Survivor Song(71)
“Then Nats said, ‘Do you become a rose tree, and I the rose upon it?’ When the terrible men arrived they found only a rose tree and one rose on it.”
Ramola retrieves Natalie’s phone from the sweatshirt pocket. As she does so, Natalie turns her head and opens and closes her mouth like a goldfish. It’s a myth that goldfish retain memories for only three seconds.
Getting to the home screen does not require a password. Natalie must’ve turned off the lock-screen setting prior to succumbing to infection. Her phone’s battery is at thirty-one percent, still plenty of charge; a cruel reminder of how little time has passed since Natalie was bitten.
Ramola opens the Voyager app to hear her friend’s voice again. She doesn’t make it through the first message.
Natalie’s breaths are shallow and she is no longer speaking, crying out.
Ramola returns to the kitchen, tries her phone. She sits with her eyes closed, and breathes deeply. Attempting to still her shaking hands and galloping heart rate, Ramola leans on her stress-reduction technique as she did on Bay Road when attempting to get Natalie to drink water. She imagines a whiteboard, this one bigger than any other she’s used before. The broad, blank board is there for her now. She was unable to imagine it while in the same room with Natalie.
She begins the handwritten list of instructions using black marker and her careful, looping cursive: The first incision, horizontal near the pubic hairline, a six-inch cut. It could be longer if necessary. (This line is written shakily on the board with the implication that the cut can be longer because Natalie does not have to be stitched up afterward.) The rectus muscles are normally retracted and pulled out of the way. (She will not have that luxury here and her cursive m’s and l’s are sloppy, indistinct.) Cut through or split the rectus sheath and the muscles themselves. (This will result in more blood loss, which is reflected in her misspelling of “muscles.”) There will also be the peritoneum to contend with prior to reaching the uterus. The bladder and intestines might need to be pushed aside. (She cannot just hack and slash her way through if Natalie is to remain breathing throughout as much of the procedure as possible. For the baby to survive, Ramola needs to keep that four-minute oxygen clock from winding down to zero. Because of all this she writes in a harsh slant, the letters avalanching downhill, and she crosses out “intestines” and inexplicably rewrites it in printed capital letters.) Cut through the three layers of the uterine wall without injuring the baby. (Neither hunting knife nor paring knife are meant for the tough, delicate, precise cutting, and this final line is an illegible smear as though she erased it with the flat of her hand.)
Ramola tries to envision a successful surgery resulting in a live birth, and she tries to envision an after. But she can’t see anything beyond her dying friend strapped to the bed.
What am I going to do? I don’t want to do this. I can’t do this.
How can I possibly do this?
Ramola first cuts the tape between Natalie’s ankles and pushes her legs apart. Natalie doesn’t stir.
She cleans Natalie’s face with wipes and a kitchen towel. Carefully slipping the elastic band over her head, Ramola covers Natalie’s nose and mouth with a painter’s mask. Natalie doesn’t stir.
Ramola deposits the used tape and soiled towels into a garbage bag along with the leggings, underwear, and blue shirt-dress she scissored away. After spraying Natalie’s body and bed with aerosol disinfectant, Ramola returns to the kitchen, de-gloves, washes her hands one more time, puts on the last pair of latex gloves.
Folded sheets and towels Ramola found in a linen closet are draped over Natalie’s chest and her legs, edges tucked under her hips and thighs. The two remaining towels are folded on top of a kitchen chair Ramola dragged into the room, a cushioned platform upon which she’ll inspect the baby.
Ramola cannot perform the surgery while standing on the floor. Her reach isn’t long enough. She hovers at the foot of the bed and watches the slight rise and fall of Natalie’s covered chest. What if she stays there, does nothing, and simply watches until there is no more rise and fall? No one would know she didn’t try.
She can’t do this. She stands and she watches. The house makes creaking and rattling noises, the kinds it saves for when someone is alone.
Her mental whiteboard is a mess of cross-outs, circles, arrows, smudges, and the order of instructions is almost impossible to follow.
Ramola climbs over the foot of the bed. As she settles onto her knees, she sinks into the mattress. Natalie’s belly pitches slightly forward. The angle for surgery is not ideal and the weight pressure is surely squeezing the child forward. Ramola’s every movement sends quakes through the mattress and jostles Natalie’s body. She should’ve found a way to get Natalie to the hard floor. It’s too late to do so now.
On the bed, between the mattress’s edge and Natalie’s left leg, is a rectangular plastic container. Inside are hand towels and knives. She picks up the hunting knife. It feels top-heavy. The brutish instrument is not an extension of her hand.
She whispers, “I’m sorry, but—” then stops before uttering, I can’t do this.
“All right,” she says instead, then leans forward and allows the quivering mattress to settle. She anchors her left hand halfway up the belly and pushes it away from her. The baby reacts to the sudden force and pressure. Ramola says, “All right” again, this one not meant for Natalie, and she shakily inserts the fearsome knife tip into Natalie’s skin at the start of the planned incision line. Blood beads instantly. As Ramola slowly drags the knife to her right, a muffled low moan, one that could be wind outside until it cannot be, builds into a jagged scream from Natalie, and her body flinches and spasms.