“Mommy’s tired.” Jake laid a hand on his son’s shoulder. “Let her sit down.”
Chris didn’t move, except to bury his face deeper into her crotch.
She peeled her son’s fingers from her slacks and stooped until she was eye-to-eye with him. Cupping his chin in her hands, staring into that bewildered face that seemed to have aged by several years while she was away, she murmured, “Chris, honey . . .”
He wouldn’t look at her.
“Honey, I’m so glad to see you. I missed you very much.”
He squeezed his eyes shut and shook his head.
She picked him up and pushed his head to her shoulder. His body relaxed against hers.
It had been a good hour with Chris on her lap. Then he became fidgety.
“Honey, I need to go to the bathroom,” she said, trying to move him to the floor.
“Come, Chris, sit on the couch.” Anna’s mother patted the cushion beside her.
“No,” Chris said, wiggling against Anna. She nudged him toward his grandmother. He resisted. She didn’t want a confrontation with him this afternoon. She wanted everything to be pleasant, wanted her son to be cooperative, wanted her mother to see him as a well-behaved little boy.
“Let’s read about Moira.” Anna’s mother opened one of his favorite books, Moira and the Rite of Spring, and patted the cushion again.
“You said it wrong,” Chris said.
“Tell me the right way.”
“Moyra. Not Mora.”
“Okay, let’s read about Moyra.”
“No.”
He was digging in, taking on his grandmother in a contest of wills. Her mother wasn’t used to a strongheaded child. Anna had been a very compliant little girl.
Jake lifted Chris from her lap and set him on the couch. “Let Grandma read to you. Mommy needs a break.”
Chris squirmed from Jake’s grasp. Quick as lightning, his foot kicked at the book. It flew from his grandmother’s hands and landed on the carpet.
“None of that, young man.” Jake grabbed Chris’s shoulders and gave him a shake. “What on earth is wrong with you? Apologize to your grandma.”
Chris whimpered as he tried to pull away.
“Jake, don’t hurt him.” Anna raised her voice over her son’s. She had never seen her husband physically discipline Chris. She drew her fingers over her eyes. What weird, awful world was she in?
“I want my mommy,” Chris whined. “You’re mean.” His eyes narrowed with hatred as he squirmed against Jake’s grip.
She knew Chris would never issue an apology while in such a defiant mood and no threat could change that. She moved Jake aside, sat on the end of the couch, and retrieved the book from the floor. “First I’ll go to the bathroom, then I’ll sit next to you while Grandma reads. Jake, could you get my bag from the car?”
As Jake moved toward the door, Chris stuck out his tongue at his father’s back. She pretended she didn’t see it.
When she returned from the bathroom, Chris snuggled against her side and turned his face toward his grandmother. “Moira’s a witch,” he said. “She lives in a coven. Start here.” He turned to the picture of a troupe of Druids dancing around a maypole. “See, that one’s Aubrey.” He jabbed his finger at one of the robed men. “And there’s Aidan.”
“Is this about pagans?” Her mother looked alarmed.
Anna took a deep breath. “Well, yeah. He loves it. It’s kind of cute.” She should have guessed her mother would question the Moira book. It didn’t fit with her Lutheran sensibility. “He got it for his birthday, from his friend Davey.” She shrugged at her mother. “It’s okay, Mom. It won’t hurt him.”
“Read,” Chris commanded.
She had forgotten how comfortable their bed was. Jake had often said, as he sank into the sheets after a night at the hospital, “This is the most wonderful place in the galaxy.”
Now, still wearing her stale, wrinkled clothes, she lay under the quilt. Chris curled against her chest like a sleeping cat. Her arms and legs, tight and achy just a few minutes ago, relaxed into the loft of the mattress and she thought how right Jake was about the bed.
Her mother had pulled the window shade to darken the room, but ribbons of daylight streamed past the window frame and puddled on the carpet. Dust motes floated like gnats on its beams. Anna stroked Chris’s neck and picked a piece of a dried leaf from behind his ear. She wasn’t sure if he was asleep or just playing possum, afraid to move because, with just a little jostling, his mother might disappear again.
She closed her eyes. Against the ebony of her lids she saw Eddie in his hospital bed. What was he doing? What had happened since she left? The nurses had promised to call if anything changed, anything at all. She had already phoned them twice, once shortly after arriving home and again before lying down, and they had assured her Eddie was fine. They had suctioned the usual amount of secretions from his endotracheal tube, his blood pressure was normal. His gases were good, his urine output was fine. Maybe tomorrow they would try again to wean him from the vent.
She knew how Jake felt about Eddie. She had overheard him talking with Dr. Farley about the possibilities—their words weren’t clear and they used medical terms she didn’t completely understand, but she was able to get the gist of it. Jake thought Eddie would never be normal again. And Dr. Farley agreed.
Why couldn’t Jake believe, as she did, that Eddie would be okay? Even doctors should believe in miracles, because sometimes they happened. Deep in her soul, she knew he’d be normal. She could see him as a twelve-year-old, rocketing down a hill on a bike, hovering over a puzzle spread across the kitchen table, swimming the length of a pool in one breath, playing a trumpet. At least he could do those things if he wanted to. And yet, in another place deep in her soul, she knew he might die. The unease that rumbled through her—a wave, a cramp, a seething spasm—churned against her insides until she felt she would throw up.
She rolled over, away from Chris’s sleeping body. He lay motionless except for the rhythmic action of his tongue against his thumb. He had stopped that at least a year before, and now had started it again. She stroked his arm, gently so she wouldn’t awaken him, sadly because her heart was breaking to see him like this.
A parade of worries trotted through her head. Her mother. The kicked book. Her defiant older son. Her struggling younger son. Her class at the community college. What day of the week was it? When would she return to work? Ever? She couldn’t grasp the meaning of ever, couldn’t pin it down to a concrete idea. When was ever? Next week? Next month? In an hour? The meaning of never was much easier.
The oven timer pinged in the kitchen below. She had never heard that sound from the bedroom. It had the same pitch as a teaspoon against a fine crystal goblet. Her mind roamed near sleep and her thoughts grew fuzzy.
Smelled like cookies. Her mother must be baking, using her pans, her oven, her kitchen, her home. Hers and Jake’s. Their house, this strange and only vaguely familiar place that belonged to both of them.
And it was Eddie’s house, too. His crib was just down the hall, in the bedroom with purple and red balloons painted on the wall. She hadn’t gone into his room since returning home. That could come later. Nothing in it would have changed. The foam shapes of the mobile would still dangle over the mattress, his clothes and the clean crib linen would still be in the dresser drawers. Soon Eddie would come home, would be back in his own bed nestled under the blanket Grandma Campbell had crocheted for him. Then the world would be in order again.
Dinner was over and Chris was in bed. She had rocked him to sleep, had felt him jump with one of those nervous shudders that happen during slumber. She hugged him tight, hoping to keep another shudder at bay. Perhaps he was dreaming. About what?
She lay on the couch listening to her parents clean the dinner dishes when the phone rang. It must be Eddie’s nurse. She sprang from the sofa and raced to the kitchen.
“Hello?” She had trouble catching her breath.
“Mrs. Campbell . . .”
“Is he okay?” Why was the caller’s voice so chirpy? “What happened?”
“Mrs. Campbell, this is Ben from Friends of the Firefighters. We thank you . . .”
“You’re not from the hospital?” She was confused. Who was she talking to?
“Ah, no. My name’s Ben and I’m from Friends of the—”
“Damn you,” she yelled and slammed the receiver down on the console. As she walked into the family room, her mother called, “What was that all about?”
“Jake, take me back.”
“What happened? Who was on the phone?”
“Some telemarketer. I need to go to the hospital.”
Jake sat upright in his recliner. “Why? Things are fine there.”
“I just have to be there.” Why didn’t he understand? “What if he dies? I can’t be here when Eddie takes his last breath.”
“Honey, he isn’t going to die. The ventilator is breathing for him.”
“Stop it, Jake.” Why was he trapping her at home when Eddie was so sick?
“How about Chris? Don’t you care about him? Didn’t you see how grateful he is to have you home? He needs you, Anna. That awful show he put on earlier is because he’s unbelievably upset that you’ve been gone.”
She covered her ears with her hands. He was trying to kill her. To murder her with words. She wouldn’t let him.
“Are you going to drive me back or do I have to ask my father?” she yelled.
Chapter 24
Jake
Anna was screaming. She was like a lunatic, demanding to go back to the hospital.
“What’s wrong with you?” he shouted over her yelling. He tried to wrap his arms around her.
She swatted them away. “Get away from me. Just take me back to the hospital. He’s dying. I can feel it.” Her eyes were glazed, her mouth twisted into a wicked sneer. He’d never seen her like that. Not sure he’d ever seen anybody like that, even the most demented, panicked psychiatric patient.
Over her shoulder, he saw her parents crowded in the doorway between the kitchen and the family room, their faces masks of fright. He motioned them away. They disappeared.
He needed to get control, needed to bring some sanity to this insanity. “Darling,” he said, struggling to quiet his wavery voice. “Why don’t we call the ICU? Let them tell you how well Eddie is doing.”
“Now, Jake. I have to go NOW.” Her voice was getting hoarse.
“You’re going to leave Chris? What kind of a mother abandons her son?”
Her face twisted as if he had slapped her. He gasped at the contorted image before him, at the weight of the moment. How could he do that to her? Something had snapped inside him, something huge and dark and ugly.
She sank to the couch, sobbing. “Poor Chris. Poor little Chrisy. Jake, please help me.” She was weeping so hard she could hardly speak. “I’m so scared. Eddie’s going to die. You didn’t listen to me when he got sick. Now you’re not listening to me when he’s dying.”
He slid his arm around her shoulders, tried to draw her to his side. “Anna, honey . . .”
She stiffened. He didn’t know what to say to her. He wanted to erase what he had said about abandoning Chris, but couldn’t undo the telling. He rubbed her forehead; she pulled away, sobbing.
“Please take me to the hospital.”
He whispered into her ear, smelled the clovelike odor of her hair. “We’ll get through this, Anna. I know we will.”
The rain blew sideways across the hood of his car, the wind so fierce the wipers couldn’t keep up.
She had been anxious at home, detached, almost dreamy in the way she drifted around the house as if she didn’t belong there. Then she went completely berserk. Her parents had been bewildered—no, surely terrified—when she started screaming. In the end, he’d driven her to the hospital—if he hadn’t, she would have asked her father or called a cab; she’d get there somehow. As they neared the main entrance, she seemed to settle down a little. After he pulled to a stop, she dashed out of the car into the rain shower, ran through the door, and disappeared down the darkened corridor. Now he was on his way home through the stormy night that was black as soot.
Suddenly, the red beam of a traffic light glimmered through the inky torrent. His foot hit the brake. The car skidded to a stop. He waited for the red to flip to green, tapped his fingers on the steering wheel. Beacons off the headlights of the cross traffic swept through the raindrops as cars crept, one by one, across the flooded intersection.
A Bob Marley song had just ended on the radio. Now an announcer read the sponsors, Nature Conservancy of Michigan and The Mosaic Foundation of Rita and Peter Heydon, and in his sleepy, nasal voice, reminded the listeners of the time—9:40 PM—and the station—WUOM, 91.7 FM.
A drum beat pulsed against the inside of the car. Voices reverberant as thunder howled the words to the song. The music transported him back to medical school, back to his first date with Monica. The lamps in the bar had been dim, the sound system had throbbed, and she had swayed in the light reflected from the crystal ball that slowly turned overhead. He had been mesmerized by the way her hips rolled beneath her pale pink dress, the way her feet stepped on the wooden floorboards to the beat of the music, and the way her arms—bare except for silver bracelets that jangled at her right wrist—shot into the air as she yelled, “Y . . . M-C-A.”
He twisted the volume dial on the radio to the left. Lower, lower. He couldn’t bear to listen to that song.
The rain continued to pelt the car. Through the din of the storm, he thought he heard a siren. He turned his head to get a better bead on the sound. It was gone. A moment later, the whine of the siren returned. He stared at the rearview mirror, saw only a curtain of water out the back window. The sound grew louder. He slowed the car. Now he could see it. An ambulance. Coming behind him. He pulled the car to the curb and the ambulance screamed past, its lights flashing through the rain and its rear tires spraying watery rooster tails. Wherever he went, it seemed, medical crises followed.
Thoughts of Eddie raced through his mind. The second baby had been more his idea than Anna’s. He believed Chris should have a brother, one close enough in age to be a pal. In his family, there had been three Campbell boys in three years and he was the oldest. Growing up, they were the stair-step kids that raced their sleds through the snow on Forbes Hill most weekends from November through February. They were the three wise men in the Christmas program at St. Matthew’s United Methodist Church, stumbling down the aisle in their dad’s and uncles’ flannel bathrobes, clutching tea boxes or Coke bottles covered with aluminum foil. At home, Jake, Rick, and Luke were the yard crew—one behind the mower, one behind the rake, and one behind the edger—as well as the dishwashing crew—one at the dishpan, one with the towel, and one, the put-away guy, standing on a chair next to the kitchen counter, setting the clean glasses and plates on the cupboard shelf. He wanted the same for his kids: freedom, wild schemes, responsibility, fun.
Anna had balked. “I think we should wait a little longer, at least until you’ve finished your training,” she’d said with a groan when he first brought up the subject of another baby. “Then you’ll have more time to spend with us, and Chris can enjoy being an only child for a few more years.” She was an only child and seemed to want Chris protected from the intrusion of a younger sib.
Two Easters back, after saying good-bye to their company, after rocking Chris to sleep, after washing the plates and the wineglasses and retiring to their bed, they had begun the familiar nuzzling and stroking that signaled love making. He ran his fingertips up and down her backbone. She moved closer to him and buried her face in his neck. His pointer finger drew circles around her nipples. Her knee wedged against the firmness between his thighs.
As the heat between them intensified, she had reached into the bedside drawer for her diaphragm. As fast as a bobcat, he grabbed it from her hand, bent it in half, and then let go, launching it into the pai
nting that hung above the dresser on the opposite wall.
“That’s so childish, Jake,” she said as she scrambled out of bed to retrieve the diaphragm.
“Chris needs a brother. Or even a sister.”
“Not yet, he doesn’t.”
“Well, let’s skip the contraception this time and see what happens.”
As she stomped back toward the bed—the diaphragm cupped in her hand, the ivory skin of her belly flushed from anger, her nipples pointed straight at him and bobbing with each determined step like corks at sea—a wave of intense passion washed over him. Her fury, her unmitigated rage aroused him even more.
She pulled on her nightgown, lay down with her back to him, and tucked the covers around her neck.
“That ended it for tonight. It’s hardly the way to coax me into having another baby.”
Now he clutched the steering wheel as the car crawled through the rain. If he could change his wife, he’d give her a better sense of humor, make her more playful. She took most things too seriously, was congenitally unable to see the lighter side of many situations. She was a good mom and in many ways a good wife, but she’d be better at both if she could have more fun.
Then several months later she had acquiesced about a second baby. He wasn’t sure why. She was like that at times—completely inexplicable. Maybe it was a hormone-driven, maternal urge. Maybe she just gave up resisting. In any event, she became pregnant right away.
To his relief, once she was pregnant, she seemed delighted to have another child. She rigged up a baby bulletin board for Chris, who was clueless about his impending big brotherhood, and bought children’s books to help him with the concept. After the ultrasound confirmed another son, she crocheted blue edging around a set of flannel blankets, saying, “The baby should have a few new things of his own, rather than using Chris’s old stuff.” She studied lists of names and then settled on Edward, her grandfather’s name.
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