Dancing on Broken Glass

by Ka Hancock

  I’d dozed off in Dad’s chair holding her hand. I don’t know how long I’d been asleep, but I woke up when I heard the train, and Mom was looking at me through her regular eyes—not the ones dulled by pain and medication. She seemed so different that I thought for a moment I might be dreaming. She looked the way she did before she ever got sick. Peace had erased all the deep lines in her face, and somehow I knew it was time. And she did, too.

  She tugged on me, pulling me down close to her. “You’re such a good girl, Lucy,” she whispered. “Don’t ever be afraid, my darling, because there is nothing to be afraid of.” I didn’t know what she meant, and before I could question her, she asked me to get her some ice. I remember my reluctance to leave the room because Death was there. Her familiar eyes letting me know that when I came back, my mother would be gone. And I knew that was how Mom wanted it. So I kissed her cheek and went downstairs and got the ice.

  I started to cough and Priscilla was immediately at my side. “Let’s get you out of that tub. You’re probably freezing by now.” Priss got me a towel and helped me stand up. She gasped again at my thin legs and arms, my disproportionate belly covered with blue veins.

  I pulled the towel around me. “You’ll probably have nightmares now.”

  “I probably will,” she said, only half-kidding. She helped me into some fresh pajamas and I sat down in the big chair, Dad’s chair. While I coughed into the towel, my sister dried my hair. I don’t think in all my life I’d ever felt such tenderness from Priscilla. When she was done, she sat on the edge of the bed and took my hand. “Lucy, there is so much I should have said to Mom. I don’t want to make that mistake with you.” When her eyes filled with tears, I brought her hand to my lips. “I love you, Lucy.”

  “I know that, sweets. I’ve always known.”

  While I rubbed lotion over my dry skin, Priscilla changed my sheets. She took great care with the corners and even shook the down comforter before she laid it across the mattress. Then she folded it over and helped me back into bed. I vowed to rest just until Harry arrived.

  I fell immediately into a semblance of sleep but was aware that somewhere behind the noise of my breathing and the hum of the oxygen, the doorbell had rung. I remember Lily kissing me and touching my face. She had the saddest eyes. “Lu,” she rasped. “Are you sure this is what you want to do?”

  “Yes. I want to give her you.” A tiny sob broke out of my sister then, and I did my best to squeeze her hand, but I could not stay awake.

  The next thing I remember was all of them standing in my bedroom—Ron and Lily, Harry, Priscilla, and Mickey, who’d knelt down next to the bed. He’d been crying again; I think they all had. Mickey stroked my cheek and ran my sad hair between his fingers. “Are you sure?” he whispered.

  I knew what he was asking me and I looked from him to my sisters and then to Ron. “Just like we talked about, right?” Ron nodded. Lily—tears streaming down her face—nodded. I turned back to Mickey and lifted my hand to his shoulder. “Are you sure?”

  “I am,” he whispered.

  He helped me sit up in bed, and when I was situated, Harry sat down beside me with the documents. “Here you go, kiddo,” he said, opening the folder. He handed me the pen from his pocket. Then, using my belly as a table, I added my signature to the papers that made the adoption of my daughter official.

  thirty

  NOVEMBER 19, 2011

  Lily has taken to stopping by first thing in the mornings to help Lucy get ready for the day, comb her hair, rub lotion into her hands, put her socks on. I could have done all that, but it seems profoundly important to Lily to be afforded this intimacy. Now I watched as Lily slowly, gently guided one of Lucy’s thin arms, then the other, through the sleeves of a sweater. When she was done buttoning it, she bent to kiss my wife’s forehead, and Lucy looked up at her and tried to smile. Neither said a word, but there was bottomless meaning in that moment.

  I’d known there was something special between these sisters since Lily came into Colby’s to set up Lucy’s twenty-first birthday party. I remember she was thin and fair and easy to underestimate. She still is, but Lily has a depth born of painful things, and it manifests itself in true kindness and generosity. Years ago, as we planned the party, she had described Lucy in layers—all of which she admired. They varied from young and tenacious and confident, to patient and forgiving, to indomitable and freakishly unflappable. Lily had said “freakishly” and it made me smile recalling it. No doubt she would describe Lucy the same way today, even though today was a bad day.

  Lucy had been sick all night, and her breathing was wet and labored. Peter Gladstone had made room to see us so I’d come to the bedroom to hurry things along. But I felt like an intruder bursting in on the sacred; Lily had sat down and Lucy’s head was on her shoulder. They were holding hands and staring at something in the distance, raw affection and devotion etched into their faces. The connection between them seemed without beginning or end, and for the first time I looked outside myself to Lily’s heartbreak. It was hard to see and I had to walk away.

  It snowed in Brinley on November 19. As if by sleight of hand, the season changed from a lazy, prolonged autumn, quiet and gushing with color, to a blanket of sludge that draped the world in cold, depressing dullness. Mickey and I were on our way to the hospital to see Peter Gladstone, and my spirits were as heavy as the day. For one thing, I could not get warm. Despite the car’s forced heat blowing in my face, I was freezing. And I did not feel well this morning. Breathing was hard and my body was one big ache. Mickey tugged on my hand, rousing me out of my waking slumber.

  “Hey. You okay?”

  I didn’t open my eyes when I nodded my lie. I just tried to quiet the wet, sucking sounds coming from me as I inhaled. Mickey squeezed my fingers, and I did my best to squeeze back, but I couldn’t muster the strength. My lungs were once again filled with fluid, and today breathing felt like trying to suck air through a soaking-wet towel. I think I could even hear sloshing going on inside me, but that could have been my imagination.

  I was so tired. There was no such thing as rest for me anymore; not when every single breath had to be calculated and earned. And I hurt. I hurt everywhere. Waves of pain rolled over me, threatening to consume me. I couldn’t tell where it started or where it ended, just that it throbbed through my body all the way down the backs of my legs. And coloring it all, every muscle it took to draw breath seemed to rebel, as did each one it took to breathe out.

  “I’m sure Dr. Gladstone will be able to do something to make you feel better, baby,” Mickey offered with little conviction.

  I nodded in polite agreement, loving him for the sentiment. But in truth, I was losing my grip. No, that wasn’t even right. The real truth was, I was losing my desire to hold on. After meeting with Harry to sign the papers, it was as though I’d met a deadline and relaxed my hold. It was weird. When everyone walked out of my bedroom that night, it felt like, aside from actually having the baby, the last thing I’d had to accomplish could be crossed off the list except the very last thing. Everything else, all the pressing things that had once needed doing, had either been taken care of or had faded into unimportance. I simply didn’t care because I knew it would all land safely in someone else’s waiting hands.

  I started to cough just as we pulled into the hospital parking lot, and damn if my exertions didn’t make me pee. I cried as the warm wetness spread out under me. I was such a mess. When Mickey came around to help me out of the car, he must have thought better of it, because he quickly ran in for a wheelchair. It seemed to take an eternity for him to come back, and another one for us to get into the building and up to the office.

  At the desk, I asked Dr. Gladstone’s nurse if she had something I could change into because I’d had an accident. Her kind smile reached in and stroked a place in me too raw to be humiliated. She told Mickey to have a seat, then said to me, “You come with me, sweetie, and we’ll take care of it.” Her name was Sadie, and at that moment I
thought she was the sweetest thing in all the world. She helped me to a tiny restroom where I leaned against the wall as she rummaged through a cabinet. “Here ya go. You just slip into a pair of these scrubs. They’re so comfortable, I steal them every once in a while,” she said to me conspiratorially. She helped me out of my coat. “You be all right in here by yourself?”

  I nodded what I hoped was the truth, and she left me alone. I sat down on the toilet and did my best to nudge my shoes loose without bending over. When I got them off, I stood up and peeled down my maternity jeans and kicked them aside, the effort of it all making me sweat. I couldn’t catch my breath and I felt the world growing small and thin around me. “Please . . . please,” I begged the air. I sat down again on the toilet, willing myself to stay present as I turned my oxygen up as high as it would go. Stronger wind filled my nostrils, and I breathed as deeply as I dared. With everything I had, I forced myself to focus, closed my eyes, and breathed. Slow and easy.

  All I had to do was get out of my underwear and into the scrubs. I could do this. I stood up and the image in the mirror frightened me. I was so pale and so drawn and so not me. My eyes filled with tears as I pushed my lifeless hair behind my ears. I was a shell, ugly and obscene. As I stood there lamenting my god-awful reflection, she slipped in behind me. As I stared into her eyes, I wondered if I had willed her there even as I mentally scolded her for showing up. “It’s not time,” I croaked.

  Her kind eyes stared into mine and I couldn’t look away. I wasn’t even sure I wanted to. My heart knew it and my head knew it, and part of me was almost grateful. Except that I needed just a bit more time. “I’m not going yet,” I informed her.

  As tears stretched everything out of focus, I rubbed my eyes. I rubbed hard, and when I looked back in the mirror, she was gone. I dropped my underpants and kicked them over to where my jeans lay in a heap, but something surprising caught my eye.

  At first I couldn’t force what I was seeing to make sense. Red underwear?

  I didn’t have any red underwear.

  I stared at the color as if it were alive, the meaning not registering. As I stared, unblinking, at what refused to be real, I felt something running down my legs. I couldn’t see it because of my swollen belly, but I felt it pooling at my feet. I slowly stepped away and looked down. Blood. Blood tracing the outline of my foot. Red underwear! When realization finally hit my brain, my heart started to pound and I was aware that, with each throbbing pulsation, more warmth dripped out of me. Blood! Thirty-four weeks. Blood. And Death in the mirror? After all this, was she not here for me?

  I wrapped my arms protectively around my middle and screamed with all my strength, straining for breath. But there wasn’t enough. As I tried once more to make myself heard, I slid down the wall, my watery legs losing the ability to support me. I was retreating, falling deeply into myself, as surely as if I were falling down a well.

  I experienced what happened next as a sort of bystander, trapped, but trying to stay out of the way of all the commotion. I was aware that Sadie, and then another nurse, crowded into the small bathroom. As they got me into the scrubs, I thought, Good. You take care of that—the pile of sick woman. And I’ll see to this—my suddenly compromised passenger. Every cell, every impulse I possessed, was directed toward seeing to her survival. My brain commandeered all that was left of my lifesaving forces and aimed them at my tiny daughter.

  Strangely, through the panic, I felt myself start to sink beneath the surface, but I pulled myself back. I looked for Death, but I couldn’t find her. At the thought of her, I felt both betrayal and reassurance, but I refused to allot any of my precious reserves to bargaining with her. I would not let her take my daughter! It was as simple as that.

  Suddenly, Mickey burst into the little room. He picked me up as if I were a rag doll and took command. “Where! Where am I taking her?” he boomed, immediately hyperventilating. He was running and kissing my head, and the whole time I bounced in his arms, I felt blood leaking out of me.

  “Follow me,” Sadie yelled. “I don’t know where a gurney is. Should I take her to the ER?” she shouted at someone. “Or upstairs? Call upstairs and tell them we’re coming,” she shouted again.

  This was obviously not what anyone expected, and everyone in charge was suddenly outside their zone of authority, but Mickey had me—he had us—crushed solidly against him, and I knew he would not drop me.

  I must have dipped below the surface for some time because I woke—well, not woke exactly, but became aware of myself once more. I was lying in a bright room. A room so bright I could see the brightness even from behind eyelids that, despite my best efforts, would not open. I heard a lot of people shouting alarming information such as late decelerations. Metabolic crisis. Disseminated intravascular coagulation. But the worst was We have to get the baby out! Now!

  Someone was demanding to know where the hell the epidural tech was, and someone else shouted, “We’re losing her, pressure is sixty-six over forty.”

  “Roll her onto her side!” a male voice shouted, and in a moment I felt something cold flow into my back. It didn’t hurt, though. Strangely, nothing hurt.

  Mickey was crushing my hand and refusing to leave, though the doctors had apparently asked him several times. I knew he would never leave me, but he probably never imagined how his continual chanting in my ear, “Hang on baby, hang on,” was keeping me tethered to the planet. He couldn’t possibly know that without him I’d be swallowed up in the chaos happening around me, and I’d disappear.

  Suddenly, I felt a cool hand on my face and knew that Charlotte had arrived. She leaned down and said into my ear, “What do you think you’re doing, missy?” I wanted to cry, but I couldn’t open my eyes. She said to Mickey, “How’s our girl? You taking good care of her?”

  “Doing my damnedest, Doc,” he said in a shaky voice.

  “We’re ready for you, Dr. Barbee,” someone said from the other side of me.

  “What are you going to do?” Mickey asked like a frightened child.

  “We’re going to deliver your daughter.”

  I felt Charlotte’s strong, capable hand squeezing my arm and her low voice once more in my ear. “You stay with me, young lady,” she said firmly. “You’re not done yet.”

  I was then jostled onto my back, and though I tried to be helpful, I couldn’t feel myself. When they had me in position, I waited for them to tell me to push, but no one said anything. Not even Charlotte.

  Whenever she can, Charlotte delivers her own babies. And though I presumed her presence here meant she would deliver mine, she seemed to be but a part of the larger group attending to me. Another doctor seemed to be running the show—asking for instruments, calling out for levels, making sure Mickey was not going to faint—and he was making quick work of cutting me open.

  I desperately wanted to see what was happening because it had grown so quiet. Even Mickey seemed to be holding his breath. There was some muttering but I couldn’t capture the words until I heard, “She’s a tiny one—three pounds if she’s an ounce. C’mon, sweetheart, take a breath. Take a breath, dammit!” When she didn’t, the room ignited with activity. I heard suction and a little gagging cough. Then a strange word—Apgar—followed by the response “Three at one minute,” which for some reason infused the scene with more urgency.

  “What’s happening?” Mickey said softly, then he let go of my hand and repeated his question louder. No one answered him. “Charlotte?” Mickey cried, his voice bulging with hysteria. “What’s wrong with the baby? What’s happening? Why isn’t she breathing?”

  thirty-one

  NOVEMBER 19—LATER

  She was only twenty-one when I met her, and she terrified me. A hundred times at least I’d picked up the phone and hung it up again. I dreamed of her. No one had ever talked to me the way she did; no pity. Fully expecting that I would rise to the occasion, even a bit confrontational.

  If you want to take a chance on me, I’m right here, she’d said. Me, t
ake a chance on her! But she didn’t mean it. She couldn’t. I had no intention of going to her roof that night, but I drove there anyway. I must have sat in my car for two hours outside her building, torn between the extremes. I wanted her more than I had ever dared want anything, but I was deathly afraid she would see me—me! And take it all back. I drove most of the way home before I knew I was throwing away the greatest chance life could hand me. There are many voices in my head, but one finally rose above the thrum to tell me I was a fool if I did not let her love me. Still, when I got there and saw her sitting on the edge of the roof, all I could do was watch her. I was going to leave, but then she got up and walked toward me. There was fear in her face that mirrored my own. Bright hope. Trust, unearned, in her eyes. Promise. How did she do that? How did she speak to my soul in the exact language it would understand?

  Tonight as my wife lays dying I marvel over how close I’d come to walking away. How impoverished would be my life if I had not gone to the roof that night. Even as I lose her, I shudder more at the thought that I nearly never had her.

  Coma. Unresponsive. Actively dying. These words floated on the air around me in the bold and tearful discussions taking place over me. I struggled to move, to speak, to understand. Mickey was stroking my fingers and I could smell his terror. Oh, if I could just squeeze his hand, kiss his cheek, I knew I could make him feel better. I struggled to wake up. With all my strength I tried to lift myself awake, to respond to Mickey’s repeated plea: “Lucy, honey, open your eyes. Wake up. Please wake up.”

  I could hear myself breathing, noisy and wet, but strangely I could not feel the effort I knew it was taking me to draw breath. I tried again to speak, to push the words out of my throat. The baby. Why was no one talking about the baby? I was filled with sudden dread and again tried to harness all my paralyzed power and wake up. But I couldn’t open my eyes.