“Poor guy,” he had said when she announced her choice.
“Why?” Her head was tilted, her face twisted with wonder. “What’s wrong with Edward?”
“Nothing, except it’s your granddad’s name.”
“What’s the matter with that? We can’t name him after your grandfathers. Wayne and Donald are dorky names.”
“I don’t want to name him Wayne or Donald, either. It’s tough for a guy to carry someone else’s name. If he’s an Edward, he might think he has to grow up to be a successful Baltimore banker like his great-grandfather.”
“Is that bad?”
“Yes, he needs to grow up to be his own person, not the clone of a dead relative.”
“It’ll be fine.” She had snuggled up to him and laid his hand on her bulging belly. “Little Edward can be whoever he turns out to be.”
It was four in the morning when her water had broken. Thankfully, he was home that night. He had dreamed of swimming in the Mediterranean Sea, in water the temperature of fresh pee, and woke up to find her side of the bed soaked and Anna in the bathroom.
“Jake,” she called, that one word spiked with urgency.
“I’m awake,” he said groggily. “What happened?”
“My water broke and I’m having contractions.”
“Yup.” He jumped off the soggy mattress and reached for his underwear. “Let’s go.”
“Call Rose Marie and tell her we’re bringing Chris over.”
Anna, the organized. She had arranged for the sitter to watch Chris while she had the baby, irrespective of the time of day or night. What to do with Chris during the birth hadn’t crossed his mind until she told him of the plans. Sometimes she amazed him.
Her labor lasted only three hours and was uneventful. That’s the way you want it, he thought. Normal. Regular. No complications.
As she was wheeled into the delivery room, he had walked beside the gurney, holding her hand. After she scooted onto the table and dug her heels into the stirrups, he perched on a stool beside her head and smoothed several strands of limp hair away from her damp forehead. She breathed in little shallow gasps and softly moaned in an easy rhythm.
Although he’d been the dad in the delivery room before, he had still been uncomfortable the second time around. His memories from medical school of possible obstetrical disasters were too fresh. Abruptio placenta. Placenta previa. Uterine rupture. Amniotic embolism. Puerperal sepsis. Eclampsia. All very bad.
Sweat oozed from his forehead and ran down the sides of his head. With each contraction, she clutched his hand and let out the scratchy sound of an angry goat. Her fingernails dug into his skin. It came back to him like a nightmare. That awful evening during his junior year on the OB rotation. He’d sat up all night monitoring the labor of a young mother and then watched, horrified, as she delivered a hydropic, dead little boy. That baby’s face was so puffy that his eyes and mouth were mere slits, and the yellow-tinged skin of his legs had split open like overcooked bratwursts.
But Eddie’s delivery was as normal as the labor had been, ending when his vigorous, healthy son had emerged from his lovely, exhausted wife. Tonight, driving home through the storm, those memories of Eddie’s beginnings now seemed as meaningless as the former beauty of a road-killed cat. Now, Anna was crazed. Thank goodness Chris hadn’t witnessed her breakdown. He hoped his son hadn’t heard any of it. When he returned home, he’d have to face his in-laws, have to explain what had happened. Panic attack was the word he’d use to explain her behavior.
Suddenly the rain ceased beating against the windshield. The car was beneath an overpass. It seemed as if he were traveling through the eye of a hurricane. The car then exited the other side and the rain pounded the hood as fiercely as before. Two blocks farther up would be another overpass, with weedy railroad tracks running overhead.
As much as Jake wished otherwise, Eddie wasn’t doing well. They had tried to wean him off the ventilator that afternoon, but whenever the nurses attempted to lower his backup rate or the PEEP or the inspired O2 level, his blood gases tanked. Maybe that had set Anna off.
What would ultimately happen? he wondered. The ICU docs were so good at keeping people alive—at least keeping their hearts pumping and their lungs trading oxygen for carbon dioxide—that Eddie could go on like this for a long time. If he was still intubated after two weeks, they’d do a trach. Anna would resist a tracheostomy; she would see it as a step backward, which in some ways it would be. He’d have to find a gentle way to explain to her that without it, over time the endotracheal tube would rub raw the lining of their son’s nose and throat.
Sometimes Anna was sure Eddie would die. Other times she seemed convinced the high-tech medical interventions would restore him to his former, normal self at no cost. In reality, a million things could go wrong. He could develop hydrocephalus, could have a stroke. He might develop ventilator-associated pneumonia or sepsis. Infection wouldn’t be a bad way to die—they called pneumonia “the old man’s friend” for good reason. But the ICU docs wouldn’t let that happen; they’d flood him with enough antibiotics to sterilize a cesspool and the boy would make it through. As impossible as it was to predict how this would all turn out, it wasn’t likely to be good and might be absolutely horrible.
The posts of the Amtrak overpass emerged like astrals out of the rain, lit by the headlights from the cars ahead. His hands gripped the steering wheel. He worked to steady the car as it rushed through the storm into the night.
Of all the tough times in his life—flunking his first anatomy quiz, Monica’s abrupt departure, his father’s death, failure to get his first choice for his ortho residency—Eddie’s illness was the worst, the absolute worst. Anna’s decompensation was second worst. Actually, the second worst was his failure to Eddie. He, the doctor, didn’t recognize a serious illness in his own child. True, he hadn’t been home. True, Anna may have misread how sick Eddie had been. But, still, he allowed his son to spend that whole night getting sicker and sicker.
He felt emptier now than after all those other tough times put together. This was an endless horror with no hope for something better. Tomorrow would be awful, the next day more awful. On and on.
All it would take would be a quick veer to the right. Just a minor turn of his wrists, about ten degrees would do it, thirty if he waited much longer. He glanced at the speedometer. The needle wavered between forty and forty-five. At that speed, it might not be a fatal injury. If he stepped on the gas and moved the needle up to seventy, it would be.
His fingernails dug into the plastic of the steering wheel as he fought against turning.
The car continued forward. The motor hummed. His foot rested on the accelerator. He closed his eyes, gripped the steering wheel, then turned it to the right. The car swerved.
When he opened his eyes, a concrete pillar was straight ahead, illuminated by his headlights. His pulse raced. Reflexively, he jerked the steering wheel to the left. The right side mirror barely missed the pillar. The car shimmied as it skidded back onto the wet road. In the rearview mirror, he saw the rain pelting the back window. The concrete pillars moved farther and farther away.
Now his heart thumped against his ribs and reverberated up to his ears. His hands trembled. What had he almost done? What was happening to him?
Chapter 25
Anna
Her predawn journey from the ICU in search of something to eat was about to end. She had wandered long enough through the dim lobby, through the eerie calm of the canteen. Now it was time to go back to Eddie.
Only one elevator was working, the one on the right. A hand-printed sign was taped to the door on the left. Out of Order, it read, the blue magic-marker letters wandering unevenly across the paper. Behind her, the fitful hum of the fluorescent lights echoed in the empty hallway while outside, beyond the glass doors, a cab waited in the rain, the glare of its roof light beaming like a yellow fog lamp into the night. She held a package of M&M’S in one hand and thirty-five cents—
change from the vending machine—in the other. Above the right elevator door, the number 6 flickered a smoky crimson color. Then it blinked off.
Number 5 lit up. She expected it to blink off right away, but after two breaths, 5—Eddie’s floor—still glowed red. From above, a hollow, metallic sound rolled, ever louder, into the quiet and echoed through the elevator shaft like thunder. She looked toward the ceiling, tried to see whatever had rumbled into the car several floors up. It sounded as if the giant from Jack and the Beanstalk were stomping overhead, as if Jack and Jill were tumbling down the hill.
As suddenly as it began, the clattering stopped and quiet returned.
This time of day—before the legions of chattering nurses arrived for the AM shift, before the breakfast trays rattled up from the kitchen, before sunlight threaded its way between the slats of the Venetian blinds—was the best for her. Now that the thunder from the elevator had stopped, the quiet was enormous, holy. She watched the numbers with a sense of anticipation, of serene expectation.
Number 5 blinked off. She heard something. Music. She turned her left ear—her better ear—toward the elevator. It was a woman’s voice. Singing. A faint, faraway sound. Number 4 blinked red and the singing—pure, simple—became louder. Closer.
She stepped toward the elevator door and listened for the words. The song was familiar, a hymnlike chant whose swirling tones seemed to reach to the sky as if they were crawling, handover-hand, ever upward. She had heard the song before—years ago when she was a little girl. Slowly, the inside of her grandmother’s Lutheran church returned to her—the organ pipes aligned like fence pickets, their conical tips aimed toward the floor, their sides perfectly parallel; the marble baptismal font, a faint crack curving around its bowl, beneath the stained glass window; the minister sweeping across the chancel, his white robe flowing like a cloud in his wake.
As number 3 lit up, the singing became even louder. She saw a lonely shepherd on a grassy hillside, his sheep quietly grazing beside a bubbling creek. The words of the song were clear now, the voice strong and confident. “O, Christ, the Lamb of God, that takest away the sins of the world . . .” Her grandmother was singing these words, her face in profile, her eyes shut, her mouth wide open, her fists tightly clinched. “Have mercy upon us.” The minister stooped at the altar rail before her kneeling grandmother, tucked a wafer into her mouth, whispered words Anna couldn’t hear from her seat in the pew.
Number 2 blinked red. The singing, haunting yet crystalline and louder, rang through the door. “O, Christ, the Lamb of God, that takest away the sins of the world. Grant us thy Peace.”
Was this an angel? In the elevator? Maybe she’d come for Eddie. Maybe she was taking him away.
She pounded her fist—her fingers still wrapped around the M&M’S package—on the up button. Why was it taking so long to get to the lobby? The angel would step out of the elevator with him. She’d carry Eddie, wrapped in his flannel blanket, securely in her arms so he wouldn’t fall. Where was she taking him? To Heaven? Surely an innocent, sinless baby like Eddie wouldn’t go to hell.
Number 2 blinked off. The lobby level was next. The angel came closer, was almost there. Anna took a deep breath and held it. Maybe the angel would have a halo. Eddie would like the halo, would reach for it as he had reached for Anna’s pearl necklace. Number 1 blinked on. The singing continued, even louder. “Oh, oh, Christ, the Lamb of God, that takest away the sins of the world. Have mercy upon us.”
The shiny metal doors remained closed. Number 1 blinked off. “Oh, oh, Christ, the Lamb of God, that takest away the sins of the world. Grant us thy Peace.”
Where were Eddie and the angel going? Away from her. Down. Down.
B blinked on. “Aaaamen.” The plaintive chant, now beneath her, called to Heaven, the voice rising like a bird and then falling like a stone.
The thunder returned, roiling from below. Clunking. Rumbling. Then a soft swirling clatter that faded into nothingness.
B blinked off. Were they still on the elevator? Was the angel still holding Eddie?
Number 1 blinked on. The metal elevator doors parted. She searched the inside. Stared into each corner. No one was there. Empty.
Where was he? Where had the angel taken him?
She staggered into the vacant elevator. Her finger trembled, pressed number 5.
As she and the elevator rose, her heart raced. Number 2 lit up. 3. 4. 5. The doors opened and she scrambled down the hallway.
She ran through the door to the ICU, passed a cart loaded with soiled linen that waited to be rolled onto the elevator for the trip to the laundry.
Suddenly she stopped beside the nurses’ station. What if the angel had put Eddie in a cart of dirty linen? He might be sloshing around inside a washing machine right now. She shook her head, trying to dislodge that horrible image. She was desperate to see his crib. She couldn’t bear to see his crib.
She turned the corner toward his cubicle. The metal cage was still there. The equipment was still there, the monitor, the rows of IVACs, the urine bag dangling from the rail. Inside the crib, her baby lay beneath a flannel blanket, still attached to his IV lines, still attached to the ventilator. She closed her eyes against the tears. When she opened them again, he was still there.
Jake’s arms hung helplessly at his sides as he walked toward her. A look of anguish shaded his face. Dark circles rimmed his pink-stained eyes. Two weeks ago, if someone had asked her to describe her husband in one word, she would have said, “strong.” This morning, she would have described him—this stranger before her—as “lost.”
“Hi,” he said. He seemed unsure, cautious. “How’re things today?”
“Better than yesterday.”
“That’s good.”
She walked to his side, slipped her arm around his waist, and leaned against his chest. She couldn’t stay mad at him any longer. He looked too miserable. His heartbeat, regular and reassuring, thumped under his shirt. She told him about the angel in the elevator.
“What do you think it means?” she asked. “Probably a sign from Heaven. Surely it’s a good sign. Not a bad one.”
“I think someone was singing in the elevator.”
She pulled away from him. “You didn’t hear it. I’m telling you, it was an angel.”
He stared over her head, remained silent. “No, Anna, it was probably someone taking the laundry cart to the basement. I’ve often heard them rattle their carts off and on the elevator. The linen lady must have been singing, didn’t realize anyone was listening.”
She shook her head. “Remember how your mother used to call God an ‘organizing principle’?” She stared into his eyes. “Do you believe that? Do you believe there is a God?” She needed him to understand. The singing had something to do with Eddie. It was a message.
He seemed to look right through her. “I don’t know what to believe anymore.” He sighed, turned away from Eddie’s crib, patted her hand. “I have a case in a few minutes.”
She sank into the chair. The wooden rockers squeaked as they rolled over the wax on the floor tiles. “Will you bring Chris here tonight? Please?”
He turned back to her, his eyes questioning.
“I want him to come here.”
“It’d be too much for him.”
“I won’t take him back to see Eddie. It’s against the rules, anyway.”
“Are you sure?”
“It’s in the handbook for parents.” She pushed her toe into a pile of magazines at her feet, nudged the pamphlet on top.
“No, I mean, are you sure bringing Chris up here is the right thing to do? This is a very scary place. He’s had enough trauma to last several lifetimes. He doesn’t need any more.”
“I’m sure.”
He shrugged. “I’m not going to argue about this one, Anna. I think it’s a bad idea, but at least Chris will get to see you again.” He turned and headed for the door.
She watched his back, the tilt of his shoulders, the swing of his hips in his
scrub pants, the way his hair curled over the neck of his scrub shirt. Who was he? She had slept beside him for more than six years. Their clothes hung, nested like teaspoons, in the same closet. Their names were on the same mortgage and checking account. Together they had created two children. And yet she didn’t know him. Didn’t know if he believed in a God. In Heaven. In the angel in the elevator.
He was a good person. That she knew. He loved his children. Loved her. Was committed to his patients. But, did he have a soul? Would the angel accept Jake into Heaven?
She stared at her son, unmoving in his crib, and listened to the faint swoosh of the ventilator as it pushed air into his lungs. If Eddie died, where would he go? He’d be beyond her reach, far, far away where she couldn’t touch him, couldn’t see him. Would he grow up there in Heaven or would he forever be a little baby?
Wait. Wait. All she did was wait. For the change of shift, for the nurses—Marcia followed by Natalie followed by Mike followed by Clarissa—to come, and then leave. For the results of endless laboratory tests—a slightly better number here, a slightly worse one there. Wait to go to sleep. Wait to wake up. Here in the waiting room. The infernal room for eternal waiting.
She folded a paper towel in half, then in half again, and then again. With the next fold, she had a fan. She waved it in front of her face—she felt silly—and then tossed it onto the mountain of dirty coffee cups, a sculpture of twisted white foam, in the trash basket.
What was she waiting for? For Eddie to sit up in his crib and cry, “Take me home”? For someone to erase everything that happened the night he got sick, to rewrite a page of history so that Jake was home to take care of him? For Dr. Farley to declare that Eddie would be normal in all ways, as capable as any other kid in LaSalle County of going to the University of Michigan, of reading Shakespeare, of playing the French horn, of running across a baseball field? She leaned against the headrest of the chair and closed her eyes. She saw nothing—the absence of anything, the product of her waiting.
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