David and I shook our heads. They’d given us a urine cup when we were in the emergency room and a small bowl on the inside of the toilet once we’d gotten to our room on the pediatric ward to catch her urine. Ironically, she’d spent the last few months going to the bathroom constantly, but there hadn’t been a drop since we’d arrived at the hospital.
“Do you have any more questions?” Dr. Koven asked.
We shook our heads again even though we had lots of questions but we’d been asking them all day and the only answer we got was “wait and see.” Nobody had any answers for us and I’d annoyed the resident we’d seen a few hours ago with my rapid-fire questions. Our session ended with her telling me she often advised parents to stay off the Internet because of all the misinformation and that it tended to scare parents rather than help them.
“She seemed nice,” I said as Dr. Koven closed the door behind her.
David was upset with me again. He was loving and doting on Rori, speaking to her in a sweet, soothing voice each time a nurse or doctor began poking and prodding her, talking her through each blood draw even though she didn’t even flinch. But every time I tried to ask him a question, the loving voice disappeared. His body tightened and he worked his jaw as he talked to me. He hadn’t touched me since we’d been at the hospital and he flinched every time I touched him.
“I guess.” He shrugged.
“How are you feeling?”
“How do you think I’m feeling, Celeste? Our daughter is in the hospital and there’s something really wrong with her. How are you feeling?”
“We don’t know if there’s something seriously wrong with her yet. They haven’t told us it’s something major.”
“Really? She seems pretty sick to me. She hasn’t woken up since this morning and she acts like she’s in a damn coma. What kid doesn’t wake up when they stick a needle in her?”
“I understand you’re upset. I–”
“Yes, I’m upset. Of course I’m upset. I’ve been saying something is wrong with her for weeks. What I don’t understand is why you’re not upset.”
“I refuse to get upset until I know there’s something to get upset about. I’m going to be level headed about this thing until I know otherwise.” I wanted to remind him that he used to be the one with a level head. Did he even remember how he used to be?
There wasn’t anything wrong with what I felt even though he wanted me to feel different. Nobody had given us any real answers. They kept asking us if Rori had gotten into any medication or household chemicals. Dr. Yang had asked us in the emergency room, the nurse who admitted us to the pediatric unit asked, and it was the first question out of Dr. Koven’s mouth when she walked into our room. How did we know Rori hadn’t accidently gotten into something when David wasn’t looking? It was possible she’d taken something without us knowing and had to sleep it off until it was out of her system, but I didn’t dare say that to David because he’d take it personally.
“This thing? That’s what you’re calling all of this? Our daughter is in a hospital bed strapped to machines and only opens her eyes when the doctors open them for her? Whose blood shows all kinds of weird abnormalities and this is just a thing for you?” He shook his head.
“Honey, I know you’re upset. I get it. I understand. I just don’t think it does us any good to get all worked up. Besides, one of us has to be the calm one. One of us has to be able to think straight. I’m just trying to stay calm.”
“I–” He opened his mouth and then quickly shut it again. “Never mind.”
“I should go home and get some stuff since we’re going to be here overnight. I thought maybe I could bring her new pajamas and get some stuff for you and me to sleep in too?” I hadn’t meant for it to come out sounding like a question.
“Sure.”
I called Robin to fill her in on the details on the drive to our house. I quickly brought her up to speed.
“God, hon, that’s so awful. How are you?” she asked.
“I’m okay. I mean, it totally sucks. I hate that she’s sick, but I’m not going to get freaked out until I know there’s something to get freaked out about and honestly, I really don’t think there’s going to be something seriously wrong with her. She’s such a healthy kid. I feel bad for David, though. He’s a nervous wreck.”
“I would be too. That’s scary shit.”
Maybe I should’ve been more scared, but I didn’t have the alarmist button that most parents had. Other parents looked at every instance in their child’s life as a major life or death situation as if one wrong move would alter their lives forever, but I never saw things that way. I didn’t walk around in a panicked state like Rori’s life was always teetering on the edge.
This difference was obvious each time I took Rori to the park. I watched as the other mothers hovered around their children waiting to catch them in case they fell while I sat on the side of the sandbox as Rori scampered up and down the equipment by herself. All I could think of as I watched the other parents and kids were the concrete playgrounds with steel equipment my sister and I played on when we were kids. We’d managed to survive and I didn’t think the Teflon floor underneath the equipment would do anything except spring Rori right back up even if she did fall.
Unlike me, David had gotten the alarm button. He’d been so worried about Rori’s head when she was an infant. He acted as if her head would roll off her neck and bounce on the floor like a basketball if you let it go. He was constantly calling out for me to watch her head—keep my hand on it. His fears about her head grew with her as if her skull was made of paper instead of flexible bone. He’d been sure she had a concussion when she took her first slip in the bathtub and hit her head even though she seemed fine to me. She’d cried, but I’d heard her cry louder when she was hungry. He’d insisted on taking her to the pediatrician despite my voice of reason that she was fine and she was.
Robin was as neurotic about brain injuries as David. She’d call me with all her worries and I spent as much time reassuring her everything was all right with Emma as I did David. She freaked out when she put Emma in her wooden cradle for the first time because he was afraid she’d rocked her too hard and given her Shaken Baby Syndrome. I explained cradles were made to rock babies and was sure there wasn’t a single case of Shaken Baby Syndrome due to cradle rocking.
“How was your day?” I asked.
“Clearly not nearly as dramatic as yours. Emma did have an ear infection. We took her to the doctor this morning and they put her on antibiotics. She seems fine now.”
“What’d you think about what Larissa said last night?”
“That she’s about to have sex with someone other than her husband which officially makes it an affair?”
I laughed. “Yeah, what’d you think?”
“Really? Your daughter is in the hospital and you want to gossip about Larissa? You crack me up.”
I laughed again, but it was nervous laughter this time. “You know how much I hate it when things get intense with David. I don’t know how to handle this new side of him. I keep telling myself I’ll get used to it, but it’s been four years and I’m not any more used to it now than I was.”
I hadn’t expected David to become so paranoid and hypervigilant when he became a dad. I figured he’d be a laidback father because he was the most relaxed person I’d ever met. I was the worrier and the obsessive one—the one who got frustrated when things didn’t go according to my plans or who willfully exerted my will to make things happen the way I wanted them to. I was the person who couldn’t sleep because I was too worked up about something or who got so anxious I got stomach aches and migraines. It’d never been him. He’d always been the voice of reason and calm.
He started to change shortly after we’d found out I was pregnant. He was obsessed with me taking my vitamins, getting enough rest, and not working so hard. He barraged me with questions about how I was feeling all the time, calling multiple times a day while I was at work. At first, I tho
ught it was because he was nervous given my other miscarriages, but his hovering continued into the second and third trimester after the threat of miscarrying dropped dramatically. He read all the parenting and birthing books he could get his hands on. He was more scared of giving birth than I was. I thought his worrying was cute and figured once the baby was born, he would relax and return to his usual self.
Instead, he became just as hovering over Rori as he’d been of me in my pregnancy. He jumped every time she cried. At night when she would wake up, he would leap out of bed and be leaning over her crib, pulling her into his arms before my feet had hit the floor. His face would become just as contorted with emotion as hers as if her crying physically hurt him. When I listened to my friends talk about how inept their husbands were at caring for their babies, I knew I should feel lucky and fortunate to have him be so wonderful with Rori. But all I could think of when I heard them complain about how their husbands didn’t know how to hold the baby right, change the diaper quickly, or put the baby to sleep was how much I longed for the attention he used to give me.
I quickly tired of my conversation with Robin. I’d called her for a distraction, not a reality check. She was probably texting David while we talked asking him how he was holding up. They were closer than they’d ever been since they spent so much time together. It had been weird at first that he spent more time with my best friend than I did, but I’d gotten used to it.
“Will you let me know as soon as you find out anything?” she asked.
“Of course. I’ll let you know as soon as I know anything.”
“If I can do anything for you guys, bring you coffee, just call me.”
“I will. Thanks. Bye.”
I tapped End and set my phone on the seat next to me and felt the familiar wave of loneliness wash over me. I missed David and the person he used to be. I hadn’t been prepared for our role reversal and didn’t like it. We’d always had neatly defined roles that allowed our relationship to run smoothly, but I didn’t know how to act in my new role. I wanted the old David back—the guy who didn’t get upset about everything and blow insignificant moments into crises.
The worst part of our role reversal was that I couldn’t do for him what he’d always done for me despite my best efforts. I attempted to make him laugh about taking himself so seriously, but it only angered him or even worse—disappointed him. I tried to get him to relax using the same tactics and techniques he’d used with me to make me feel better like reminding me to breathe and rubbing my back in circles. None of it worked or made a difference. He rolled his eyes at me when I reminded him to breathe and swatted my hands away like I was an annoying bug when I tried to rub his back.
I took a deep breath before walking into the house—our Spanish colonial home that we’d worked so hard to renovate and make our own. I stepped onto the restored original wood floors we’d painstakingly done together for months. We’d spent so much time on our knees we developed matching bruises, but the floors had turned out beautiful.
I walked into the living room and found it littered with the remnants of David and Rori’s morning. The pillows on the brown sectional were messed up from where they’d laid together during their thirty minutes of the cartoon time David scheduled into each morning. Rori’s sippy cup sat on the coffee table next to his coffee mug holding coffee that had long grown cold. I straightened the pillows on the couch, setting them each back in their place. I carried their cups from the coffee table into the kitchen and loaded them into the dishwasher already filled with the dishes left over from breakfast—her hardened bowl of oatmeal and his plate caked with scrambled eggs and syrup from his famous pancakes I was sure he’d shared with her. I looked around at our kitchen. It was the first room we’d remodeled. I picked up the dishrag from the sink and wiped the black marble countertops we’d argued over for two weeks until he’d finally given in to me, “If marble is really that important to you, let’s do it.”
My favorite part of the kitchen was the island and bar stools we’d chosen to slide underneath. Before Rori was born, we spent endless hours each evening sitting at the island, sipping wine, and talking about our days. We filled the room with our conversation and laughter. I regaled him with stories of my difficult clients and accounts I was working on and he shared about the classes he was teaching and the students he found promising or alternately annoying. I couldn’t remember the last time we’d hung out at the island and shared a bottle of wine. Most nights when I managed to make it home in time for dinner, the dinner focused on Rori and trying to get her to eat. She was notoriously picky. If she had her way, she’d only eat goldfish crackers and bananas. As soon as the dinner dishes were cleared, we shifted into the night time routine David had created and been diligent about performing since Rori had been a few months old.
The next two hours were split into neatly timed intervals. First, there was a brief playtime followed by a bath. Next, we put her in her pajamas and brushed her teeth. Afterward, we tucked her in bed, read two books, snuggled with her for ten minutes, and then it was lights out. The routine ran like a well-oiled machine and he was convinced she wouldn’t sleep if we veered from her schedule, but Rori never fell asleep once she was in bed despite the fact that David developed the routine to enhance and promote sleep exactly like all the books instructed. She alternated between calling out to us playfully and sobbing as if her heart was breaking. One evening, I pointed out her bedtime might be too early for her and suggested she might go to sleep easier if she went to bed later and he’d looked at me as if I suggested we serve her glass shards for breakfast. I never brought it up again. It was usually another hour before she was asleep and David was never able to relax until he was sure she was. By then, we were both so tired we collapsed on the couch and binged on Netflix rather than settling down together at the island with a glass of wine for some alone time.
When we did find the time to be alone together, our conversations worked their way back to something Rori had said or done. I liked talking about Rori, but there were times I missed our discussions about other things. I never dared express it to him, but I missed when he used to talk to me about things besides her. I longed for our conversations about sports even though I didn’t care who won because I liked how excited he always got about the games. I missed our talks about the books he was reading or thinking about assigning to his students. The only books he’d read in the last four years were parenting books. I didn’t pay any attention to the media, but he was the opposite. It used to annoy me how philosophical and passionate he could get about the issues in the media, but now I’d give anything to hear him spout off about how the use of cellphones was going to turn everyone into robots.
I let out a deep sigh and climbed the stairs up to our bedrooms to begin gathering the supplies we’d need to stay overnight in the hospital.
We should have gotten a cat.
My conscience was assaulted with what a terrible mother I was for thinking such a thing, but it wasn’t the first time I’d regretted having Rori even though I knew it meant I was a bad mother. I’d gotten used to feeling like I wasn’t a good mother. During Rori’s first year, whenever I’d start to feel like I wasn’t acting the right way or feeling the way I was supposed to feel about being a parent, I’d tell myself it was only temporary and was because of my insecurities and inability to do things with her perfectly like David did. I assured myself it was an adjustment period and like any new relationship, it was going to take time to develop. I was sure as time went on I would start to like my role as a mother and begin to feel as competent about it as David and the other mothers around me. I refused to even acknowledge it might have anything to do with That Night.
But things didn’t improve over time. They only grew more pronounced as Rori moved into her second and third year. As I watched David, Robin, and other parents interact with and talk about their children, I could no longer deny something significant was missing in me when it came to being a parent. I didn’t want there to
be, but the harder I tried to force it to happen, the more I struggled and the more obvious it was. The more I tried to say the right thing, the more I said the wrong thing whereas David always knew exactly what to say.
Robin wasn’t any different. I watched her on playdates as she skillfully talked Emma down from temper tantrums when both our kids were going through the terrible twos. She was able to soothe and calm her down. When it was Rori’s turn to have a meltdown, she wanted nothing to do with my efforts to comfort her. She shoved me away and screamed louder. Every effort I made resulted in the same end—carrying her to the car over my shoulder kicking and screaming.
David assured me the only reason I couldn’t talk Rori off the ledges of a meltdown was because she was a stubborn child and refused to be distracted like so many other kids, but his words held no value. If what he said was true then Rori should’ve had the same behavior with him as she did with me, but she never did. He could calm her down as well as Robin could calm Emma.
I rubbed my temples, knowing within the hour my head was going to be throbbing. I reminded myself like I always did whenever I was bombarded with thoughts about being a horrible mother that I loved Rori in my own way. Of course, I loved her. I was her mother and mothers were supposed to love their children.
Chapter Five
When I got back to the hospital, Rori was sitting up in bed with David beside her, his arm wrapped snuggly around her. Her face was pale and there were dark circles underneath her eyes. Her skin had a yellowish tint I’d never seen before. She looked up at me when I walked into the room.
“Hi, sweetie,” I said, taking a seat next to them at the end of the bed.
“Hi, Mommy.” She gave me a weak smile.
“How are you feeling? Do you feel better?”
She shook her head.
“What’s wrong? Where does it hurt?”
She shook her head again.
“Sweetie, can you tell Mommy how you’re feeling? It’ll help us be able to help you. We really want to figure out what’s wrong with you.”
Missing Parts Page 4