The Girls From Corona Del Mar by Rufi Thorpe

neonate as any other recently born being. His legs were a little stiff, and his fists were always clenched, but most babies clench their fists. The stiffness would only get worse; Dana would jokingly call him the Christ child because his natural position was highly reminiscent of crucifixion. But when he was first born, he really did seem almost completely normal. The only noticeable, really noticeable, difference was that when he drank from a bottle he splashed and sputtered and choked and gasped and managed to get formula absolutely all over his face. But we all thought it was kind of cute. I don’t think any of us really knew what was coming. Not really. Not even after the brain scan came back bad. The doctors kept making seesaw motions with their hands: it was impossible to know how completely Zach would recover. Some babies suffered massive traumas and grew up normal; others suffered seemingly minor brain injuries and wound up with debilitating cerebral palsy. In the face of such endless equivocation, Jim’s reality became our reality: there had been a miracle. The boy had lived.
    As to the details of what happened to Lorrie Ann, what had happenedduring Zach’s birth, I didn’t understand enough about labor and delivery then to ask intelligent questions and piece together what had gone wrong. I knew that she had been induced and that her labor had stalled and that then she had passed out and an emergency C-section had been performed. That was why her stitches went straight up her belly instead of side to side. The only hint I really had about how awful things had been was from Dana.
    We were eating chili fries together in the hospital cafeteria. Jim was upstairs napping with Lorrie Ann. Zach was, of course, in the nursery. There was a lot less to actually do than I had imagined, and it was still only the first day. By day three, I would begin to feel completely useless. But at that moment, it felt profound to be eating chili fries with Lorrie Ann’s mother in the hospital. Perhaps the word “profound” makes me seem immature or egocentric, but I was immature and egocentric. I was only eighteen. I felt like a grown-up in a way I never had before. It was quietly, tightly thrilling. I wanted so badly to be capable, capable of being Dana’s confidante, capable of being Lorrie Ann’s true friend.
    “I swear,” Dana said, “hospitals just weren’t like this when I had Lorrie Ann and Bobby. Something’s not right about it.”
    “What do you mean?”
    “I just, I seem to remember my doctor being there for, not my whole labor, but definitely long stretches of it. Her doctor came only to perform the surgery. Otherwise, it was just this silly little nurse. Sweet thing, but couldn’t have been older than twenty and not exactly bright.”
    I would find out later from Lorrie Ann that this nurse had been wearing shimmery purple eye shadow that reminded her of My Little Pony. The girl had been almost completely incapable of getting the fetal monitors that were strapped to Lor’s belly to pick up anything. Every time Lor shifted in the bed, they would go offline and the girl would come and tighten, always tighten, the elastic bands. Lor had bruises and even small lacerations on her belly from these straps, that’s how tight the girl had them, and still she couldn’t pick up the baby’s heart rate clearly. Several times an older nurse had to come in and do it for her.
    Dana stared off into space for a bit, twisted free a chili fry. “It was likebeing in a nightmare,” she said finally. “A nightmare where everyone is trying to be polite and doesn’t know what to say.”
    For some reason this observation frightened me in a way that no amount of Lor’s blood in the shower ever could.
    “Poor Jim is ready to declare that asshole surgeon some kind of saint,” Dana said drily. “Sweet boy, but—”
    “A little eager to please,” I supplied.
    “Exactly,” Dana murmured, then pushed the chili fries away from her.