. When she answered, I burst out with it. “There’s a baby,” I said. “Emma. She’s healthy. There was a little trouble, but she’s fine.”
“Thank God.” She was quiet a moment. “And Evangeline?”
“Good. She’s good. C-section, though.”
“Worried about that. With the ambulance and all.”
We were silent. There was so much I wanted to tell her, to ponder with her. I’m sure we both wondered who had fathered the baby. But in the middle of the night, with the world fallen away, the birth of the child was enough.
“Thanks for taking care of Rufus, for the blood cleaning.” That’s what I said—blood cleaning.
“Of course.” After a moment, “I’d like to bury him for you, if you’re willing.”
Her voice carried a longing, a need to give this to me. “Rufus died before we left,” I said. “Evangeline and I have said our good-byes. You’d be doing me a favor.”
She let out a breath of surprise, of relief, it seemed. “Thank you,” she said. “It means a lot.”
She asked where I’d like him. I hadn’t given this any thought, but in that late-night hour, our voices close, it came to me. “Rufus always wanted to get past that back fence. I’m sure you saw him out there. Heard him too. How would you feel about burying him just outside our fences, in our joint easement?”
“Next to Brody?”
I waited, to make sure it felt right. “If you don’t mind.”
“I don’t mind.”
A long moment of silence followed. A communion in it. A comfort.
“Sorry for calling so late,” I said. “Sorry for waking you.”
I felt her smiling. “I wasn’t much asleep. Besides, a baby is worth waking up for.”
* * *
—
WHEN I ARRIVED THE NEXT MORNING, Evangeline was holding Emma. Colorful flowers brightened her bedside table, and Evangeline noticed my eyes on them.
“They’re from Lorrie’s garden,” she said “Aren’t they pretty? I think she planned to sneak them in on her way to work, but I was up nursing the baby. This little girl can eat!”
Ordinarily she would have questioned me more about Lorrie, what she’d said when I’d told her, that sort of thing, but Emma was her world now. The baby started crying. I expected Evangeline to call for help. I would have. Instead she asked me to step out so she could nurse. As I stood, she said, “I’ll get better at it. You know, at how to work the coverings and stuff. You won’t always have to leave.”
When I returned, baby and mother were sleeping. I sat in the chair and studied them. I felt many things, much of which I couldn’t sort out. But I was clear on this: Evangeline and Emma were my family now. And somehow those flowers—prompted by a late-night call—seemed part of this new garden blooming in my chest.
Dr. Taylor came in. She woke Evangeline, asked her about pain levels and gas and such things. “It’s time we got you up and moving,” she said. “How ’bout you let this fellow over here”—she winked at me—“hold the baby a few minutes while you try a trip down the hall?”
Evangeline’s eyes went between Emma and me. Her expression was, at best, dubious.
“Oh, come on,” the doctor said. “What better place to try him out than a hospital?”
“I suppose,” she said, but she couldn’t make her arms release the baby.
After urgent instructions about supporting the child’s head, Evangeline did manage to place the infant in my arms. I’d forgotten the warm, sweet weight of a baby, the milky smell. Emma smacked her lips an
d grimaced fiercely as if to wail, but in a second it passed and she fell easily back to sleep. Daniel had been the same as a baby—even his most violent howls could be forgotten in an instant. What would the world be like if we could all do that?
Evangeline made me sit down—“So you don’t drop her”—before agreeing to venture into the hall. When she was gone, I lowered the baby from my chest to my lap. Each strand of wispy red hair lifted and swayed in an invisible current. She opened her eyes—that unfocused deep baby blue, that bottomless gaze—but the light from the window made her squeeze them shut and twist away, crying in distress. I angled the chair to shade her face, and after a minute she opened them again.
She wasn’t looking at me. She wasn’t looking at anything, because—and I sensed this clearly—there was nothing to see. She hadn’t yet separated from all of creation. She was me and her mother and the soft blanket in which she was swaddled. She was the slant of light that hurt her eyes and the shadows that soothed them. Her lids sagged, and she slept.
I didn’t know if this was Daniel’s child. I didn’t think so. But none of that mattered, because she was, you see, Daniel himself. And Rufus. And Jonah. She was my father and mother and every friend and animal I’d ever lost. And I knew this because Rufus had taken me to the place from which she’d just arrived. He’d helped me remember who we are.
She would forget all this soon enough. We all do.
I will likely forget this moment with my very next breath.
* * *
—
THE FOLLOWING MORNING, I stopped in to see Carol Marsten, who’d been appointed permanent principal. I told her I would work until Thursday, the day Evangeline was scheduled to be released. After that, I’d be taking family leave. She hesitated, claiming she needed paperwork showing I’d been appointed Evangeline’s guardian.
Dick Nelson, who overheard, stuck his head in the office and said, “Carol, the paperwork is there somewhere, but if not, I’m sure Isaac has months of sick leave available after all these years, and frankly, he’s looking a little peaked.”
* * *
—
THAT AFTERNOON, when I arrived at the hospital, Evangeline said, “You don’t have to be here. It’s not like I need a babysitter.” She sounded as if I were a bother, and I thought, hell, why not go home? I desperately needed a nap, and I had papers to grade. But I couldn’t imagine being Evangeline, facing her future with an infant and no parents or partner.
“Would it be okay if I stayed?” I asked. “The house feels pretty empty without you and Rufus.”
She appeared surprised, as if she’d only just remembered him. “I’m sorry,” she said.
“For what?”
“I’d forgotten about Rufus. Not about him dying! I would never forget that. But, you know, going home to all that.”
When I told her what Lorrie had done, she said, “That’s crazy nice. Don’t you think?”
“Pretty nice.”
“Crazy nice! I would never do anything like that.”
“I don’t know, I’m guessing someday you’ll do all kinds of things like that.”
She thought about it. “Maybe. Maybe I will,” she said, as if making a decision about who she could be. Then she smirked. “If I have the hots for someone.”
70
When I arrived on Tuesday afternoon, the baby was sleeping in Evangeline’s arms. Lorrie sat at the head of the bed, the two so absorbed in conversation they didn’t notice me enter. I cleared my throat, and their heads shot up.
“Didn’t mean to interrupt.”
Lorrie patted Evangeline’s hand, stood, and said, “Don’t worry. It’s all going to work out.” She picked up her purse. “Isaac, I’d like to drop off some things from the ladies at work this evening. What would be a good time?”
“You’ve been so generous, we don’t need anything more.”
“Speak for yourself,” said Evangeline. “Can’t have too many baby clothes.”
“I’m not sure when I’ll be home,” I said, “and I know Lorrie gets up early.”
Evangeline ignored me, said to Lorrie, “I’m sending him home at eight. Stop by at eight thirty.”
Lorrie raised her brows in question, and I said that’d be fine.
When she’d left, I turned to Evangeline. “Everything okay?”
“Sure. Why wouldn’t it be?”
“Lorrie said not to worry, that everything would work out.”
“She just meant about the baby. You know, being a mother and all. It’s kind of scary.”
I granted that it was and told her I’d lined up a substitute for my classes, that I’d be there to help her when she got home.
“You don’t need to,” she said. “Lorrie can help.”
It surprised me how this casual rebuff wounded me. I said Lorrie was pretty busy with her job and studies and teenage daughter.
“I suppose,” Evangeline said.
Maybe it was her apparent preference for Lorrie that made me tread into territory I’d avoided, or maybe I simply needed to know. “It seems you were off on your due date.”
She nodded, still focused on the baby.
“I’m just going to ask. Is Daniel the father? Could he be the father?”
She began to speak—a reflex to lie, I suspect. But she stopped herself and said softly, “I thought for a while he might be. But he isn’t. I’m sorry.”
I was heartbroken to have it confirmed, but I think I’d known all along. Perhaps that’s why I managed to feel a certain joy. Evangeline had seen that I needed the truth. She must have believed she was risking everything in refusing to lie. She must have felt as I did when I exposed myself as a fraud to my Friends. I hope, I pray, that in response she too felt only love.
* * *
—
AS PROMISED, Lorrie arrived at eight thirty holding a large cardboard box. I took it from her and invited her in, but she’d already headed back to her car, returning a minute later with a baby swing. “Some moms at work—they brought in a few odds and ends. Stuff their kids had outgrown. Just to get started.”
From the box, I pulled pastel blankets and plush toys, at least a dozen baby outfits, a nursery monitor. Everything about this irritated me, the imposition of unasked-for charity, the assumption I wouldn’t be prepared—but I managed to say, “Thank you and please thank your friends. I’m sure this will all be put to use.”
“You have a car seat, right? They won’t let you drive away without one.”
I reassured her that, yes, the infant seat was already strapped in the back of the car.
“Good,” she said, her eyes noting my tight jaw, my arms folded like bars across my chest. “Isaac, I know it’s difficult for us, but there’s a baby now.”
“You think I don’t know that?” I thought I had forgiven Lorrie, that my spiritual revelations had manifested in a more loving heart. I thought Lorrie’s tender care and burial of Rufus—actions made in love, in hope of redemption—had repaired the damage. But the news, received just hours before, that the child wasn’t Daniel’s, flared the embers of loss and rage still burning in me.
Lorrie dared approach again. “Evangeline’s going to be moving slowly for the next month. Abdominal surgery is tough. I don’t mind helping.”
“We’ll manage,” I snapped. I despised who I was in that moment. Who I’d been all these months. I had never offered Lorrie true kindness, and I was unable to do so now. “Believe me,” I said. “I did my share of baby duty when Daniel was little.” My son’s name was produced with particular venom, as if it were a corrosive I could scar her with.
She studied me, and I wondered if she saw what was trapped inside me, the alien self, huge and monstrous, wanting to burst free, wanting to spew more horrible words into the room.
“Will you sit down? Can we talk about this?” she said.
“I’m tired,” I said. “Maybe some other night.”
Finally her eyes flared in anger. “Tired? Yeah, I know about tired. I’m working full time cleaning up old people’s diarrhea, taking care of my teenage daughter who—maybe you can imagine—has all kinds of struggles, trying to pass my prereqs for nursing school, and spending hours in the hospital with Evangeline. So yeah. I understand tired.” She pulled out a chair, sat down, and leaned forward. “What’s happening here? I thought we’d gotten past this.”
I remained standing, the edge of the counter hard against me, but my arms fell to my sides. When I spoke, my voice shook. “Something is horribly wrong with me.”
She stood as if to come to me, but I stiffened, and she stopped. In a gentle voice, she said, “Of course something’s wrong with you. Your beautiful boy was murdered. Your wife of decades is gone. You lost your closest friend, and you’re about to bring a new baby into this house. Something would be wrong if it weren’t.”
I pressed my lips tight, trying to hold myself together, trying not to ask her, but at the mention of my son, there it was. “My beautiful son? Was he? Beautiful?”
“What?”
“His soul. Could you see his Inner Light?” How small and afraid I sounded. How strange to be asking her this.
She hesitated, and I had my answer. She said, not unkindly, “Daniel was an adolescent boy, Isaac. Jonah too. Their souls were beautiful. But adolescence? A certain violence comes with the territory, don’t you think?”
She braced herself as if expecting anger at the comparison, but it fell on me as truth.
“Jonah, he had that physical reactivity in him. A very jumpy kid. We all saw it. Those nerves of his, they’d fire off without warning. Genetics, trauma, he had cause to be like that. Though I swear to you, Isaac, no one—not me or Nells, not his dad, not Jonah himself—no one had any idea he was capable of what happened. He’d always been a gentle boy.”
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