The Eyes Have It

by L. M. Reed

  ~ * * ~

  “Do you mind if I come in?” Elsee cautiously peered around the door.

  I shrugged lethargically and turned away to face the window, pulling the blankets up to cover everything but the top of my head. I felt the bed give a little with her weight as she sat down behind me. There was nothing but the sound of the rain on the roof and our quiet breathing.

  Rain…I hated the rain. It had been raining that day…the day I…

  The sound of Elsee’s sigh interrupted my thoughts.

  “Allie,” she began tenderly “I know this is hard for you, and we’ve left you alone for as long as we could, maybe too long, but you can’t spend the rest of your life in bed.”

  That’s what she thinks.

  I was angry at everything, and everybody. No one understood.

  Why can’t they just leave me alone to grieve? No one understands my pain, my…anguish.

  The doctor called it post-partum depression and prescribed anti-depressants, which I refused to take knowing they wouldn’t help…that nothing would ever be able to help.

  I realized James and Elsee were sad about the baby, but they were mostly relieved that I was okay, physically at least. I was the one who had formed a tie, a close bond with the baby. He had lived inside of me for seven months, I felt him, I knew him, I named him, I loved him and I buried him…Richard Ryan Wilson…my baby.

  “Allie,” Elsee tried again “I know how you feel, believe me I do…”

  “How could you know how I feel?” I turned on her furiously. “How could anyone know how I feel? I lost my baby!” Drained, I returned to the fetal position, my back to Elsee, and muttered, “Just go away and leave me alone.”

  I felt the weight leave the bed and heard the door open and close. Tears trickled out of my eyes and began to soak the pillow. I despaired of every feeling normal again, couldn’t even remember what normal was. I laid there debating about giving in and taking some more sleeping pills, the only thing that ever offered any respite, then I heard the door open and close and felt the bed sag once more.

  “I want to show you something,” Elsee said gently “Pictures of my baby.”

  “I’ve already seen James’ baby pictures,” I mumbled.

  “These aren’t pictures of James,” I heard a strange note in Elsee’s voice. “They’re pictures of my first child, Michael.”

  That got my attention. Self-pity began warring with curiosity in my head. Curiosity won. I sat straight up in the bed, feeling a stirring of interest for the first time in months.

  “Michael?” I asked suspiciously. “I thought James was an only child.”

  “Michael died quite a while before I got pregnant with James,” Elsee said softly. “Would you like to see him?” she asked holding out a small baby album.

  Hesitantly, I took the album and laid it on the blankets covering my lap, unsure whether or not I could handle what was obviously Elsee’s pain on top of my own, but unable to curb my curiosity. Elsee remained silent, allowing me to make my own decision. Almost against my will, my hand involuntarily opened the small album.

  The meticulously written name Michael Lucas Wilson jumped out at me and I gasped as understanding hit me. Elsee must have written that name with all of the considerable love that she was capable of, her excitement obvious in every pen stroke. The pain she had to have felt at losing that child overwhelmed me for a moment and I slammed the album shut, fighting the hysteria rising in me.

  “It’s alright if you can’t,” Elsee lovingly assured me. “I felt the time was right for me to share this with you, but I’ll understand if you aren’t ready.”

  I nodded, closing my eyes, trying to get a grip on myself. After a couple of deep breaths, I tried again. Slowly opening the album, I managed to look at the first page without panicking. Still breathing deeply, I turned to the next page.

  “He’s beautiful,” I whispered in surprise.

  He looked so much like the pictures of James when he was a baby that I instantly loved him.

  “When James was born, I couldn’t believe how much alike they were,” Elsee admitted, echoing my silent observations. “The pictures aren’t as pretty later,” she warned.

  “What was…wrong with him,” I asked hesitantly.

  “Hydrocephalus,” she replied briskly. “In layman’s terms…water on the brain.”

  Having no medical knowledge, I only had a vague idea of what that meant, so I remained silent as I began flipping through the pages. Comprehension came slowly as every few pages Michaels head became larger until it was almost too much for me to continue.

  “You don’t have to finish,” Elsee said compassionately “I think you get the idea.”

  “Wasn’t there anything they could do?”

  “It was the late 50’s and early 60’s,” she replied resignedly “and things weren’t as medically advanced as they are now, especially in El Paso where we were stationed. The only option, putting in a shunt, no one in our area had ever even heard of and it wasn’t until Michael was over a year old that I stumbled on the information. We drove him to Oklahoma City, but by then it was too late and no one would touch him. He died a few months later.”

  “That’s horrible!” I exclaimed. “If he had been born later or you had been stationed in a different area, he would have lived.”

  Elsee shrugged “I decided a long time ago that playing the ‘what if’ game is useless. Things are what they are. The only reason I’m dredging this up now is to help you move on. I reacted much the same way that you are. I was angry at the world, but at the same time too depressed to get out of bed. I yelled at God, yelled at my husband, yelled at anyone who came too close. I just wanted to be left alone to drown in my sorrow.”

  “How could God do something like this?”

  “I don’t have any answers, Allie,” Elsee said quietly. “I just know that God is in control. I believe that with all of my heart. One day when I meet him in heaven I plan on asking him, but for right now all I can do is have faith that things will all work out for the best even though we can’t see it. Maybe he sent Michael to prepare me to help you now. It isn’t for us to know everything while here on this earth. We just believe and do the best we can with the hand we’re dealt.”

  “I don’t have your faith,” I moaned despairingly.

  “My faith has grown over the years, and so will yours. God promises us that he will never give us more than we can handle. Hold onto that. You are stronger than you know.”

  “Right now I’m finding that hard to believe.”

  “When Marcus was killed I really went into a tailspin,” Elsee admitted, “Even worse than when I lost Michael.”

  “I don’t know what I’d do if I lost James,” I said fearfully.

  “That’s how I felt about Marcus,” she nodded. “Did I ever tell you that Marcus is the reason I began going to church? Starting truly believing in God?”

  “No.”

  “His belief in God and heaven was so strong…so certain…I couldn’t help but believe it, too. I know that right now he, Michael, and your baby Richard are together in heaven waiting for me. I plan to be there with them some day just as I plan to see you and James there, along with your other children of course, when the time comes.”

  “I do want us all to be together, always, I just can’t seem to see past right now, the pain I’m feeling at this moment. How did you get past it?”

  “A couple of very good friends at church did much the same thing for me as I am doing for you,” she answered simply. “Knowing I wasn’t alone in my pain helped a bit. It also made me take a good long look at myself, and the self-pity I was wallowing in.”

  I flinched.

  Elsee continued gently, “What happened to my baby and my husband was a tragedy, and I was in bad shape for a long time, but life goes on. Eventually you have to accept that and drag yourself out of bed to face the day even when you don’t feel like
it. It gets easier with time.”

  “I just can’t seem to stop thinking about it,” I said miserably. “I replay everything in my head and wonder what I could have done differently…”

  “Don’t go there,” Elsee said sternly. “You did nothing wrong.”

  “I know what the doctor said, but I can’t help thinking…”

  “There was nothing anyone could do,” Elsee interrupted abruptly “No way to predict placental abruption in your case. You don’t smoke or do drugs or any of the things that would have normally put you at high risk. It wasn’t your fault.”

  “I know that here,” I pointed to my head, “but in my heart, I’m having a hard time accepting it. He was my baby, my responsibility, and I feel like I let him down, let you and James down. James is such a good father, and because of me he’ll never have the chance to get to know his son,” I finished on a whisper, refusing to meet her eyes.

  “Is that part of what’s bothering you?” Elsee guessed shrewdly. “That James is blaming you?”

  “I blame me,” I mumbled. “How could he not?”

  “James can’t stand seeing you like this,” Elsee said earnestly. “It’s tearing him apart. He would do anything to ease your pain, but he doesn’t know how. If he thought he was the cause of any of it…” she stopped for a moment as if debating. “Look, Allie, I don’t know if this will make you better or worse but…the truth is, James is sad about losing the baby but when he thought he might lose you…I haven’t seen him in such a state since the Becky incident and he’s not much better right now. He’s afraid of losing you in a different way. You’re everything to him. If he means anything at all to you, you need to pull yourself together, for his sake if nothing else.”

  “I’m sorry, Elsee, I’ll try to do better, I’m just not sure how to start,” I admitted helplessly.

  “Give up your sleeping pills,” Elsee said decisively. “Too many people have gotten hooked that way.”

  “I know they’re a crutch, but I can’t sleep without them.”

  “You have to try,” she insisted.

  “They dull the pain.”

  “As hard as it is to do, you have to face your pain and deal with it,” Elsee said as kindly as she could. “I realize it won’t be easy, but I have faith that you can do it.”

  “Could you get rid of them for me?” I asked reluctantly. “I don’t have the strength to stop taking them on my own.”

  “I would be happy to do that,” she responded immediately, the relief in her voice obvious as she picked the pill bottle up from the nightstand and put them in her pocket.

  “Now, there are two things I want you to think about,” Elsee said seriously. I nodded. “The first is if I had allowed myself to go on like you are now, James would have never been born.”

  I gasped; the thought of a world without James in it was too awful to contemplate. She smiled slightly, knowing that one would hit home.

  “The second is that Mark needs you.” I felt the tears spring to my eyes as I acknowledged the truth of her words. “I love taking care of him, you know that, but he misses his momma.”

  “I’m sorry,” I whispered. “I do love him. I’d just hate for Mark to see me like this. He’s such a happy little boy.”

  “He asks for you every day,” Elsee allowed some reproach to enter her voice, but I didn’t mind, realizing I deserved it.

  “Where is he?”

  “He and James are in the back yard playing with the soft football James gave him for his birthday,” Elsee informed me.

  “James is home?” I asked disoriented.

  “It’s Sunday,” Elsee answered patiently. “Everyone at church this morning asked about you.”

  “I’m sorry,” I shrugged helplessly.

  Elsee took my cold hands in hers and attempted to warm them up for me.

  “Allie, we understand how hard this has been for you,” Elsee said bracingly “but we miss you and want you back. We need you.”

  “I’ll try, Elsee,” I promised. “Thank you for telling me about Michael. Does James know? He’s never said anything.”

  “He does now,” she answered briskly.

  “How did he react?”

  Something in her tone suggested he hadn’t taken it well.

  “Understandably upset that I hadn’t told him before,” I could tell his reaction had affected her than she was letting on. “When he was young there was no question about telling him, but as he got older, I guess I just didn’t find the right opening to bring it up.”

  “I can understand that,” I said empathetically.

  “I know you can, I just hope James can find it in his heart to forgive me for not telling him.”

  “Elsee,” I said smiling for the first time in months “I’ll make sure he does.”