Beauty from Ashes

by Alana Terry

  CHAPTER 13

  Jake’s got his arm around me, and I’m sure he means well. Sure that in his mind, it’s the perfectly reasonable reaction when your brand-new wife is sitting next to you bleeding tears out her eye sockets. I’m not making any noise. Since we’re in the back pew, I doubt anyone notices me unless it’s Grandma Lucy. I wonder, does she know? Does she realize what she’s just done to me, or is she so Holy Spirit stoned she can’t pay attention to anything else?

  Refusing to be comforted because her children are no more. That’s the depressing verse I had to memorize at Bible quizzing. The one I could never get why a bunch of teenagers like us would have to know by heart.

  Refusing to be comforted ...

  Except now all Grandma Lucy seems to be able to talk about is comfort. She’s used the phrase balm in Gilead — which I remember from high school English class — twice already, and it doesn’t sound like she’s going to let up anytime soon. I think she’s planning to shove comfort down all our throats before she’ll ever relinquish that mic.

  “I will heal her,” she’s saying now, as if she’s turned herself into God’s direct mouthpiece. “I will guide her and restore comfort to her,” and my clammy hands and hummingbird-wings heart make me realize that she still talking about me, except now I don’t know what it means. What kind of comfort can I expect if Natalie’s in heaven and I’m not?

  “Then you will call, and the Lord will answer. You will cry for help and he will say, ‘Here am I.’” Something about what she says — or maybe it’s more the way she says it — makes me wonder if my interpretation wasn’t entirely accurate. Because if my daughter’s really dead like I thought, I know in the center my soul that I would be just like that woman in the Bible verse, refusing to be comforted. Except that’s not how I feel right now as Grandma Lucy keeps one hand raised up like an eighty-year-old rock star. Like that old dude with the huge lips, the one who did that Super Bowl show a while ago. But her words bring me nothing but comfort. I know I once said it would be a good thing when my daughter dies, but that was before I saw her. The real her. So I start to think that maybe that vision I got wasn’t a picture of Natalie in heaven. Maybe it was more like a picture of her soul, of the little girl she would have been if it hadn’t been for that brain hemorrhage. Or maybe — do I dare hope? — maybe that’s the picture of the little girl she’s going to grow into one day. Not just in heaven when of course everyone’s perfect. But right here on earth.

  “Everlasting joy will crown your head. Sorrow and sighing will flee away. Then you will find your joy in the Lord, for he has endowed you with a crown of splendor. For his salvation will last forever, and his righteousness will never fail.”

  My tears have stopped, for now at least, and I realize that this stranger, this Grandma Lucy lady with her above-the-waist slacks and ridiculously oversized collar has given me something that no doctor or nurse or pediatric specialist ever could.

  Hope.

  “He will shelter you with his strong and mighty love. You don’t need to be afraid. The valley of the shadow of death holds nothing to fear, for he is with you. He is there, pouring his love into your weary heart. So don’t lose courage. Don’t fear the shadows. Just when you think the darkness will consume you forever, he will make your night shine like the noonday sun. Let those who walk in the dark, those who are crouching in fear in the night of despair, let them trust in the name of the Lord who hides you in the shadow of his hands. Even in the midst of trial and storm, his unfailing love for you will never diminish.”

  And I realize then as Grandma Lucy pauses that I don’t want her to be done. I need to know more. All this about comfort, it must mean Natalie’s going to be ok. Right? Isn’t that what you would take away from her whole batty speech? But what if my first idea was right? What if Natalie’s already died? I glance over at Jake. His mom would have called by now, right?

  So I don’t quite know how I feel as Grandma Lucy sheepishly hands the microphone back to the pastor. I didn’t notice earlier how short she was. If I were to stand next to her, she wouldn’t come past my shoulder. I still can’t place why it feels like I’ve met her before. Part of me wants to talk to her. Wants to ask her what it all meant, but what if I’m wrong? What if she doesn’t even know who I am? What if she has no clue about Natalie or any of that?

  Then why would she have said any of those things?

  The pastor gives a brief dismissal, and I stand on shaky legs. I’ve got to hold on to the back of the pew to keep my balance. I don’t look at Jake. He’ll think I’m nuts. He puts his arm around me. Protective. He’s ready to go. Probably afraid of keeping Mama waiting any longer. But I don’t want to leave. Not yet. I glance at the front of the church. I just want to get one more look at Grandma Lucy. If she sees me, if she makes eye contact, I think I’ll know. I’ll understand what she was trying to tell me.

  Except she’s hugging the pastor’s wife, and Jake’s got the keys in his hand, and my stomach’s growling in anticipation, but my skin’s prickled with worry about Patricia and what she’ll say if we’re late for lunch.

  I don’t shake Jake’s arm off me. I don’t walk up the aisle. I don’t talk to Grandma Lucy. But as Jake leads me out the church, there’s one single question swirling around my brain.

  What if that bat-crazy lady wasn’t talking to me at all?

  PART TWO:

  Patricia

  CHAPTER 14

  “Tiffany, I didn’t know you’d washed that hoodie already.” That’s the first thing Patricia says to me when I walk into my trailer, and she’s staring at the formula stain I got on it yesterday.

  I don’t know why I’m surprised. Patricia says things like that all the time, and usually I don’t let it get under my skin. But she’s so good at them, those subtle jabs. I can’t complain to Jake, because he doesn’t see them. He grew up that way, grew up with a mom who expressed herself in haiku insults like, “Oh, good. Your skin’s really cleared up.” And she’d be referring to the big zit on his nose that was getting smaller but she’d be staring at the massive breakout on his chin, and it takes someone as naïve and docile as Jake not to see the bitterness infused into each little micro-observation.

  I shrug and straighten out my milk-stained hoodie. “Yeah, well, I would have started a load of laundry earlier, but I thought you would need it this morning to dry out a few of those wrinkles.”

  Jake’s not saying anything — he never does — and Patricia’s smiling so sweetly, probably because she knows she’s got perfect skin. She scrunches up her eyes, and I’m sure she’s taking in my own complexion and that’s why she purses her lips together so smugly. “I’m sorry lunch isn’t ready yet, but I had to guess what time you’d be home.”

  She raises her eyebrow at Jake, still with that sucking-on-a-lemon pucker to her lips, and he just gives her a sheepish smile and says, “Sorry ’bout that.”

  The food is on the table by the time I’ve changed out of my dirty sweatshirt, and Natalie’s asleep, so I know we’ll eat in peace. It’s nothing like they said it would be, this new-baby experience. The mommy magazines talked about babies demanding all your attention, but unless it’s her feeding time or she needs her airway suctioned out or her apnea monitor’s beeping at us, Natalie’s just there. Like a piece of furniture. A piece of furniture that’s cost the state over a half million dollars in medical bills by now. I’m just glad no one expects us to handle that with Jake’s thirty-hour-a-week job making change behind a grungy cash register.

  Patricia’s been here for two months now, and she still hasn’t cooked the same meal twice. It sounds impressive, but she manages it so that everything tastes the same no matter what she makes. I’m serious. She’s like a short-order cook at a ho-hum diner. Did I tell you she serves rice at every single meal? It’s not even like you’d get at a Chinese restaurant where it’s all sticky and gooey and kind of sweet. Nope. We’re talking brown, long-grain, super healthy. She doesn’t add salt or anything. And it doesn’t
matter what else she’s cooked. Chicken and dumplings with a side of rice. Potato and veggie casserole with a side of rice. Rice with lasagna? Yeah, that’s how we roll with Patricia in the kitchen.

  So lunch today is sort of a sloppy joe casserole with pasta, and we’ve got our mandatory scoop of plain rice on the side. It’s like she’s afraid we’re all starving. She makes enough for leftovers, and then she’s got this whole system set up for who can eat what when. It’s like breaking into a bank vault just to sneak anything out of the fridge. I gave up trying weeks ago.

  “So? You went to church today?” Patricia’s voice lilts upward in a little disapproving tone as she eyes her son.

  Jake nods as he shoves another spoonful of rice into his face. It’s one of his quirks. He eats just about everything with a spoon. Even his spaghetti, which is about as gross to watch as it sounds.

  I force myself not to squirm in my chair. I’m not a junior-high kid getting interrogated for cutting class. But Patricia’s scowling at us like we’ve been caught smoking weed in the school bathroom.

  “And how did you like it?” She’s smiling at me now. When I first met her, I thought that smile meant she accepted me, that she enjoyed my company and wanted to get to know me better. I almost laugh to think about that now.

  “It was pretty good.” The only reason I say this is because I know it will upset her more than if I whine or complain. Besides, I haven’t had the chance yet to sort through how I feel about that whole Grandma Lucy business.

  Natalie makes a little noise from her bassinette in the living room. She’s not even fussy, but Patricia scoots back her chair with a melodramatic sigh, like she’s the Queen of stinking England forced to endure a rock concert in her honor.

  “I’ll get her,” I say, and I give an attempt at that sickening sweet smile. I’m not the expert at it that she is, but I’m a fast study.

  Patricia waves me away and picks up my baby. “No, no. I wouldn’t expect you to inconvenience yourself.”

  I’m getting just as good at this game as she is, and I reach out and take my child. “You worked so hard in the kitchen getting lunch ready. Why don’t you let me have her for a while. It’s no trouble at all.”

  She frowns at me, but I’m holding Natalie, so what’s she going to do?

  “I’m surprised you don’t have more of an appetite,” Patricia says, and that’s how I know I’ve won this round. When Patricia makes a comment about my weight or eating habits, it’s only because she’s run out of anything else to say. And it doesn’t bother me, not in the least. I read all about it in those mommy mags. By summer time, I’ll be ready to wear those cute backless tees that would make Patricia look like an AARP streetwalker if she tried them on herself. That’s why her comments about my extra baby fat mean nothing to me.

  Absolutely nothing.

  We chew and swallow in silence, and I only have to get up from the table three times to suction out Natalie’s throat. If you haven’t seen the kind of machine she needs, imagine a tiny vacuum cleaner connected to a long, skinny tube. The tube part’s called a Yankauer, which I never know how to spell, but the way you pronounce it is a perfect match for its job description. Just picture the Queen of England saying it in her stuck-up accent. A Yankauer. Because it yonks the saliva right out of your throat.

  “So the baby’s doctor appointment is this Wednesday?” Patricia asks. She never uses Natalie’s name, which makes me happy, truth be told. Jake wanted to name our daughter after his mom, and I think he must have told Patricia that at some point because she gets the lemon face nearly every time she hears the word Natalie, and she refuses to say it herself.

  Another point for me.

  The funny thing is I didn’t even settle on that name until Natalie was about to undergo her surgery. She spent the first two weeks of her life as Baby Girl Franklin. That’s what the hospital HUC entered her in as on the computer system. And all of Natalie’s paperwork and medicine and even that little tag she wore around her ankle called her that.

  It’s funny because I thought naming someone was some real official process, but we didn’t get around to the birth certificate paperwork until a few days before Natalie was discharged from the NICU. They were supposed to do it way back at Orchard Grove, right there at County Hospital, but having me sign a piece of paper so my baby could get her own Social Security number wasn’t high on anyone’s priority list at that point. So as far as the government is concerned, she was Baby Girl Franklin for the first six weeks of her life, even though I settled on Natalie by week two.

  It came about when Jake and I were having dinner in the cafeteria, and dinner was always worse than lunch. At lunch, they made it a point to cook well for all the nurses and doctors. By the evening, the only people left at the hospital were a few night workers and folks like us, which usually meant that we got some sort of reheated leftovers. I don’t even remember what we were having that particular evening. It’s a small wonder that I complain about Patricia’s food being bland after I survived those six weeks in Seattle.

  Jake and I were pretty tense that day. We’d just come out from this big meeting. When I say big, I mean just about anybody with a title was there: the NICU doctor, the charge nurse, Natalie’s primary care nurse, the social worker, the occupational therapist, the intestinal specialist, and the lung guy all met with us in this big NICU conference room. I remember thinking the decorations there were atrocious, totally out of place. It was all those staged photographs of dressed-up babies. You know the ones I mean, like when there’s a little girl with a sunflower hat sitting in a pot, or a newborn in a ladybug getup taking a nap in a pile of rose petals. The ones that really trip me out are when they dress up the babies like angels and take pictures of them sleeping on white puffy clouds. I mean, do these photographers think about what they’re doing? Do they think angel-babies are cute? Have they ever seen an unconscious newborn who stopped breathing an hour after birth?

  Anyway, all these specialists wanted to talk with me, and Jake came too. I already knew what the meeting would be about, so I was ready for it. The gut guy had been lecturing me about it for a couple days now. Mansplained to me how Natalie still wasn’t able to suck on anything so it was time to put in a G-tube. It was the first I’d heard of the thing. Even at the assisted living place where I worked, by the time someone got too out of it to swallow, they were shipped off to a nursing home. In my opinion, Natalie didn’t need something as drastic as surgery until we figured out if her swallowing would improve by itself. Maybe I was in denial, I don’t know. Like you could blame me if I was. I told him I didn’t want to do the procedure, and that’s why he set up this special meeting in the board room with the creepy infant photos.

  Everyone there started talking over each other, telling us what a good move it would be for Natalie to have the surgery. We could take her home sooner since otherwise they couldn’t discharge her from the NICU until she could breastfeed or take a bottle. It would be more sanitary too instead of having the nurses thread that catheter into her nose and down her throat, which always makes me gag when I think about it.

  The gut doctor expected it to be an open and shut case. He thought I’d sign off right away once I had that many people telling me what to do. He obviously had no idea who he was dealing with. We’re talking about the girl whose drunk foster dad once staggered into her room in the middle of the night and tried to shove his hard, smelly self against her. But I rolled over and hammer-fisted him in the groin and swore I’d call 911 if he came within five feet of me again, and the next day I told the school counselor and was out of that house by dinnertime. So I think I can handle myself against a sixty-year-old doctor and his room full of cronies with fancy initials after their names, titles that don’t mean their possessors have an ounce of street cred or know what’s best for my baby.

  Anyway, I left that meeting still convinced we didn’t need to rush the surgery. I mean, it’s not like Natalie was in danger of starving without the tube. I think it just
would have made the nurses’ job easier, and that’s exactly what I told the gut doctor and everyone else he brought in to manipulate me. But Jake, well, that was another story. I mean, we’re talking about the boy who probably hasn’t disobeyed an authority figure since preschool. That’s partly why I’m still surprised when I wake up and remember he’s my husband. What did we see in each other? I’m still not sure I’ll ever figure that one out.

  Of course, he and I weren’t married yet, not when we had that big interview with all those hot shots. It reminded me of that period in history you learn about in school. You know, the Interrogation or whatever they call it. No, the Inquisition, that’s what it is. And that’s what got me mad, how forceful they’d been. Like just because they were the doctors we had to do whatever they said. Only Jake wasn’t upset, and that’s why I was ticked off at him in that empty cafeteria.

  “Doesn’t it bother you they’re pushing a procedure she doesn’t even need?”

  He stared at his plate and refused to meet my eyes. “I don’t know. Maybe.”

  “Maybe what?” I hate it when he mumbles.

  “Maybe it’s a good idea after all.”

  “Oh, yeah. Cutting a hole in her gut’s going to really improve her quality of life, I’m just sure of it.” I didn’t care who heard me. The only people nearby were a cafeteria worker wiping tables, another tired-looking couple with a whiny toddler, and a few single guys in scrubs.