Five Hours

by Lucinda Weatherby

  February 14

  I enter the office. Dicken is looking down at a letter on his desk, his forehead in his hands.

  “What is it?” I ask.

  “It’s our hospital bill.”

  “How much?”

  “You sure you want to know?”

  “Is it that bad?” I ask.

  “Yes.”

  “Just tell me.”

  “Fourteen thousand,” Dicken says.

  “Are you kidding me? What about our insurance?”

  “We have a high deductible, you know that.”

  “I thought it was ten thousand, and the rest gets covered.”

  “Only at 50 percent for the next ten grand.”

  “That sucks,” I say. Then I feel rage coming on. I run up to our room and grab a pillow and start smacking it against the bed. It feels pitifully weak and unsatisfying. I wish I had a baseball bat and some pumpkins.

  Dicken appears in the bedroom, alarmed, then stern. “Don’t worry about the money.”

  “It’s not the money,” I say bitterly. “I just feel sick. Cheated. Here I am, fat and fourteen thousand dollars poorer because of a pregnancy that robbed me of nine months of my life and gave me no baby. I’m sick of all the condolence cards, the flowers. I just want my baby. Stop sending letters and e-mails and enormous hospital bills!”

  Dicken sighs, then heads back downstairs. “I’ll be earning some of that money if you need me!” he calls up.

  *

  I can’t stand free time. It makes me anxious. It’s what I often wished for when I was pregnant, lots and lots of time to myself for all the things I would enjoy and achieve. Now I have all the space and time I wished for and it feels empty and meaningless, such a waste when I could be loving and nurturing a baby. That was supposed to be my job. I had let everything else go.

  *

  My friend Geri calls. She and her husband lost a preterm baby years ago and never had other children.

  “I love the e-mails you wrote about Theo,” Geri says. “And the picture, oh my God! I printed it out and keep it on my desk and look at it whenever I need perspective.”

  Her words remind me of a card we got from a woman we know in England, who wrote, The photograph of Theodore. That’s a baby I could pray to.

  “Did you have a picture of your baby taken?” I ask Geri.

  “Oh God no, I never even saw the baby, or found out if it was a boy or a girl. They did things so differently back then. It was awful.”

  “And that wasn’t so long ago.”

  “I tell you what, you’re lucky you have so much support.”

  “I know, Geri. And I’m so sorry you didn’t have that when you went through your loss. I really don’t know how you survived it.”

  “Well, I’m so glad I know you because reading what you wrote is healing for me. And it will be for other women.”

  February 15

  There is part of me that accepts this loss, goes on bravely, feels at peace. There’s also a part of me that can’t fully face it: the magical-thinking part. It’s waiting for me to wake up and find myself about to give birth to a healthy Theo. It won’t let me put away the baby clothes. It can’t bear to give away the front pack and changing pad in the back of the Subaru. I dread the day I can’t squeeze any more milk from my breasts.

  That part of me is the wailing woman. The hysterical screeching mother clawing at the air, out of her mind with grief.

  February 18

  It’s a tough Saturday morning. Kevin groans and sulks while getting dressed for a ski trip. I try to breathe, telling myself it’s not my business how he feels about skiing. But my anger grows with each of Kevin’s muttered noises.

  *

  That evening, I head to Rhione’s house for dance, my first time back since before the birth. Rhione gives me a big hug and I start crying. She holds me and rubs my front—my belly and scar—as I weep. Her hands and body are so soft and comforting, I feel nurtured in a way I haven’t been. Mothered. Dicken has a strong, masculine touch. The way he holds me is amazing; it’s gotten me through the hardest days. But Rhione’s gentle touch is something I’ve been missing without knowing it.

  I decide to dance the intention-question, How can I love Kevin more? Before my turn, I have an inkling that Theo might come dance with me, but I know that’s just a romantic feeling, a longing. I don’t really believe it’s possible.

  The music starts, and I close my eyes as my arms reach out. I tilt my head upward, and I feel my hands come down over my ears. Suddenly I am deaf, can’t hear the music or anything outside, only inner sounds. I know Theo is with me. I think of his funny crinkled ears, how he may not have been able to hear, because many trisomy 13 babies are deaf. Then I wonder with some alarm: If he was deaf, how could he have heard my heartbeat? Why did he relax so much when they brought him to me and placed him on my left side, where I imagined he could hear my familiar heart? As soon as I think that, I become aware of the vibration of my heart beating—an answer! I know I am being told that he could feel that loud and strong, hearing or no hearing. My hands come down over my throat, and I am thirsty and breathless, thinking of how Theo couldn’t take in any nourishment or enough breath through his mouth.

  By now I am weeping. I gasp a couple of times, like he did when I first held him. Then my hands come together, and as I feel my fingers entwine, his sixth fingers are with me. I can sense them there, like phantom limbs, and I think of Jasper discovering them and calling them “his lucky fingers.” So precious, those tiny boneless appendages, and not repellent or strange, as I would have thought. Just pure sweetness, so adorable. My hands make their way to my breasts, and I think, Here’s the milk we made together, Theo. Our milk. My hands run over my hair and remind me of his, the downy blond tufts I wept over.

  As I dance, the recent NPR story comes back to me, the one about the discovery that a baby’s cells stay in the mother’s body long after it’s born, maybe even helping damaged parts of her body. I dance and know Theo is with me, in me, part of me, right here.

  After dancing, I keep my eyes closed and am aware of feeling incredibly blessed, light dancing in my cells. A warmth. For hours and hours, I will be free from the desperate ache of missing him.

  *

  When I get home from dance, Dicken tells me Kevin has been acting out.

  “He’s been extremely rude to Maud. I just don’t understand what’s going on. Can you help me talk to him about it?”

  We find Kevin lying in his bunk bed. Dicken and I ask a few questions. Kevin is silent at first, looking angry, and then he suddenly starts to cry.

  “I don’t want to be here!” he wails.

  “Where, here in Oregon?” Dicken asks.

  “No, here in the world,” he says. “I feel like a nobody.”

  He cries and cries, turning his back to us. “Nobody really cares about me, not my parents, not you guys …”

  “I’m so sorry,” I say. My heart feels soft, sad. I think of his birth mother, who beat Kevin and his brothers. Nothing we do for him will fix the past.

  Dicken rubs his back softly as he cries.

  “I wish I could go back in time,” Kevin says. “Then things would be better. Then it wouldn’t be like this.”

  “I know that feeling,” Dicken says. “Wanting to go back and do things differently, right?”

  Kevin nods, more tears.

  “It’s okay to feel that,” Dicken says. “You can feel all this and know that everything’s still okay. It just feels scary when you’re in it.”

  Kevin turns toward us inch by inch, nodding as Dicken talks to him soothingly.

  “Kevin, you’ve been through so many changes, so many hard things already,” Dicken says. “We love you. You’re part of our family now. We’re not going to let you go.”

  It’s amazing to watch this little boy open and soften. By the end, he wants me to read to him, and we laugh together. He lets us both hug and kiss him goodnight. I feel huge love, appreciation, and comp
assion for him, and I suddenly realize the interaction has addressed my dancing intention—How can I be more loving with Kevin?—my goal for the evening which I’d completely forgotten about until now.

  February 19

  In the night, Dicken and I make love, and it is more intense than ever. It is huge, beautiful and terrifying. Beyond me and my body. I’m sure I am about to dissolve, come apart. Not physically; it isn’t intense that way. I feel overcome by emotions and images not personal to me. Very odd. More scary than odd, actually. I don’t recognize myself. I am strangely disinterested, not invested in my own pleasure, which is rare.

  As we lie in the dark afterward, Dicken says, “Wow, that was crazy! I wanted to devour you. I’ve never felt so overcome by my love for you.”

  He runs his hands over me and marvels at the beauty of every curve. His touch is painfully tender. It is an edge for me; I feel close to madness, like I am losing contact with reality. I think of Paul saying it’s beauty that can destroy us more than suffering. I feel sorry for Paul when I think of how much he sees. I have the thought, Why would anyone want to see? How would I meet that much emotion? That much energy? That much heartbreak? I’d prefer to stay in my safe illusions.

  I fall asleep after a long while and dream of a woman pregnant with her fifth child.

  *

  The next day, I am looking at Dicken’s body as he gets dressed, thinking about how he’s got his new rowing machine and will probably slim down a little. I hope he doesn’t lose his belly entirely; he’s already perfect. I compare that thought to how I used to be: panicked when he gained a few extra pounds, withdrawing my love from him, finding him unattractive, nagging him about it. Now the love feels unconditional—devotional. I worship him and his body, feel enslaved to it, especially that left forearm for some reason; I literally pine for it. Can’t imagine ever wanting another man.

  I’m intending to translate this to myself, my own body. I’m not as freaked out as I used to be about being five or ten pounds heavier. I go in and out, but I don’t feel as stuck in body-hatred vigilance as I used to be. There are moments now when I feel sorry for myself that I can’t nurse off this pregnancy weight, that I’m stuck with jiggly thighs and belly and no baby; that I’m so far from the place I was when I was nursing infant Jasper, loving the intense hunger, savoring all the extra calories. Now, I don’t have much enthusiasm for food. I wish I could turn off hunger and the need to eat. I open the fridge and nothing appeals. Food tastes strange, dead. I just eat to survive. It’s not like me.

  February 21

  This morning before I get out of bed, I lie there and feel heavy grief, like a stone pulling my chest down into the earth. I sense the shock, the memory of everything in my body. I know there is much more to release.

  I’m melted by Jasper, his sweet face. I imagine I see an older Theo in him. Letting go of Jasper—halfway grown-up—is heart-wrenching. “Makes me want to have another baby,” said Dix last night, adding, “but eventually we have to face it. They don’t belong to us.”

  *

  I have a session with my therapist. She sent me a lovely card right after Theo died, then the CD recording of the retreat I missed. I felt enraged when I heard people in my group laughing and talking about their petty feelings, when they all knew I’d just lost Theo days before. The only person I heard mentioning Theo in the recording was Maud, who was crying and talking about how she hadn’t been taking care of herself since the night of the birth.

  I don’t mention my feelings about all of this to my therapist, because I tend to avoid anger and confrontation. She asks how I’m doing, and we spend the session focusing on my feelings about Theo and how I’ve changed.

  “I can feel that part of me is afraid of going back to pre-Theo states and preoccupations, like worrying about my weight, or being miserly,” I explain. “The heavens opened for Theo’s birth and death, and I don’t want them to close again. I want to stay in the light, in the purified moment, in the beauty.”

  “Don’t you see, though, how you’re rejecting who you were before Theo was born?”

  I think about this, and say, “Yes, I guess so. I just like who I am, how I am, better now. I feel like I see things from a much more real place.”

  “But you can see how you’re not leaving room for yourself to be human, to forget truth, which is what life is: knowing truth, forgetting it, remembering, and so on. Can you make room for the part of you that didn’t know what you know now, might still not know, might never know?”

  “No, I don’t want her to waste any of my life being that narrow, that petty, that untrusting.”

  “That sounds like a high bar to hold yourself to.”

  “But if I stay vigilant, and make use of all Theo taught me, it’s the best way to honor myself and him, right?”

  “Is it?”

  I feel frustrated. I divert the conversation by bringing up my confusion about whether to try for another baby. I’m hoping my therapist will help me see the right answer here.

  “What thoughts and feelings arise when you ask those questions?”

  “I just wanted Theo to end all the debate,” I say. “I don’t want to be in this place. This wasn’t the plan.”

  “You sound angry.”

  “Well, I am, because it’s so bewildering. I mean, my gut response is fear, like, I can’t go through another pregnancy, especially not in my fragile state. But another part of me wants to give up everything—all my dreams of travel and writing and projects and accumulating wealth—to have another baby and devote myself to it. Stay on the farm, bask in love for baby and Dix and the boys. And the pressure is on, there’s no time to lose! It just doesn’t seem fair that I’m in this position.”

  “What happens in your body when you say all that?”

  I close my eyes. “I feel a sense of urgency in my chest, and pushing/pulling sensations like a bunch of hands are inside me, kneading my flesh and fighting for space.” Suddenly I am crying hard.

  “What’s happening?”

  I struggle to speak. “I’m remembering the abortion we had right after we got married. Why? Why did we do that? I just want to go back in time and warn myself of what’s to come, change that decision. Oh, I want another chance so bad!”

  My therapist is quiet while I contract over my knees and squeeze my hands into tight fists, willing time to go backward. Then she speaks, her voice steady and firm: “That was a long time ago. You were a different person then.”

  “I know, but I hate myself for doing it. Maybe that’s why Theo died: I deserve it. I’ve been ambivalent about motherhood all along. That’s why this happened. It’s my punishment.” I am so angry at myself, I feel like I will literally implode.

  “Lucinda, you are human, so of course you have been ambivalent about an issue as intense as parenthood. Everyone who’s ever thought about becoming a parent goes through that.”

  “Really?”

  My therapist smiles, as if it’s humorous that I don’t know this.

  I can feel a slight softening in my chest.

  “You’ve only mentioned your own ambivalence, but Dicken chose to have that abortion too. And yet I don’t hear you blaming him.”

  I think about this for a few moments. “You’re right. Look how I put all this on myself.”

  “How do you feel when you acknowledge that?”

  “I feel a lot less guilty. That’s a relief.”

  I take some deep breaths, closing my eyes, feeling my body relax and expand as I let in the relief. Then there is something sharper, a pang in my throat. I open my eyes and say, “You know, I don’t deserve all this blame. I did the best I could. I am the woman who gave birth to beautiful Theo, who wanted him desperately and had him taken away. Theo’s mom doesn’t deserve to go through any more pain. She has been through enough!” Tears spill down my face. I wipe them away, then let my hands fall to my belly, rubbing it gently.

  “You’ve been through a lot,” my therapist says. Her eyes are brimming.
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  “I’m sad for myself. Sad for Dicken, sad for what we went through years ago, and sad for all we didn’t know we were facing.”

  I cry for all that has been lost, and I become aware of how tired I am from the internal struggle.

  The session ends, and I leave with no answers.

  February 25

  I get to hold a baby, a cute four-month-old boy, the son of a couple who come by to talk to Maud and Tom about farming. It feels good to me—my arms full, my body doing what it has been programmed to do for so long. But he smells funny, not my baby. I only really want my child. My Theo.

  *

  My breasts are smaller, but I can still squeeze out some milk. I decide to start a sourdough culture using a few drops. I can keep making new generations of sourdough, diluting the original formula but never losing at least a microscopic amount of milk. I’ll make bread from this when I miss him, when it’s his birthday, when I need a way to connect with him in the physical realm. I can add to the culture each time, keeping alive the sustenance we created together. For the rest of my life I’ll be able to make Theo bread.

  As I squeeze my milk into a cup and mix in the ingredients for the culture, I hum the chant we danced to at our last retreat, the words of which pierced me so deeply:

  Where are you going? and she said, “To that world”

  Where do you come from? and she answered, “From that world”

  So what are you doing in this world? and she said, “I am sorrowing”

  In what way? they asked of her, and Rabia replied,

  “I am eating the bread of this world

  and doing the work of that world.”

  CHAPTER 19

  February 26

  Six weeks today.

  This morning I sob and sob, my head in Dicken’s lap, Grace holding my hand. “I want him back! When am I going to wake up and have this nightmare be over?” I am hysterical, clawing at the air.

  “I want a baby so badly—I want a girl like Grace, I want a girl and I want Theo!”

  Dicken says, “You have a girl, Grace, and she’s the real thing.” Grace smiles with her adorable cheeks bunched up.