by Austin Boyd
Sophia relaxed her grip and circled Laura Ann’s neck in a feeble hug. She kissed Laura Ann on the cheek as they drew close, then whispered, the warmth of her breath gentle on Laura Ann’s ear.
“I love you.”
The touch of a hand on her shoulder roused Laura Ann from prayer. Dr. Murphy stood above her in the waiting room, his smile stretching from ear to ear. Wet clumps of short hair poked out from under a tight disposable surgeon’s cap and splotches of blood stained his surgical gown, Sophia’s life spilled on his chest.
“It’s a boy,” he said, pointing toward the delivery suites. “You can see them now.”
Seconds later Laura Ann burst through the door of Sophia’s recovery room. Brilliant white lights lit the area where green-garbed nurses bustled about Sophia’s bed. They parted to make room for Laura Ann.
Her old smile was back. Someone had returned her glasses, gentle black rectangles framing her eyes, perched on a broad nose. Her eyes cast down, then back up to see if her friend witnessed the miracle that lay wrapped on her chest. A wrinkled red face peeked out above a tiny blanket.
Laura Ann stopped short of the bed. For all the weeks that she’d dreamed of seeing the fruit of her own body, she was unprepared for this. She bit her lip, desperate to hold this child, yet terrified by the impact of what she’d done.
Sophia beckoned her with a nod of her head. Frail arms cradled a tiny life on her bosom. She pulled him close, her lips resting on the child’s forehead. After a gentle kiss, she looked up, her smile drawing Laura Ann toward her.
Beneath the thick white blanket the baby wore a fluffy blue knitted outfit. Closed eyes and swollen lids hid tiny black lashes. The baby lay still, asleep in her arms, wisps of angelic black hair spilling out from under a tiny blue knit cap. Sophia’s nose snuggled against his head. Her own eyes closed in some unspoken comfort as she drew in the baby’s new smell.
Laura Ann stood at her side, in awe of the life that lay in Sophia’s arms. Her friend lifted the tiny package a bit and offered the child in Laura Ann’s direction.
“James,” she said, her voice weak but determined. “Our baby boy.”
So tiny and light. Laura Ann feared she’d drop the newborn when the nurse passed him into her arms. James’s five pounds felt no heavier than a bag of feathers.
Laura Ann pulled him close, his face against her chin, whisper-thin strands of black hair tickling her when she kissed his forehead. Soft like a calf’s nose, his warmth met her lips for the first time. She held him close. His sweet new-baby smell poured a soothing balm over months of pain.
A lifetime of Bible lessons and nighttime readings with Daddy stirred her deep inside, warm memories of passages that spoke about the blessings of children, mixing that very moment with her own dream of motherhood. She held the bundled blessing tight to her cheek. James’s warmth and tiny breath bound him to her heart. Another link in the family chain.
She looked to the side to catch Sophia’s eye. Her friend’s eyes were closed but her mouth hung open in a strange way.
“Sophia?” Like a cue for the heart rate monitor, the very moment she spoke that name the equipment screeched a warbling alarm. “VT” burned cherry-red on the front panel over her head.
James flinched in her arms.
“Code Blue!” a nurse yelled, her voice echoing down the hall. All eyes turned from the final cleanup of Sophia’s caesarian wound to the monitor, which displayed a trace like an undulating roller coaster, not the sharp peaks and valleys of her normal rhythm. Sophia’s heart, to judge from the crisis erupting around her, was headed for a shutdown.
“Crash cart!” a voice yelled. Bodies parted for a silver table on wheels, loaded with equipment and wires.
“Give me the baby. Now,” another nurse commanded in a stern voice. Before Laura Ann could respond, the sure hands of an older woman wrapped about the tiny child. Laura Ann backed away from the bed.
Eyes closed, Sophia gulped for air, her right hand jerking against a gaggle of tubes and wires as she sought to reach something on her chest. Exhaling with a moaning wheeze, she bent upwards out of the bed. Her eyes never opened.
“Sustained ventricular tachycardia,” a nurse announced in a clinical voice devoid of emotion.
Dr. Murphy whisked past the doorjamb. “Stable?”
“Some pulse,” the nurse replied. Behind her, another nurse stood by, clipboard in hand and her eye on the clock. Measuring Sophia’s time.
Laura Ann heard the queer whine of a defibrillator on the cart, its tone increasing in quick steps with the building charge. Nurses prepared equipment, slung wires, and forced hypodermics of unpronounceable drugs into Sophia’s IV line. The women worked as one with Dr. Murphy, the captain at the helm of their mercy ship.
“Losing her pulse. Got something, but not much.”
“Cardioversion,” Dr. Murphy ordered, reaching out to take two paddles from the nurse. “Clear,” he announced, checking left and right as he lowered the devices to her bare chest and squeezed a trigger. Jolts of electricity coursed through Sophia’s body, her back arching off the bed as her muscles reacted to the intense shock.
“Heart rate, one sixty-five,” someone announced.
“Two hundred joules,” Dr. Murphy called out, not lifting the paddles from her skin.
“Charging.”
“Clear!” He pulled the trigger again. Her body lurched a second time. The instant her back settled into the bed, the bare hands of one nurse began compressing Sophia’s chest, yet another nurse forcing a muff over her face and squeezing air into failing lungs.
“Losing that pulse,” the first nurse said. She looked up, her eyes searching for some better prognosis on the monitors. Her gaze dropped back to Sophia, the rhythmic cycle of the two CPR nurses, and Dr. Murphy’s steady hands.
“Three hundred joules.” Dr. Murphy waited a moment for the CPR team to withdraw, then blasted electricity into Sophia’s torso a third time.
Bared from the waist up, her chest rising in failed gasps, Sophia hovered somewhere between consciousness and the beyond. Nurses pumped air into her lungs, others shot mystery drugs into her veins, each a desperate attempt to bring the heart into rhythm. For the next minute the doctor took over the CPR, his forearms quivering when he stood over her, jamming her ribs down to coax blood from a failing heart.
Between chest compressions Dr. Murphy turned to a nurse at his side, lowering his head for a fraction of a second, the first sign of surrender Laura Ann had ever seen in him. He motioned for the nurses to remove the bag from her face and lowered his cheek to Sophia’s mouth, feeling for her breath.
“Her heart’s nearly gone,” Dr. Murphy said when he stood up. “There’s not much more we can do. Another bolus of amiodarone in three minutes.” He motioned to the lead nurse. “Then we’ll try the paddles once more.”
“You don’t have long,” he said to Laura Ann, holding the defibrillator above Sophia. Laura Ann prayed for a miracle—for Sophia to open her eyes and her heart to reclaim its rhythm with a normal beat. A rustle of her eyelids was the only response. She whispered a prayer in her friend’s ear and squeezed her palm, kneading it with her fingers. The hand lay flaccid in hers, life draining out by the second.
At last Dr. Murphy edged Laura Ann out of the way, nodding toward the device in his hands.
“Clear,” he called out, minus the tense energy he’d shown minutes ago. He set down the twin electrodes, one device on her breast, the other on the side of her chest, and pulled the trigger once more. Sophia never moved.
Dr. Murphy took over the compressions, three more manly heaves on her chest to bring her back. Moments later, shedding sweat, he half-leaned into the bed, a hand on either side of Sophia, his head drooping like an old sunflower, wagging slowly side to side.
“Call the code,” he said, his voice weak.
“Time of — “
“Sophia!” Laura Ann exclaimed. “ — death, three twenty-one.”
“No!” Laura Ann’s balanc
e fled from her. Scared fingers sliced through the air as her knees gave way and the world went black.
Laura Ann held Daddy’s hand, reaching as high as she could stretch to touch his fingers. He knelt down, grabbing her about the waist, then slung his arm under her bottom and hoisted her high. The evergreen aroma of cedar enveloped him, his black suit hung away from moths in the cedar closet, ready for Sundays or other special events. And for unhappy events — like today.
She lay her head on his shoulder, unable to watch. The scratchy wool of Daddy’s coat was coarse under her cheek, but it smelled like the forest, or the bedding he put in her hamster’s cage, or his shop when he built blanket chests. She breathed deep, trying to forget the scene behind her.
Momma didn’t move. She just lay there, a strange white to her face like someone dumped flour on her and blew it off. Her hands were folded in an unnatural way on her chest, her feet pointed straight up. She looked like she was sleeping, but her eyes hadn’t opened for three days. Daddy said she was dead.
People brought flowers, too many flowers. An assault on Laura Ann’s senses, all kinds of smells filled the tiny one-room church in Alma. Flowers were lashed to big round wooden “O’s,” stapled to crosses, or crammed in baskets. Most of them were sweet-smelling blooms that didn’t grow in the field or the forest, flowers she’d never seen before. Many of them carnations. Whites and pinks, and some of them tinted purple or blue. Momma didn’t like carnations. She called them “funeral flowers,” but she never said what a funeral was. Maybe this was it. A man stood behind Momma and spoke from a thick black book. He talked for a long time and it made Daddy cry. Daddy didn’t like to stand still for a long time. He said it hurt his back. But he held on to Laura Ann, hugging her tight, squeezing each time she heard people say “Amen.”
Momma left too soon.
Clinging to Daddy, she decided to shut her eyes, to never look back. But what if Momma woke up? Maybe, if she looked back once more, Momma would open her eyes. Laura Ann turned in Daddy’s grip to get a peek. She hoped for things just the way he’d taught her. He called it “prayer,” talking to God about making Momma well. If God could make the disease go away, maybe He could wake her up too.
Momma lay asleep, stiff amidst the flowers, her hands filled with a small bouquet. A man stood next to her and shoved flowers into her grip. That seemed mean. Momma knew how to pick them. She loved red blooms, not pink. Laura Ann hoped for her to wake up, repeating the prayers like Daddy taught her, but nothing happened. Momma didn’t stir.
Laura Ann opened her eyes, the cutting stench of smelling salts burning her nose. She saw green, the rumpled cotton of a surgical gown standing above her. She brushed away the hand that held a tiny vial near her upper lip, her hand seeking her forehead. “Laura?” someone asked.
Laura Ann looked up into a bright light, dimly aware of the voice, searching for Daddy. In front of her lay a bed, a green-garbed man standing between her and the beyond. She wished for him to move, something beckoning her to stand up and to rush to the mattress. To cling to its special occupant.
Momma?
She pushed up from the floor, her balance unsteady. The man in green moved, revealing a woman lying on a bed behind him.
Not Momma.
Her eyes closed, she lay still under a white sheet, her hands folded on her chest the same way as Momma’s. She would not wake up. No matter how much Laura Ann hoped or prayed. Her skin seemed ashy, a cold pallor she’d not seen since the night Daddy flew away.
But there was color. One red rose, plucked from a hospital vase, lay neatly tucked between her palms. Brilliant red, like her lips, the first time they met.
Sophia.
CHAPTER 23
JULY 31
Ian stood tall in the hot afternoon sun, his frame stronger looking for the suit he wore. She reached over and squeezed his arm, then let her hand fall. She had no desire to show affection in this crowd. Much as she loved some of them, many of these people did not love her. She would not give gossips the satisfaction of spreading more lies.
Sophia’s casket lay on a green-carpeted contraption that would soon lower her into the ground. Much fancier than Daddy’s, a shiny black lacquered box, ordered by someone in Pittsburgh. Cicadas sang in the trees surrounding the cemetery. Two funerals in less than a year, two cemeteries, Daddy and a dear friend laid to rest within a few miles of each other. The locusts didn’t care, their mating calls a constant buzz in the background of a scorching heat.
“Preacher wouldn’t bury her in Alma,” a voice said, drifting out of the small crowd behind her. A whisper meant to be heard. “You know. A single woman and all, with a baby but no husband.”
“So?” another voice asked. “Laura Ann needs love right now. Not a lecture.”
Ian reached over and took her hand, Preacher’s last words echoing in her head. “Jezebel,” he’d whispered just loud enough to be heard after he told her to find a cemetery plot somewhere else. The family church would have nothing to do with “strangers from out of town.” Whether Laura Ann was the Jezebel he referred to, or Sophia, didn’t matter. She dashed out of the Alma chapel two days ago, determined never to return, except to visit Daddy’s grave.
Pastor Culpeper saw it differently. The voice of grace on her porch months ago when Daddy passed away, he’d embraced her yet again. Pamela, the pastor’s wife and Daddy’s hospice angel, drew her to this cemetery, sure they could find a spot for a woman with no kin.
Pastor approached the grave and spoke a few words, a short story about Sophia and where she came from, her family and departed husband, and her intense desire to be a mom. It was a nice eulogy, a friendly pastor, and a welcoming congregation, perched on the side of Route 18 in the tiny hamlet of Pursley. Her new church home. Daddy, resting in the historic family plot at Alma, would have to understand. She could never worship there again.
Pastor Culpeper paused a moment, then shared a few more words, every one a balm to her wounded soul. “God is always beckoning people to Himself with love and grace,” the young pastor said. “Our task — a task for all of you here today—is to help people open up to recognize God’s great love. Not to prove that love, or to answer all the possible questions about God. Just to open up every day, and help people see the hand of the Lord in what’s happening in their lives.”
He looked across the mourners, sweeping a hand toward the gathering, most of them attending out of respect for Angus McGehee. If his daughter grieved, they grieved with her.
“If we exclude someone who’s different from us and don’t share that love of God,” he said, looking straight at Laura Ann, “because of some rumored sin, or because she’s a stranger,” he added, glancing at the casket, “that exclusion erodes our witness on many levels. Every time we fail to love, we do serious damage to the heart of the gospel.” Love.
“Tell them you love everyone,” Daddy told her once. Daddy, a man who understood the gospel. A man who lived it.
Pastor Culpeper looked her way, his smile the signal that it was her time. She prayed for peace as she stepped forward and began to speak. “Sophia McQuistion was my friend. She always wanted to be a mom, but she had a disease she didn’t know about until she was seven months pregnant. She fought a good fight to make it to eight months and deliver a baby boy. A baby who sleeps right now in Wheeling, maybe wondering where his momma went. I can relate. I’ve lived that life.”
Laura Ann took a deep breath and charged on.
“Sophia came here to say ‘thanks’ to a friend. That’s all. We have a lot to learn from her. She lived with a heart filled with gratitude and always took time to say ‘thanks.’ So now I say it too. Thank you, Sophia, for what you taught me.”
Love.
Half an hour later, most of the mourners had exchanged a few pleasantries, expressed their regrets to Laura Ann, and headed home. She tarried at the casket, her hands on the slick black of the wood that held her friend. Granny Apple moved alongside her. They stood in silence for a long time.
“Hard times demand tough choices,” she said in her mentoring voice. “I’m glad we were blessed to know her, even if for a while.”
“What is it with hard times, Granny Apple? Why so many?” Laura Ann asked, not looking her way. Too much death. Too many disappointments.
“Part of living, I reckon. God didn’t promise it would be easy, child. Just that He’d be there for us every step along the way.”
AUGUST 2
“Ms. McGehee?”
An hour after she’d returned from lunch, a short man dressed in a grey suit stood at the door of the neonatal intensive care unit. Not a young man, but younger than Daddy, pudgy and wearing a broad smile. A lone cheery face in a world of busy professionals draped in green and blue scrubs. Laura Ann turned from her seat in the waiting area and set down her twice-read leather-bound copy of The Lord of the Rings.
“Yes?” she replied. The word drained her, the last spark of energy she could muster after a week of shuttling back and forth from Middlebourne to Wheeling, from church, home, and graveside to hospital, so that she might settle Sophia’s affairs and still be close to infant James.
“My name is Joseph Brewer.” He stepped forward, a business card extended, held by thick hairy fingers. “From Pittsburgh. I’m a colleague of Sophia’s.” He paused, swallowing hard. “And the executor of her estate.” He struggled with words, then added, “Thank you. I’m sorry I couldn’t get here sooner.”
Laura Ann’s heart skipped a beat. “I’m sorry for your loss, Mr. Brewer. For all of us. Have you seen the baby?” she asked, pointing back toward the closed doors.
“No. But thank you. I think it might be too hard for me right now.” He bit his lip, looked down, then continued. “Before she passed away, Sophia asked me to make this visit. In person. I appreciate that you’re at the hospital today near James. That’s just what Sophia would have hoped for.”
“I’ve been here every day, sir.”
“I know.”
“How? I mean, how could you?” She looked about, in wonder at who would transmit her whereabouts to an attorney fifty miles north.