by Han Nolan
Lam leans out of the car and speaks for me. "A girl at the camp where we're working just committed suicide. Elly was close to her. I just wanted to calm her down, but she didn't smoke it. She's clean. You can test her."
The officer nods. "Yeah, I heard there was something going on up there, but that's no excuse. You're both in possession." He looks at me. "What time are you due at the hospital?"
"Eight o'clock."
He checks his watch. "You've got twenty minutes. Get in the car."
I get inside and Lam slides over. The policeman slams the door, then goes over to Lam's car, fishes around for the joint I threw on the floor, takes the keys out of the ignition, closes up the car, and walks back over to his cruiser.
"Sorry, Elly," Lam says, and I think of how many gazillions of times Lam has had to say that to me. I get arrested while I'm in the middle of breaking into his parents' basement, and while I'm getting hauled away, Lam steps out all groggy and hung over and says, "Sorry, Elly." I get suspended from school for having a pocketknife in my backpack—Lam's pocketknife that I didn't even know he had put there—"Sorry, Elly." I get stopped by the police for erratic driving and fined $150 because Lam was picking on the way I was driving and kept trying to take the steering wheel out of my hands—"Sorry, Elly." I get pregnant because the condom Lam used was like five years old and it broke—"Sorry, Elly." Finally, I'm waking up and realizing for the first time that as long as I'm with Lam I'm going to keep ending up riding around in police cars and hearing his voice, his sickening voice, saying, "Sorry, Elly."
The policeman gets in his car, talks into his radio in some kind of code, but I hear him mention the hospital, and I hope that's where he's taking us. He starts up the car and we speed off—and I mean speed. The guy should be arrested.
I arrive at the Rumford hospital just in time. It's a long brick building that's always reminded me of an old high school—so it's like the hospital and high school, the two things in the world I hate the most, rolled into one. I wait for the policeman to come around to the door to let us out. He opens the door and we start to scoot out, but the officer shakes his head. "Just the girl. You're coming back to town with me."
I get out, then turn around and look at Lam. "Sorry, Lam."
Chapter Twenty-Four
THE OFFICER walks me into the hospital lobby, this rotunda kind of place with big picture windows, and checks to make sure I really am scheduled for a C-section. Never have I been more glad that I was actually telling the truth. Before he leaves, he warns me, "You stay out of trouble. You've got a baby to think of now."
"Yes, sir," I say. "I know that."
I don't have my driver's license or the insurance card my parents left with me, and that slows everything down, but the admitting lady calls the camp, and the MIL agrees to bring it down. That's all she needs on top of what's going on at the camp. I don't have to wait for her to get here, though. They admit me to the hospital, and they lead me to this room where I get undressed and tie on a gown. A nurse helps me onto a bed and puts these monitors all around my belly to "check my vi tals" as the nurse says, and to check the baby's heart rate and stuff, and then I wait a long while, and while I'm waiting, Sarah shows up. I start crying again, and she comes over to me, and she's so sweet.
"Hey, baby, what's wrong? It's okay. It's all going to be okay. I'm here." She gives me a hug. "Mom and Dad are on their way. They'll be here in about an hour."
"Good, 'cause—oh, Sarah, this is the worst day of my life. Really. I don't know how I'm going to make it through all this today. Banner's dead, and Lam's at the police station, and—and I'm going to have a C-section." I'm really wailing now, and Sarah keeps shushing me and patting my head, and I like the comfort of her patting me, but I know I don't deserve her comfort. Nobody can comfort Banner ever again. I thought I had comforted her, but I hadn't. She was just pretending. "'Show 'em.' I told her to show 'em, and she didn't understand."
"Shhh. It's okay. It's all right, baby. It's going to be fine. It's all right. Honey, you've got to calm down. This can't be good for the baby. I'm going to go see if they can give you something to calm you down."
I think of Lam trying to calm me, and the joint I almost smoked, and I cry even harder.
A few minutes later, Sarah comes back with a nurse who wants me to sign some forms, and she makes Sarah sign them, too. Then she hooks up an IV that she says will shoot fluids and medication into my veins during the surgery. I've never had an IV before, and I'm so grossed out, I cry about that, too.
Sarah sits close to me and pats my hand. Eventually, even without a sedative, I start to calm down some.
"I'm glad you're here, Sarah," I say. I grab a tissue off this little tray-thing they've got by my bed, and I blow my nose.
"Me, too. You look well, Elly. You look like you've gained enough weight and everything."
I nod. "Yeah, I read how teens who get pregnant don't always gain enough weight and that's bad for the baby, so I made sure I gained weight. The doctor says everything looks good."
Sarah nods, and we're silent for a while. I try not to think of Banner, or Lam, or the C-section.
"So," Sarah says, "have you made your decision about the baby? You said something about Lam being at the police station?"
I nod. "Yeah, he got arrested for smoking a joint."
Sarah shakes her head. "I've always said he was bad news, Elly."
"I know, but so am I. I'm bad news, too. I'm really, really bad news. I'm like the black widow of bad news."
I sniff, but I don't cry—well, just some slow tears rolling down my cheeks, nothing dramatic this time.
"So? About the baby?"
I look in Sarah's eyes. She's so hopeful, expectant. "I love this baby, you know," I say.
Sarah nods, and I see a bit of a frown forming at the edges of her mouth. She controls it, though, and pats my head. "I'm sure you do, El. I'm sure you want what's best for it."
"I do. I want what's best for it." Now more tears are spilling down my face, because I know what I'm about to say, and I can't stand to hear myself say it. Not after all these months together, me and baby cakes. "Okay, Sarah, I—I want you to have it. I've decided. But..."
Sarah's face lights up, and she leans over me and hugs me so hard, and then she's crying and laughing at the same time, and I can see how much this means to her. I didn't know. Until this moment I didn't know how she must have been feeling waiting in the background all these months, waiting to hear me say that she's going to be a mother.
Sarah cries and laughs and hugs me over and over, and she wipes my tears away and then hers and then mine again.
Finally she calms down enough for me to finish what I had started to say. "Listen, Sarah, Lam and his parents want the baby, too. I don't know what happens when two sides want the same baby."
Sarah slides back in her chair and wipes her face. She straightens her back and gets that stiff-necked look of hers that means she's put out about this. "Well, if we can't come to an agreement, then a court will decide, and that can take months. They could put the baby in foster care until a decision is made, and by then the baby has bonded with someone else, if it's bonded at all. I wanted—I want—I want the baby right away. You can see how that would be best?"
I nod. "Uh-huh, I see that, but I think Lam's parents want it, too.
"If it's a boy we'll name it Robert after Robby, and if it's a girl we'll name it Ethel, after Great-Great-Grandma." Sarah smiles down at her lap and smoothes out the skirt of her already smoothed-out sui t.
"Ethel? Why would you want to do that to the baby? Great-Great-Grandma's super and all, but what will kids call her at school? Eth? Thul? Ethie? Yuck!"
"I think it's a sweet name."
I feel guilty that I never even thought about a name for the baby. I haven't even thought of it as a boy or a girl. Just baby cakes, just a generic baby.
Is that proof of how little I really want it, or of how sure I am that I won't be keeping it? I know I've been too a
fraid to get attached to it, even though I have, anyway. I think Lam has been afraid, too. Maybe that's been our problem. Maybe our marriage has been such a fiasco because we haven't been able to really celebrate being pregnant. We haven't bonded over the pregnancy at all. It's torn us apart. Maybe Lam even resents the baby.
I start to worry over this thought, but then Sarah says, "El, you know we're the best ones for the baby. We're young and we live in a beautiful home. The baby will want for nothing—you know that."
"Yeah, Sarah, I know. Despite the way we are with each other, I know you'd make a great mother."
"I've always gotten on your case, El, because I care about you and because I care about our family. I would see you tear into Mom and Dad all the time and whine and complain about living in Kenya and having to share your life with all the orphans, and you just never let up. For four years you never let up, and then we moved back home and you hooked up with Lam and you went insane. I was just looking after you, El."
"I know." I nod. "I know."
"I just wanted peace. I like peace. Your baby will grow up in a peaceful, loving household."
I don't want to hear any more about my baby and where it will grow up, but I don't know how to shut Sarah up. She's so excited. Then I hear Ziggy's voice out in the hallway, and I'm so grateful he's come.
"In here?" he asks. Then he pokes his head in and sees me and smiles. He comes into the room and right over to me. "Elly, are you all right? Where's Lam?"
Sarah stands up. "Who are you?" she asks.
"Ziggy Grumbauer, a good friend of Elly's. Who are you?"
"Her sister. I'm Sarah."
Sarah sounds so haughty that I'm embarrassed for her. Why does she have to do that? She sounds like such a snob, and she dresses like one, too, in her perfect little suits and matching pumps and flashy jewelry. I'd been loving how real she'd been acting for a change.
Ziggy sticks out his hand for Sarah to shake, and she hesitates, like she's afraid his beard and earring and long hair all have cooties. "Nice to meet you," Ziggy says, waiting for Sarah's hand.
"Yes, delighted," Sarah says, finally sticking her hand out. "Listen, El." She turns to me. "There's a snack machine in the other hall. I'm just going to go get a little something to eat while you talk to your friend. I'll be back." She checks her watch. "Mom and Dad should be here soon."
She leaves, and Ziggy calls after her, "Nice to meet you."
When Sarah is gone, I say, "She's really not so bad. If she'd just pull the stick out of her butt, I'm sure you'd like her."
"She's just careful and protective of you. I know the type. I have an older brother just like her."
Ziggy smiles at me and takes my hand.
I smile, but it's fake. I'm worried. I want to know about Banner. "So, what's going on at the camp? How could you leave? Don't they need you?"
Ziggy shakes his head and sits down in the chair Sarah had used. "Everybody's in the main cabin watching movies. There's a grief-counseling team there. They're interviewing kids who seem seriously upset. They talked to everybody as a group first, and now they're taking kids one by one. Some kids have gone home. It's really a disaster for the Lothrops. And for Banner's family, of course. Poor kid." He shakes his head and leans forward on his elbows.
Disaster. That sounds about right. If I've had anything to do with it, then it has to be a disaster, and I had plenty to do with Banner's death.
I look away and stare out the window. It looks like such a pretty, sunny day, and that feels all wrong. It should be raining out. There should be a storm outside. A hailstorm.
"So where's Lam?"
I turn back to face Ziggy. "In jail probably, so go ahead and say it: I told you so."
"Jail? How..."
"Don't ask, okay? I'm lucky I'm not there with him."
Ziggy brushes the hair out of my face. "Just remember, I'll take the two of you. You and your baby. I've got a really nice apartment in the city. You'd love it."
Of course Sarah walks in with her coffee and Danish right as Ziggy's saying this.
"What's that? Elly? You're not changing your mind, are you? Please tell me you aren't. Who is this guy?" She looks Ziggy up and down and scowls. "Who are you?"
"Ziggy Grumbauer, remember? We've already met." He sticks his hand out again, and Sarah waves him away.
"Another one of your brilliant friends, El?"
"As a matter of fact, I scored a—"
"Stop!" I say, or really I sort of shout it. "Please stop. Please, I just need to be quiet."
Then the doctor and Mom and Dad come in at the same time, and I'm so happy to see my parents that I burst into tears again, and they rush over to hug me, and I think now that they're here maybe everything will be all right. They'll fix it. They'll make it all better.
My parents only get a short visit with me, though, before the doctor shoos everyone out so he can talk to me before the surgery.
They hug me and tell me how much they've missed me and how sorry they were about the way they left things here. "You just are the most stubborn person, sometimes, Eleanor," my dad says. "And to your own detriment."
"Yeah, I know, Dad. I know. I'm sorry. I'm sorry about the hell I've put you two through the past—well, all my life, I guess. I know you were really fed up with me when you left."
"You really placed us between a rock and hard place, El. We had to get to Kenya to be with Grandma Lottie. We couldn't cancel no matter how much we wanted to. If you had just been willing to come..."
My mom puts a hand on Dad's arm. "Let's not go there. It's all over."
"Well, you got there, didn't you?" I say. "And Grandma's still hanging on, so—"
Mom and Dad exchange this weird, uncomfortable look.
"What? What is it?"
"It was in the letter your mother sent you. Unfortunately, we didn't get there soon enough. Grandma died, honey," my dad says.
I'm stunned. I didn't expect that, but I should have. I tell them it's all my fault, too. I remember what I said about wanting to be in hell if she was going to be in heaven, and I cry my eyes out all over again.
My parents try to calm me down, and Mom reminds me that the universe doesn't revolve around me and that I'm not that powerful. This is comforting. More comforting than she knows, but I'm still bawling. She says I need to calm down, and she wants to know if they can give me anything to calm my nerves. Sarah, who's been standing over by the windows just glowing with the joy of knowing she's getting the baby, butts in and says she already tried that, but the nurse said that a sedative would sedate the baby, too, so they won't give me anything. "Too bad," Mom says, gazing down at me. "I had valium when I had you."
"So that's what's wrong with me," I say. "It started at birth."
They all laugh at my joke, but I don't think I'm kidding.
***
Once everybody's out of the room, the doctor explains to me in all the gory details what's about to happen.
"When we get into the operating room, we'll insert a Foley bladder catheter to drain your bladder."
"Drain it? Like in a sink?"
"What we're actually doing is deflating the bladder."
Now, that sounds gross, this empty rubbery bladder flapping around in the breeze—flap, flap, flap.
"But I haven't had anything to eat or drink since midnight, like you said. Do you really need to do that to my bladder?"
"Yes, we do, but not to worry. You'll be glad it's in place."
"I doubt it." I'd rather pee all over the bed than have a catheter.
"Then the anesthesiologist will administer a regional anesthesia so you'll be able to stay awake during the procedure."
"That's the spinal epidural. I've read all about that. That's supposed to be a killer. I don't think I need that. I don't want to stay awake. Knock me out. I don't want to know anything. Give me a whole-body anesthesia."
The doctor just pats my hand and tells me that it wouldn't be the safest way to go for the baby or for me. Then he gets
all excited when he tells me about cutting my uterus open. It's all science to him. To me it's my body, and I've got blood and guts and stuff down there, and hearing about getting cut open makes me wanna puke. Then he asks me if I have any questions, but I don't. I just want the whole thing to be over with.
"Just realize once the baby's out we won't be putting it in your arms right away like you see in the movies. We'll cut the umbilical cord, and the nurse will take it directly to the warmer, where our neonatal resuscitative team will check your baby out and help get all the fluids out of its lungs. Okay?"
"Yeah, sure, okay." I nod.
The doctor gives my family a few more minutes to be with me, so in walk my parents and Sarah and Ziggy and the MIL. I'm so surprised to see the MIL, but then I see she has my purse and the duffle bag I packed last night, and I remember she had to bring my driver's license and I'm embarrassed. I thank her, but I hate that she had to come here, today of all days. Her eyes look bloodshot, like she's been crying, and she looks exhausted... and she looks angry. They all look angry, especially her and Sarah, so I figure they've been out in the waiting room arguing over the baby. I close my eyes because it's more than I can take. They're like vultures. That's what it feels like.
They gather around and pat my arm, my hands, my head—anything they can reach.
I wonder if the MIL knows about Lam. I wonder if he's going to be here for the birthing. The father is supposed to be in the room with the mother. That's what the doctor said. He said after my abdomen had been sterilized and I was draped, Lam could come in and hold my hand during the birthing.
I don't know if I want Lam there or not, but I want somebody. I want Ziggy. I open my eyes and look at all of them staring down at me. They're all smiling, yet no one seems happy.
