When I was a child people came from across the province, even from the United States, to immerse themselves in Lake Manitou’s healing waters, cure their skin sores, arthritis, aching muscles, warts. Summer Bible Camp at Manitou Beach. Each morning we herded up the camp house steps, lustily belting, Onward Christian so-old-iers, marching as to war … We coloured pictures of Jesus gathered with his disciples at the seashore, pasted pictures of Jesus healing the sick into our Bible school booklets, the glue rolling into terrific balls that begged to be chucked against walls, stuck in one another’s hair. Afternoons, we swam in the lake’s cold waves, wrapped in green seaweed, eyes stinging, buoyed up to the surface by supernatural salt. When we read the story of Jesus walking on the water, Dougie Staganofski, at church camp to get out of doing dishes, said, I’ll bet Jesus walked on salt water. That’s all. Right then and there I stroked him off my potential-husband list. Trust a Catholic. Relying on works. No faith.
But Brodie is another story. He’s a lapsed United Churcher. This is worse. Lapsed United Churchers don’t count on faith or works to get them into God’s good graces. United Churchers count on themselves; they count on order in the world; they count on natural science.
Brodie scrapes back his chair, disappears into the kitchen, and brings out my mom’s home-canned pears. I spoon fruit into the cut glass fruit dish. The wind in the branches tonight sounds like an Aeolian harp. My father had one. Who knows where it is. Gone with the wind, my father said of things that disappeared. An instrument sounded by natural wind. David in the Bible had an Aeolian harp, sounded by the breath of God.
Brodie rises to make tea.
Samuel Coleridge said the harp was a tragic sounding of the experience of mankind. Dad quoted Coleridge: It pours such sweet upbraiding … Such a soft floating witchery of sound … A light in sound, A sound-like power in light.
What confounded me as a child was that the harp would sing its soft hum only when it chose, as if it had a mind. My father’s harp wouldn’t, for instance, show off on demand when my friends came to play. He laughed as my girlfriends and I gathered, breathless, in the open window.
Nothing tragic’s happened, my father would say. No story to sing today.
One winter morning, I ran in from play, gasping that the power line had started an eerie bounce of its own accord. No wind. A ghost is shaking it! I cried.
That frost-thickened line is acting as an Aeolian harp, my father explained, drawing me against his rough overalls. Even wires and clotheslines sing, inspired by a tiny breath of air.
I look at the scattered pages of the morning paper on the table. People saved from plane crashes, birth mothers finding their adopted children, explosives refusing to go off, drowning victims revived, harps bursting into song. Miracles are everywhere. Ask anything in My Name.
Heal my baby. We do the dishes. Somewhere in the darkness a dog barks. Skipper answers, a nervous whine.
Just take God’s hand
Look how a star hangs in His firmament
Look at a praising lark’s ascent
Yes, God is here
Just take God’s hand,
Look on a crocus thrusting through spring snow
Look o’er the sea tide’s etching ebb and flow
Yes, God is here …
Inexplicably, Brodie pulls me, hands still wet, against his flannel shirt. A Brodie moment. Relying on silence.
I’m at the front door in my nightgown retrieving the morning paper when I look up and there is my sister Rose. Rose! Whatever are you doing here?
There she stands, eight o’clock on a Monday morning with sponges and mops and disinfectant in a pail. Flew in last night. I’m bunking at Marigold’s. I’m here to do winter cleaning.
Winter cleaning? Whose?
Yours.
Rose! Who does winter cleaning?
Maggie. You won’t have done fall.
This is what my sister offers grief. Rose steps through the door and peers under my couch. Maggie. You can’t just let things go.
Rose is a cheerful thump and slap of mop and soapsuds, window cleaner and rug shampoo. When did I last vacuum? I plunk myself on the ottoman, shame twisting my esophagus. Maggie Watson. The lazy, spoiled baby her sisters always said she was. Shoving her way to the front of the line. Me first! I want my baby whole.
What a hog! The other parents are settling nicely for parts. Missing kidney. No brain. No anus. Who do you think you are?
Rose sings as she dusts down the door frames. I grab my coat and head into winter. Skipper bounds ahead of me, shovelling a path with his nose. Netted snowflakes sashay to the ground. Metal scrapes cement, a boy in a Dr. Seuss toque shovelling our neighbour’s walk. Skipper barks and leaps at each mouthful of snow. I plough through snowdrifts. Maybe faith is nothing more than works. Could I, could all mothers perform for better service? Tie back our hair in ponytails? Tie our yellow gowns mid-thigh. Positions, ladies. A-one and a-two and a-one two three.
Big bottle of pop and a big banana
We’re the gals from Louisiana
That’s a lie and that’s a bluff
We’re from Neonatal! That’s enough!
What is faith if not yearning for reward for those who act? Let’s teach those babies to demand their rights.
Set ’em right! Stamp stamp stamp clap clap stamp stamp
Fight tonight! Stamp stamp stamp clap clap stamp stamp
We can score! Stamp stamp stamp clap clap stamp stamp
Little more! Stamp stamp stamp clap clap stamp stamp
By the time I’ve circled the neighbourhood, Dr. Seusshat-boy has finished shovelling a second driveway. He waves. Somewhere a siren wails. The boy bangs the shovel against the doorstep and rings the doorbell to collect his pay. He’s still standing there in cement-shadowed dusk when I thump inside.
How do I find the shape of faith? Something to count on?
You drive to the hospital after supper, leaving Skipper, restless, whining in the closed-in porch. Step into Neonatal ICU imagining the moon broken by trees, rain-drenched November sky, the sheen of silver ice, to find your child awake. So rare in this place of organized air. You sit down so the impassioned parts of you do not move on, through, out the window, back into rain and wind and moving objects. You reach for that little hand.
Sometimes the little princess gazed out across the landscape and imagined that all the little glass castles housed her own big family. Brothers and sisters, all hers, spilling down the hill. Sometimes their small sounds reached her ears: a cry, a cough, a shifting in a cot. On rare occasions The Sorcerer would appear in a great white cloak. Then he would poke and prod the little princess. Sometimes he brought other Sorcerers and they stood around her glass castle and talked and argued, as if she were the star of a great drama unfolding beyond her walls, and her observers could not agree on which part she should play. On these days, long into the afternoon, the little princess watched The Sorcerers touring the castles dotting the countryside, pausing to debate at each one, though never conferring with those inside.
Oh, how the little princess longed to venture out into the world beyond the hill of castles.
A stiff north wind blows me through the parking lot, Foothills Hospital rising against a barren landscape. I have the urge to march around the fortress seven times, like Joshua did Jericho, singing “The Song of the Captives,” and the walls will come tumbling down. A strange mélange of patients cowers against the building, smoking. Two clutch their intravenous poles as though the wind might lift them, a woman with a broken foot, grounded by her cast, two bundles in wheelchairs wrapped against the wind. They stare, flicking their cigarettes and their heads, like horses, to sail the smoke away.
I plunge in the door. The foyer cold. Take a breath to prepare myself for Dr. Martens, Dr. Vanioc, Dr. Whoever. Dr. Norton, whose eyes filled with tears the few times she spoke with me, quit two weeks ago. She wasn’t cut out for this, a nurse said. She left to write a book.
We’re still trying to un
derstand what the baby’s problems entail, the doctors say, shifting from foot to foot.
It’s too early to tell.
It’s only been a week, ten days, a month, six weeks, ten weeks.
Isn’t this their job?
I take the elevator to the fifth floor, ride it with a man and a sullen child who glowers and sucks his thumb. On the fourth floor, the two exit, the child wailing, Are they gonna hafta kill me?
No one in the scrub room this morning.
I step into the hum of motors and activity. Dr. Vanioc and a doctor I don’t recognize step out. They hold the door open for a mother. First-timer. No eye contact. Lowered head. Stunned. Like a caught criminal entering the light of jail. I don’t belong here! No words, no parole. I have the urge to slap the woman’s bottom. You’re IT. Run! You’re the loser! The way Winnie Peters used to flee the classroom hyperventilating, and hide in the bathroom, her mind a dyslexic nightmare, trying to straighten out the letters of a spelling quiz.
Na na. You birthed a preemie. The power of a label.
Lately life-away-from-the-hospital is a tie for moments of hospital life. Friends, mere acquaintances trying for really nice. Their gusty breaths, their strapped-on smiley faces.
Good thing she’s just a baby. If she goes, you won’t have had her long enough to get too attached.
I bet you’ll be glad when this is over. As if this is a minor irritation, like a traffic tie-up.
We’re praying. Though we’re not sure what to pray for.
Well, we sure wish we could have seen her. Past tense. Too late now.
Does your baby make strange?
Ha. No, she reaches out. She loves the needle stabs, the hole chopped in her stomach, oozing fluid that shouldn’t ooze, the tube stuck up her nose, another jammed down her throat. Tough love. You know? Just part of growing up.
I wind through the crowded aisles, past ragged babies with taped-up noses, tubes disappearing in and out of openings, arms bound against chests, arms flung over heads. So much laboured breathing. Babies on their backs. On stomachs. Drawn knees. Furrowed foreheads. Their old-man faces. Bee. Beebeebee. Their lives played out to their beeper soundtracks. I imagine all these babies crying, Mom! how heads would turn, pass a new dad holding his baby. The baby’s tongue darts from between his lips, as if testing his environment, or trying to escape. His palms and the soles of his feet are purplish. The dad slides off his wedding band and slips it on the hand. The baby’s whole fist fits within it.
Down’s syndrome, one nurse says, low, to another, nodding. Came in last night. You learn to read the signs.
Down’s syndrome! Someone found a name!
Skipper threw up on the floor this morning. Regarded me drearily. Turned and sat humped, back to me, while I cleaned it up. He’s mourning the days when each sunrise held promise of a romp on Nose Hill. A dad sits holding a baby in the oak rocking chair against the far wall, an orange braided rug beneath his feet. He’s staring into space, seeing another landscape. A row over, a mom arranges a tape recorder inside an isolette. The parents here don’t talk much. What is there to say?
Just finished chest physio.
I turn toward the cheerful voice, a young nurse tripping over a cord. She grins and lays it against a neighbouring isolette. I haven’t seen this one before. Gangly, a little klutzy. Maybe twenty-five. She holds in her hand a yellow toothbrush. I hold my dictionary. Face off.
Are you by chance Jewish?
Behind me, two nurses argue about the colour of Smarties. No, says one, the brown ones taste the same.
Excuse me?
The doctors were wondering if you might be Jewish.
I look at her.
DiGeorge syndrome. No Jews in your family history? DiRiley syndrome? Your husband’s?
Sure, I’ll be Jewish. Don’t we all stem from Adam? I have a drop of Jewish blood.
We’re going to repeat her blood gases shortly.
Is she worse?
She tolerated physio. The nurse waves the toothbrush. But she’s had dusky spells. Temp’s down. Of course, we don’t have the whole picture.
Of course.
The nurse walks to another baby, scours the wee chest with a bright red toothbrush.
I glance down at the chart lying open on Kalila’s isolette.
Ask Dr. Hindle to evaluate exotropia.
Obtain nerve condition studies
Book for EXS
Attempts to start scalp IV unsuccessful. Problems with IVs going interstitial.
Angiocath started by resident. Interstitial. IV finally started in left hand.
The nurse returns to primly close the chart.
I slide onto the stool. What’s this? A toque. Kalila, usually naked except for a diaper, is in a tiny white hospital gown, the kind that opens at the back, ties up the neck. Her huge blue diaper sticks out beneath it. And on her head, a blue-grey knitted toque. The kind a grandma would knit for a doll. It sits high, bending her ears. Matching her colour, dusky blue. She’s breathing fast, as if air were being pumped in and out of her. Her stomach balloons, drops, balloons. A cut on her left foot. Blue bruising up the ankle. Her hand swathed in bandages, a needle stuck in, cardboard taped awkwardly round to hold it steady. Can’t take my eyes off that little toque.
Who gave her this?
Her temperature was down, Mrs. Solantz. She wasn’t warm.
Somewhere down the line a beeper sings.
Could I wash her nighties? Who gave her this?
The hospital does that, honey.
I insert my hands through the thick plastic isolette holes. Knee against the cold blue metal drawer. Kalila breathes. I take hold of the unbandaged hand. Stroke, and the baby’s fingers curl.
Baby’s bed’s a silver moon
Sailing o’er the sky
Sailing over the sea of sleep
While the stars float by …
Another mom seats herself by her baby at the far end of the room. Between us a long, untidy row of metallic boxes. Two doors at the bottom, an attempt at a dresser, dials and buttons cross the centre, made of steel. Babies perch in their top bunks, their lookout towers. Do the babies think this is an extended pyjama party? The glass, punctured with two armholes filled with plastic whorls to stuff a parent’s love through. I look down past the rows of isolettes to a dad who has lifted the glass lid of his baby’s tiny room and pulled out the shelf on which the child rests, the way he’d open an oven door and pull out the metal rack holding a tray of chocolate cookies. We are parents; we should be exchanging recipes, hollering down the aisles.
Hey! Could you bring me your Pork Medallions in Dijon Mustard Sauce?
Want to try my Chocolate Marbled Cheesecake?
The huge baby two rows over squawks. Works himself up, the big one with the voice. I get a sudden picture of baby Jesus throwing a tantrum. Glaring balefully at the lady hired to sweep out the hut. Jesus gumming dates and figs. Baby Jesus playing in the dirt of the cedar grove. And she brought forth her firstborn son and wrapped him in swaddling clothes and laid him in a manger … Hey, God, how come you got to have a healthy child? How come your kid got to live till thirty-three?
Silence, except for a nurse zooming the aisles, crying, Baby Schmidt’s temp’s up. Can you open the isolette? Take off a blanket. Oh, oh. Baby Minor’s got loose stools. Yeah, greasy. Yellow. Better hold the MCT oil. Can someone call the cath lab for Baby Landonell’s results? Medicine forced down, tubes inserted, blood let.
I rest my head against the glass. My right hand, if I reach, can just touch the paper skin; above it, the toque’s prickly softness. Must be real wool. Kalila could be allergic. I want to warn my daughter, Don’t accept gifts from strangers. Good lord, I forgot to hospital-proof my child!
No yanking out of each other’s catheters.
No playing with needles.
No food tube fights.
No accepting toques from strangers.
The glass is cool against my forehead. Outside the window, snow falls. Sin
ce you came, baby, the weather hasn’t stopped. I close my eyes to the silent drop of icy snowflakes. Take this blue baby and lay her out in snow, dust her into a blue-shadowed little girl wearing a grey unbuttoned coat, blue leotards, a dusky grey-blue toque. The child breathes peppermint air, sinks against the crispy crust, swings her arms in arcs, scissors her legs. Sshhish, Sshhish. Toque dark against the diamond glitter. The child’s cheeks shine ruddy in the snow light. She calls, laughing, Mommy, I a angel, Mommy, I a star.
I open my eyes. Kalila is flailing her arms and blowing mucus. The nurse rushes over, occupying my space. The red musical apple in the isolette’s corner sings at the baby’s kicks. The nurse shoves in capable arms, siphons the suction tube up the baby’s nose, draws out endless amounts of thick green mucus.
Has Dr. Byars contacted you?
Who’s Dr. Byars?
I long for home, for a familiar language.
The nurse says, He’ll talk to you. Snakes out the sticky tube.
Stories are meant to lead somewhere. To rising action. Climax. Closure. And they lived Happily Ever After. From its beginning, Kalila’s story, like a woollen toque, unravelling.
What’s wrong? I make myself say, but the words stay in my head. The nurse repositions the hose, shoves it down the other nostril. The baby jerks, hoarse breathing, dry, in harsh fluorescent light. When the nurse finishes, she raises the little bed within the isolette to a forty-five-degree angle. The baby makes a bubbly sound.
He’ll contact you.
The little pasty grey-white face grows slowly pinker.
Is she worse? I want to hold her.
Honey, she’s tired now.
I want to hold her.
The baby lies lifeless with exhaustion.
She’ll sleep if I hold her. She always sleeps better if I hold her.
Sing your way home at the close of the day.
Sing your way home, drive the shadows away.
11:42 a.m. Babe received in mother’s arms.
Kalila Page 6
