Beauty from Ashes

by Alana Terry

  And a plump lady in scrubs came in and said we should try to breastfeed, but Natalie was so tired she wouldn’t open her mouth. So Jake leaned forward, and his eyes got all scared, and he asked, “Is she ok? Is something wrong?” And the nurse laughed at him too and made a joke about first-time dads.

  So she said she’d check back a little later and that we could all get some sleep, and I was all for that. But Jake was worried and didn’t want me to nap with Natalie in bed. He was afraid she’d roll off and get hurt or something, so I finally said, “Here. Either you hold her or just leave me alone because I haven’t slept in three days,” and I hadn’t. Not even after the epidural.

  So I passed out right away. I was groggy from the meds, and I didn’t wake up until that plump nurse came in the room again. “Did you need something?” she asked me, and I was still a little spacey and couldn’t figure out what she was doing there. “Did you ring the button?”

  “No, I did,” Jake said, and I immediately wanted to go back to sleep and not even think about him. I mean, he could be immature at times, but I seriously expected him to be a little less pathetic about the whole new-baby thing. I couldn’t have been asleep for more than half an hour judging by the time. And he got so worried he had to call in the nurse?

  “It just seems like something’s wrong,” he told her, and she gave me this look. You know what I mean. The wow, you can tell he’s a newbie kind of look and she rolled her eyes at me. Not in a rude way, more like teasing. Like the two of us were there making fun of Jake and he didn’t even know it.

  Except the joke ended as soon as she took one look at my daughter. “How long’s she been like this?” she asked me, as if I’d know anything about it. And Jake was as useless as an empty deodorant container and said he didn’t know, except the nurse wasn’t waiting for his response. She picked Natalie up and ran out of the room calling — no, screaming — for the doctor. And she called my OB by her first name. I should have known something was wrong then, but I was still so doped up on pain killers that it didn’t fully register until about three seconds later. That’s when the intercom sounded.

  Code blue. Maternity ward.

  And it was so weird hearing a code blue come from the maternity ward. Like you’d expect it in the ER or operating room or something. Not the baby area.

  And Jake was shouting after the nurse, and he ran out the door. I wanted to ask him what was happening, but I couldn’t because the moment I opened my mouth, this wail came out of me. Except it wasn’t from my throat and it wasn’t even from my gut. It was deeper than that. Like a demonic creature that gets uncovered from somewhere in the earth’s core and it’s never supposed to make it to the surface except it does, and then nobody can figure out what to do.

  And all I knew was my baby girl is dead. And Jake didn’t shut the door when he ran out, and if my legs worked I would have run right after him except I couldn’t because I’d just delivered our daughter not an hour earlier.

  And my ears were ringing, bursting with the sound of my own hideous howl, and I hated myself for being so useless. So helpless.

  My baby girl is dead.

  That’s why I can’t get past the part where Grandma Lucy says refusing to be comforted. Because I’ve been there. And it’s the worst kind of hell I’d ever wish on anybody.

  CHAPTER 9

  Jake asked me just a few nights ago why I haven’t cried. I mean, I cried the first day in the labor and delivery room, and he was there for that. There were two nurses, a doctor, and one other — I think she might have been a chaplain or social worker or something like that — and they were all leaning over me like I was the patient. Leaning over me, their faces literally six inches away. So close I could probably guess what they’d each eaten for breakfast by their breath. Leaning down, holding my hands, rubbing my shoulders. Only four people, but I swear there were eight hands touching me right then as they told me what happened.

  My baby had stopped breathing, but she still had a faint pulse. There were flight nurses on the way, straight from the Seattle NICU where they’d gotten special training for events like this. That’s always what they call what happened to Natalie, her event, like it’s a stinking wedding reception or Halloween party that you hire a planner to coordinate. I hated the way they kept on crowding in on me, but at least I knew my baby was alive. As soon as I heard that code blue, I’d just assumed she was dead.

  It took an hour for the flight crew to land, and another few hours before they got Natalie stable enough for the medevac. My OB discharged me early. Gave me a prescription for iron pills, recommended witch hazel for the tearing, and stuffed a few oversized pads into a plastic bag along with the cheery samples of free formula and brand-name diapers they give out to all the moms post-delivery.

  Congratulations on your new baby.

  I was going to ride with Natalie on the medevac jet. They could only transport one parent, and there wasn’t any question it would be me. They wheeled Natalie out in this self-contained incubator into the hall to say goodbye to Jake. The glass was thick enough it looked bullet proof. Who knows? Maybe it was. Jake walked up to her, but she was just lying there totally knocked out, like she was in a coma or something. And I remember wondering what kind of goodbye he would give. There wasn’t a way for him to touch her or anything. I almost expected him to put his hand up to the glass, but he didn’t.

  “Can I get you anything before you go?” he asked me, and I don’t even remember how I responded. What kind of help can a twenty-two-year-old convenience store salesclerk offer a woman who’s only an hour off her epidural but is getting ready to fly halfway across the state because her baby stopped breathing for no apparent reason?

  And I wondered if he felt guilty, if he thought what happened was his fault because he was the one who was supposed to be watching her. Then I wondered if he thought it was my fault because I was the one who took a nap. Or maybe he assumed I did drugs or something and that’s what this was about.

  Maybe it was my fault. I don’t know. But I’m not a substance abuser. There was a night last spring where I was finally over my first-trimester pukiness, but I still didn’t have an appetite and it had been a horrible day at Winter Grove, the assisted living home, and I just needed a glass of wine. That’s it. A single glass of wine. Not even full, more like three-quarters. Just a hair more than half, really. Jake was working late so I knew he wouldn’t fuss about it, so I poured myself a glass, plopped on the couch, and turned on the TV. I was going to clean up after myself before he came home. I just needed to get off my feet. He was never going to know about the wine except I fell asleep. So he came home, and there I was, completely crashed out on the couch. He saw the wine glass and assumed the worst. He was raving mad. It was the first time I’d ever seen him that ticked off. He threw the glass at me. There’s still a huge red stain on the back of the couch.

  I was hardly awake, but I started yelling at him because who does that to anybody, let alone a pregnant woman who’s sleeping after a back-breaking shift at the old fogies’ home? But then I saw the wine bottle he had in his hand, the one I left on the counter because I was so tired after wiping leathery, wrinkled butts all day, and at least then I understood why he was going postal on me. I convinced him I wasn’t drunk. I let him smell my breath, everything. I hadn’t even finished all the wine in the glass before I conked out, which is why there’s such a big a stain today. So he calmed down and apologized, and then he took my hands and said, “I just want you to do everything you can to take good care of her” — her being Natalie because I’d found out it was a girl just a couple weeks earlier.

  I’ll blame it on the hormones until the day I die, but I started crying then. It wasn’t just because I was exhausted and emotional and my quiet, shy boyfriend had just thrown a wine glass at my face. It was because I realized then that he really planned to stick around. That if I screwed up and something happened to our daughter, I wouldn’t just be hurting her. I would be hurting him.

  I
suffered through the rest of the pregnancy stone-cold sober.

  So that’s what I was thinking about when the emergency crew got ready to fly Natalie away. That Jake probably assumed this was all my fault. They hadn’t done the brain scans yet. I didn’t even know hemorrhaging was a thing you had to worry about after a delivery that long. I was afraid I’d messed everything up, and that’s why Natalie was dying, and Jake knew it was my fault.

  So I told him I didn’t need anything, but I’d call him when we landed in Seattle, and he didn’t say a word. Didn’t even look at me. Just stared at Natalie, and all I could think was I’m never going to see him again. Which made me a little sad, but it wasn’t that big of a surprise. The real shocker was that he’d stuck around so long. Not quite twelve months since our first date, and now we didn’t just have a baby. We had a dying baby. What kind of couple survives that?

  I said goodbye to Jake, and I figured it was probably for the last time. Even if he did stick around a little while longer, I was certain things would never be the same between us.

  And they never were.

  CHAPTER 10

  There’s something funny about those six weeks we spent in the NICU, because it was summer when Natalie was born and early fall when we left, and to this day I can’t keep track of the time of year. Just this week, I ran to Walmart to get some more diapers. I could have asked Jake to do it on his way home from work, but I needed an excuse to get out of the house. Away from his mom.

  So I grabbed the cheap Walmart brand. Natalie’s still in a size zero, but I think she’ll be moving up in the next couple weeks. I can tell the ones she’s got are getting a little tight. I was checking them out — I think I’d picked up some noodles too, something Patricia needed for that night’s dinner — and the guy at the counter told me merry Christmas after I’d paid. And even though the whole store was flaunting those cheesy tinsel decorations and scrawny artificial trees (which I really shouldn’t knock because Jake and I don’t even have a tree set up, scrawny or not), I seriously was surprised that it was December. For some reason, my brain was still stuck in August. But that’s the other thing. Even though I thought it was August or maybe September at the earliest, I couldn’t have told you if that meant Christmas was coming up in a couple more months or if we’d just celebrated it a few weeks earlier. It’s such a disorienting feeling. I get it all the time, like I was in the hospital so long that something in my biological clock went haywire and that’s why I never know what day or month I’m in. Heck, I’d be happy if my brain could just keep me in the right season.

  It doesn’t help that I’m stuck inside so much. We’ve gotten some snow, so you’d think it’d be pretty clear in my head we’re in winter, but even those visual cues don’t help. And Orchard Grove’s so ugly this time of year. The snow never sticks around long enough to look nice. I guess that’s one thing the East Coast has going for it, enough snow to actually cover everything, litter and dead tree limbs and all. Here, it’s just enough of a dusting to make things slushy for the week. You think of white when you think of Christmas weather, except out here it’s really more brown than anything else. Brown with a hint of gray.

  The most wonderful time of the year.

  Of course, when Natalie was born, it was still August, and I’m sure that’s why my brain’s all screwed up. It’s like I haven’t moved on since then, like I’m trapped in this eternal in-between zone. What’s that kids book where it’s always winter but never Christmas? That’s how I feel. Like even though we sang The First Noel before the pastor started preaching this morning, I’m still going to wake up on Christmas totally shocked to find myself in December. What happened to Labor Day? Halloween?

  I remember Thanksgiving, but that’s only because Patricia was here and barricaded herself in the kitchen for the whole day, so I had to take over Natalie duty. Stand guard over her crib with that suction machine so every time she started to choke on her spit I could shove a tube down her throat and yank it all out. Man, that thing’s gross, how at the end of the day you’ve got to empty this canister that’s like three hundred cc’s of just drool and secretions. But without it, my baby can’t breathe, so that’s what we do.

  Thanksgiving dinner turned out nice. Patricia’s not a bad cook, really, just a persnickety one. You know who she reminds me of? Rabbit from Winnie the Pooh. I’m not joking. Because Rabbit always pretends to be helpful, but it’s just his excuse to be bossy, and even when he is actually doing good, he does it in such a cross, mean-spirited way.

  I sigh, trying not to be too obvious. I hate that I think about Patricia all the time. Hate that my husband’s Mommy Fear has caught me, too. It’s like we tiptoe around her, him and me both. I almost think that’s why he hasn’t initiated anything in the bedroom yet. Like he’s afraid she’ll ground him or something.

  I’m just glad I didn’t have to grow up in a home like that.

  I’m staring now at the decorations around the church. You can tell someone took their time to make the sanctuary look nice. Not homey nice like you’d expect if you walked into a log cabin with a roaring fire and three or four generations plus all the aunts and uncles and cousins squished around the piano singing Silent Night. More like what you’d expect if you walked into a fancy Seattle department store. Like even out here in the middle of central Washington the church ladies paid someone to make the sanctuary look perfect. Even though you can appreciate the professionalism, you don’t quite get the feeling like you’re about to sit down and open presents with family.

  Something about the pastor’s wife catches my eye, and I wonder what she thinks about Granny’s little microphone coup. Is she embarrassed? God knows I’d be. But maybe she’s like her grandma. Maybe she’s one of those holy rollers and doesn’t mind as much. She’s so young. Was I ever that little? I can’t believe I’m already talking like that, like my better days are all behind me. Are they? I sometimes wonder.

  But things won’t always be this hard. Natalie’s either going to improve or she isn’t, and either way it’s going to get easier.

  It has to get easier.

  It’s funny. A lot of my friends, people my age, were surprised when I said I was keeping Jake’s baby. They knew we hadn’t been together that long. I was making ten dollars an hour changing Depends and soiled bed sheets, and he had his thirty-hour a week gig at the convenience store. Not the kind of income you’d expect for a family bringing a child into the world. It’s actually a good thing we didn’t make more money, though, because then we wouldn’t qualify for state insurance, and we’d be bankrupt ten times over before the year’s up.

  As it is, we pay for Natalie’s diapers, and we pay for gas to get her to and from her doctor appointments. Everything else the state covers, even our stay in Seattle. It’s funny. I didn’t expect Jake to come out there. But then one afternoon I went to the Ronald McDonald House to pump, or “express my milk” as the nurses called it, and there he was, checking in at the front desk. Or at least getting ready to. We ended up sharing a room, which had its ups and downs for sure. I was on “pelvic rest” for the first month — that’s the actual medical term my OB used, so we couldn’t get too romantic or anything — but we sometimes cuddled at night and that part was pretty nice.

  Now that I think about it, we were probably closer to each other there in Seattle than we’d been before. Certainly closer than we are now, although a lot of that has to do with the fact that Patricia is like the Christmas fruitcake that you can never get rid of. I was surprised Jake bothered coming out. At first I thought it was just because he was worried about Natalie. I’d known from the beginning he would make a good dad. But he didn’t even go to see her that first day. I think he was scared to, and I don’t blame him.

  Jake thinks it’s weird I haven’t cried much since that code blue, but he doesn’t know about the first day. I’d started bleeding during the medevac flight to Seattle. I mean, of course I’d bleed, but this got sort of serious. Soaked right through a huge hospital-grade pad
and the disposable undies the nurse had given me before I checked out. There were some pretty big clots, too, and the flight nurses were worried about me. So once we landed in Seattle, they whisked Natalie off to the NICU, and I had to get checked out by one of the OBs there. It was this drab-looking man, almost like that teacher guy from Ferris Beuller, you know, the guy with the monotone? He sort of talked like him too, and he was pretty upset that my OB back in Orchard Grove had discharged me so early. As if I would have let the flight crew take Natalie on that jet by herself. I guess there was a problem with my stitches, and I really wish the local doc had fixed that up before the epidural wore off, because ow.

  But anyway, after that I had to go talk to all these people about paperwork and logistics, and I’d forgotten my bag at the Orchard Grove hospital. I mean, who would be thinking about that sort of thing? Well, it took a lot of phone calls to get all the numbers and stuff they needed to bill insurance, and by the time I was finally free to see Natalie it had been probably three or four hours.

  So I walked to the NICU. I really needed a wheelchair or something, but I was too embarrassed to call that number they have on those courtesy phones. I mean, I’m young and healthy and don’t need someone to push me around. Except I overdid it that first day and had to go back to that Ferris Beuller guy the next morning. Thankfully he didn’t stitch me up again, just gave me better pain meds (which I took) and told me to take it easy (which was a pretty good laugh given my situation at the time).

  Anyway, when I finally reached the NICU that first day, I felt like everything down there was about to fall right out. I mean, stitches or no stitches, I had just pushed a six-and-a-half-pound baby out a few hours earlier. I knew I was a mess from all that extra bleeding, but even though the nurse at the Seattle OB’s gave me a whole bag full of pads, there was nothing she could do about my pants. But I already told you I’d left my bag at the hospital in Orchard Grove, so what choice did I have? There’s a trick I learned growing up that if you feel out of place or intimidated, it’s best to pretend you’re the most arrogant brat the world has ever seen. That’s the only way anyone is going to take you seriously. Let down your guard, and they’ll trample you in a heartbeat. So I walked up to the NICU station, pretended that not only did I know my pants were a bloody mess but I actually planned it that way, thank you very much. I told the person there — she’s called a HUC, such a strange word, isn’t it? — that my daughter had just arrived from Orchard Grove and I wanted to see her.