The Empty Jar(60)

Secretly, I’m terrified that I will lose both Lena and Grace during this tricky delivery. Lena’s not exactly the picture of good health and strength, and there are literally dozens of things that could go wrong. I try to focus on the positive and hold my misgivings at bay, but damn, is it hard!

For the millionth time, I shove all those thoughts back, back to a place where they can’t hurt anybody. Just like cramming those damn skis into the hall closet.

Where they wait to crush me one day when I open the door.

********

Lena



I fight through the web of confusion that tangles my mind. I know I’m pregnant and I’m going into labor. I know I’m sick and my disease is likely progressing. But I also have the sense that other things, other times and places and people, are vying for my attention. I feel torn and find that I have to continually struggle to stay here.

Odd moments and images trickle in, spurring thoughts that threaten to whisk me away to another place in time. I’m aware of that when it happens. At least to a degree, but I’m helpless to stop it.

This time, it’s scarier than usual. One minute I’m in the car with Nate on the way to the hospital and the next I’m being prepped for an emergency C-section.

Someone is getting ready to cut me open.

Hysteria rushes in. It scratches at my consciousness like a dog digging up old bones in dry dirt. My breath comes fast and hard.

“What’s going on?” I cry. “What’s happening? Is the baby okay?”

A scrubbed, capped, and masked nurse anesthetist bends to look into my face. All I can see is a smooth brow and wide gray eyes. “The baby has a nuchal cord, Mrs. Grant. That means that the umbilical cord is wrapped around your daughter’s neck. You’re being prepped for a caesarean. Can you take a deep breath for me?”

The woman’s tone is professional yet cool. It brings no more comfort to me than the plain white ceiling above my head.

I need warmth.

I need familiarity.

I need answers.

I need Nate.

“My husband. Where’s my husband? Where’s the doctor? Why can’t I feel my legs?” Questions tumble into my mind like marbles from a felt bag—unchecked and chaotic.

Clanking and rolling.

Roaring.

I pant frantically, my mouth as dry as cold air stinging my eyes. “Somebody tell me what the hell is going on!”

My mind tilts and jerks, searching desperately for solid ground, for words or moments or images to fill in the yawning gaps.

I find none.

Time…time has come and gone. It’s dumped me into a present that I can’t piece together. I have no idea how I got here, to this point. What has happened that I now require a caesarean?

Only moments ago I was at work in the E.R. where I pull shifts periodically to keep up my clinical skills. And before that, I was catching lightning bugs with Daddy. And before that…

Or was I?

Confusion mounts, and my anxiety intensifies.

“Lena, take a deep breath for me,” the anesthetist instructs sternly.

I try to be compliant, try to take a deep breath, but I can’t. My lungs refuse to cooperate. Rather than loosening, they squeeze tighter, shut, shut, shut.

Heart racing and throat constricting, terror surges through me.

“Please,” I plead as the woman stretches a royal blue drape up in front of my face and clips it to the poles on either side of the table. “Please let me see my husband.”

Seconds, minutes, hours later, I hear an achingly familiar voice croon, “I’m here, baby. I’m here.”

Cool, strong fingers brush over my forehead, and I close my eyes.

Nate.

I feel him in every corner of my soul. Even before I pieced together that it was his voice I heard, I felt him. I recognize his touch on a cellular level.

Relief sweeps in and brings with it a rush of emotion of a different sort. Suddenly, I’m heartbroken, and I don’t even remember why. What have I missed? What’s happened?

“Nate, what’s happening? I’m scared.” Though my tears are hot, they leave icy tracks from my temples into my hair.

“Shhh.” His voice soothes. “Don’t be afraid. I’m right here, and I’m not going anywhere. You have an epidural. That’s why you can’t feel your legs. Dr. Stephens is taking Grace because her cord has wrapped around her neck. You’ll both be fine. I promise. Don’t worry, baby,” he whispers, his lips at my ear.

When I look up at Nate, his upside down face only makes me feel further confused. Desperate to see him, desperate to see the familiar angles and planes of his face, I tilt my head until the image of him is mostly righted. Only then does the level of my alarm yield to the point where I can take a single deep, calming breath.

“Nate,” I say simply.

The sound of his name in the quiet room, the feel of it on my tongue…it’s everything. The moon and the stars, the sun and the wind.

My world.

He is my world.

“Don’t cry, baby,” he murmurs, his face blurring as he leans down to set his forehead against mine. “Don’t cry.”

I think I hear a catch in his voice, but I can’t be sure. The slowing beat of my heart is thudding in my ears, in my head, making the world around me tremble unsteadily.

“Don’t…don’t let them…” Nate’s face swims in front of my eyes. I try to blink to better focus, but the darkness, the silence is pulling me under.