Look at You Now

by Liz Pryor

  I gingerly made my way off the table and into the wheelchair. She handed me my clothes and Henry. We rolled through the dark hallway, where I could hear low, muffled labor pain sounds coming through the doors of the rooms. Hearing them felt like seeing someone with a sliced-open wound. It was too fresh and painful. The wheelchair headed down another hall. It was quiet for a moment and then I heard the sounds of babies, crying and cooing. A sweetly painted sign that read Nursery was placed above a large viewing window. We wheeled slowly by the window; I looked in and saw the cribs lined up with tiny new babies sleeping in them. The nurse sped up and headed for the elevator. We got off on the same floor and wing where I’d visited Nellie six weeks ago. Annie wheeled me into a large room with two beds. There were a few bouquets of flowers on the windowsill and table. The sun sprinkled in through the big windows, and I felt something inside me begin to warm. Annie helped me out of the chair and onto the bed. “Your mom asked us to get your things from the facility, so here you are.” She opened the closet door wide where my guitar and the shopping bags were sitting on the floor.

  “Thank you,” I said. “Um, are the flowers for me?”

  “Well, of course they are. Here.” She took the cards from each bouquet and handed them to me. “I’m going to go find you some food. Are you hungry?”

  “Mostly thirsty.”

  “I’ll be back,” Annie said.

  I opened the first tiny envelope and read, “Love you loads, Dad.” There were more than a dozen white and yellow tulips in a glass bowl. The next card read, “Happy New Beginnings. Love you, Mom.” I took a whiff of the beautiful bouquet and smiled. Annie came back in with a plate full of nasty-smelling hospital food, a Coke, a lemonade, and a Squirt soda.

  “I didn’t know what you liked to drink, so I brought everything.”

  I looked at the green Jell-O and turkey-looking mush and sipped on the soda instead. I felt like I could breathe, like my entire body could finally feel the oxygen coming in and going out. I was sore and exhausted as I dozed off. Then I was awoken by something in the room. I opened my eyes.

  “Hi, Diz.” Lee was standing over the bed. He wore a crisp, light blue button-down shirt and a navy blue blazer. He leaned down and kissed my forehead. The familiar smell of shaving cream and Beeman’s gum made me smile.

  “Wow, I didn’t know you were coming. Hi, Dad,” I said.

  “Well, of course I would come.” He smiled down at me. “So … you okay? Everything went all right?”

  “Yeah, but it wasn’t fun.”

  For some reason he thought that was funny. “Well, I can imagine it wasn’t fun, but it is over.”

  “I wasn’t very brave, Dad. At all.”

  “Are you kidding? You had a baby, for Christ sakes. I don’t care how you did it, that’s brave.”

  “I thought it would never end,” I said.

  “I can imagine. I’m so sorry you had to go through all this.” He handed me a white paper bag from behind his back.

  “What is this?”

  “Just some edible food.”

  I reached in and pulled off the wax paper around a perfect ham and Swiss cheese sandwich on rye and started chowing down. Lee walked around the room, looked out the window, and smelled the flowers. As I watched him, I wondered when was the last time he and I were completely alone. There were so many of us, and we were always in a crowd. It was almost strange to be just the two of us. I thought back to the Sunday mornings I’d had with him as a little girl, the pastries and newspaper at the French bakery. He pulled the chair over to the bed and sat down.

  “I wanted to tell you something,” he said. He took off his blazer and laid it over the chair.

  “Okay,” I said.

  “I, well, I want you to know I’m proud of you… . You’ve handled this very difficult time incredibly well.” He waited a moment, then went on. “Diz, this doesn’t define who you are, it just becomes a part of who you’ve been. Okay?”

  “Okay.”

  “It’s important … that you know I love you, and I’m here for you. You really are all the things people need to be to live a great life. I’m not worried about you in the least.”

  He was so sincere. We both sat quiet until he smiled big and said, “And what does adversity do, anyway?”

  “Makes you stronger.” I laughed with a mouth full of ham sandwich. He used to tell me that all the time, growing up.

  “That’s right, don’t forget it. So your mother was here for the whole thing?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Well, that’s good.”

  “Dad, I thought I was going to die. Mom yelled at the doctor and got me drugs and … she had to listen to me scream for like two days.”

  “I’m glad she was here. When is she coming back to get you?”

  “Tomorrow morning.”

  He was standing up again, looking out the window, getting the lay of the land, I guessed.

  “I’ve got the college stuff mostly handled,” he said. “There’s a great small school in Denver; we’ll go over everything when you get home. Don’t worry about any of it.” He asked if I wanted to work at Pryor Corporation over the summer to earn money to bring to college. I had almost forgotten about college. My mind was still trying to catch up to what was happening. I’d just had a baby. I looked at Lee, and it was like he was standing at the doorway to the safe, comfortable world I’d always known. And then I thought about the baby, and the facility, and the girls. This was the last time I would be straddling the two worlds, and I had to wonder if both of them would now become one inside me.

  My dad smiled at me. “Got to go, honey. Just needed to see your face.” He grabbed his blazer, kissed my cheek, and was gone.

  I made my way to the shower. I was still tired and sore. I stepped in and let the warm water wash away the IV tape, the iodine, the breast milk, and some of the shame I’d held on to so tightly. I closed my eyes as the birth rinsed off me and swirled down the drain. I thought about my dad coming to visit, how surprised I was by it. Very few people would ever understand the depth of the complicated mistrust and disrespect that defined the combat of Dorothy and Lee—and know the impact that dynamic had on the children they brought into this world. But for a moment, this moment, I let go of all I knew about the two of them. Instead I held in my mind who my dad was to me. I was suddenly aware how lucky I was to have him, specifically, as my father. I felt it clearly and fully. Over the last five months I’d looked for the judgment from him, for the shame and disappointment I was so sure I deserved. But it never came.

  For a girl to look into the eyes of her father at her lowest moment in life and see faith and love shooting back—it felt like a miracle. A miracle I needed at that very moment. If the great all-powerful Oz—my dad—knew I would be okay, then I knew I would be okay.

  I stepped out of the shower and looked at my wounded body in the mirror. I saw beyond the rock-hard boobs, the stretch marks on my stomach, and the broken blood vessel on my cheek. Instead I saw the body and face of the girl I remembered myself once being. I smiled and noticed a hint of something familiar in my eyes. And then I began to ready for a different kind of battle. I was going home. I changed into a clean pair of sweats and a T-shirt, walked over to the window, and looked at the rooftop of the facility as the sun sank into the horizon. I looked down at my hand and saw the last fading trace of the heart Jill had drawn. Annie, the nurse, showed up at the door.

  “Was that your dad? That handsome man who just left?” she asked.

  “Yeah.”

  “What a sweetheart.”

  She smiled as she fixed up the bed. “He stood in front of the nursery window just staring at that baby for such a long time.”

  chapter 14

  A candy striper volunteer was rolling another awful-smelling meal into the room. Out in the hall I saw a baby in a wheeled crib at my door.

  I pointed. “There’s … a baby at the door.”

  She smiled. “Yes, it’s feeding time for the litt
le ones. I’m rolling that angel to the room next door. Did you want me to bring you your baby?”

  “No … that’s okay.” The woman set a plate of dinner in front of me, quietly made big faces into the tiny crib in the hall, and rolled it next door. I was exhausted. I couldn’t keep my eyes open. When I woke up again, the room was dark, the sun low and rising through the trees. It was early morning. I felt something filling my eyes. It was over. I made it. It was still sinking in, that I was on the other side of the event that had defined my entire life for the past five months. The relief sang through me.

  I sat up and looked out at the facility roof, hiding behind the trees, when a blaster headache almost knocked me over. The nurse said that might happen from the drugs. I popped the aspirin she’d put on the table and downed the melted ice water in the plastic cup next to me. I was bleeding, badly, down below, but they said that too was normal.

  As the sun rose higher in the sky, the day beginning, the sound of the babies out in the hall grew louder. A nurse brought me some orange juice and breakfast. I cleaned up, got dressed, and waited for Dorothy, who was coming to take me home. I watched the clock move from seven-thirty to eight to eight-fifteen. The back of my sneakers tapped the metal bar on the bed over and over. Finally, I heard a light knock. Ms. Graham was standing in the doorway, wearing a long tan trench coat, her glasses resting on top of her head. She was carrying a Styrofoam cup.

  “You like hot chocolate?” she said, offering it to me.

  “Yes, thanks,” I said.

  “So how are you? Are you okay?”

  “Yeah. Yeah, I really am. I’m ready to go home.”

  “Good. I can’t stay. I just wanted to say goodbye.”

  I hated saying goodbye to people. Dorothy once told me you don’t have to say goodbye, you can say see you later, or see you soon, or see you next time. But there would be no soon, or later, or next time—not with Ms. Graham, or with anyone here.

  “Thank you for everything, Ms. Graham.”

  She smiled. “I see great things for you and your future, Liz.” She reached over, patted my hand, and in a quiet voice said, “You just keep doing what you’re doing. Everything is going to work out.” Ms. Graham believed in me, I mean really believed in me. I wondered if she knew how much she’d mattered to me in these past months.

  I got up, walked over, and hugged her for the second time in all the time I’d known her. Then she quietly walked out. Neither of us said goodbye.

  Annie came in a minute later. She said, “We have to go over home care for your healing over the next few weeks.

  “So, I have a few different medications. Here you go. This one is twice a day to stop lactation, dry up your breast milk.” Holy crap. “This one is a stool softener in case you have trouble going to the bathroom, and this big one is an antibiotic to make sure you don’t get an infection.” I looked inside the bottles. They were like horse pills. I probably wouldn’t even be able to swallow them. She went on. “Oh and here, this is a cushion, you blow it up and sit on it at all times. It will help your bottom heal.” What? A cushion? For how long? She continued. “You should sit on it as often as possible, especially the first week or so.”

  “Okay,” I said. This all seemed so strange.

  “Oh, and, Liz, you know it is very common to get the blues after you give birth. If that happens, there isn’t much to do, but it is normal if it does.” The blues? I’d already had the blues, I didn’t want them anymore. “Are you feeling blue now?” Annie asked.

  “Well, no, I don’t think so.”

  “Good. Here are some pads to put in your bra so the milk doesn’t leak onto your shirt.” Leak on my shirt? “And I think that’s it. Looks like you’re ready to go. You can keep all this stuff in this bag. I’ll check in later when your mom gets here.” And she was gone.

  I sat down on the bed and thought about how I was going to hide sitting on a cushion for a week. I counted the trees outside the window, between the hospital and the facility. I strained to see the windows on the side of the facility building, but the brush was too thick. Just around twelve-thirty, the door finally opened.

  “Bonjour, my love,” my mom said. Dorothy was wearing her cream-colored St. John knit sweater set with her hound’s-tooth pants and black zip-up leather booties. “Sorry I’m so late. The twins needed to be dropped off at a birthday party and traffic was horrendouuuuuuus. How are you feeling, sweetheart?”

  “Pretty good.”

  “You look wonderful except …” She pointed. “Do you have any actual clothing here?” Dorothy considered sweats and T-shirts and sneakers non-clothing.

  “Mom, I don’t have any of my regular clothes here, no.”

  “Well, that’s okay. We’ll just be in the car.”

  Dr. Dick arrived at the door. Dorothy turned around and got a hard look on her face. “Maaaaay we help you?”

  He ignored Dorothy and approached me.

  “Having any irregular pain, young lady?”

  “I don’t think so, but I’m bleeding pretty badly and having some cramps, and my boobs hurt.”

  “Sounds about right. And the nurse went over the home-care instructions with you, the meds I prescribed?”

  “Yes.”

  “All right, then.” Both Dorothy and I looked at him. I secretly hoped my mom would remain quiet and let it go, but this was Dorothy.

  She took a step closer to him and asked, in her most sarcastic of Katharine Hepburn voices: “Is that coooooncerrrrn for your patient I detect, Doctor?”

  “Just doing my job.”

  “Your jooooob? Is it your job to wait until a patient is in a healthy state to behave in a reasonable professional manner? Don’t answer that, actually. You can be assured I will be making a formal complaint to whoever is in charge here. And you can expect consequences for your reprehensible behavior.” I smiled slightly, knowing she would never really do that. Dr. Dick looked at my mother a long time, like he was about to fire back, and then appeared to change his mind. He didn’t say a word as he turned and left the room. Dorothy watched him until he was gone.

  “Wow, Mom. Good stuff,” I said.

  “What an incredible ass.”

  “At the facility we called him Dr. Dick.”

  “Well, that’s vulgar, but appropriate, I suppose.”

  We said goodbye to Annie and made our way to the elevator. I glanced one last time down the hall at the nursery with the viewing window and then headed out the door. The air was crisp, and the sun was high in the sky. Before I stepped in the car, I took one last, long look over at the facility.

  “What are you doing, Liz?”

  “Nothing.” I thought about going back up and saying goodbye, but there was no one really left. Nellie and Tilly were gone. I’d said goodbye to Wren, and Alice, and Jill before I left. And Ms. Graham I’d seen early that morning. I scanned the grounds for the last time.

  “Well then, come on, get in!” my mom said. I got in the blue car and closed the door. We drove away from the facility for the last time. I couldn’t stop myself from smiling. It was over, I was out … I was free. I wondered how long the feeling of relief would remain; maybe it would be there forever. Dorothy was tapping her fingers on the steering wheel. I listened to the coffee mugs roll beneath us and thought how strangely comforting it is that moms never really change. She let out a long breath, looked at the road ahead, and said, “It’s over, sweetheart. You’ll see, everything will go right back to normal.”

  I was pretty sure nothing was ever going to feel like the kind of normal I’d once known. I imagined Dorothy would never really understand that, and that was okay, because it had to be. We pulled onto the interstate. Frank Sinatra came on the tape deck; of course he did. He was singing “That’s Life.” Dorothy lifted up her shoulders in her cardance kinda way, turned it up loud, and shouted, “Honey, you hear that lyric? Listen!” She sang along and swayed back and forth,

  I just pick myself up and get back in the race

  THAT�
��S life, ahhhh that’s life

  She took both hands off the wheel to snap her fingers.

  “MOM!”

  “We’re fine, I got it, I got it.” She put her hands back on the steering wheel. When the song was over, she turned the music down and looked at me.

  “Just have to get back on the horse, Liz, the horse of life.”

  The trees along the interstate were beautiful, lush and green. Spring was here. I wondered what Dorothy was thinking. She often looked so lost in thought. And then, with as much indifference as I could muster, I asked her, “What did you tell people, Mom? I mean about what was wrong with me?”

  She threw one of her hands up in the air and replied, “Nothing, nothing, you’re back and that’s it.”

  “No, I mean, when they ask what sickness I had. What did I have, Mom?”

  “You were ill, Liz. That’s it.” That’s it? That’s the cover-up? That’s the lie I’m going to tell and live with for the rest of my life?

  “And how did I get better?”

  “You, you were at the Mayo Clinic with the best doctors in the country, they made you well. End of story.” She still didn’t know what sickness I had. She hadn’t thought about this at all. “No one will ask the specifics, Liz. You just need to put this behind you right now and you mustn’t speak of it again, to anyone. Honey, are you listening?”

  “Yeah,” I said. But it wasn’t over. I was bleeding, my boobs leaked, I was sitting on a goddamn cushion, and I was certain I would think about this chapter in some form most of the days of the rest of my life. I watched the Indiana farms whizzing by. So this was the grand plan. It had a lot of holes, and I knew it.

  “Have you heard from your father?” Dorothy asked.

  “Yes.”

  “When?”

  “Yesterday.”

  “Well, that was nice, he called the hospital?”

  “He came to visit.”

  “Really, he actually drove up and you saw him?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did he bring his bride?”