While the nurses were transferring Evangeline to recovery, I tracked the baby to intensive care. The hospital was too small for a neonatal ICU, and it seemed odd going by rooms filled with elderly patients in search of a newborn.
A nurse saw me heading into the baby’s room and stepped between me and the door. When I asked why the baby was there, she said I’d have to ask the doctor. As I turned to leave, an older nurse approached. She walked down the hall with me a few stations, chatting about the weather, then stopped and lowered her wire-rimmed glasses.
“The doctor was worried about possible hypoxia, decreased oxygen. But all her signs are great. Honestly, I’m not sure why she’s here. As far as I can see, she’s eight pounds, twelve ounces of healthy baby.”
“Eight pounds, twelve ounces? Isn’t that huge for a baby this early?”
The nurse seemed confused. “Early? A couple days past . . .” She caught herself, “What matters is that she’s a healthy infant.”
IN RECOVERY, EVANGELINE WAS SLEEPING SOUNDLY, her mouth open, spittle on her cheek. Several hours passed before she woke, and when she did, she was terribly groggy, her speech slurred.
They’d probably upped her morphine after the baby was delivered. Around eight thirty, she roused herself to lucidity, sat up clear-eyed, and said, “I’m going to go get Emma.”
“Emma?”
“Emma Lorrie McKensey. And I’m going to get her now.”
The evening nurse, a quietly efficient young woman who was hanging fluids at Evangeline’s side, said, “Afraid not. Another hour at least before you’re ready to get up.”
“Could someone bring her to me? Could Isaac?”
“Not right now. We’ll see in an hour or so.”
At ten, a nurse brought in a swaddled, sleeping Emma. Evangeline held out her arms, her mouth open in wonder. The baby struggled against the blanket, making soft sounds of discomfort. Evangeline told me to turn away. When I could look again, she’d unwrapped Emma and placed the naked baby against her own skin, arranged the blanket modestly. She stared at the baby, then at me. She moved her mouth as if to speak but nothing came out, and she laughed instead.
I can’t describe what happened between mother and child in the next hour. It occurred at a level I know nothing of. They spent the time passing messages in secret code, tales from the millennia. When the lactation nurse arrived at eleven, I was dismissed from the room.
In the empty reception area, I bought a candy bar from a machine, took a bite of stale nuts and caramel, and threw it away. I hated my gender then, hated that I could never give Evangeline the mother she needed.
I didn’t know how long to wait. When I got back, it was nearly midnight and Evangeline was asleep, the baby returned to the nursery. I patted Evangeline’s hair as if she were Rufus, and remembering him I nearly cried. I don’t know why I touched her like that except I needed her to know, even as she slept, that she was loved, and I was at a loss as to how to express it. I left quietly and asked the nurse at the station to tell Evangeline I’d be back by seven.
As I drove home, I thought of what I would confront. I was too exhausted to deal with Rufus and the blood, too exhausted to even grieve, but I couldn’t imagine walking past him and on to bed.
On arriving, I flipped on the kitchen light, hesitant to look. When I did, Rufus was gone. Even the blood was missing. I was questioning my sanity when I saw the note on the table.
Isaac,
When I got home a little after seven, Nells told me about the ambulance. I came over to check in and saw dear old Rufus had died. Looked like he’d had another bad bleed at the end. I cleaned up as best I could. I would have buried him (I was so thankful you buried Brody for me), but I thought you might want to say good-bye. He’s wrapped in a blanket in our shed, where it’s cool. I can bury him tomorrow after work if that’s okay. I know this was terribly presumptuous, but with the ambulance and all, with maybe a new baby coming home, I didn’t want that to be your first sight. I’m so sorry about Rufus. I’m praying for you and Evangeline and the baby.
Lorrie
I called her. Though it was nearly one in the morning, I didn’t hesitate. It seemed the most natural thing in the world, as if we often woke each other in the middle of the night. When she answered, I burst out with it. “There’s a baby,” I said. “Emma. She’s healthy. There was a little trouble, but she’s fine.”
“Thank God.” She was quiet a moment. “And Evangeline?”
“Good. She’s good. C-section, though.”
“Worried about that. With the ambulance and all.”
We were silent. There was so much I wanted to tell her, to ponder with her. I’m sure we both wondered who had fathered the baby. But in the middle of the night, with the world fallen away, the birth of the child was enough.
“Thanks for taking care of Rufus, for the blood cleaning.” That’s what I said—blood cleaning.
“Of course.” After a moment, “I’d like to bury him for you, if you’re willing.”
Her voice carried a longing, a need to give this to me. “Rufus died before we left,” I said. “Evangeline and I have said our good-byes. You’d be doing me a favor.”
She let out a breath of surprise, of relief, it seemed. “Thank you,” she said. “It means a lot.”
She asked where I’d like him. I hadn’t given this any thought, but in that late-night hour, our voices close, it came to me. “Rufus always wanted to get past that back fence. I’m sure you saw him out there. Heard him too. How would you feel about burying him just outside our fences, in our joint easement?”
“Next to Brody?”
I waited, to make sure it felt right. “If you don’t mind.”
“I don’t mind.”
A long moment of silence followed. A communion in it. A comfort.
“Sorry for calling so late,” I said. “Sorry for waking you.”
I felt her smiling. “I wasn’t much asleep. Besides, a baby is worth waking up for.”
WHEN I ARRIVED THE NEXT MORNING, Evangeline was holding Emma. Colorful flowers brightened her bedside table, and Evangeline noticed my eyes on them.
“They’re from Lorrie’s garden,” she said “Aren’t they pretty? I think she planned to sneak them in on her way to work, but I was up nursing the baby. This little girl can eat!”
Ordinarily she would have questioned me more about Lorrie, what she’d said when I’d told her, that sort of thing, but Emma was her world now. The baby started crying. I expected Evangeline to call for help. I would have. Instead she asked me to step out so she could nurse. As I stood, she said, “I’ll get better at it. You know, at how to work the coverings and stuff. You won’t always have to leave.”
When I returned, baby and mother were sleeping. I sat in the chair and studied them. I felt many things, much of which I couldn’t sort out. But I was clear on this: Evangeline and Emma were my family now. And somehow those flowers—prompted by a late-night call—seemed part of this new garden blooming in my chest.
Dr. Taylor came in. She woke Evangeline, asked her about pain levels and gas and such things. “It’s time we got you up and moving,” she said. “How ’bout you let this fellow over here”—she winked at me—“hold the baby a few minutes while you try a trip down the hall?”
Evangeline’s eyes went between Emma and me. Her expression was, at best, dubious.
“Oh, come on,” the doctor said. “What better place to try him out than a hospital?”
“I suppose,” she said, but she couldn’t make her arms release the baby.
After urgent instructions about supporting the child’s head, Evangeline did manage to place the infant in my arms. I’d forgotten the warm, sweet weight of a baby, the milky smell. Emma smacked her lips and grimaced fiercely as if to wail, but in a second it passed and she fell easily back to sleep. Daniel had been the same as a baby—even his most violent howls could be forgotten in an instant. What would the world be like if we could all do that?
Evangeline made me sit down—“So you don’t drop her”—before agreeing to venture into the hall. When she was gone, I lowered the baby from my chest to my lap. Each strand of wispy red hair lifted and swayed in an invisible current. She opened her eyes—that unfocused deep baby blue, that bottomless gaze—but the light from the window made her squeeze them shut and twist away, crying in distress. I angled the chair to shade her face, and after a minute she opened them again.
She wasn’t looking at me. She wasn’t looking at anything, because—and I sensed this clearly—there was nothing to see. She hadn’t yet separated from all of creation. She was me and her mother and the soft blanket in which she was swaddled. She was the slant of light that hurt her eyes and the shadows that soothed them. Her lids sagged, and she slept.
I didn’t know if this was Daniel’s child. I didn’t think so. But none of that mattered, because she was, you see, Daniel himself. And Rufus. And Jonah. She was my father and mother and every friend and animal I’d ever lost. And I knew this because Rufus had taken me to the place from which she’d just arrived. He’d helped me remember who we are.
She would forget all this soon enough. We all do.
I will likely forget this moment with my very next breath.
THE FOLLOWING MORNING, I stopped in to see Carol Marsten, who’d been appointed permanent principal. I told her I would work until Thursday, the day Evangeline was scheduled to be released. After that, I’d be taking family leave. She hesitated, claiming she needed paperwork showing I’d been appointed Evangeline’s guardian.
Dick Nelson, who overheard, stuck his head in the office and said, “Carol, the paperwork is there somewhere, but if not, I’m sure Isaac has months of sick leave available after all these years, and frankly, he’s looking a little peaked.”
THAT AFTERNOON, when I arrived at the hospital, Evangeline said, “You don’t have to be here. It’s not like I need a babysitter.” She sounded as if I were a bother, and I thought, hell, why not go home? I desperately needed a nap, and I had papers to grade. But I couldn’t imagine being Evangeline, facing her future with an infant and no parents or partner.
“Would it be okay if I stayed?” I asked. “The house feels pretty empty without you and Rufus.”
She appeared surprised, as if she’d only just remembered him. “I’m sorry,” she said.
“For what?”
“I’d forgotten about Rufus. Not about him dying! I would never forget that. But, you know, going home to all that.”
When I told her what Lorrie had done, she said, “That’s crazy nice. Don’t you think?”
“Pretty nice.”
“Crazy nice! I would never do anything like that.”
“I don’t know, I’m guessing someday you’ll do all kinds of things like that.”
She thought about it. “Maybe. Maybe I will,” she said, as if making a decision about who she could be. Then she smirked. “If I have the hots for someone.”