CHAPTER 11
Jacqueline
Shoshanna was sleeping when I arrived at the hospital. Or rather, she was drugged into unconsciousness.
“Are you family?” A nurse with exhaustion etched around her eyes barely looked up.
“Yes, I’m her sister.” Which was the truth. Being sisters didn’t always have to do with blood and sharing a parent or two.
She waved me in. “Your brother is already here.”
I turned to look at her. She smiled. “The one with the Canadian accent.”
David. He pretended to be Canadian to make life easier. No one hated Canada.
I hurried down the hallway, the heels of my boots clicking on the gleaming tiles. Edith Cavell was a small, top-rate private hospital. But private or no, all hospitals the world over smelled the same. A mix of disinfectant and something sweet, almost cloying—the smell of illness and suffering. I hated it. Hospitals robbed you of your power. I remember Daddy’s words to me when Maman was dying. No matter what I do, what I want, how much I strive, I can’t change this. We’d all withered in that room, Daddy most of all.
I pushed in the door and saw Josh and David standing by the bed hovering like bodyguards minus the dark glasses. Josh crossed over and hugged me.
“The kids?” he whispered.
“Tante Charlotte has them. Laurent is on his way to pick them up.” I hung up my coat and put my bag on a chair.
“Thank you. At least they will be well fed.” A feeble smile toyed with his lips before giving up.
My aunt was a force of culinary excellence. She’d been one of Gali’s great role models and her books were sprinkled with things she’d learned from Tante Charlotte. I still didn’t get why my sister had turned her back on a career as a chef. She would have been a star.
David kissed me on the cheek and only then did I allow my gaze to fall on my friend.
Pale, much too pale. I looked at Josh. “How is she?”
“Knocked out. She’ll probably sleep through the night,” he said. Josh was wiry, energetic, always looking as if he were about to take flight. I never figured out how he could be happy doing marketing in a big company.
“Emotionally?” I asked.
“Strong. Unbelievable.” He smiled.
Instinctively I put my hands on my belly. “And . . .” I couldn’t finish the sentence.
“She’s here.” Josh led me to a glassed-in section of the room. “We named her Rachel.”
In the corner of this human-sized aquarium stood an incubator with the tiniest baby I’d ever seen. She was only as long as my hand.
“So beautiful. What happened? Sho was fine. Just a few hours ago. Fine.”
“She fell. Forward. Slipped on something. Her pouch ruptured and she was losing amniotic fluid. She had the presence of mind to call Dr. Cellier, who sent an ambulance.”
“And . . .”
“Emergency C-section. The baby . . . Rachel . . .”—he cleared his throat—“wasn’t strong enough to take the stress of labor.”
“She’s fine, though, isn’t she? They both are.” My fingernails were digging into my palms. I forced myself to relax my hands.
“Yes, right now, thank God, they’re fine. The baby’s lungs aren’t developed yet but they’ve managed to simulate as closely as possible the condition of the womb.”
“Six and a half months,” said David. He rubbed his scrappy goatee. “She’s a knockout,” he added. “Just like her mother.”
My heart doubled in size as I looked at my sleeping friend. Her hair seemed too dark against her pale skin. Her lips were dry. She hated those scratchy hospital gowns. I’d bring her some soft ones from home.
I went back to the incubator. How could something so tiny be strong? I hoped human strength was inversely proportional to size. I sent a thought to Maman—protect her.
“Aren’t you singing tonight?” David had put his hand on my shoulder and was looking at Rachel as well.
“I’m supposed to.”
“Go. Everything is fine,” said Josh. I went to the mirror, where I wiped the smudged mascara from beneath my eyes and applied lipstick. If there was one lesson I’d learned both from my grandmother and my own life, it was don’t let it show.
I spent the better part of the week cleaning out my closets, finishing up my Christmas shopping, and buying baby clothes for my secret stash. Each day I went to the hospital. Shoshanna had been released and Rachel had been moved to NICU. It was a small city of miniature human beings in glass cases attached to life by wires and needles and machines that breathed for them. Sometimes it didn’t even feel like part of the world. It was like a baby museum with the most precious of all treasures protected and preserved for the future. The nurses knew me and let me in to sit with Rachel every day. And every day I would go and sing softly to her.
Thursday we were going to David’s for Thanksgiving, just the five of us and Shoshanna’s kids. Sunday was the annual banquet in honor of fallen political prisoners from World War II. This year, they were honoring my grandfather. The whole family would be there, right down to his great-grandchildren. I knew my grandmother was angry at Tante Solange for not making an effort to come when her own father was being honored.
At least Tante Charlotte would get a break from cooking a turkey this year. I still wondered what had gotten into Daddy. He was such a stickler for tradition. It made no sense. Or maybe it did. Maybe he was tired of imposing an American holiday on his Belgian family.
Not a chance.
It was something else.
I sighed. I wasn’t sure I wanted to know.