CHAPTER 8
1048 Words
CHAPTER 8
But Grandma Lucy doesn’t shut up, much as I want her to. Much as I need her to. She’s going on now about this person in mourning, this person in such need of comfort. I don’t think she means me, but I’m not sure anymore. It wouldn’t make any sense. I’ve never met this woman before. Never talked to her. At least I don’t think I have. But why does it feel like I should recognize her? She was sitting ten rows ahead of me in church all morning, so it’s not like she even had that entire hour and a half to study my body language and come up with clues about me.
About my family.
She’s moved on. She’s carrying on about the disciples now. But I’m not paying attention to that. I’m still fixating on the part about refusing to be comforted. Because I’ve been there. I was there four months ago in that delivery room.
Refusing to be comforted. Back when I memorized that verse in Bible quizzing, it sounded like such a horrible thing this woman did. Like she lost her faith in God and went into hysterics and couldn’t get over herself. That’s what I thought when I was a teenager. I know better now. Not only about the devastation and loss but also the joy of holding a perfect newborn who’s more precious than your own breath. Stroking that skin. That skin! You could spend a hundred grand on coconut oils and still never come close to matching that silky feel.
Jake and I sometimes joked about our daughter before she was born. What would she look like? I mean, he’s half-Japanese, half-white, and I’m black, at least partially. So what would that make our kid? When I was pregnant, I fantasized about this beautiful baby with chocolate skin and almond eyes, which sounds really romantic if you think about it. And when she came out she was even more perfect than I could have imagined. So stinking perfect. Dark, even darker than me, which was a surprise. She was tired, but so was I. What do you expect after an eighty-six-hour-long labor? The nurse had just finished weighing her and cleaning her off, and she was all bundled up like she was a little baby-wrap sandwich.
She wasn’t more than a few minutes old, twenty’s the max. And Jake was there. I was surprised he made it through the entire delivery. I honestly didn’t expect him to stick around past the first couple hours. I asked if he wanted to hold her, but he was too nervous, and I laughed at him. Right in his face. Said something awful like, “What do you think’s gonna happen? She’s just gonna stop breathing?”
And a plump lady in scrubs came in and said we should try to breastfeed, but Natalie was so tired she wouldn’t open her mouth. So Jake leaned forward, and his eyes got all scared, and he asked, “Is she ok? Is something wrong?” And the nurse laughed at him too and made a joke about first-time dads.
So she said she’d check back a little later and that we could all get some sleep, and I was all for that. But Jake was worried and didn’t want me to nap with Natalie in bed. He was afraid she’d roll off and get hurt or something, so I finally said, “Here. Either you hold her or just leave me alone because I haven’t slept in three days,” and I hadn’t. Not even after the epidural.
So I passed out right away. I was groggy from the meds, and I didn’t wake up until that plump nurse came in the room again. “Did you need something?” she asked me, and I was still a little spacey and couldn’t figure out what she was doing there. “Did you ring the button?”
“No, I did,” Jake said, and I immediately wanted to go back to sleep and not even think about him. I mean, he could be immature at times, but I seriously expected him to be a little less pathetic about the whole new-baby thing. I couldn’t have been asleep for more than half an hour judging by the time. And he got so worried he had to call in the nurse?
“It just seems like something’s wrong,” he told her, and she gave me this look. You know what I mean. The wow, you can tell he’s a newbie kind of look and she rolled her eyes at me. Not in a rude way, more like teasing. Like the two of us were there making fun of Jake and he didn’t even know it.
Except the joke ended as soon as she took one look at my daughter. “How long’s she been like this?” she asked me, as if I’d know anything about it. And Jake was as useless as an empty deodorant container and said he didn’t know, except the nurse wasn’t waiting for his response. She picked Natalie up and ran out of the room calling — no, screaming — for the doctor. And she called my OB by her first name. I should have known something was wrong then, but I was still so doped up on pain killers that it didn’t fully register until about three seconds later. That’s when the intercom sounded.
Code blue. Maternity ward.
And it was so weird hearing a code blue come from the maternity ward. Like you’d expect it in the ER or operating room or something. Not the baby area.
And Jake was shouting after the nurse, and he ran out the door. I wanted to ask him what was happening, but I couldn’t because the moment I opened my mouth, this wail came out of me. Except it wasn’t from my throat and it wasn’t even from my gut. It was deeper than that. Like a demonic creature that gets uncovered from somewhere in the earth’s core and it’s never supposed to make it to the surface except it does, and then nobody can figure out what to do.
And all I knew was my baby girl is dead. And Jake didn’t shut the door when he ran out, and if my legs worked I would have run right after him except I couldn’t because I’d just delivered our daughter not an hour earlier.
And my ears were ringing, bursting with the sound of my own hideous howl, and I hated myself for being so useless. So helpless.
My baby girl is dead.
That’s why I can’t get past the part where Grandma Lucy says refusing to be comforted. Because I’ve been there. And it’s the worst kind of hell I’d ever wish on anybody.
- Writer
