The Omega's Dearest Baby

by Louise Bourgeois

  “His blood got too thick, and clotted, formed a lump, in one place, and the clot got stuck in his brain, cutting off the oxygen,” Noah explained. “The clot’s gone now, but when the brain doesn’t have oxygen bits of it can die. The doctors think part of Da’s brain might have died.”

  Emily’s eyelashes had stuck together with tears, and she rubbed at her eyes. “Will he remember me?” she asked.

  “I promise you, love, you will be the very last memory he’ll lose. After he’s forgotten everything else, he’ll still remember you. Do you want to see him?”

  Emily nodded, and Noah stood up and picked her up in his arms. His back screamed at him, she was far too heavy now, but he ignored it and hitched her up a little more and carried her after the nurse.

  He knew he’d pay for this later with muscle spasm, he could tell, but right now it was more important that he was holding Emily when she saw Vincent.

  He stood at the foot of Vincent’s bed, beside the chart and Emily clutched onto him. “You alright?” he asked her.

  “He’s asleep,” she whispered. “Why has he got tubes in his throat?”

  Vincent’s nurse stood beside Noah and patted Emily’s arm. “That’s called a tracheotomy. He’s got it because he’s having trouble breathing,” the nurse explained. “The tubes make it easier for us to help him, and put oxygen in his lungs.”

  “I want to touch him,” Emily said, and she clung to Noah even more tightly. “Can I?”

  The nurse smiled at her. “Sure. Come here and you can touch his hand.”

  Noah stood Emily on her feet and guided her round the bed. She reached out and stroked her fingers over the back of Vincent’s hand. A little look of satisfaction came over her face. “He feels alive.”

  Noah bent over and kissed the top of her head. “He is, sweetheart.”

  Emily looked more confident as he led her back to the waiting room and Ella. Known fears were always easier to face then unknown fears. Now Emily knew what Vincent looked like and that he wasn’t dead, she seemed less scared. She ran to Ella and hugged her. “You go back to him, Noah, I’ll take Emily off for some food,” Ella said, and Noah watched the pair of them leave, Emily telling Ella all about how her Dad was asleep and the nurse was looking after him.

  ***

  Vincent woke slowly. It felt like he as struggling through a king sized hangover. Parts of his body hurt badly, his mind was wrapped in cotton wool, and he kept slipping back to sleep. When he finally pried his eyes open, the light was blindingly bright, making him flinch.

  Someone was calling him, and he struggled to make sense of their voice.

  Noah.

  Noah was saying his name.

  He opened his eyes again, and Noah was there. His face was all strange, like he was scared of something.

  “Vincent, love, can you hear me?” Noah was pleading. “Squeeze my hand if you can.”

  Hand. He had hands. Someone was holding one, so Vincent tried to squeeze it. His fingers moved a little.

  “Don’t try and talk,” Noah said. “Just rest.”

  Vincent looked around him a little. More bright lights. Some machines. It looked like a hospital. Maybe he was sick.

  Don’t talk, Noah had said. Vincent didn’t think he could. Something was badly wrong with his throat, and he lifted his hand to find out. His arm felt like lead and Noah clung onto it tightly, stopping him from moving it.

  He frowned. Vincent knew this feeling now. It was what it had felt like when he’d nearly drowned in a lake years ago. ‘Only this can’t be then,’ he thought foggily. Noah hadn’t been with him that day. And he was there now. Besides, Noah had a silly Mohawk then. He had a buzz cut now.

  Memory started to come back. Noah had a buzz cut because he was starting to go bald, to his horror. That was because of all the T he had taken. Because of Emily.

  They had Emily. And Ben was a grownup now. Some hotshot lawyer in Seattle. And he and his partner, Natalie, had a baby boy called Trevor. That was right. Gorgeous baby. His grandson.

  Noah was talking to Vincent again, and he made himself focus on Noah’s face. “Vincent? Are you alright? You drifted off for a bit.”

  Vincent squeezed Noah’s hand. He mustn’t drift off again, had to stay there with Noah.

  Vincent heard Noah say, “I love you,” and he felt tears slip down his cheek and he squeezed Noah’s hand as tight as he could.

  ***

  Noah was relieved that the next doctor that spoke to Ben and himself at least looked old enough to drive. “Neurologially, things are looking good,” he said to Noah and Ben. “There’s right side weakness, and we won’t know about his speech centre until the trach tube comes out. That should be tomorrow. He’s breathing fine by himself. We think we’ve got the anticoagulant dose right now, his clotting time is just right.”

  Ben nodded beside Noah. “Right side weakness means he’ll need rehabilitation?”

  “Yes, physio and occupational therapy to get moving again. And no more cigarettes, ever. Single biggest risk factor for a stroke. If anyone else in the family smokes, they should stop right now too.”

  Ben looked a little guilty.

  “We’ll move him to the Stroke unit tonight. Considering that he arrested today, he’s in remarkably good shape now, and to be honest, we desperately need the Intensive Care bed.”

  The doctor left and Ben looked at Noah. “I’m going to go to Ella’s now, call Nat, then get some sleep. Do you want a lift? Are you coming to Ella’s too? I know she offered you a bed.”

  Noah shook his head. “I can’t leave yet, Ben. I’ve got to stay with him for a bit longer.”

  Ben nodded. “Yeah, I understand. If it was Nat or Trev, I wouldn’t be able to leave either.”

  Noah looked at Ben and was reminded again of how thoroughly Ben had grown up. The obnoxious teenager was completely gone now, replaced by a devoted dad. “And I want to sleep in our bed. You go, I’ll see you here tomorrow.”

  Noah stayed, stroking Vincent’s hand and talking to him when he seemed to be awake, telling him everything he could think of. He talked in a whisper about Ben and Emily, about what he was studying, about when they had first known each other, anything to keep the light flickering in Vincent’s eyes.

  Vincent had drifted off again, and the night nurse patted Noah’s shoulder. “Go home,” she said quietly. “I promise I’ll take good care of him, and you look like you’re about to fall over.”

  Noah went to argue, to ask to be allowed to stay, and she shook her head at him. “You’ve got some long days ahead of you when he starts rehab, go home and get some sleep.”

  Noah looked down at Vincent, breathing steadily and audibly, seemingly asleep, and nodded. “Alright.”

  Noah rubbed his eyes wearily as he stepped out of Intensive Care and into the corridor. Someone stood up from the row of chairs, someone Noah knew.

  “Cedric,” Noah said, and Cedric hugged him hard.

  “Ella rang me, told me what had happened, so I thought I’d come down here and wait for you. How is he?”

  Noah lifted one shoulder tiredly. “He’s alive. He’s been awake on and off, and he’s not fitting anymore. The doctor was positive when we saw him, if that means anything.”

  Cedric kept one arm around Noah’s shoulders. “Let me drive you home at least.”

  Noah wouldn’t let Cedric walk him inside the house. “I’ve got to do this alone,” he said as he looked at Cedric. “I might have been alone forever, so I need to just do this, and remind myself how bloody lucky I am.”

  Cedric didn’t argue with him, just hugged him again. “I’ll be in touch. Let me know if there’s anything I

  can do.”

  The house was silent and dark when Noah pushed the front door open. He flicked the kitchen light on. His backpack was still on the counter where he’d left it. There was a note from Ella beside it, saying she had picked up clean clothes for Emily and taken Em back to her own place for the night.

  Noah was
grateful. He had more than half expected Ella to be curled up on the couch in the family room, and much as he appreciated her support, he really just wanted to be alone.

  The bed was just as he had last seen it, and the smell from the bathroom had filled the bedroom too. Noah pushed the windows open, letting in a blast of cool fresh air, then went and got a bucket of bleach and hot water, and a couple of cleaning clothes.

  He crawled across the bathroom floor on his hands and knees, mopping and cleaning as he went, and his back was agony. Normally, he wouldn’t do this kind of job, he had too much back pain, but there wasn’t anyone else to clean this mess up.

  His back had got worse and worse over the years as the disks deteriorated, and he’d finally had a laminectomy the year before, fusing the four vertebra that were worst affected. That, in combination with the pins in his spine from the actual injury, had left him without a lot of flex in his lower spine, and he had an odd gait now.

  Going to uni had been the obvious choice. He could afford it, and he had the time. And he’d enjoyed it far more than he thought he would. There was a pleasure in studying when there wasn’t the pressure on him to achieve grades.

  When he’d finished the floor, he had to drag himself back upright by the edge of the sink. He closed the bathroom door, leaving the exhaust fan on, and emptied the bucket, then brushed his teeth in Emily’s bathroom.

  Before clambering into bed, he tracked down the remote control for the TV and DVD. He dropped his clothes on the floor and hauled the quilt back up the bed over him. He should be exhausted, but his mind was still racing, so he flicked on the TV.

  The porn DVD started up where they had paused it two nights before, and the rush of memories made Noah tear up. They hadn’t fucked, they almost never did anymore, but he had given Vincent a head job while he had watched the DVD. Vincent’s taste in porn usually made Noah flinch, as he had a disconcerting liking for het porn featuring silicone blondes, but this time it just made him miss Vincent even more.

  He lay back on the bed, and rolled onto his side. He knew he should do something about his back, stretch a little, take some anti-inflammatories, but it all seemed like too much effort. His eyes settled on Vincent’s bedside table. He should take some of the things in for Vincent tomorrow. He rolled further over, onto Vincent’s side of the bed, and picked up Vincent’s reading glasses. They were battered, with one of the arms held together by tape. Vincent refused to replace them, claiming they worked just as well as they ever did.

  There was a clay pot, made by Emily sometime ago, painted with green and blue stripes. The pot held Vincent’s jewelry, what little he wore. A chain with a fossilized sharks tooth, his pau shell pendant on a leather thong, and two silver rings, both of which Noah had given him.

  Noah put down Vincent’s glasses and opened the top drawer of his bedside table. Noah had never looked in there before, it had just seemed too private, though he was sure Vincent would gladly have shown him everything in there if he had asked.

  There on top was Vincent’s journal, with an elastic band around it. Noah knew about Vincent’s journals. They were full of illegible scrawls, fragments of poems, drafts of stories, quick sketches. The jumble of Vincent’s mind. Noah pulled out a second notebook, tied around with string. Vincent’s dream journal. He had never seen inside this book, though he knew Vincent occasionally wrote in it. Even if Vincent had died that day, Noah still wouldn’t have opened the dream journal. He would have destroyed it unread. He placed it on the bed carefully.

  There were photos loose in the drawer, family shots of him and Emily, the photos of newborn Trevor that Ben had sent them. He found the bell on a long cord that Vincent had bought him during his pregnancy, supposedly to soothe the baby. They’d quickly worked out that it seemed to make the baby kick harder. Cards from Emily were jumbled up with fragments of clay, molded into wriggled shapes by tiny fingers. Noah knew this clutter, he had a box of it himself. Underneath crumbling pasta threaded onto cord there was an envelope with Noah’s name written across the front.

  there's a letter on the desktop that i dug out of a drawer the last truce we ever came to in our adolescent war

  Noah picked it up and held it carefully, turning it over. The back was blank, the flap unsealed, and he slid the folded paper out of the envelope.

  The letter was addressed to him, and dated the year after Emily was born.

  ‘Noah,’ the letter read. ‘Something serious must have happened for you to be looking in my drawer. I just wanted a chance to tell you how I felt.’

  The blinds rattled in the breeze blowing in through the open windows and Noah sat back on the bed. It seemed to him that Vincent was with him, right in the room they shared

  ‘I’ve always wanted you, right from the first moment I saw you, but I never thought I’d care for you, never thought I’d love you. You were this mercurial lover that slipped in and out of my bed and my life. Somewhere, somehow, you touched my heart. Other lovers didn’t move me like you did, and I stopped bothering with them, happy just to take the occasional moments with you. Emily changed that for me. You were so beautiful carrying her, so hurt and scared, so vulnerable. I wanted to protect you, cherish you, take the burden away from you. I wanted to love you, and I let myself. I ached for you to love me back, and all I could see was you slipping away from me after she was born. Telling you how I felt was terrifying, perhaps the hardest thing I’ve ever done. I’ve had time to get used to the idea that whatever you feel for me, (and I believe you do, I see the affection in your eyes, feel the gentleness of your hands,) that I am the Lover, and you are the Loved. In the secrecy of my dreams, you love me too.’

  Noah’s eyes rested on the dream journal, beside him on the bed, and he wiped at his face. “In my dreams too, love,” he said out loud.

  ‘I won’t pretend that life with you has always been easy, or that I don’t wish for something more, but I cannot live without you, and I will take what you offer me gladly. You’ve said you’ll stay, and I believe you will. We’ll watch Emily grow. I hope we are together when she takes her first steps, when she says her first words, for her first day at school. I want to be with you when she falls in love for the first time. I want her childhood to merge into this blur of memories we share. You’re asleep now, worn out by chasing Emily as she crawls everywhere. I touch you gently, not wanting to wake you, and my heart fills. I am weak, helpless in the face of how I feel, I cannot deny my need for you, though I may never tell you in person. I have loved you, and still do love you. You have blessed my life and given me a child. Vincent’

  Noah closed his eyes. He was too tired to cry anymore, he needed to stop, needed to sleep. He’d known for a long time that Vincent loved him, but not how much. Not that much. He had never thought about what his silence cost Vincent.

  He’d nearly lost him. It had only been a moment’s whim to turn around and come home again. A moment’s whim, or he might have been reading the letter as Vincent’s final words to him.

  He opened his eyes and carefully folded the letter back up and slid it back in its envelope and put it into his own bedside drawer, then he stacked the clutter that was on the bed back into Vincent’s drawer, leaving out his journal. That, he would take into the hospital the next day, in case Vincent wanted it.

  The Stroke Unit ward clerk’s desk was a forest of flowers when Noah walked onto the ward, and she held out a handful of cards for him and smiled. “These are all for your partner,” she said, waving at the flowers, “but he can’t have any in his room yet.”

  Noah nodded and took the cards. “Room 14,” she said. “Down the end of the corridor.”

  He pushed open the door for room 14. Vincent looked like he had the night before, swamped by monitors and drips. Noah pulled a chair up beside the bed and took his hand.

  Vincent’s eyes opened and his head turned a little until he found Noah. He looked confused… bewildered… and Noah squeezed his hand gently. “Morning, love,” he said.

  Noah cou
ld see the questions in Vincent’s eyes. “You had a stroke. Yesterday. You’re going to be alright, you just need to rest as much as you can.”

  Vincent concentrated hard on the whiteboard marker in his right hand, trying to grip it, but his fingers just wouldn’t do what he told them to. The occupational therapist nodded encouragingly, and Vincent shook his head slightly in frustration.

  “Try your left hand,” the woman said, transferring the marker to his other hand. This time, Vincent’s hand did the right thing and he could feel the marker, reassuringly solid in his hand. There was a small whiteboard resting on Vincent’s lap and he lifted the marker over to the board and pushed it across the surface, leaving a long streak of ink. He felt absurdly happy with the mark. There weren’t many oil paint smears he had made over the years that he was this proud of. He concentrated hard and began to print letters.

  The occupational therapist nodded. “I’ll leave you to it, there’s a lot you probably want to say to your partner.”

  The woman left, and Vincent kept writing. Noah was sitting silently beside the bed, his mere presence comforting, and Vincent glanced at him quickly.

  Noah stood up and leant forward, reading out the words on the board. “Noah… love you…is Em OK?” He touched Vincent’s shoulder. “Emily is upset but coping. She saw you yesterday briefly, when you were asleep. I spoke to Ben on the phone this morning, he’s going to bring Em in to see you just before lunch.”

  Vincent scrawled, “Ben?”

  “Ben’s here too. He sat with you for a little while last night. He said you were awake and you seemed to be able to understand him.”

  “What happened?” Vincent wrote, frowning in concentration at using his left hand to write.

  “You had a stroke yesterday. It was a blood clot. The doctor said that the clot was from your heart, from irregular heartbeats.”