Chapter 19

As I walked through the hospital lobby doors into the frigid December air, I calculated that six weeks had passed since Hannah’s blood work confirmed a match. I wasn’t sure what we were waiting for. Another surgery? A single doctor willing to put his or her career on the line for an experimental transplant? The stars to align?

Making my way to the parking garage, I noticed the planters outside the main entrance were devoid of flowers. In their place, construction paper Christmas trees and snowmen were glued to the front of wooden tongue depressors and spiked into the frosty soil. A sign taped to the wall read: ‘Happy Holidays from Mrs. Grant’s second grade class’.

When I arrived home, our neighbor’s Boy Scout troop was scaling the front of our house with a colorful menagerie of Christmas lights. A lone Christmas tree stood in front of the garage door with tiny notes of encouragement tied to the end of each branch. Putting up a tree, or decorating for the holidays, was far from my mind, so when I saw the boy’s playful banter on my front lawn and realized my book club had decorated the tree, I nearly cried. I stood wondering if these were the ways God was showing up for me—a Boy Scout, a neighbor, my book club friends, the barista at Starbucks who knew I liked honey in my peppermint tea, even the stranger in the grocery store who bought our family dinner.

A rain-soaked boy approached, asking me where to hang the next string.

“Right around those windows,” I said, pointing to the kids’ rooms on the second floor.

Hannah would be thrilled. Our house had become an empty shell, a place for Jon and me to dump-and-run, leaving unopened mail, discarded clothes, and empty fast food containers in growing piles around the house. Neighbors were taking care of the animals, de-pooping the front yard, petting our lonely and surly cat, and collecting eggs from under two of our chickens that had gone broody on us and were violently pecking anyone who dared to come near. Even Frightful seemed out of sorts. Her usual barnyard chatter was all but silenced and her silky feathers were now splotchy and thin in places.

My mom dropped Hannah off one evening and hollered from her car, “The house looks beautiful! When did you have the time?”

I told her about the night I found the Boy Scouts climbing the front of our house. “They just showed up and lit up our world. It makes me happy when I come home at night,” I said.

“What a great idea!”

She flashed me a smile and gave me two thumbs up before backing down the driveway. It came as no surprise to me that my mom and six-year-old niece showed up at the hospital the next morning with wrapping paper, ribbon and stockings.

“We’re bringing Christmas to you!” she said.

My niece had made a fist full of cut-out paper snowflakes and a cross-eyed felt reindeer she named, “Moose.” Moose was roughly taped to the window below a cascade of snowflakes. He was missing a leg.

“He’s in the North Pole, Auntie. There’s lots of snow,” she offered as an explanation.

By that evening, each cabinet door was carefully wrapped in paper and shiny bows, creating a mass of giant presents across the room. Stockings hung from cabinet handles and a little tree was tucked in the corner by the window. Our room was a crazy rainbow of mismatched love, and I reveled in it.

The next afternoon, Grandma Connie brought Hannah to visit. Rounding the corner excitedly, Hannah held up her art project. “Hey, Andrew, I made an angel for the Christmas tree. Check it out!”

Andrew was awake, but made no reply from under the blanket. He had withdrawn so far into himself that we had a hard time eliciting any kind of response. When my mom and niece played Christmas music the day before, he had not uttered a word.

“Andrew?”

I watched as a mixture of frustration and fear passed across my daughter’s face. She stood frozen in place, her angel slipping to the floor, forgotten.

Connie handed Hannah a shopping bag. “Why don’t you give this to your brother?” she said.

Hannah dropped the bag on his bed and sat next to her grandmother. A pair of yellow-felted chicken feet poked out from a wad of tissue paper.

I opened the bag for Andrew, pulling out a life-sized stuffed chicken. “It’s Frightful!”

Andrew pulled the blanket from his face and studied the tawny brown mottled chicken. His slender hand reached out, squeezing thumb and first finger together. His remaining three fingers poked up in the air like a fan.

“You miss Frightful, don’t you?” I asked, acknowledging his symbol for bird. I carefully sat on the edge of his bed, moving the tubes and IV lines out of the way. “Should I tell you a story about her?”

He nodded, a look of anticipation spreading across his face.

“Well, I know she misses you, too, because every day when I leave home, she’s squawking at me. Just yesterday she was perched on your bicycle seat when I went into the garage. I could tell she’d been waiting all morning because there was a fresh smear of chicken poop down the side of your bike. She let out a low croon, like she does when she sings to you. I told her to be patient and that you would be home soon.”

Andrew placed his hand in mine, the bird symbol still pinched between his first finger and thumb.

“I’ll bet she wants to be held like this. Don’t you think?” I pulled his hand to my face, kissing the pad of his thumb—beak to lips. “We hold Frightful all the time, but it’s not the same. She flutters and complains. What’s your secret, Andrew? How do you make her so happy?”

Andrew’s face dropped. He pulled the sheet over his head, sinking back into the bed. I worried I had pushed him too far.

Hannah’s face turned pink and she stood up to leave.

“How about we put these lights on the tree?” Grandma Connie said, pulling out a colorful string of lights and handing them to Hannah. My mother-in-law glanced at me and mouthed the words, “She’ll be all right.”

Together, Hannah and I carefully placed the miniature lights on the tree. I picked up the abandoned angel, handing it back to her. She twirled it between her fingers while unspoken words flew back and forth between the two of us:

I’m scared.

I know you are, sweetheart. I am, too.

I don’t like being here.

I understand. I hate being here myself.

Everything sucks.

Yes. Yes, it does.

I grabbed my little girl in a tight hug, ending our silent dialog. I understood why she didn’t want to be in the room with a brother she hardly recognized. It tore at our hearts, causing us to grieve as if we had already lost him.

Searching out Connie on the other side of the room, I caught her eye. “Thank you,” I mouthed back to this kind mother who not only loved my children, but had raised her son to love me in the same way.

* * *

On Christmas Eve, my parents stayed with Andrew while we shared an impromptu dinner with Hannah at my in-laws house. Although I appreciated their gesture and attempt to normalize the holidays for us, it didn’t feel right.

“It feels strange to be here without Andrew,” I said to Jon as we were finishing up the dishes.

“I know. It’s too quiet,” he whispered back. “I keep expecting to hear Andrew making silly bird noises in the back room.”

“Or digging under the tree, while your mom hollers at him to stop shaking all the presents,” I added.

Connie’s Christmas tree sat in its usual place by the windows. Brightly colored gifts spilled out on all sides—a mockery of the holiday we were supposed to celebrate. Hannah had plopped down on the sofa, feigning interest in a book. My father-in-law tried to engage her in conversation all evening, but the one-word answers had become too tedious.

At one point, he coaxed her into the den. “Let’s see what crafts Grandma has stored away in here…”

Hannah leaned against the bookshelf, her arms folded tightly across her chest while Jon’s dad dove head first into the closet, pulling out a Thomas the Tank Engine book, an old baby doll, and a Ziploc baggie full of Legos. Hannah turned to leave.

“Wait a minute! There’s nothing too difficult for Grandpa Man. I’m part superhero you know.”

Jon’s dad had earned the name Grandpa Man, the day he tied a beach towel around his neck and flew through the house Superman-style in order to get Andrew to stop screaming in his bouncy seat. It worked, and the name stuck.

“It’s a fact,” he said.

Hannah scowled, but reached for the Legos. Her grandpa clasped her hand, searching her eyes, “It’s going to be okay. We have to believe that.”

The two of them played together for a while, communicating with each click of a Lego:

I love you. Click.

I love you back. Click.

When it was time for us to leave for the hospital, I kissed Hannah goodnight and slipped out of her temporary bedroom. “Sweet dreams, love. I’ll see you in the morning,” I said, reaching for the door.

“Mom, will we all be home for Christmas next year?” came a voice from the dark.

It was the million-dollar question. I didn’t want to think about it. There was no room inside of me.

I walked back to the bed and smoothed a few wayward curls from her face. “It’s what I pray for every day, Hannah.” I left quickly so she wouldn’t see my tears.

Jon and I were quiet on the way to the hospital. He flipped on the radio. A jazz rendition of “Jingle Bells” assaulted my ears and I reached over to turn it off.

He caught my fingers, intertwining them with his own. “Let’s just pretend,” he said and started belting out a jazzy “Jingle Bells.”

“My ears! You’re hurting my ears!” I cried in mock pain, but when he didn’t stop, I decided to join him in a little holiday cheer.

Forty-five minutes later, we emerged from the elevators on the third floor, leaving behind a mural of a smiling pink hippo and a sign reminding us it was flu season. A note card clipped to the sign said they had not had a case in seventeen days. Someone had written across the top of the sign, “Wash your hands please!” We each added another squirt of Purrell to our hands.

Jon opened the door just enough to see my mom pressing the little Shadow action figure into Andrew’s palm. She had wrapped his fingers around the tiny body and held them there as if it would somehow ease the pain and bring him back from wherever he had gone. We paused to allow them a moment of peace. When we opened the door again a few minutes later, my mom’s phone cast a pale glow on her round face, illuminating her freshly pinked lips.

My dad stood, unfolded his long legs from the low-slung bench and grabbed me in a bear hug. “We love you, Kris. We worry about you and Jon like you worry about Andrew and Hannah,” he said.

“I’m fine,” I lied.

“Well, just the same. I’m here to tell you it never goes away. Your kids will always be your kids.”

He ruffled my hair into a miniature rat’s nest like he had done since I was a little girl. I smoothed it out and turned to my mom to say goodbye.

“Merry Christmas, love,” she said, leaning in to kiss my cheek. Then, in a moment of heartfelt affection, she reached around my shoulders and drew me into a tight embrace. A moment later, the door clicked shut.

The room became eerily quiet except for the noisy breathing of our drugged child and the incessant whir of the IV pump. Even the constant movement outside our door had all but disappeared. It felt like we were the only people in the world.

Jon and I squeezed together on the twin-sized bed under the window. It was going to be a brutally long night. Moose eyed me with his one good eye. “I’m trapped, too.” The HEPA filter turned on causing one of the snowflakes to break free from its tape and begin jumping around the windowsill.

“We didn’t send out any Christmas cards this year, did we?” Jon asked.

“Are you kidding? What would we possibly say?”

“Well… how about, ‘Life really sucks for us, but we hope you are having a Happy Holiday!’”

I snorted, catching myself before waking Andrew.

“Or better yet,” Jon added, cackling at his absurd cards, “The Adams’ have gone to the dark side. Not sure if we’ll be coming back. Merry Freaking Christmas.”

This time, a snort escaped my lips. Jon, laughing, clamped a hand over my mouth. Our imaginary holiday cards were the perfect way to express the insane predicament we were in. The more obnoxious they became, the more we laughed, allowing us both a much-needed sense of relief.

By the time sunlight broke through the edges of the shade on Christmas morning, Jon and I were twisted up on the narrow bed like two pretzels.

“I wish we had a chiropractor in the family,” Jon groaned.

I watched while he stretched his back on the only open area of floor big enough to accommodate his six-foot frame. He was headed to his parents’ house to get Hannah, then home to pick up our dog Sawyer, for a surprise visit to the hospital.

He leaned forward to kiss me on the forehead. “We should be back in a couple of hours. I’ll call when we’re close so you can bring Andrew down to the side doors in the lobby.”

I forced a tired smile. Andrew was restless, but still asleep, so I took the opportunity to go to the cafeteria for coffee and anything else I might find palatable. IV poles and abandoned wheelchairs cast long shadows in the empty hallways, and I suspected that every doctor, specialist, and patient that could possibly vacate the premises was long gone. Although it was the middle of the usual breakfast hour, the cafeteria was nearly empty.

Plunking down my coffee, a banana and some yogurt at the cashier station, I searched for the credit card I had stashed in my shirt pocket.

“It’s all free today, honey. Merry Christmas!” chimed the cashier.

Unbelieving, I looked around and saw a few other parents milling around with surprised looks on their faces. They had been told the same thing.

“Thank you,” I said, completely overwhelmed by that simple gesture of kindness. I found a quiet place to sit and ate my Christmas breakfast alone.

Two hours later Jon called from the road. “We’re about ten minutes away. How is Andrew?”

“About the same.”

“Hopefully, the surprise will be a good thing. I’m not sure what to expect,” he said.

I watched Andrew stare at the wall, unblinking. Unless one of the doctors probed him for answers, he had rarely spoken during the last week. I feared we had lost our quirky boy with the obsessive talk of dinosaurs and chickens to a dark place we couldn’t reach. Where was the kid who watched the 2008 Daytona dirt bike race on YouTube over and over? The carnivore who would eat meat every day if I let him? He had crawled inside of himself and, somehow, I knew he wouldn’t be coming back for a very long time.

“I don’t know what to expect, either. But regardless, I’ll be downstairs in five minutes.”

I bent down to pick up Stuffed Frightful who had been kicked to the floor. I smoothed the fur back from its face and looked into its glassy eyes. They were nothing like the yellow eyes of our living raptor-girl, Frightful. Her eyes seemed to possess some understanding of things unseen, and in that moment, I missed her dearly.

Andrew and I made our way to the lobby and waited in the alcove between the two sets of doors. Each time they opened and closed again, the familiar scent of evergreen blew in, reminding me of the holiday we were missing. To protect Andrew from the crisp air outside, I had wrapped him from head to toe in his SpongeBob comforter. Inside, I tucked Stuffed Frightful into the space between his legs. I wondered what he thought about our excursion, but Andrew never asked me why we were there.

Minutes later, our Christmas celebration pulled in the drive. All four grandparents were in one car, and Jon, Hannah, and Sawyer in the other. When his grandparents came through the doors and gave him consecutive hugs, I saw Andrew flinch with the emotion he had filed away. But the sight of Hannah emerging through the side door of the van with our dog Sawyer made Andrew cry.

Hannah reached past Sawyer, handing me a brown paper lunch sack. On one side was a felt marker drawing of a Christmas tree, hasty blue circles tipped the branches. The words, “From Frightful,” were scrawled across the back.

“For Andrew,” Hannah said when I made a move towards her.

Andrew became increasingly restless in the chair and I glanced at Jon, afraid we would have to abort our mission. From past experience, I knew we had a few short minutes before he became overwhelmed, and a good thing turned bad. Jon quickly enlisted the front security guard to take a photo of our family gathering. There was no posing, no time to prepare a staged smile. At the last moment before the camera clicked, Sawyer jumped into Andrew’s lap and a huge smile spread across his face. The picture was taken, then the moment was gone. It was our Christmas gift.

Andrew fell back into a drugged sleep the moment we wheeled back into the room. Jon would not be back until evening, so I stretched out on the cot and opened the bag from Hannah. Inside was an unappealing wad of toilet paper as big as a grapefruit. I couldn’t imagine what she had put in there. I unwound the ball of white cottony paper with a shiver of anticipation—like a Christmas surprise. The moment my fingers gripped around a hard ball, I knew what she had done. The last piece of paper broke away, revealing Frightful’s gift. An egg. Powdery blue, like the Parisian sky in my pastel drawing. Its velvety shell warmed to my body as I cradled it in my hands. The promise of life yet to come, I thought. A feeling of hope and a deep sense of gratitude overwhelmed me as I thought of Hannah and Jon, our family, our friends, doctors and nurses—and most of all, the bird that loved my son.

I peeled the covers off Andrew and searched for his hand. In it I placed the warm egg, folding his fingers around it like my mom had done with the Shadow action figure. He opened his eyes and smiled.

“I knew she wouldn’t forget me.”