Two Kisses for Maddy

by Matthew Logelin

  “But Liz, I need to get some lunch. I haven’t eaten in more than twenty-four hours and I’m fucking starving!”

  Trying to plan a surprise for this woman hadn’t gotten any easier. I knew I’d be gone for less than an hour, and I figured that she would be asleep while I was out anyway, so what would it matter?

  Liz’s eyes widened, and I could hear her breathing through her nose the way she always did when she was trying to control her anger toward me—this was also a pretty good indication that she was about to let me have it. “Matt. Don’t you dare leave me here alone! What if the nurses are ready to take me to see Madeline and you’re not here?”

  Shit. I really wanted to do something nice for her, but as she yelled at me I realized that my plan really couldn’t have been more thoughtless. Here was my wife, about to stand up for the first time in five weeks, about to hold our baby for the first time ever, and I wanted to go buy her something to make her think I was the perfect husband. But to be the perfect husband, I really just needed to be there with her. She could always make me see what was truly important, even if it took me a little while to get there. I called my mom back and told her that I was going to stay with Liz instead. “Lunch” would have to wait until tomorrow.

  When I hung up the phone, Liz was calmer, her tone soft. “Thank you for staying. I just don’t want to be alone right now.”

  “I know. I hope you know I didn’t want to leave you. I just really needed something to eat,” I said, still trying to preserve the secret plan I would execute the next day. “Please don’t be mad at me.” I knew she wasn’t mad at me. In fact, it was obvious just how happy my small gesture had made her. I realized that the best gift I could have given her was being there with her and being there for her. And that was the only thing she wanted at that moment, and every moment before and after it.

  “I just really want you to be here when I first hold Madeline,” she said.

  Chapter 7

  how?

  why?

  two questions

  that mean nothing.

  how will

  we

  survive without

  you?

  that’s the question

  i will repeat to

  myself until the

  day i die.

  Is she awake yet?” Pat, Liz’s favorite personal care attendant (PCA), stuck her head in the room.

  We looked at my sleeping wife.

  “Not yet,” I said.

  “Okay, I’ll be back.”

  It was the second time she had checked in. Liz had been clock-watching all morning, longing for 11:56 a.m., when the prescribed waiting time of twenty-four hours would be up. She was so eager that just when it was time, she fell back asleep, still exhausted from the big events of the day before.

  With Liz resting, I sat up on the foldout armchair, shopping online for baby gear. We had only purchased a few things in anticipation of Madeline’s arrival—a couple of books, ten or fifteen outfits, a crib, and a manly diaper bag for me. We hadn’t gotten around to any of the other necessary items, since we figured we had at least another month and half to do so.

  While I shopped, I listened to the new WHY? album for the thirty-fifth time that week through my earphones. I don’t usually fixate on one album like that, but there was just something about it. Some of the lines were hitting me in ways that few songs had in the past year. I attributed most of this to timing; after all, I wasn’t just listening to background music right now. I was hearing the music, really hearing it, during one of the most intensely difficult and important weeks of my life. One line in particular stayed in my head: “I’m lucky to be under / This same sky that held / The exhale from your first breath.” It described the feelings I had about the birth of our child better and more eloquently than I ever could have.

  Over the next few hours, Pat stuck her head inside the room twice more to see if Liz was ready to go see Madeline, but each time Liz was still sleeping contently. I’d smile and wave to Pat from my chair, and she’d playfully put her left index finger up to her mouth to indicate that she was going to stay quiet and let Liz continue to sleep. I nodded in agreement, knowing that my wife really needed the rest.

  Around two thirty, she finally woke up to the sound of the door opening. She knew precisely what Pat’s presence meant, and she was thrilled to see her. Liz sat straight up in her bed, waiting for the words she’d been longing to hear since yesterday, or perhaps since the moment she learned she was pregnant. I also knew what her presence meant, so I paused “By Torpedo or Crohn’s” by WHY? two minutes and fifty-eight seconds into the song, removed my earphones, closed my laptop, and set it on the floor between the bed and my chair.

  Looking right at Liz, Pat, in a thick accent I’d been unable to place, asked if she was ready to go. At that moment, all of the pain, all of the anguish of the past seven and a half months was gone, replaced with the kind of elation I’d last seen on our wedding day.

  “Yes!” she screamed.

  “Well, okay, then. I’ll be right back.”

  While Pat searched for one of her colleagues, I thought about calling our parents so they could meet us at the NICU and watch through the window as Liz held our baby for the first time. But I didn’t. I decided that this should be our moment: just the two of us. Then just the three of us.

  “I’m so excited to finally hold her,” Liz said. “I’ve been waiting all my life for this.”

  Pat arrived with another PCA, and they walked in to help Liz up. One of them swung her legs to the side of the bed, while the other stood near the head. I watched from the foot, waiting for instructions. Pat looked at me and said, “She needs to get her legs back. Would you like to walk with her?” Grinning, I moved toward Liz, her smiling face following me the entire way to her side. As Pat held her left arm, I grabbed onto her right, and we worked together to lower her to the ground.

  It was the first time Liz’s feet had touched a floor in almost three weeks, and it was apparent. She stood there for a few seconds, wobbling a bit, as if these were the first steps she was ever taking. I could feel her determination in the grip she had on my arm, and so could Pat, who slowly let go of Liz, leaving me as her only means of support. She took one step, and then another, and then another. She moved tentatively, careful not to take on too much too soon. Slightly hunched at the back, Liz looked down at her feet, letting her eyes control each step. She held her left hand close to the spot from which Madeline had emerged, as if that could keep the contents of her stomach from spilling out in case they suddenly began to do so. The way she was moving made me feel as though we had been transported fifty years into the future: my old lady and me, our feet slowly shuffling on the sidewalk as we strolled down a tree-lined boulevard on a Sunday afternoon, holding hands, both of us silently reflecting on a lifetime of happiness.

  Squeezing her hand, I said, “Hey, remember that time you were on bed rest and I waited on you hand and foot? Well, when we get home I’m just gonna lie in bed and ask you to bring me random shit.” I kept going: “Remember all of those times you made me bring you your toothbrush and the spittoon and how disgusted I was when your toothpaste and spit would end up on my hand? I’m gonna do the same thing to you.”

  She smiled, knowing I was only kind of kidding. “Of course,” she said. To drive the point home a little further, I added, “Seriously. Remember when I had to empty your bedpan? Well, payback’s hell, and you’ll get yours.” She started laughing at this. She knew it had been difficult for me to attend to these personal needs, and I made the jokes, knowing it had been equally uncomfortable for her to have to rely on me for such things.

  We rounded the corner of her bed and made our way to the window. She stopped at the sink to check out the mirror, seeing her face for the first time in a few days. “Jesus. My hair looks like shit.”

  I laughed at her. “Liz, it looks great.”

  Still staring into the mirror, she ran her fingers through her part, and said, “Loo
k at my roots!”

  “Okay. You’ve got a point with the roots. But what the fuck do you expect? You’ve been on bed rest for five weeks.”

  “I’ve gotta see Jeannette and Jennifer as soon as I get outta here,” she said, referring to the team of sisters who cut and colored her hair.

  “Perfect,” I responded. “That means I’ll get more alone time with Maddy. We are gonna have such a tight bond. She’s gonna like me way better than you.”

  Liz suddenly looked away from the mirror and directly at me. “Jerk,” she said in the way she always did, mimicking how my little brother used to say it when he was ten.

  The second PCA left the room, and Pat stood in the doorway holding a wheelchair. I was thankful that Liz was going to get a ride to the NICU, because at the rate she was moving, it would have taken us the rest of the day to get there. “Take one more lap and then we’ll go,” Pat said. We made our way back to the head of Liz’s bed, then toward the door. We reached it, and Liz turned her back to the wheelchair. Still holding my arm, she started to lower herself into the chair. Just before she sat down, she uttered: “I feel light-headed.”

  With those words, Liz went completely limp and slumped toward the floor, and with all of my strength I tried to keep her from hitting it. Pat frantically pulled the wheelchair out into the hall and yelled for a colleague. Liz couldn’t have weighed more than 130 pounds during her pregnancy, and now she was probably closer to her prepregnancy weight of 110. I’m not the strongest guy in the world, but I’d lifted her many times, and I kept thinking that I shouldn’t have had that much trouble holding her up. Rather than fight it, I decided to lower her to the floor until I could get some help. Holding onto both her wrists, I set her body on the ground, putting her head on my left foot and creating a pillow with my shoe. Both PCAs were now in the room, and they tried to help me lift Liz from the floor.

  I looked at Pat, my eyes saying what my mouth couldn’t: What the fuck is going on here?

  “This is completely normal,” she said. “This happens all the time to women on bed rest.”

  And I believed her. I mean, what else could it be? Even with three of us, the struggle was mighty. I felt a small bit of relief when we finally got her into the bed. At least now she can’t hurt herself, I thought. I backed away from my wife, knowing that I would only be in the way. I watched as they shook her, slapping her face, yelling her name, telling her to wake up. I watched as she convulsed, her eyes rolling back in her head. I heard her gasping, saw her whole body shaking as if it was struggling to get the last bit of oxygen out of the air. It suddenly became very obvious that there was nothing normal about this situation.

  Fuck. Of course it’s normal. They just told me that it happens all the time. I saw Pat hit a button on the wall above Liz’s bed. Then over the loudspeakers in the ceiling, I heard a cryptic hospital code, but even after the past few weeks there, I still had no idea what the fuck any of them referred to. I didn’t immediately connect the two events. That code couldn’t be for Liz, could it? No way. Despite what reality was telling me, I held on to Pat’s words. Normal. Normal. Normal, I thought over and over.

  Suddenly, a bunch of hospital staff rushed into Liz’s room, one of whom instructed me to get out. I complied with the orders and stood just outside the doorway, trying to make some sense of the situation. Wait. Why am I being ushered out? More and more people brushed past me. It seemed like hundreds of people were in that room, but I knew that Liz was still behind them. They were all shouting, but I couldn’t understand a thing. As I stood in the hall, the rational part of my brain kept trying to tell me that something was seriously wrong, but my illogical thoughts kept repeating, Normal. Normal. Normal.

  A short woman, maybe in her midfifties, appeared by my side and introduced herself, but I wasn’t paying attention. We’d been in this hospital for three weeks, and I felt like I knew most of the staff at this point, but I had never seen this woman before. “Mr. Logelin. I think you need to sit down.” I thought, Who the fuck are you and why the fuck are you telling me to sit down? “Why?” I asked.

  “Please, sir, sit down. I don’t want you to faint.”

  Faint? I thought. “I feel fine. Can you please tell me what’s going on?”

  “Sir, I don’t know. They’re working on your wife.”

  My mind was racing. What the hell was that supposed to mean? I saw someone run into the room with those heart paddles they use in the movies. I guess they have to use them on her. Fuck. I bet that means that she has to stay in the hospital for a few extra days to recover. Shit. Does that mean I’m going to have to go home alone with Madeline? I don’t know if I can handle that.

  The crazy thing was that the rational part of my brain knew exactly what those paddles were used for, but with only movies and television shows as a reference point, it was difficult for me to fully grasp the gravity of the situation. I tried to get the attention of everyone who ran past me—I needed to know what was going on with my wife—but the only person speaking to me was that damn woman I didn’t recognize, and she was speaking in euphemisms I couldn’t comprehend. I just wanted some straight answers. My questions were simple enough: How long until I can see her again? When can I tell her about the commotion she caused? When can she hold her baby?

  She was still talking. “Mr. Logelin. Please sit down.”

  I swear I’m gonna punch her in the face if she says that to me again. Rather than giving her the fist I thought she deserved, I sat down against the wall just so she would leave me the hell alone. The woman walked away victorious, and I sat there with my knees pulled up to my chest, my arms holding them in place, my head shaking away the awful thoughts rationality was trying to get me to come to terms with.

  A doctor in a white coat walked out of Liz’s room and in my direction. She had dark hair, looked friendly, and was pretty like the doctors on television. I stood up, still leaning against the wall. I asked, “Who is that short lady who keeps telling me to sit down?”

  “She’s a grief counselor.”

  A grief counselor. Why the fuck do I need to talk to a grief counselor? “Can you tell me what’s going on?”

  Though we’d never met, she didn’t have to ask who I was. She said, “It doesn’t look good.”

  Well, that was the most direct language anyone had used yet. Normal. Normal. Normal. turned into Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Then I asked, “What does that mean?”

  “We think she may have had a pulmonary embolism,” the doctor said. “A blood clot.” She placed her hand on my shoulder and said, “We’re doing everything we can.”

  She rushed off down the hall, leaving me alone. I started pacing. I found an empty corner in the hallway next to a stretcher and started talking out loud to myself—to Liz. “You can do this. You’re tough. You’re gonna make it.” As the words came from my mouth, I remembered all the times I used to tell her that she wasn’t tough. I was feeling like an asshole, and then all of a sudden it hit me: She was going to die, today, here in this hospital. And she was never going to hold her baby.

  I had to see Liz. I had to hold her. The feeling overwhelmed me, and I was drawn back toward her room, getting as far as the nurses’ station. Standing there was Olivia, Liz’s favorite nurse. A tall, African-American woman, she had been a constant source of support to Liz during her time in the hospital. She reached out and gave me a hug, not saying a word. It seemed that she had come to the same conclusion I had.

  As we stood there hugging, someone interrupted. “Excuse me.” It was the grief counselor, and with her was a man in a black robe and a white clerical collar. A priest. In the movies, the priest shows up when someone is about to die.

  I looked at the counselor and asked, “What the fuck is he doing here?”

  She gave me a stunned look, but before she could answer, the priest said, “I understand that Liz is Catholic. Do you mind if we say a prayer?”

  Now, I had been with Liz for over twelve years. Yes, she was born a Catholic, and I know that s
he believed in God, but she definitely wasn’t religious. She simply chose to write “Catholic” on the admission documents she was given when we arrived at the hospital, as if it had been a question about her blood type. Looking furiously at the short woman and pointing at the priest, I said, “Get him the fuck out of here. I know what this means. I don’t want to pray. I don’t want to talk to you. I want to see my wife.”

  Looking more stunned than the counselor, the priest placed his hand on her shoulder and they both walked away. I instantly felt awful about the way I had treated them, but I just wasn’t ready to hear confirmation of what I knew was inevitable. Not from them.

  As they walked away, I turned the corner toward Liz’s room and saw Dr. Nelson running down the hall. I’ll never forget the look on her face when she passed me: panic, mind-numbing fear, profound sadness, and helplessness. We were mirror images of one another at that moment. She ran into Liz’s room and I stood outside, leaning against the wall, once more not sitting simply to spite the grief counselor, though almost positive that I was, in fact, going to pass out.

  My thoughts continued: This is it. It is happening. But this can’t be happening. It’s 2008. Healthy women don’t die in hospitals after something as routine as having a baby. Certainly not women like Liz; she is young and in great shape. Where the fuck is our family?

  I reached into my pocket and grabbed my phone. I called Liz’s mom, then her dad, and then my mom. No one answered. I called Anya’s cell phone. She was at work, but picked up immediately. “Is everything okay?”

  “No. Can you get to the hospital right now? I don’t think she’s gonna make it.”

  “Madeline?” she questioned.

  “No. Liz.”

  “What?” she screamed, her voice cracking.

  “Anya. Just get here. Please.”

  I hung up before she could say anything else. I tried Liz’s mom again. This time she answered. “Candee. You guys need to get here right away. It’s not good.”

  Like Anya, her response was “What?”