to get a sandwich for you—you don't have to eat it, you can just put it on the table and then you'll have it if you want it."
She left. I couldn't possibly eat anything, but I'm sure she was relieved to have a mission. Perhaps she'd come back telling tales of ghosts sitting in corridors, playing guitars.
I rested my head again on the bed next to Elijah's belly and closed my eyes. Even so, I could see six parallel lines on the monitors beneath my eyelids, inching their way across the two screens over and over. Pulse rate, blood pressure, pulse oxygen, expiratory pressure, respiratory pressure, and ventilator rate burnished into my brain. When Becky got back I was still watching lines, listening to the whoosh-suck click-pump, and hearing a song of beautiful dreams and fishermen three.
"I got you roast beef on rye, is that okay? And a soda. At least take a drink." She put the provisions on the table next to the bed and sat down. "I didn't see Sam downstairs," she said. "He must still be outside walking."
I nodded. "What do you think he'll do if Elijah dies?"
Becky flinched. "Dinah! Elijah is not going to die."
"But if he does?"
"I don't think you should talk that way in front of him. Maybe he can hear you."
And maybe he'd hear me talking that way about him and get mad and open his eyes.
"He's my son, I'll talk any way I want to."
She sighed, stood up, and walked over to the glass window, looked out into the PICU for a moment, then turned around. "I think you'd both be devastated. I think Sam would turn to you for strength. And you'd turn to him. But Elijah isn't going to die." She came back over to the bed and squeezed his limp hand. "Isn't that right, Elijah?"
Elijah slept on, his breathing machine whoosh-pumping away.
Becky was wrong about Sam and me. You'd think couples would cleave to each other, but they don't. Most don't, anyway. My patient Laura Soffel and her husband couldn't talk to each other about their dead son Tom and eventually divorced because they couldn't talk about anything else, either. Sheila Morrison and her husband talked all the time, Sheila to me, her therapist, the two of them to their parish priest, fellow grief support group members, to a psychic, and finally to a divorce lawyer. And Grandma Elizabeth and Grandpa Eli? My mother didn't speak to them for years and I met them only them eight or nine times, but during those few visits I was witness to my grandparents' bitter battleground of mutual blame.
Sam and Dinah would be no different. What always seemed to melt and mix and mesh perfectly with Sam and me, in exactly the right proportions and measures, in a marriage that tasted sweet and happy, would burst and split apart like a piece of fruit dropped from a great height. I didn't know the words we would use to hurt each other, the blame we would hurl at each other. But I knew that our equation, Sam's and mine, our formula, the ratios that defined our marriage, would no longer apply, do not apply once you lose a child.
I could not imagine Sam without Elijah. And how would I survive if every molecule in my body had been corrupted? I'm not sure when the molecule thing happens, as you carry a child or simply as you mother him, but I was sure that each of my cell nuclei was unalterably made up of four parts, one part me, one part Kate, one part Alex, and one part Elijah. If a crucial Elijah-piece of each cell nucleus were suddenly sliced off at the cellular level, I was certain the missing piece of each cell would defile the whole structure until, eventually, it crumbled to dust. I could feel edges crumbling already.
My patients who'd lost children had certainly been more functional when they left me than when they came to me. Functional? Was that the salient word? Now, in the hospital room, I realized that nobody anywhere, no therapist, certainly, possessed a diagnostic guide for this, no DMRDMC (first edition): Diagnostic Manual for Rebuilding Destroyed Mother Cells.
"What does the
She left. I couldn't possibly eat anything, but I'm sure she was relieved to have a mission. Perhaps she'd come back telling tales of ghosts sitting in corridors, playing guitars.
I rested my head again on the bed next to Elijah's belly and closed my eyes. Even so, I could see six parallel lines on the monitors beneath my eyelids, inching their way across the two screens over and over. Pulse rate, blood pressure, pulse oxygen, expiratory pressure, respiratory pressure, and ventilator rate burnished into my brain. When Becky got back I was still watching lines, listening to the whoosh-suck click-pump, and hearing a song of beautiful dreams and fishermen three.
"I got you roast beef on rye, is that okay? And a soda. At least take a drink." She put the provisions on the table next to the bed and sat down. "I didn't see Sam downstairs," she said. "He must still be outside walking."
I nodded. "What do you think he'll do if Elijah dies?"
Becky flinched. "Dinah! Elijah is not going to die."
"But if he does?"
"I don't think you should talk that way in front of him. Maybe he can hear you."
And maybe he'd hear me talking that way about him and get mad and open his eyes.
"He's my son, I'll talk any way I want to."
She sighed, stood up, and walked over to the glass window, looked out into the PICU for a moment, then turned around. "I think you'd both be devastated. I think Sam would turn to you for strength. And you'd turn to him. But Elijah isn't going to die." She came back over to the bed and squeezed his limp hand. "Isn't that right, Elijah?"
Elijah slept on, his breathing machine whoosh-pumping away.
Becky was wrong about Sam and me. You'd think couples would cleave to each other, but they don't. Most don't, anyway. My patient Laura Soffel and her husband couldn't talk to each other about their dead son Tom and eventually divorced because they couldn't talk about anything else, either. Sheila Morrison and her husband talked all the time, Sheila to me, her therapist, the two of them to their parish priest, fellow grief support group members, to a psychic, and finally to a divorce lawyer. And Grandma Elizabeth and Grandpa Eli? My mother didn't speak to them for years and I met them only them eight or nine times, but during those few visits I was witness to my grandparents' bitter battleground of mutual blame.
Sam and Dinah would be no different. What always seemed to melt and mix and mesh perfectly with Sam and me, in exactly the right proportions and measures, in a marriage that tasted sweet and happy, would burst and split apart like a piece of fruit dropped from a great height. I didn't know the words we would use to hurt each other, the blame we would hurl at each other. But I knew that our equation, Sam's and mine, our formula, the ratios that defined our marriage, would no longer apply, do not apply once you lose a child.
I could not imagine Sam without Elijah. And how would I survive if every molecule in my body had been corrupted? I'm not sure when the molecule thing happens, as you carry a child or simply as you mother him, but I was sure that each of my cell nuclei was unalterably made up of four parts, one part me, one part Kate, one part Alex, and one part Elijah. If a crucial Elijah-piece of each cell nucleus were suddenly sliced off at the cellular level, I was certain the missing piece of each cell would defile the whole structure until, eventually, it crumbled to dust. I could feel edges crumbling already.
My patients who'd lost children had certainly been more functional when they left me than when they came to me. Functional? Was that the salient word? Now, in the hospital room, I realized that nobody anywhere, no therapist, certainly, possessed a diagnostic guide for this, no DMRDMC (first edition): Diagnostic Manual for Rebuilding Destroyed Mother Cells.
"What does the
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