I looked at the ceiling for a minute. Now that crying was easy, it was too easy.
“I thought maybe”—I laughed a little—“you were dying.”
“Why would I be dying?”
“I don’t know. You wouldn’t be.”
It wasn’t an exchange we would have had before, but now we’d ridden in an ambulance together, listening to the siren from the inside. That’s when she’d first grabbed my hand.
A nurse came in.
“You pressed the call button?”
“Can I have some more water?” Clee asked.
The nurse went off with the pitcher, leaving a weird metallic smell.
I felt we couldn’t say anything, knowing she’d be back. She banged in again with the pitcher, her coppery smell redoubled. I waited, first for the nurse to leave and then for her scent to follow her.
“Can you get me something?” Clee asked. “That Tupperware?”
Kate’s spaghetti. It was on a plastic chair.
Clee peeled the lid off and lowered her head, sticking her mouth down into the container. She made her hand shovel-like and started pushing the food into her mouth. It wasn’t the spaghetti. Of course it wasn’t—Kate’s visit was months and months ago. I stood up and faced the window so I wouldn’t have to look at it. I could still see her in the reflection but not the bloody thing she was eating. What happens when you eat that much of yourself? She was leaning back now, just chewing, chewing, chewing. She had gotten too much in her mouth and now she had to catch up with it. The glass had an amber tint or film that made her look old-fashioned. It was mesmerizing, how different this woman was from Clee. Now she carefully shut the container, click, wiped her hands on a napkin, drank a glass of water, and leaned her head back on the angled bed. Her braids lay on her chest and she looked leaden with sorrow, like a picture from the Dust Bowl. You just knew her whole life was going to be hard, every second of it.
“If he lives,” she said, “will he be messed up?”
“I don’t know.”
“Amy and Gary won’t want him,” she said slowly. “What happens to babies like that, if they’re not adopted?”
She was looking at me now, in the glass. I was the same sad sepia color.
I sat with Kubelko Bondy through the evening, staring at his miniature fingers wrapped around my thumb. I knew it was a reflex—their hands would curl around a carrot—but I had never been held so steadfastly for so long. He grabbed at the air when I gently pulled away. I’ll be back in the morning. For now this was true.
I slept on a metal cot between Clee’s bed and the window. A baby cried in the night, on and on without stopping, and then was abruptly silent. A cart rattled down the hall and someone said, “Who?” and someone replied, “Eileen.” An alarm rang and was shut off and rang again before it was finally shut off for good. I slept for a minute or two and woke up as the old me, untroubled and dumb, until it came back like a floating carcass. Leaving him would be like killing someone and getting away with it. I’d be haunted forever. What was this life even for? It was over.
He was up there, alone. Maybe not even alive. I wanted to wail. Where was the real grandmother, the pastor, the chieftain, God, Ruth-Anne? There was nobody. Just us.
The cot was impossible. I sat up and put my feet on the floor; the mattress made a V shape around me.
“Are you leaving?” she whispered. “Please don’t go.”
“I’m not leaving.”
She raised her bed up. The motor sound was too loud.
“I’ve been having some bad thoughts,” she said.
“I know. Me too.” It was not a scenario where something comforting could be said, like Everything will be okay. Nothing would be okay, that was the problem. I stood up and reached for her hand; maybe we could make the fist again. She grabbed my whole arm.
“Really, don’t leave me here.”
Her eyes were huge, her teeth were chattering. She was in a mad panic. I pulled the blanket off my bed and draped it around her shoulders, turned the thermostat up though I wasn’t sure it was connected to anything. I filled the pitcher with hot water from the bathroom and made steamy compresses with the white hospital washcloth.
Clee wondered if she should call her parents.
“I think that’s a good idea.”
“You do?”
“Their daughter had a baby. They’ll want to know.”
“They’re not like that.”
“It’s biological, they won’t be able to help it.”
“Really?”
I nodded knowingly.
She dialed. I began to tiptoe out but she shook her head violently and pointed at the chair with a sharp finger.
“Mom, it’s me.”
The cadence of Suzanne’s voice was abrupt; I couldn’t make out actual words.
“In the hospital. I had the baby.
“I don’t know, we don’t know yet. He’s in the NICU.
“I didn’t have a chance to, everything was crazy.
“I said I didn’t have a chance to. I haven’t called anyone.
“No, Cheryl’s here.
“I don’t know, it just worked out that way. She came in the ambulance.”
Suzanne became loud; I moved to the window so I couldn’t hear her.
“Mom—
“Mom—
“Mom—”
Clee gave up and held the phone straight out in front of her; the shrieking distorted violently, crackling in the air. Was she holding the phone like that to be funny and rude? No. She was hyperventilating. Her hand was gripping her stomach; something was seizing up in there. I leaned toward the phone—the sarcastic voice taunted, “. . . apparently I’m not your mother anymore; I’ve been replaced . . .” I wanted to punch Suzanne, to strangle her and drag her to the floor and bang her head against the linoleum again and again. Your (bang) daughter (bang) is in hell (bang). Be gentle with her.
I motioned for Clee to hang up and she looked at me with feral, uncomprehending eyes.
“Hang up,” I whispered. “Just hang up.”
Her hand obeyed me; the phone went silent.