Giant George

by Dave Nasser

  Time is fixed, but how everyone experiences time is always relative, and those first forty-eight hours seemed endless. Too stressed and anxious to work properly, yet unable to fill the long, long hours, we wandered the rooms of our home mostly in a daze, while George, as ever completely tuned in, would wander with us, his tail down. I really didn’t know what to do, what to say, how to be around Christie—this was completely new territory for both of us, this tragedy; neither of us had suffered the loss of loved ones yet, and I had no idea how best to support her.

  We both agreed on one thing: we’d tell no one what was happening. Not because we didn’t want or need support from our families, but because, right now, we didn’t know what was happening ourselves, and, the truth was, we couldn’t face having to have those conversations. We knew we’d have to have them soon enough anyway.

  And at the end of those two days, during which I guess we were both in shock, there would come the first of what might be a whole series of scans, while we waited for nature to take its course. At the end of those two days, Christie had to take herself back to the hospital, lie on that same table, get lubed up, take a deep breath and prepare herself to hear the worst. How long might this go on? How many times might she have to do this? Could it really continue this way for weeks? How—I couldn’t stop thinking—would she be able to bear it?

  And though I never voiced it, another thought wouldn’t stop crossing my mind too: surely, surely, it would have been better all around if the news we’d had at that first scan had been final.

  We spoke very little about what was happening to our baby during those two days. It was as if going there—picking over all those horrible “why him?” and “why us?” thoughts—would make a bad situation even worse. We just carried on, as we’d been told to, trying to act as normal as we could.

  Christie, to my astonishment, had remained dry-eyed throughout the trip home from the hospital. She was dry-eyed all that evening, and dry-eyed the next day. At first I wondered if she was taking herself off to weep alone because she didn’t want to let go in front of me, which kind of hurt, but I soon realized that wasn’t what was happening at all. She was simply staying strong for our baby; she was desperately trying to keep things together. No matter how slim the thread of hope—no matter that, in truth, there was no thread at all—it was as if she wasn’t prepared to relinquish her role as a mother. There was a part of her that wasn’t going to give up on him—not yet.

  Feeling useless and, to a large extent, superfluous, I could do nothing but be on hand and take my cue from George. For those two days, clearly tuned in to his mom’s silent distress, he was a constant presence at Christie’s side. When she sat, he sat too. When she got into bed, he climbed up there to be with her. When she stood, he stood also, and would pad alongside her to wherever she was going, maintaining a near constant vigil. I was stunned by how sensitive this dog of ours was.

  On the second morning I took him to the dog park. It was real early and Christie was finally fast asleep. She’d become gray with fatigue, yet had slept only fitfully—we both had. Even so, I didn’t doubt that what little sleep I did get was still way more than she did—she looked ashen, her eyes bruised and dark. But it was hardly surprising: it was pretty hard to sleep in such horrible limbo, when your life has already been shattered so comprehensively, yet you are still waiting for the very worst to happen—for your baby to die.

  I decided to take George to the park on an impulse. He needed to get out every bit as much as I did, and looking at the slender form of my wife curled beneath the sheets, I figured now would be the best time to do it. The sun was still low enough that the heat would be bearable, and I figured Christie would be more likely to sleep deeply if left alone. Now that George was awake, he’d be right there, nosing around her, anxious to check she was okay. I scrawled her a quick note, left her phone on the bedside table, then silently beckoned George to come with me. Once again showing that same incredible sensitivity to atmosphere, he slipped noiselessly off the bed and followed me out. In the kitchen I grabbed water for us both—George was a water snob and wouldn’t touch the water at the dog park—and we slipped out of the house as quietly as we could, grabbing his leash as we went.

  We had the place to ourselves, as I’d imagined we might at this hour; the only other owner was a woman with an energetic little puppy, who was on the far side of the small dog enclosure. As I waved hello, I wondered briefly why she might be at the park so very early, and wondered if her puppy, like George all that time ago, had spent the whole night howling and whimpering too. That put me in mind of a conversation I’d had with Christie a week or so back.

  She’d been chatting to her mom in Seal Beach about babies, and had been reminded how early she used to get up. Her mom would sit, stupefied with sleep deprivation, while Christie, full of energy, greeted the dawn—5 a.m. was a favorite waking-up time. And when she’d told me, we’d laughed about how we’d have to draw up a schedule—it was not a favorite time of day for either of us.

  It was so sad to recall that, and I wished the thought away. All those plans we’d made were now for nothing.

  George had made a slow ambling circuit of the park by now, but instead of continuing to explore, he was heading back toward me, tail uncharacteristically down. He was soon at my side, his expression intense. What exactly was going on in his mind?

  “You know what?” I told him, stroking the silk of his ears. “We’ve got some bad times ahead, Georgie boy.” He inclined his head very slightly and then nudged at my hand. “And your mom is going to need you. Okay?”

  I heard the clang of the gate then, and saw another owner come in. It was someone I knew well enough that he’d want to stop and chat. And why wouldn’t he? That was part of why we came there. I made a big show of looking at my watch and stood to leave. George and I weren’t up for making small talk—not today.

  The next ultrasound was arranged for Wednesday of that week and I had to reschedule a meeting I’d set up with the bank. It was Tuesday afternoon, and I was sitting at the breakfast bar of our opulent, stylish, very much family-sized new kitchen, which I’d pretty much finished the week before the scan; now the effort felt completely pointless.

  I was going through some papers when Christie came in, and I mentioned that I was about to make the call to the bank manager. I wanted to double-check the time of the hospital appointment. Christie shook her head and told me no.

  “I’ll be fine, honey, really,” she said. “Don’t move your meeting.”

  “You’re kidding me. Christie, there’s no way I’m not coming.”

  “No,” she said. “It’s crazy. It’ll take ages for you to get across town. Besides, I’ll be coming straight from work, so I’ll be driving myself anyway. It makes no sense for you to shift everything just to come down while I have the scan.”

  “You’re going into work?”

  She nodded. “I have to. Actually, I think I need to.”

  She seemed completely calm and composed about this. I, on the other hand, was openmouthed. “Honey,” I said, “you really shouldn’t be going into work right now. And I’m coming to the hospital, and that’s that.”

  She reached out a cool hand and laid it on my wrist. She had her “I mean it, Dave” face on. “Normal, remember? They said to carry on as normal. Normal is we go to work, you do your meeting. Normal is I go to the hospital and have my scan. I’ll call you as soon as I’m done and they’ve… well.” She took her hand away and shrugged, petted George. “Look,” she said. “I’ll call you, okay?”

  “Honey, you need me with you. This could be—”

  “No, I don’t.” She said it more softly now. Gently. Like she knew she might be hurting my feelings, but with a look that was telling me she was going to do this her way.

  I thought she’d change her mind. But she didn’t.

  When you marry late in life, there’s a fairly good chance that you’ll have spent a lot of years being mostly independent. And chances ar
e—and this was true in the case of me and Christie—that you’ll both be pretty used to being single and doing things by yourself. Christie was not only an experienced, educated, professional woman, she was also, very definitely, her own woman.

  So, despite my protestations, she got up that morning and went straight for her scan (she’d at least agreed not to go to work first). It was only overnight that something else had occurred to me: maybe she meant it—she didn’t want me there. She wasn’t saying she didn’t because she didn’t want to fuss, but because she genuinely thought she’d manage the whole ordeal better if she did it on her own—just her and the professionals. Like when you’re hurt about something, or feeling low, and sympathy’s the one thing you can’t handle. Either that or I figured she might be superstitious about what was going to happen at that scan. Be normal, act normal, expect the best, not the worst, and maybe the worst won’t happen.

  George wasn’t himself that morning, any more than we were. He’d been antsy since he woke up, even more so when Christie left. And when I set off for my still-scheduled meeting, I could tell he didn’t want me to leave him as well. Once again, as I would be in the days and months following, I was amazed at how tuned in to our emotions our dog was.

  This time, because I’d been waiting for it for what seemed like forever, when I got the call, I heard it right away. I was in my truck, driving home with my cell phone beside me, and the song that was my ringtone suddenly filled the small space. For two seconds I could hardly bear to pick the thing up. As much as I wanted the waiting to be over, and as much as I knew that being in limbo was worse, I also knew that there was going to be no happy outcome, no good news for our family today. Either our son would be gone, or not quite gone yet. I trusted the doctor totally, and didn’t doubt that for a moment. It was a case of “when” not “if.”

  There was a side street just ahead of me, so I quickly pulled in and parked, grabbing the phone from the passenger seat as I did so. The difference in Christie couldn’t have been more marked from the way she’d spoken forty-eight hours earlier. Even as I lifted the cell to my ear, I could hear she was crying—crying hard.

  “Honey?” she said, her voice ragged, coming in gulps through her tears. “He’s gone. Our baby has died.”

  Christie was still crying when I got to the hospital to collect her, and she cried steadily all the way home. Once again, I’d figured she’d be in no state to drive, and now I really cursed myself for not insisting I drive her to the scan in the first place.

  But it was done. We were home and I could pick up Christie’s car from the hospital whenever we had a moment. That didn’t matter. Right now we had more important things to do.

  The doctor had explained that Christie needed to have labor induced, because the best way to deal with a situation like this was to go the natural route and let her body complete the process of giving birth. It was a horrible thing to contemplate, but the doctor reassured her that she would be sedated throughout the procedure.

  We could have had it done locally, in Tucson, but we were both anxious that we didn’t. Christie called on all sorts of doctors, particularly surgeons, through her work, so the chances were high that whoever saw her for this would already know or at least know of her. We figured it would be worth making the two-hour trip to Phoenix to get ourselves a little privacy. Fortunately, we managed to locate a doctor in Phoenix pretty easily, and a phone call confirmed that he could do it right away.

  This meant that we’d have to travel up there real quick, and we’d need to find a place to stay overnight too. Though the procedure was typically done as outpatient, Christie would be in no shape to do such a big same-day round-trip. After this was established, more calls were made, and in a matter of minutes we were all set to go. We just had to pack a bag and find a hotel.

  “What about Georgie?” she said now, as I fired up my laptop to track down a place near the hospital in Phoenix where we could stay. She was curled on the sofa, Georgie’s head in her lap, a tissue clasped in her hand, her eyes now raw and red.

  “I guess I should call up my mom,” I suggested. “I’m sure she’d be happy to come here and stay with him overnight for us.”

  “Or we could take him,” she said, stroking his head over and over. “Wouldn’t it be better,” she suggested, looking up at me imploringly, “if he came up there with us? I hate to think of leaving him behind.”

  I noticed her other hand was still on her belly. It broke my heart to see it. How damned cruel could life be? “I’m not sure—” I began, feeling this was going to be one big complication. “It might be difficult to find a hotel at such short notice that would be happy to take such a big d—”

  “But could you try, at least?” She gestured, tissue in hand, toward my open laptop. “I know it might be hard, but you never know. Could you try? Please?”

  All at once I had a flash of insight. Of course she’d want him to come with us. Of course. And the very last thing she’d want would be to have to talk about everything that had happened, to anyone, to make arrangements, to figure out a bed for a house guest, but crucially, to be parted from George. I started searching, determined to do this one thing. “Of course I can, honey.” And I did.

  We were on the road to Phoenix within the hour, and I was grateful I’d elected to drive Christie home in the truck, so there was a bed ready and waiting for George to lie on. I could go get the car after we returned home tomorrow. Christie looked pretty drained. She hadn’t had any breakfast either, and couldn’t now, of course, in preparation for the anesthetic—not that either of us felt like eating anyway.

  I’d found a hotel online, eventually, not too far from the hospital, and I’d called them to check that they definitely took dogs.

  “Even big dogs?” I’d asked the lady. “He’s a Great Dane, so he is big.”

  “Even very big dogs,” she reassured me. “No problem whatsoever, sir. You all have a safe trip up, now. See you later!”

  In a stroke of good luck, the hotel I’d managed to find was directly on the way to the hospital too, so all we had to do was check in and drop George off, before heading on to our appointment. But in a stroke of bad luck, the first thing I spotted when I went in to reception, was a sign—quite a large one—on the wall. “Well-behaved dogs welcome,” it said cheerfully, by way of greeting. Then, underneath, in smaller writing, “under 35 lbs.”

  My balance of luck evidently seesawing now, I thanked God that I’d left Christie and George in the car. I’d done so in case we had to drive elsewhere to get to our room, as the main parking lot for the hotel rooms wasn’t out front. I really didn’t think, with the best will in the world, George could pass for “under 35 lbs.” It didn’t matter that we’d been told one thing, and here was quite another; I really didn’t have the time or the energy to argue the point. I also figured, if they knew we’d be leaving him there alone temporarily (I thought we might be gone for a couple of hours or so), they wouldn’t be too keen on that idea either, and certainly not when they set eyes on him. We’d both learned that people often thought—wrongly—that the bigger the dog, the more likelihood there was of trouble.

  Having decided that we should make this a covert operation, I checked in, established where the parking lot was and, unbeknownst to Christie, as I didn’t want to stress her further, snuck our close-to-two-hundred-pound dog in through the back.

  The long nightmare of waiting with so little hope was over in a very short time. I waited outside while the doctors did their thing, and in a little under three hours Christie was finally returned to me, limp and wobbly and still very drowsy from the anesthetic, and needing, more than anything, to go straight back to sleep.

  You’d think, wouldn’t you, that the day would have been stressful enough. But when we returned from the hospital to the hotel, we were walking through the hall toward the corridor to our room, and we could hear the unmistakable full-throated boom-boom of George barking. I cringed. I also imagined that this was presumably the res
ult of his hearing some noise or other—perhaps another guest entering or leaving—or feeling stressed because we’d left him behind.

  We didn’t know what had set him off, but we did know—for we could now imagine it so clearly—that his barking had probably been going on awhile. Indeed, it must have been going on for long enough to attract some attention from the staff, for as we turned the corner, we could see two of them ahead of us—a man and a woman—hurrying toward the source of the racket. The man, I noticed, had a bunch of keys in his hand.

  Christie was in no state to deal with any of this, and the vision of us being summarily ejected from our room was one I simply could not contemplate, much less allow. Gripping her more firmly than I had done thus far, I upped our speed sufficiently that we gained on them fast, calling out a “Hello!” as I did so. One of the staff members—the woman—turned around when she heard me.

  “That your dog making that racket?” she asked. She asked it none too cheerfully, either. Perhaps George had woken some slumbering regular guest from a nap, and she’d just been at the receiving end of a rant.

  “It is,” I said. “And I’m so sorry. We just had to step out, literally, for a few minutes, that was all.” She looked completely unimpressed at this news. “But now we’re back, and he’ll quiet right down.”

  I had gotten my room key out, and managed to maneuver so that it would be me and not them who would be opening the door. I then did so, by the absolute smallest margin I could, in order to squeeze inside and reassure and quiet George without the two of them seeing in. One peek at George’s head, especially in relation to the floor level, and the game would definitely be up. Christie, who’d guessed my plan, despite her droopy state, hung back in the hall, smiling wanly. I just about managed to keep George from being seen.