The Empty Jar(56)

At first, I learned to blend nutritious shakes for her to eat, anything to offset the whole foods she was no longer able to swallow. I added the herbs that Dr. Li recommended to help with her pain and with her liver function, and for a while it seemed to work. Her weight didn’t suffer, and her labs, all but a few, looked good, so I kept that up.

For the most part, she’s existed on those shakes for two weeks. It wasn’t hard for me to see when the tides were taking another turn for the worse, though. Lena began to get choked trying to swallow drinks of the shakes. She also began to get tired more and more quickly.

But now I know things are going downhill. No suspecting or guessing or supposing. I know.

She just weighed in for her weekly appointment with the obstetrician, and my fears are now confirmed—Lena is losing weight.

“I think it’s time to think about getting her some supplemental nutrition,” Dr. Stephens says, her face wreathed in sadness. When she speaks, she addresses me. Lena has all but stopped participating in the doctor’s visits. These days, she spends the majority of her time in a world that doesn’t include us, doing odd things that make sense only to her. Today, she’s busy lining up pens on the small desk that’s attached to the wall in the corner of this tiny exam room.

Over and over, she tidies the pens, as if nothing in the world is more important. “And we need to consider options for delivery if…well, if her level of confusion continues to increase and a vaginal delivery becomes problematic at any time.”

“C-section is fine. Whatever is best for Lena and the baby.” I hear a man’s voice bounce off the walls in the claustrophobic room, but it doesn’t sound like mine. I don’t even recognize the hollow monotone.

From behind me, I hear a voice, I hear words that cause my heart to stutter in my chest, like it’s threatening to stop.

“Goodnight, stars. Goodnight, moon. Goodnight, lightning bugs. Come again soon.”

I glance around at Lena and find her staring down at her belly. She’s rubbing in big circles, and in her other hand is a miniature jar of some sort, something she evidently found at the desk.

Lena cradles it in one hand and her stomach in the other, her voice gentle and kind as she repeats the rhyme to our unborn child. “Don’t go to bed with dirty feet or an empty jar. Say your prayers every night, and never stop chasing the lightning bugs.”

Grief gushes under the door, out from the vents, through every tiny crack in walls. It fills the room to overflowing, promises to suffocate me. For a moment, I feel like I can’t breathe, like air has simply ceased to flow into and out from my lungs.

I gulp at the dense, heavy atmosphere. Still I can’t take it in.

“Excuse me,” I mutter gruffly on a gasp, practically leaping from my chair. I lunge for the door and lurch out into the hall.

Fumbling my way along the ever-narrowing hallway, I grab the first handle I come to and nearly fall into an empty exam room. Slamming the door behind me, I slump to my knees and let my chin drop to my chest where I give in to the urge to panic.

My muscles shake from head to toe as I kneel here, picturing my wife in the next room, reciting her father’s nursery rhyme to our baby. All I can think is that there is a tremendous likelihood that our child, that our sweet child for whom my wife is giving her life, will never get to hear Lena say those words. Grace will probably never get to see the way her mother’s features soften as she rhythmically recounts the short tale. She’ll never get to feel the tender touch of those slim fingers on her face. She’ll never be held by the arms that love her most.

The tragedy of it is consuming me faster than I can recover and today…today I just can’t fight it.

So I don’t.

On my knees, I let sorrow have its way. I let my face crumble and my eyes tear. I let my fists clench and my chest heave. I let my heart break and my soul scream. I let it go until I’m too weak to move.

Only then do I breathe.

Only then can I breathe.

Taking deep, calming swallows of air, I inhale and exhale slowly. A picture comes to mind, one of my wife in the next room, confusion written on her stunning face as she wonders where I went. And why I haven’t come back.

I can’t bear the thought that she might, even for a single heartbeat, think I’ve left her. It’s that thought, that image that brings me to my feet and sends me back the way I came, back to the one who has brought me the most pleasure of my life.

And, now, the most pain.





Twenty

Stick to Your Guns

Nate



A loud crash followed by a dull thump wakes me. I’m on my feet and out the bedroom door before my brain has time to fully process the fear that’s gripping me.

“Lena?” I call.

No answer.

Frantic and bewildered, I search first the kitchen and then the living room, berating myself as I go. How did I fall into such a deep sleep that I didn’t hear her get up? How did I let myself relax so completely?

I know the answer—exhaustion. I haven’t slept soundly in weeks. That, coupled with constant worry, has finally caught up with me.

When I put Lena in bed last night and crawled in beside her, she’d turned to snuggle into my side like she used to do. “I love you,” she’d murmured right before she fell back into her coma-like rest. My heart had been so full of adoration and agony, I thought I’d never be able to sleep.