When I Ran Away

by Ilona Bannister

  I swallow hard, push my greasy hair behind my ears and meet his eyes. “I know. I’m sorry,” I say. It comes out hoarse and monotone. He kisses my forehead and leaves the room to go smooth it over with Katie.

  I put my head on the pillow and close my eyes but I feel like I’m rocking. Harry didn’t tell her that. That to get through the worst part of the labor when I was pinned to the bed all I could do was rock back and forth. He didn’t tell her that he’s had to shake me awake every night when he finds me sitting up in bed, rocking back and forth in my sleep, sometimes cradling his bent knee and singing to it like it’s a baby.

  I’m lost, I’m scared, I’m hurt, I need you. I should have said all that too.

  London, January 2016; Baby, 11 days old

  The lights, the color of the walls. There’s no windows. I don’t know where the air comes from. When we got here Harry took Rocky and started running. He carried Johnny, took the baby and ran. Without me. What if the baby dies before I get there? Don’t look at the ceiling. Look at the floor. I don’t know where the air comes from in here. I need air. A flash of the oxygen mask they put on me when they took him out. A cage on my mouth.

  I don’t hold the baby much; I try, once a day, but he’s so small. Like holding a feather with a boxing glove. But since we got home a few days ago I’ve started watching him. All night sometimes. I still can’t sleep because it’s chaos behind my eyes and it’s easier…I mean, I’m not so scared if I keep them open. So I watch him through the mesh on the mini crib. Even though I can’t pick him up when he wakes at night Harry still put it on my side of the bed. As if the baby is contagious and if I sleep next to him I’ll catch it, the love I’m supposed to have for him.

  He slept for three hours at a stretch but this time he kept sleeping. Parents always complain about the baby waking up but I don’t. I’m in a state of constant alert while he’s sleeping, waiting for him to wake up again. Because if he wakes up then he’s alive. But this time, tonight, he slept for too long and his breathing was fast, then slow, then fast, then faster. Too fast. I woke Harry up. Turned on the lights. A drop in the pit of my stomach. Harry’s eyes. Shit, what do we do? Little blue hands. Still breathing, he was still breathing.

  Harry had Rocky and Johnny strapped in the car before I made it down the stairs. I’m so useless, I can’t even get the kids in the car, but at least maybe I got this right, maybe I did this right, the baby was in trouble and I knew. Really, oh, congratulations, you’re an amazing mother.

  There wasn’t time for me to say to Harry that I should stay and he should go with the baby. Maybe this is better. What would he have said? What the fuck is wrong with you? What mother doesn’t take her sick baby to the hospital? Harry wouldn’t say “fuck,” though.

  Harry says, “Sit in the back, between them.”

  “I can’t, how?”

  “Sit between them, watch the baby.” He’s scared. And since he’s the only one here who’s not crazy or a child, that worries me.

  I squeeze between the car seats but it hurts. Numb and painful at the same time in different places across my middle.

  He doesn’t park the car, just leaves it in front of the hospital and throws the doors open. He holds Johnny’s hand on one side and carries the baby in the car seat on the other. He doesn’t look to see if I’m following, just runs into the hospital with my kids.

  By the time I get out of the car, close the doors and shuffle inside they’ve already checked in. I don’t know where to go. An old man pulls his oxygen tank across the room like he’s walking a puppy, chatting to it until he reaches a seat. A woman and a teenage boy, faces like stone, sit together in winter coats even though it’s hot as shit in here. A skinny dude in a hoodie gets a Mars bar out of the vending machine. I want to cry.

  “Are you Mum?”

  “What?”

  “Are you Mum? Of the baby that just came in?”

  “Yes.”

  “Come this way.”

  The nurse shows me how to get to the pediatric section, hit the buzzer, go through the door. Follow the paw prints they put there for the kids. Buzz. Slam. Click. Locked in the hall. The lights pressing down. Don’t look up. Eyes on the floor, follow the yellow line and count the paw prints until you get to the door. I’m locked in here. You’re not locked in here, it’s a hospital. Get to the next door, count the prints. What if he’s dead before I get there? 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18. Hit the buzzer. Fuck. Hit the buzzer. Buzz. In. Slam. Click. There’s no windows here either but—Where do you go, just find out where to go. I shuffle to the desk. “Hi, I’m the mother—um, the baby?”

  The nurse is a chubby blonde with her scrubs stretched tight across her hips, blue eyeliner smudged along with mascara in the craggy skin under her eyes. She’s tired and getting older, but she’s still fast in her white rubber Crocs. She starts to walk off to show me to the room but when she sees I can’t keep up she slows down. She gives me her arm. “It’s alright, love, take your time.” She’s got that East London way of talking, a punchline waiting under every sentence. Her voice matches her face—weathered, maternal. I’ve been a ghost since the day he was born but I feel like she’s just seen me and I could cry because she called me “love.” I say, “Thanks.” I would totally hug her right now but Brits aren’t huggers.

  I get to the exam room. The doctor looks up. “Is this Mum?”

  “Yes. Where were you?” Harry half-shouts, annoyed. It’s not like him. It must be bad.

  “Harry, I can’t—”

  “Jeej! Jeej! Rocky’s sick.” Johnny’s wide-eyed, taking in the room.

  “OK, buddy, I know, sit over here, here’s my phone.” I sit him down in a chair, find his game on my phone, turn down the volume. “We’ve got to talk to the doctor, OK? Be real quiet, OK?”

  “Jeej, is he alright?”

  “I’m trying to find out, sweetie, don’t worry.”

  But I’ve missed everything. The doctor’s been talking to Harry. I’m trying to focus on the words but I can’t slow down my heart so if I keep my eyes on him at least he’ll think I’m listening. Some kind of accent. What is he, Greek? Turkish? Iranian? Somewhere hot with glossy, black-haired, olive-skinned people. The lights press down. I try to listen. I have to lean on something. Don’t look up, Gigi. Dehydration. 14, 15, 16. Special Care Unit, observation. 17, 18. Chest infection. 19, 20, 21. Questions, feeding, how much is he taking? 25, 26. Rapid breathing indicates. 30, 31, 32, 33. Something, something…

  “Jeej, Jeej, how do you make this game go back? Go back to the beginning?”

  “Johnny, baby, just wait.” 37, 38, 39, 40. Shit. Shit.

  “Jeej? Can you make this go back? The arrow won’t go.”

  Doctor leaves, door slams. Shit, is it locked? Dammit, what’s the doctor’s name?

  “I can’t get the arrow to go back. Please, Jeej, can you make it go back? Jeej, I need to pee. When can we go? Jeej?”

  Harry’s voice like a thunderclap. “Johnny! That’s enough! Dammit, Gigi, can’t you make him shut up?”

  50. 51. What? 52. What?

  It’s the way he says the t in “shut.” When I say “shut up” it’s full of d’s and it’s all one word. When Harry says it it’s the t, razor sharp between the “shut” and the “up.” The “shut” and the “up” cut deep.

  Rocky’s crying. Johnny’s crying too. He’s scared, it’s the middle of the night in the hospital and Harry never yells. But Johnny also heard it: “Can’t you make him shuT up.” Like he’s just my kid. Like we’re strangers on line at the checkout and he’s annoyed with my kid. He said Johnny would always be like his own. But now his actual own has come along and maybe he didn’t know what that was going to mean. Now the ship’s sinking and we’ve each chosen which one to save, Harry? Only thing is that I can’t swim, so you have to save Johnny too, even if your ar
ms are already full.

  “I’m sorry, I’m sorry.” Harry gets down on his knees, pulls Johnny into him.

  Johnny says, “It’s OK, Haribo.”

  Johnny calls me Jeej, just like my brother, Frankie, used to, and he calls Harry by his name, or Haribo sometimes, like the candy. He asked me the other day if Rocky would call us Mom and Dad, well, Mummy and Daddy because Johnny speaks British now, or if he would call us Jeej and Harry too. In his seven-year-old head they had to call us the same thing to be brothers. “Of course,” I said, “of course he’ll call me Jeej.” When he says these things that’s when the old worry rises up that I haven’t done enough to make him believe he belongs to me. And here’s Johnny thinking that he’s not the same as this baby. He’s right. He’s not the same, but not why he thinks. It was never hard for me to love Johnny. I never had to fight to love him.

  * * *

  —

  Rocky has to stay here so I have to stay here. I have to stay here. We’re going to the post-natal ward, where they can keep an eye on both of us. It’s not special-baby-unit bad or anything, it’s a chest infection, they have to watch his breathing and give him antibiotics. They’re sending me the breastfeeding midwife because he’s dehydrated and if I was having trouble feeding I should have said so. That’s what the doctor said. My fault, I guess. Along with the panic and the baby getting stuck and the blood and the anesthesia overdose, all of it—sorry everybody, my bad.

  “I can’t do this. The doctor said it’ll be five days for him to have the full course of medicine. I can’t stay here for five days.”

  Harry puts his hand on mine. “It’s OK, I’ll be here, I’ll do the days with you.”

  “What about Johnny? He has school.”

  “OK, I’ll take him to school and spend the school day with you and pick him up and he can come and see you for a bit and then we’ll go home. It’s fine.” Then a pause, a hesitation. “Maybe it’s better for you to be here.”

  “What?”

  “There’s help here. The midwives, they can help you. Show you what to do. Help you be less scared.” It’s like he’s punched me.

  “You think I need to be in the hospital?” My fury is rising with the pitch in my voice, trying to drown out the fact that I know he’s right.

  “Please, that’s not what I said.” Harry reaches for my hand.

  “You think I’m crazy and I need to be in the hospital. You can’t handle how real this shit is so you want to put me in here where you don’t have to be around me.”

  “That’s not what I said.” He pulls his hand away. Exhausted. Exasperated. His voice getting quieter while mine gets louder. He sits down, head in his hands. Rocky’s in the little crib on wheels. A cannula taped to his hand for the antibiotics. Harry put a baby sock over it so he won’t hit it or pull it out or poke himself in the eye. It looks like a cast, like he broke his tiny arm. Like his mother can’t take care of him right.

  She can’t.

  Harry raises his head to look at me but I look away. He speaks in upset whispers so he doesn’t wake Johnny, sleeping curled in a ball in a chair in the corner.

  “Something’s wrong and I don’t know how to help you. I haven’t slept for ten days. What am I supposed to do? I’m meant to be back at work on Monday. Did you know that? Who’s going to take care of them? Of you? You can’t do it. What do I do?”

  “Tell them I need you at home. Say the baby’s sick. Take holiday.” I start rifling through the baby bag to see if I brought anything useful. Of course I didn’t. I dump everything out onto the bed.

  “Johnny has to go to school. He needs his routine. He needs his parents.” Harry tries to get in my line of vision but I focus on folding muslins and shoving them back inside the bag.

  “You weren’t too worried about being his fucking father an hour ago.”

  He leans his forehead on the wall. His patience has run out. I know I don’t make it easy but I can’t stop myself. Facing the wall, he says, shouting in hushed tones, “I’m sorry. I said I was sorry. It was a stressful moment. Did you not see that? You barely listened, you didn’t hear a word the doctor said, you’re not here, I have to do everything and I don’t know where you’ve gone, but you have to come back.”

  “Come back? Come back? Did you not see what happened to me? Do you not see that I can’t walk? Do you not see that I don’t sleep? That I can’t hold him? You know what? You know what, Harry? Go home. Take Johnny home. Take him to school tomorrow. Let all the mothers say what a great guy you are for raising someone else’s son and taking care of your crazy American wife and making the big money and feeding the baby. You’re a real hero. It’s all you, you’re the rock, you’re the MVP, so you just take Johnny and go get your fucking medal.” Shit, he didn’t deserve that.

  A midwife comes into the room. “We have a bed for you, Mum, if you’d like to come with me.” Don’t call me “Mum.”

  “I don’t deserve this, Gigi.” Harry’s eyes have gone from brown to black.

  “Neither do I,” I say because it’s easier than saying sorry.

  Harry leans down to kiss Rocky goodbye. He picks Johnny up off the chair, still asleep, still young enough to be carried. I reach up to say “Love you” in Johnny’s ear. So he’ll hear it in a dream.

  * * *

  —

  Where’s the window? Is there a window here just so I can see out? Me and Rocky and his bed on wheels are on the ward now, in another paper-curtain room. I hear a mother and baby through the curtain on the right, muffled, tired whispers and whimpers. I pull back the curtain on my left and there’s the window, framing Big Ben across the Thames lit up against a black sky. 2:30 a.m. The Houses of Parliament dotted with yellow rectangles of light. Someone’s in there working late. The Moon is full and white.

  “Mrs. Harrison, Mrs. Harrison?” An authoritative whisper startles me awake.

  “Yes. Sorry,” I glance out the window. Ben says 3:15.

  “Mrs. Harrison, I’m Mrs. Appiah, I’m a paediatric consultant, I’m here to examine your baby.” Another face, another accent, another name. I have that moment of confusion I always get when the really important doctors say their names, because you don’t call them Dr. here. They’re always Mr. or Mrs. Like they’re undercover. Her face is stern. Her hair is pulled back, smooth, perfect, nothing out of place. She’s listening to his chest. She’s worried about the baby. I feel like I’m in trouble. She’s talking to me now. But I don’t notice the words, just that she learned English somewhere else, somewhere in Africa maybe, the way all her t’s are crystal clear, the breadth of her a’s. She’s not from here, neither am I. I wonder if she could take me home.

  “What?” I say. She’s in a rush and she’s unimpressed, I get that but I can’t help it, my eyes close and I fall back asleep for thirty seconds.

  “Mrs. Harrison?”

  Shit, wake up.

  “Yes, yes.”

  “Mrs. Harrison, I am not happy with…”

  Fall asleep.

  “Mrs. Harrison!” She doesn’t whisper.

  “What, yes.” I haven’t slept for so long and now I’ve crashed, I’ve gone down a hole and I can’t wake up. I can’t wake up.

  “Mrs. Harrison, I do not believe you are currently competent to understand…he needs…to monitor… every…until…understand? Mrs. Harrison?”

  I’ve been sleeping sitting up. I open my eyes, startled. Ben says 4:10. Where’s the baby? You are not competent. Where’s the baby? Did the doctor take him? You are not competent. I roll onto my side, get my legs off the bed one at a time. The crib on wheels is gone. “Help!” I hit the call button. Where’s the baby? I don’t know if I’ve screamed out loud or in my head.

  The midwife rushes over. “It’s a’ight. It’s a’ight, dear. He’s at the station. He’s with me. I’m w
atchin’ ’im.” She’s got a West Indies accent. Her words go up and down. Like a song.

  “C’mon, c’mon, let me ’elp you.” She’s warm. Her closely cropped hair keeps your focus on her open face, no lines in her skin. Her age is in her eyes, in the strength of her hands. You can feel she’s held thousands of lives in them—and deaths.

  She takes me over to the midwives’ station in the hall. There’s a desk with a tiny lamp, a low spotlight. Rocky sleeps in a swaddle in the crib on wheels next to a swivel chair, like just another piece of office furniture. “I could see you were sleepin’ but little man needed his feedin’, so I took ’im ’ere to be near me where I could keep an eye. He took ten mls but that was all. But we keep tryin’. He’s so sleepy, poor dahlin’.”

  This is what it’s come to, Rocky. A stranger feeding you while catching up on her paperwork. At least she’s nice. She’ll keep you alive. She can’t love you, though. I can’t love you the way I’m supposed to either.

  “ ’Ere you go, try to give ’im some now.” She hands me the mini bottle of formula.

  “I don’t, I don’t know…” Before I can say no she picks him up and puts him in my arms. “ ’Ere.”

  His eyes are closed. I put the tiny bottle to the tiny mouth and once he feels a few drops he starts to drink.

  “Ma’am, ma’am? Is this OK?” They don’t say “ma’am” here but I’m not sure what to call her that sounds respectful.

  “Yes, you’re OK.” She gets back to her files, writing her notes, shuffling her papers.

  It’s quiet. Echoes of a baby crying somewhere down the hall.

  It’s not natural but it’s alright. “See, that’s better, poor little one,” she says.

  “Ma’am, I’m not OK.” It just comes out.

  “I know. Was it a bad one?”

  “Yes.”