Pallbearing

  A week before her third trimester, a stomach pain woke Julie in the middle of the night. Ryan wanted to go to the hospital right away, but she said it was probably nothing and they should wait and see if it happened again. Then she felt something under the covers and reached down and her hand came up covered in blood. Ryan hurried her into the car and to the emergency. She was taken away on a gurney while he found a place to park. When he finally got inside, Julie was gone and a nurse led him to a waiting room and told him they would let him know as soon as they had news.

  A doctor Ryan had never met came in and told Ryan the non-viable fetus had died. That had caused Julie to go into labour — her body was rejecting the dead fetus, but in the process, it was rejecting the healthy one as well. They had given her drugs to stop the labour and they could hold it off for a while, but there was only so much they could do to prevent it entirely. If their still-living baby was to have any chance of survival, it would need, at the very least, another week in the womb. More time would be better.

  Ryan brought some things from home — blankets and clothes and their tablet to watch movies — and moved into the chair in Julie’s hospital room. He called her work and explained about the early maternity leave and he called his work and said he might not be in for a while. That first day they put a needle through Julie’s belly and injected the baby with steroids to help the lungs develop. She was given pills that kept her tired and nauseous all day. In the middle of the first night she asked Ryan if he thought their baby knew his sister had died. Then she said she could hold on, that she had to. Every night before she fell asleep she would count down the days they needed to be sure the baby would be okay, saying, just six more, then five, then four.

  Three days before the doctor’s deadline, Julie woke up with a stomach pain that quickly got worse. While the nurses pushed her bed through the hospital she kept saying, “No, it’s too soon, please God no.” Ryan caught the elbow of their doctor and asked him if it had been long enough; he told Ryan they’d do everything they could.

  The labour lasted into the early morning. Julie stopped screaming and just numbly pushed toward the end. Ryan was trying to bring her back to the world, holding her hand and saying it would be okay when the first baby came out. Julie asked, “Which?” but it was taken away and then she had to push out the second and then the placenta. Ryan only glanced at the babies; he stayed with Julie while they were taken away.

  Later, the doctor told Ryan it had gone as well as could be expected — their boy was alive, but his heartbeat was weak and he was on a ventilator and would be for a long time. The doctor was very careful to say there was still a long road ahead of them. The baby would need surgery soon and there would be a lot of things to overcome before they could be sure the child would survive. Then he shook Ryan’s hand and offered his congratulations.

  By the next evening, Julie was recovered enough to see their child. Ryan helped her into a wheelchair the hospital required her to use, and then a nurse led them to the neonatal ICU — she told them it was called the “miracle ward,” because they’d seen so many there. There were two rows of incubators. The nurse led them to the one second from the end and said, “Here’s your brave little guy.”

  When Ryan was young he had knocked a bird’s nest out of a tree with a slingshot. The eggs cracked open on the ground and he had watched as the half-formed chicks, purple, slimy, and barely recognizable as birds, struggled and then died. His son looked like one of those birds — too small, too new. His skin was translucent, covered with yellow and purple blotches that Ryan realized were organs moving under the skin. There were needles and tubes taped into the arms and stomach; a too-large ventilator came out of the baby’s mouth. It looked like it was choking him. It looked horrible.

  Julie said, “Oh my God, our poor little guy,” and put a hand on the plastic shell between them. She said, “Look at how small his fingers are,” and Ryan watched the tiny pink hand move from side to side and Julie said that he was trying to wave.

  All Ryan could say was, “It’s so premature.”

  Julie looked up at him and said, “Jeremy is so premature, and of course he is.” And she said this would be hard for them, but it was harder for him and they had to be there for their little boy and give him strength. And Ryan started to say something that got caught up by tears and then Julie was comforting him. She told him it would be all right and after a while Ryan said that Jeremy was going to make it, he had to.

  Julie asked the nurse if she could hold him. She said she was sorry, but the risk of infection was too great. Then she smiled and told them that in a couple of weeks little Jeremy would be allowed out and he would be big and strong like his dad and they could hold him and play with him all they wanted. Julie and Ryan smiled back. Julie put her hand on the plastic again and said goodbye and good luck and that they loved him and would see him soon. As the nurse led them out she said, “Aren’t they just the most precious things.”

  That night Julie and Ryan were woken by a doctor and told that Jeremy needed surgery immediately. They moved into a waiting room and a few minutes later another doctor they didn’t know came in and explained that they had done everything they could, but it had just been too soon. Ryan nodded and thanked him and said he knew they had tried their best. Julie said if only she could have held on a couple more days, and Ryan told her not to think like that — there was nothing any of them could have done differently. Then the doctor was gone and later a nurse came into their room and asked if they’d like to see Jeremy.

  They were led through the hospital together, through a room with curtains drawn around beds and then into a smaller one. Jeremy lay in the middle of a too-large bed, a blanket pulled up to his neck. The tubes and wires and ventilator were all gone. He looked, for the first time, like a baby. Julie stood back and held on to Ryan and then she bent close to the bed and pulled the blanket back before the nurse could tell her not to. There were large black stitches across his chest. She didn’t look at that, but lifted him up cupped in her two hands. She held him against her chest and kissed his forehead. Ryan held her shoulders and touched the side of his child’s cold face.

  Then Julie asked where their little girl was. The nurse hesitated and said it might be difficult and Julie said she would like to see her, please. The nurse said if they were sure and when Julie only stared back, she left. She came back pushing another large bed with an even smaller body on it. The nurse told Ryan they really should leave the blanket on and Julie crouched down beside the tiny face and reached out her hand. Ryan touched her shoulder and started to say no, but Julie just put a finger on the baby’s face. Then she pulled Ryan’s hand down to do the same. She said, “Isabel, can we call her Isabel?” Ryan said of course; it was a pretty name.

  They had a small ceremony for the twins at the hospital chapel before Julie checked out. It was just the two of them and a priest. Ryan told everyone but their closest family that Julie had miscarried and that they didn’t want any cards or anything like that. Back at home, they set about recovering. Ryan went back to work; Julie did not. She asked her job to change the maternity leave to extended sick leave, and when that was up, a leave of absence. She spent her days in bed or on the couch. Their family doctor prescribed antidepressants that she never took. Her mother visited every day and her friends came on weekends but she didn’t like them to stay long. Not much changed for the first few months. They were exhausted, emotional. And then things got hard. They had a few fights and then a blowout that ended with Julie moving into her mom’s house for two weeks.

  After that, it got a little better. They started going for walks and then into town to run errands together. They went for drives on the weekend. There were still things that set her off — babies in carriages, pregnant women — but it got so they could work through the worst days. Eventually they went out with friends and she drank too much the first few times and Ryan had to get her home while she cried and scre
amed and then that stopped too. By then it had been a year.

  She started work, part-time at first. They went on a short vacation. They got past the feeling of just sticking things out and started to feel love for each other again. They were closer than before, the marriage stronger. They never talked about trying to have another child, but when Julie got pregnant again, she simply told Ryan that she was going to go through with it. Julie’s pregnancy went smoothly. A year later they were expecting another.

  The pain still came out sometimes. Like one night when the whole family was over for dinner and her mother-in-law asked if Julie was excited to have a second child. Julie said that it was her fourth, and she said it with all the force of her loss. Everyone stopped eating and looked anywhere but at her until her mother-in-law said yes, of course. A minute later Julie excused herself. Ryan followed her into the kitchen where she was crying over the sink and saying, they were real, I touched them, they were real. And Ryan held on to her and said that he knew, he had held them too.

  Rob and Jane

  Upstairs, something with wheels ran back and forth along the floor and then it sounded like something heavy fell over. Rob heard one of the boys say “Oh-oooo,” and then the house was quiet. He buried his head under the couch cushion and fell back asleep.

  A little later he woke up to warm heavy breathing by his ear. He pushed the dog away and told it to fuck off. It licked his hand. He pulled the pillow off his head and saw Billy standing there. Billy said, “Dad, can I watch cartoons?”

  “Sure. Just not too loud, okay?”

  “Thanks, Dad.”

  “But get me a glass of water first.”

  Billy said, “Okay, sure,” and ran out of the room, sliding on his socks around the corner. He came back with a glass of water filled right to the brim, held at arm’s length in front of him. He walked carefully toward Rob, spilling only a little, and put the glass down on the coffee table and then turned on the TV, scooting up close to the screen.

  Jack had followed his brother as far as the doorway. He stood, half hidden by the wall, staring at his dad. Rob waved at him. Jack walked across the living room, still staring at his dad. When he got to where his brother was, he lowered himself onto his knees, and then, finally, turned away from his dad so he could watch the show. Rob shook his head and sat up to drink.

  Rob watched the cartoons for a couple of minutes before his hangover sent him to the bathroom. He stuck his head under the tap and drank and then settled onto the toilet and flipped through an old National Geographic. There was a story on the world’s deepest lake he’d read dozens of times before, but the pictures of the impossibly thick ice and the wild, barren shores were always nice to look at. He thought about what it would be like to live there, isolated in the deep snow for months of the year. He could learn to fish, to live off the land.

  When Rob opened the door Billy was standing right there. He said, “Stinky Daddy!” and put both palms over his mouth to make a farting noise. Then he squeezed between Rob and the sink and climbed up onto the toilet. Billy sang a song about pooping. Rob left him to it.

  In the kitchen, Rob dumped the old coffee grounds into the garbage and pulled up the sides of the bag so it wouldn’t spill over. He filled up the percolator and looked around for the coffee. An empty tin sat beside the garbage. He heard Jane tell Jack not to sit so close to the TV and then she came into the kitchen. She dropped Lily into the jumper.

  “Where’d you end up last night?”

  “Matty’s.”

  “You go out?”

  “We had one at the Oak.”

  “We can’t afford that.”

  “Matty bought.”

  “Are you sure?”

  Rob went out to the porch and pulled a pack of cigarettes off the window sill. He sat on the old armchair they kept out there and read the newspaper that had been leaning against their door. A neighbour pushed his lawnmower up and down his yard, filling the air with the smell of exhaust and fresh-cut grass. Rob smoked his cigarette and then sank down into the chair and closed his eyes. The lawnmower stopped. He heard a garage door close and then it was quiet except for the sound of the grass righting itself.

  * * *

  Rob woke up to the dog nuzzling into his crotch. The neighbour was watering his lawn; Rob figured he must have been out only a minute.

  Inside, the boys were sitting on chairs pulled up close to the kitchen table, shovelling cereal toward their mouths. Their chins were dripping milk and a line of spilt food led back to their bowls. Rob bounced the springs of Lily’s jumper to get her going and she laughed and clapped and dropped her sippy cup. He left her bouncing and took a drink of Billy’s juice.

  “Daaad!”

  “Hey, don’t worry about it.”

  Jack stared at his dad and pulled his glass toward him. He lowered it onto the floor. Then he covered his cereal with both arms and leaned over it.

  Rob looked in the cupboard for a glass but could only find a measuring cup. He filled that up with juice and tore a bagel out of the bag. He slathered cream cheese on it. Jane came in wrapped in a towel, still dripping from the shower. She picked up Lily’s sippy cup and looked at Rob.

  “What?”

  “You couldn’t clean a glass?”

  “I didn’t want to use the water while you were in the shower.”

  “Well, I’m out now.”

  Rob put the bagel in his mouth, collected his juice, and went back to the living room. A little later Jane came in, now wearing a T-shirt and jeans. She tilted her head to one side and wrung the water out of her hair. She said she was going to pick up the mail and do some shopping; she’d be back in a bit. Rob said, “Pick me up a coffee, would you? We’re out.”

  The boys sat back in front of the TV after Jane left. Rob told them to keep an eye on their sister and went up to the bathroom. He shaved, took a couple painkillers, and turned on the shower. Billy banged on the door and said he had to go potty. Rob said to go in the basement, which Billy told him was too scary. Rob said, “Figure it out,” and turned his face into the water pouring down from above. He let it wash over him for a good long time.

  Jane got home just as he was coming down the stairs. She had grocery bags hanging from both wrists, a coffee in one hand, and the mail in the other. “Give me a hand with this,” she said.

  Rob took the coffee and mail. Jane said, “I didn’t see the cheque.” He followed her into the kitchen where she dumped the groceries onto the kitchen table and started separating meat into freezer bags. Rob put the cereal into the cupboards above her head and then the cans of soup into the pantry on the other side of her. When he asked her to move over so he could put the cleaning stuff under the sink she told him he was more in the way than anything else and she could handle unpacking. He grabbed a package of crackers and his coffee and went back to the living room.

  A little later Jane shouted for the boys to turn off the TV and get out of their pyjamas for the day. Billy looked back at his dad. Rob said, “Do what your mother says.” Billy ran off and Jack backed out slowly, staring. Jane came in and put Lily in the playpen and asked Rob what his plans were for rest of the day. He said he was going to head into town that afternoon. She said there was a pile of library books by the door that had to go back.

  He went upstairs and lay down on the bed. When he woke up, it was mid-afternoon. The kids were out back playing with Jane. He looked in Jane’s purse for bus fare, but she didn’t have any cash. Instead, he pulled a bunch of DVDs off the shelf over the TV. He shouted “bye” out the back door and headed into town.

  * * *

  Rob put his backpack down on the counter. The guy who ran the pawnshop looked up at him and then went back to tidying the display case. After a few minutes he went into the back, leaving Rob alone to look over the display of swords. He wondered how long it would take to get good with a sword, and thought of various situation
s where that would be useful. Then he wondered why so many swords were getting pawned. Was there a down-on-his-luck samurai in town? Who actually bought these things?

  The guy came back out and said, “You got to take them out of the bag.”

  Rob unzipped his backpack and piled up the DVDs. The guy went through them. Every once in a while he’d pop open a case and look at the disc. When he was done, he held up the five he’d separated and said, “I can do ten for these. Can’t use the others.”

  “What about forty for everything?” Rob said.

  The guy laughed. “I don’t want those. At all. Even the ones I’m taking, I barely want. They’re all scratched, the cases are covered in juice or some shit.”

  “Thirty?”

  “Ten for those. Take the rest home with you.”

  “There’s, like, twenty DVDs there. Twenty?”

  “I can do twenty.” The guy popped open the till and handed Rob a bill.

  * * *

  Rob sat at a table in the middle of the empty bar and worked his way through a burger and a beer. A nature show played on the TV. Some sort of African deer looked up, startled, and then resumed licking the surface of a river. The show cut to a shot of a lion loping across a plain, then back to the deer. The narrator let Rob know that the lion had some competition and would not be getting his meal that day. A crocodile jumped out of the water and pulled the deer in. “Jesus,” Rob said to no one.

  Matty walked in and said “Hey.” He switched the TV over to the sports channel and sat down. Sawdust floated off his shoulders. He shouted an order at the waitress. The sports channel had no sport on, just a countdown show with the week’s most outrageous moments. They watched together without talking much. Number one was two hockey goalies fighting. Then the baseball pregame show started. Matty’s burger arrived. When they had emptied their first beers, Rob said, “Let me get us a pitcher.”