The Empty Jar

by M. Leighton

Time…time has come and gone. It’s dumped me into a present that I can’t piece together. I have no idea how I got here, to this point. What has happened that I now require a caesarean?

  Only moments ago I was at work in the E.R. where I pull shifts periodically to keep up my clinical skills. And before that, I was catching lightning bugs with Daddy. And before that…

  Or was I?

  Confusion mounts, and my anxiety intensifies.

  “Lena, take a deep breath for me,” the anesthetist instructs sternly.

  I try to be compliant, try to take a deep breath, but I can’t. My lungs refuse to cooperate. Rather than loosening, they squeeze tighter, shut, shut, shut.

  Heart racing and throat constricting, terror surges through me.

  “Please,” I plead as the woman stretches a royal blue drape up in front of my face and clips it to the poles on either side of the table. “Please let me see my husband.”

  Seconds, minutes, hours later, I hear an achingly familiar voice croon, “I’m here, baby. I’m here.”

  Cool, strong fingers brush over my forehead, and I close my eyes.

  Nate.

  I feel him in every corner of my soul. Even before I pieced together that it was his voice I heard, I felt him. I recognize his touch on a cellular level.

  Relief sweeps in and brings with it a rush of emotion of a different sort. Suddenly, I’m heartbroken, and I don’t even remember why. What have I missed? What’s happened?

  “Nate, what’s happening? I’m scared.” Though my tears are hot, they leave icy tracks from my temples into my hair.

  “Shhh.” His voice soothes. “Don’t be afraid. I’m right here, and I’m not going anywhere. You have an epidural. That’s why you can’t feel your legs. Dr. Stephens is taking Grace because her cord has wrapped around her neck. You’ll both be fine. I promise. Don’t worry, baby,” he whispers, his lips at my ear.

  When I look up at Nate, his upside down face only makes me feel further confused. Desperate to see him, desperate to see the familiar angles and planes of his face, I tilt my head until the image of him is mostly righted. Only then does the level of my alarm yield to the point where I can take a single deep, calming breath.

  “Nate,” I say simply.

  The sound of his name in the quiet room, the feel of it on my tongue…it’s everything. The moon and the stars, the sun and the wind.

  My world.

  He is my world.

  “Don’t cry, baby,” he murmurs, his face blurring as he leans down to set his forehead against mine. “Don’t cry.”

  I think I hear a catch in his voice, but I can’t be sure. The slowing beat of my heart is thudding in my ears, in my head, making the world around me tremble unsteadily.

  “Don’t…don’t let them…” Nate’s face swims in front of my eyes. I try to blink to better focus, but the darkness, the silence is pulling me under.

  “Lena, you can relax now,” a voice I recognize as Dr. Stephens’s hums. “In just a few minutes, you’ll be meeting your daughter. Rest. Just rest.”

  I don’t want to rest. I want to see Nate, to hear him and feel him, but sleep is relentless in its pursuit of me. And I’m too weak to fight.

  “I love you, Lena Grant,” is the last thing I hear before I drift off.

  Nate.

  ********

  Nate

  I keep my eyes glued to my wife’s resting face as I listen to the foreign sounds of an operating room during an operation. Despite the questions and concerns chasing one another around in my head, seeing my precious Lena sleeping so quietly calms me.

  It seems like she hasn’t rested well in a lifetime, even though I know it can’t have been that long. But it feels like it. It feels as though the days since her diagnosis have crept by like years, but also that they’ve flown by at the speed of light.

  I want desperately to rewind the clock, back to a place in time where there was solid ground, firm footing. I long for the days when our biggest worry was where to spend Christmas and what color to paint the sunroom we added on to the rear of the house. Any time before today, before now.

  Now is the beginning of the end. Even more than the diagnosis had, this feels like the beginning of the end.

  Once Grace is born, everything will change. I can’t be sure how, but in my gut I know it will. Lena has fought to carry this baby. Will she give up now?

  We’ve had a reprieve from following the progression of her disease. Will they find that she’s beyond time and treatment now?

  I have no way of knowing the answers to those questions, but in the darkest part of my mind, I think I already know.

  I’m so lost in thought, lost in the silky-soft texture of my wife’s hair that I’ve tuned out the goings on around me, but a sound, one single sound, brings me back. It’s a shock to my insides, one I wasn’t expecting.

  It’s the cry of a baby.

  My baby.

  Our baby.

  Every hair on my arms stands up at attention when I lean around the makeshift curtain and see the doctor place a slimy, squirmy little purple-red bundle into the towel-draped arms of a waiting nurse. The nurses turn away, but not before I catch a glimpse of the most beautiful profile I’ve ever seen.

  Aside from my wife’s.

  It’s Grace’s.

  My child’s.

  Now completely spellbound, I watch the back of the nurse. My eyes don’t leave her as she moves her arms, as she shifts this way and that, working on my daughter.

  I watch and I wait, wait for the moment when I can see her again.

  Suction slurps in the background. Voices ring alongside it, voices like Dr. Stephens as she asks for things like suture and staples and more light. A nurse’s as she responds. All the while, I don’t take my eyes off the place where the newest addition to my life is being held.

  Then, as if she’s moving in slow motion, the nurse picks up Grace and turns with her, smiling as she makes her way to me. My heart pounds so briskly, I feel like it might rip through my chest like in Alien. The beat grows harder and louder with each step the nurse takes.

  And then she’s passing me a small bundle.

  With greedy hands, I reach for my baby. I take her into my arms, cradling her as I would cradle a wounded baby hummingbird. I feel as though I’m handling something so tiny and delicate. Something so precious that a deep breath could crush it into oblivion.

  I stare down at the only skin visible from the tight folds of the blanket—a small, angelic face still pink from her gusty cries.

  “Helena Grace,” I breathe, part in awe, part in relief.

  A love second only to that which I feel for my wife courses through me. For seven months, I’ve wondered how I’d feel about this baby, about this parting gift from the love of my life. Would I be able to love it like she’d want me to? Would I see it as a reason that my wife is gone? Would I resent it?

  Now I know.

  Now I know the answers to all those questions.

  Yes, I will love my child as Lena would want me to. That’s the only answer I need. The other questions seem ridiculous now.

  As I stare down at the sweet little life in my arms, I know what the adoration of parent for child feels like. I know how it invades the hidden spaces and stretches them wide. I know how part of my heart has been lying dormant, hibernating, waiting to beat for a face such as this.

  Grace makes some cute gurgling sounds, her face all screwed up like she might cry, but then she snuggles toward my chest, like she’s snuggling in for a long, quiet nap.

  Love and warmth pour through me.

  I hold her close and gaze down at her, willing her to open her eyes. I don’t know what to expect, only what I’ve been hoping for, what I’ve been praying for.

  Then, as if she just wants to put my curiosity to rest, Grace lifts her lids and shows me that my prayers have been answered. Staring up at me from the tiny face of my little girl are my wife’s eyes. Although they’re an indeterminate color right now, I don
’t have to see the color to know that they’ll be just like Lena’s.

  In this very moment, in this split second of a life measuring forty-two years thus far, I know I’m a goner.

  If I hadn’t known it before, it’s clear the instant Grace looks up at me with eyes as familiar to me as my own. I know without a doubt that I can and will love this child enough for two parents.

  “I love you already, baby girl,” I croon, curling the little bundle toward my face so I can kiss the sparse, damp, blonde waves that top her head.

  “Nate?”

  The sweetest voice speaks my name. I don’t have to turn and look at Lena’s face to know what I’ll find. Her heart will be in her eyes. I know it. I can almost feel the happiness, the fulfillment in them like a warm trade wind rolling off crystal-blue waters, filling all the recesses of my soul.

  Overwhelming gratitude gathers around my vocal cords, choking off any words I might’ve said otherwise, drowning out the raw, bleeding love that’s spewing from my heart. So rather than speaking, I move slowly toward my wife and lay my little bundle across her chest, pressing my cheek to Lena’s as she cries.

  “Thank you for her, Nate,” she mutters, sobbing softly over our child. “She’s perfect. She’s my perfect little miracle.”

  I couldn’t have said it better myself.

  She is.

  She is perfect, and she is a miracle.

  As I take out my phone and start recording this moment, I wonder, with a heart never happier yet never more aggrieved, if Grace will be the only miracle the two of us will be fortunate enough to get.

  Twenty-two

  Blind Love

  Nate

  Lena has dozed off and on since delivery. I saw Dr. Taffer talking to Dr. Stephens in the hall right after we were brought up to this room. And just a few minutes ago, a nurse brought Grace and helped Lena to feed her for the first time.

  Someone might as well have had a knife, twisting it in my gut. That’s exactly what it felt like to watch my beautiful wife put our beautiful child to her breast. There is no doubt in my mind that I will never see anything more breathtaking than the two of them together.

  I’m positive I’ll never forget Lena’s expression either.

  Her world is complete. This is all she’s ever wanted–for us to be a family—and she got her wish. It’s there in every loving line of her face—the awestruck gaze, the curved lips, the smooth brow. She’s whole.

  And I’m whole merely watching them.

  The scene was absolutely perfect until Dr. Stephens came in to check on Lena. With her, she brought the first niggle of unease to my mind.

  “Looks like momma and baby are getting acquainted,” she says with a placid smile. “I’m glad she latched on quickly. I think it’s important to breast-feed her for the first day or two. Get as much of that colostrum in her as you can before we put her on formula.”

  “Formula?” I ask.

  Dr. Stephens turns her never-wavering smile toward me. “Yes. Considering some of the medications Lena will be taking, her breast milk won’t be safe for the baby.”

  I say nothing.

  Although my mind is spinning with questions, I don’t want to ask them now. Not at a time such as this. To disrupt this precious moment, the time when Lena is first feeding and getting to know our child, seems tantamount to sacrilege. So I stand silently by the bedside, processing the doctor’s words, my dread growing, until Dr. Stephens turns back toward Lena.

  I watch my wife glance up at her obstetrician, her features more peaceful than I’ve ever known them to be, and she nods. She doesn’t question, she doesn’t argue. She simply agrees. Maybe she knows something I don’t.

  It’s the consequent visit of Dr. Taffer, Lena’s oncologist, that fills in some of those blanks.

  “How are we doing?” Lheanne Taffer asks when she walks in, perching one hip on Lena’s bed and angling her body so that she can see both Lena and me.

  “Wonderful,” Lena replies without hesitation.

  “Glad to hear it. Looks like the little one made a grand entrance.” She leans in to look down into Grace’s face, her expression closed.

  “She did. But she’s here. That’s the main thing.”

  After only a second’s pause, Dr. Taffer turns all her attention to Lena. “Are you in pain?”

  “No.”

  “While you’re here, I’d like to order some testing so we can get a bead on where you are with the cancer before you’re discharged. How does that sound?”

  Lena takes her time in answering, something that makes all the muscles in my chest tense up. “Can we wait a few days? Let me enjoy her a little bit first?”

  It’s Dr. Taffer’s turn to pause. I wonder what she’s thinking. Is she debating whether to push the subject? Is she considering giving Lena some less-than-welcome news? Is she trying to soften a blow that I alone can’t see? Is she, God forbid, thinking Lena doesn’t have time to wait?

  My lungs seize at the thought.

  When the doctor finally responds, everything from her features to her body language is carefully neutral. “Of course, if that’s what you’d prefer.”

  “It is.”

  The two women share a long, intense look before the oncologist stands. It’s obvious she wants to say more, but isn’t sure how and when to go about it. “Lena, you’re at least going to need to start a couple of medications.”

  I can’t hear Lena’s sigh, but I see it lift her chest along with our child who rests on it. “Why? What’s going on?”

  “I was looking at your labs. Your ammonia levels are climbing. The stress of the pregnancy on your liver only aggravated an existing problem. We need to get that down. I suspect you’re working on hepatic encephalopathy. Grade one at least. It’s crucial that we get a handle on this, Lena. I know you’ve been having some confusion, too, and… Well, you know how it goes.”

  While Lena may know what the doctor is getting at, I do not.

  “What are you saying?”

  Dr. Taffer turns, tight-lipped and firm, to face me this time. “I’m saying that I think her disease has advanced considerably, and we need to know what we’re dealing with so that we can get her on some kind of treatment as soon as possible, even if it’s palliative.”

  Palliative.

  In my extensive research, done when I couldn’t sleep for worrying about my wife, I came across that word all too often in reference to Lena’s condition.

  Palliative.

  Palliative care is for comfort only. It isn’t used to treat anything except pain or other uncomfortable symptoms associated with terminal conditions. It isn’t intended to heal or prolong or delay. It’s the use of medication strictly for those who are dying. And who will be in a great deal of pain or discomfort from it.

  Palliative.

  And it’s used when death is fairly imminent.

  A wave of nausea rolls through my stomach. It comes on like a white-capped storm surge, curling over a sandy shore—quickly and unexpectedly. I want to yell at Lheanne Taffer, to tell her that this is supposed to be a happy day and she’s supposed to give us hope, not…not…this. I want like hell to kick her out the door and erase everything she’s said since she walked in.

  But I don’t.

  I can’t do either of those. My job is to keep my wife calm and uplifted. Throwing her oncologist out on her ass or getting myself forcibly removed by security would accomplish neither of those, so I swallow my complaints like the bitter, jagged pills they are.

  Then I swallow again.

  “So, you’d give her something to help the pain in her side? A-and the…confusion?” I ask. I hate talking about my wife as though she’s not here, but I need to understand the options.

  “Yes. At least those two things. We’ll know more when we can get some testing done.”

  I wonder if I pale visibly as I consider what this means because Dr. Taffer reacts as though I did. I catch the quick succession of several emotions as they play over her face.
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  I can’t help wondering if, in her haste to get my wife on some kind of treatment, the doctor forgot that Lena Grant is someone’s wife and, now, someone’s mother. I wonder if she didn’t even consider the possibility that Lena would want to enjoy her family, uninterrupted, for a few days before she gets poked and prodded and possibly given even worse news.

  Whether she had or hadn’t considered these things, I’ll never know. I only know the moment that she recognized those truths, she finally let some compassion in, and let it take the wheel.

  Dr. Taffer explains to me that she’ll be putting Lena on a pain patch that will give her continuous relief from the increasing pain in her side. It can be increased incrementally until she gets complete relief.

  She also tells me about the Lactulose she’ll prescribe, a drug which will help eliminate some of the excess ammonia from Lena’s body, and hopefully, reduce the bouts of confusion.

  When she’s finished, Lheanne glances back over her shoulder at Lena, sadness stealing over her features. “The main thing is that she’s able to enjoy as much of this as she can.” With one hand, she gestures toward Lena and Grace. Grace has fallen asleep after getting her belly full, and Lena is holding her as she sleeps.

  Impulsively, I take my phone from my pocket and snap another picture. I never want to forget the tender look of adoration on my sweet wife’s face or the way our baby fits so perfectly in her arms and against her chest. It’s a scene Michelangelo himself couldn’t have adequately captured.

  And one that will forever be etched on my heart.

  “I hope you’re doing a lot of that,” the doctor says quietly, nodding at the phone before she moves back toward the bed. She lowers her voice to a whisper when she addresses Lena. “Congratulations, Lena. She’s absolutely beautiful. Just like her mother.”

  Lena turns proud, shining eyes up to her physician. “Thank you.”

  Dr. Taffer nods to her then to me and makes her exit. Although she didn’t give us worse news per se, it feels as though she did. There’s an implied urgency that makes my soul shrivel as if the world has suddenly frozen over all around me.

  I hope you’re doing a lot of that.