Coming Back to Me

by Caroline Leavitt

  “Gary? Are you there? It’s Karen.”

  He didn’t know suddenly whether to feel relieved or more terrified. “I’m here,” he said finally.

  “We’re going to do another operation. We need you to sign an okay.”

  Gary couldn’t speak.

  “Gary? Are you there?”

  “How many operations are you going to do? Why do you have to do them?”

  “She’s young. She can handle this one.”

  He got up. He drove to the hospital and signed the papers without even reading them, because what was the point, what was he going to tell them, no, don’t operate again on my wife, no, don’t save her life? They could have told him they were transplanting the head of a monkey onto her feet, and she would be fine, and he would have agreed to it. “Do whatever it takes,” he said. He waited for the operation to be over. He slept in the waiting room. How is she, he kept asking every time a nurse walked in, how is she? And in the end, despite the operation, it was always the same, the same, the same. He was sitting on the long orange couch in the waiting room and this time Dr. Kane and Dr. Price walked in, both of them so drawn-looking and serious, Gary bolted to his feet.

  “We cleaned out the excess blood,” Dr. Kane said. “The uterus looked infected so we took it out.”

  Gary stared. “Wait—you—”

  “We had to. She wouldn’t have survived.” Dr. Kane’s scowl deepened. “We thought it might be infected, that that was what was causing so much bleeding.”

  “An infection?”

  “We thought there might be. It seemed indicated. In any case, there was so much bleeding, and now there is, at least, less.”

  “At least, less—What are you telling me?” Gary shook his head.

  The doctors wouldn’t look at him. “I have an idea,” Dr. Price said suddenly. He usually stood when he talked to Gary, but this time, he sat on the couch beside him, he let himself sink down. “I think something isn’t showing up in the tests we’re doing. The blood is following the model, it isn’t changing over time the way it seems like it should, so it’s indicating nothing to me about why it’s not clotting. I want to do another kind of test. I’ve seen it work once before with a young hemophiliac I was treating.”

  “What kind of test?”

  “We wash the platelets. It’s very involved and very expensive and very hard for the lab to do properly.” He shook his head. “They won’t like to do it and I’m sure they’ll give me trouble.” He shrugged. “But it’s a very subtle and sophisticated test that will show if there is something present, an inhibitor protein that might be destroying her blood’s ability to clot.” Dr. Price stood up. “The blood has many problems, and I think Molly’s is with her Factor VIII. I think her body might be producing an inhibitor against it.”

  “But why would it do that?”

  Dr. Price held up his hand. “Who knows? No one sees anything like this. Maybe one case in a billion comes up. Sometimes in postpartum, things precipitate autoimmune disorders of all kinds.” He frowned. “But we don’t even know if that is what your wife has.”

  “But if it is?” Gary said.

  “And then, we take it from there. We figure out what to do.”

  “There’s something to do then—” Gary said.

  “We’ll talk about it later.” He patted Gary’s shoulder. “You hang on,” he said.

  Gary sat in the waiting room alone. An image kept flashing in his mind. Molly, the day Otis had been born, the way she had been peeled open before him, how he had seen her uterus, the baby inside of it. “I could do this again,” she had said to him afterward. She hadn’t been able to stop nuzzling Otis. She hadn’t been able to keep her hands from him, that was how gleeful and happy she had been. How amazed. He had gone home that day and thought about a little girl with Molly’s face, a little boy tagging after Otis. A whole brood trundled into a station wagon because their car would be too small. He ran one hand over his face and started to weep. Ghosts. The rest of their children were ghosts. And Molly was dying.

  Molly began to acquire more and more doctors.

  He could tell which group of doctors belonged to what specialty in minutes, though. Karen always showed up alone, or sometimes with one or two students. They were quiet, gentle, even though Molly, anesthetized, wouldn’t feel a thing.

  There were two different surgical teams, groups of six, who strode quickly in, all of them talking rapid-fire, volleying questions. The surgeons zipped off Molly’s sheets and prodded and poked at her as if she weren’t there. They argued among themselves.

  The hematologists came alone. They were the most quiet. They stood for a long while standing in front of Molly’s bed, as if they were contemplating her.

  Gary could never remember the names of any of the doctors. He tried nicknames, plays on words. Dr. Pather, one of the new surgical team, he’d remember by calling him Dr. Paper. Dr. Verm, a critical-care specialist, was the wormy guy, but even then it backfired, because his brain was so foggy, he was so exhausted, it was all he could do to remember just the nicknames.

  “Mr. Goldman,” the doctors all called him. It was Molly’s last name, not his, but he didn’t bother to correct them. It was the only thing they did he found comforting.

  The nurses, though, were a different story from the doctors. Maybe it was because he saw all three of them every day, because they always made time to sit and talk with him, or maybe it was just because they seemed somehow more hopeful to him than the doctors, less terrifying, but he never forgot any of their names. And there were two he really liked. Annie and Grey. Annie was big-boned with a toothy grin, and her husband Nicky was also a nurse. Grey was small and birdlike, with a soft, serious voice, and she dated a resident she said looked just like Jeff Goldblum. She made Gary come into the hallway with her one day so she could point him out. “See? Didn’t I tell you?” The resident was tall and dark but other than that, he didn’t look like Jeff Goldblum at all to Gary. “The spitting image,” Gary said to Grey, and she beamed.

  Gary liked the nurses. He saw Annie bending over Molly, brushing her hair. He watched Grey giving Molly a sponge bath, stroking the water across her arms, talking to her the whole time. Grey sometimes sang to Molly. Annie tickled Molly’s toes. Gary watched them moving from bed to bed. He never saw them look anxious or disturbed or even distracted. He never saw one of them look helplessly at the other, and it made him feel calmer.

  One day, Gary walked into the room and heard a strange whining music. At first, he thought Molly was singing. Excited, he moved closer to her. “Come on, honey,” he said, but she was silent. He looked at her and saw the sheets faintly moving. He lifted them up and there, encasing both her legs, were soft blue plush stockings pulsing rhythmically about her. He put the sheet down.

  “Circulators.” Gary turned around to see Grey. “We want to keep her from getting bed sores. These stockings help.”

  “I thought she was singing,” Gary said helplessly.

  He was in the elevator, going to Maternity to see Otis. It was crowded with people, a few doctors in lab coats, a group of women with big leather purses. He felt someone staring at him, but he couldn’t turn around, he didn’t know who it was, and besides, he had gotten so little sleep. He was probably imagining it. He looked around the elevator. There was a large sign posted behind him that showed two doctors in a football kind of huddle and a large, interested-looking woman eavesdropping on them, her head cocked, one carefully manicured hand fanned out around her ear. SILENCE IS GOLDEN! RESPECT PATIENTS’ RIGHTS! the sign said. The elevator stopped and three women got out. The doors whooshed shut. The ride continued. Beside him, a doctor he had never seen before suddenly leaned deliberately toward him. “You look tired, Mr. Goldman. I urge you not to neglect your rest.”

  “Excuse me?” Gary said, but the elevator door hissed open again and the doctor strode out.

  His life was divided. Back Then and Right Now. None of it was right. He spent hours sitting beside his wife,
talking to her. He spent hours with his son, feeding him, holding him, talking to him, too. He talked to the nurses, to the doctors, to the other people on the floor.

  Otis was already bigger than the other babies. His eyes followed Gary around the room. His face filled with light. “Daddy loves his boy,” Gary sang.

  He was diapering Otis when the dreadlock nurse came over to him. “I know this is bad timing, but have you been thinking about taking this baby home?”

  “Home?”

  “He can’t stay in the nursery here forever. It’s not good for him and it’s going to cost you a fortune.”

  He hadn’t thought once about insurance or cost or what he might do. The nurse nodded at him again encouragingly. “Do you or your wife have family?” He shook his head. “We are the family,” he said.

  “Then you need a baby nurse,” she repeated.

  “We wanted to do it ourselves.” he said, and then immediately felt stupid. Molly had made fun of baby nurses when Ada had suggested it. “Who can tend a baby better than his parents?” she had said.

  “Otis’s immune system needs to strengthen. You don’t want to bring him to the hospital with you when you come to see Molly. They won’t let him into the SICU anyway.” She folded her arms. “You need someone good and not too expensive, because insurance usually won’t pick up the tab.”

  Gary nodded, dumb.

  “Remarkable Baby Nurses,” the nurse said. “That’s the name of the agency we recommend.”

  chapter four

  Remarkable Baby Nurses answered on the third ring. A woman, her voice bright and lilting, announced herself as Mrs. Teasdale, and began to pepper him with questions. “How old is the baby and how long do you think you’d like one of our nurses?”

  Gary fumbled. “My wife—” he said and then swallowed.

  “Will this be live-in or live-out?”

  He lay his hands along the counter. He studied his nails, the fraying threads of his shirt cuffs. “Newborn. My wife is hospitalized.” He swallowed again. “Live-in,” he said finally. “A month. Maybe more.”

  “For live-in, it’s a thousand a week.” Her voice was pleasant, calm. She acted as if this was a perfectly reasonable request.

  He sat down on the kitchen stool. He had no vacation pay, no sick days left. He had known his insurance wouldn’t cover a baby nurse, but he hadn’t thought it would be this expensive. But he had the money they had banked for him to stay out. He’d have to use that, he’d have to not think ahead. “All right.”

  “And the nurse usually gets her own room.”

  “All right.” They had a spare room with a small bed already in it.

  “What kind of a nurse are you looking for?”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Strict, easygoing, a Dr. Spock or a Dr. Brazelton—”

  Gary felt something cramping up along his spine. He had spent most of Molly’s pregnancy reading baby books, but now he couldn’t remember which doctor was which. “I don’t know—” His mouth felt scratchy, dry. “A good one,” he said finally. “I need a good nurse.”

  There was another clip of silence. “A good nurse,” Mrs. Teasdale repeated slowly. “All right. I’ll tell you what. It’s very short notice, but we do have one woman I can send over tomorrow for you to meet. She’s very good. Very experienced. Her name is Gerta Simmons. You talk with her and then you decide. If you don’t like her, I’m sure we can find you someone else. How will that be?”

  “All right. But I need to be at the hospital by noon at the latest. Can the nurse come early?”

  “Is tomorrow at nine all right?”

  He cleaned the house. It seemed important that the nurse didn’t think he was sloppy or uncaring. He dusted and mopped and vacuumed, and for a while, the mindless action soothed him, lulled him into not thinking about anything more than the dust sparkling under the bed, the grime layered under the toaster oven. He swept the spare room, straightened books and papers, and as soon as he was through, the clean house filled him with despair because it didn’t look as if people lived in it anymore.

  Otis’s room was spotless. He looked at the daybed by the window, at the new soft blue quilt Molly had special-ordered, and it hurt so much to see it that he bent and swept it from the bed. He stuffed it into the laundry closet.

  Gerta Simmons, he thought. He had no idea what a name like that might produce, and he didn’t really care, only that it was someone who might be warm and efficient and caring, someone who might know all the shortcuts he didn’t. It was funny. Molly and he had planned for three people to be in this house, only now it seemed like it was going to be the wrong three.

  He ran out and bought a small coffee cake from Swenson’s Bakery. He bought freshly ground coffee and tea. And then he came home and showered. He dressed in a clean shirt and jeans. He combed his hair as neatly as he could and then he waited to make a good impression on Gerta Simmons.

  At ten-fifteen, the doorbell rang. She was late. He stood in the center of the living room for a moment, and then strode to the door and opened it. Here we go, he thought. To his surprise, Gerta was much older than he expected. Sixty, he thought. Maybe even sixty-five. She was trim and wiry, with a small foxlike face. Her hair was snow-white and clipped so short and straight, it seemed starched to her head. It was still warm outside, but she was bundled into a floor-length white coat. Her skin was so pale she looked as if someone had taken a gum eraser to her. She wore tan stud earrings, small as freckles. “Gerta Simmons,” she said in a clipped voice. She had a faint German accent. “How do you do?”

  He let her in. She stamped her feet on the rubber welcome mat outside the door. She unbuttoned her coat, handing it to him carefully. She was wearing a starchy white uniform, which startled him. She looked around the room, her gaze measured, and then back at him. “Well,” she said. “They told me the baby isn’t here yet. They told me about your wife. I’m sorry.”

  She sat opposite him on the couch, her hands folded in her lap.

  “Would you like some coffee cake?”

  She gave him a queer look.

  “Tea? I have coffee? Water?” He felt like a fool.

  “It’s not necessary.” She shook her head, and he sat back down on the sofa.

  She riffled in her purse and handed him a thick envelope. “References,” she said. “All of them good.” He glanced at the first page, a line of print jumping out at him. Never in my life have I met anyone as wonderful and as caring as—

  He blinked up at her. “I came to America from Germany twenty years ago when I got married to an American,” she told him. “I have been tending babies since I was sixteen. I know them. I talk to them. I understand them.” She leaned forward. “And they understand me.”

  Gary nodded. She was looking around the room again. He remembered something Mrs. Teasdale had said. “Do you favor Dr. Spock or Dr. Brazelton?”

  “I favor Gerta Simmons. I believe in schedules and a firm, clear tone. I would never hit a child or raise my voice. I keep a notebook telling you when each feeding is, when each diaper change, and what was in it. And, very important, I know baby CPR and get recertified in it each and every year. Your child will be safe with me.”

  “That all sounds fine—”

  “I have to have my own room,” she announced. “And a decent bed with a firm mattress.”

  “Of course.”

  She seemed to relax a little. The silence wheeled around them.

  “I tended triplets my last job,” she said. “The family wanted me to stay but I don’t like to stay too long because you get too attached to the babies and that’s not good for anybody, is it? You don’t want to spend your life missing people.”

  Gary flinched.

  “I know you must worry about your wife. But now you don’t have to worry about the baby.” She was so sure and calm and still, he felt suddenly relaxed. There was no real reason for him to, but he trusted her.

  “When can you start?”

  Gena smiled for the
first time since she had entered his home, her mouth a semicircle of pink, her teeth small and even as corn Niblets. “Tomorrow afternoon.”

  Bringing Otis home alone was the hardest thing Gary had ever done. It was nothing like the way he and Molly had planned, the way he had imagined and thought about and wondered over. The pint-sized polka-dot onesie, the matching hat and booties they had bought as a homecoming outfit, was still tucked in Molly’s hospital suitcase. He couldn’t bring himself to get it. So he pulled something out of Otis’s drawer instead: a second choice, a yellow coverall with a tiny hood.

  He had always planned to bring a video camera, to film Molly dressing the baby, Molly carrying Otis to the car and into his car seat for the first time. The instant camera was loaded with color film. He had bought a brand-new video camera and read the manual cover to cover. He left both cameras at home.

  He spent all morning at Molly’s bedside, watching her chest rise and fall, watching the lighted numbers change on her monitors. He talked to her in a loud strong voice, as if she could hear him, as if things were normal. “I’m taking Otis home today.” He watched her, half expecting her to stir, to wake, to stay his hand and tell him, “Oh, no, wait, you can’t do it without me—” But she stayed motionless.

  “Gerta seems fine,” he told her. “You’ll see for yourself.” He stayed, holding her hand, and then at noon, he bent and kissed her good-bye. He stopped being cheery. “I’m so sorry,” he said, and then he went to the nursery, Otis’s change of clothing balled in one hand.

  There was a nurse there he didn’t recognize, but to his surprise, she seemed to know him. She waved vigorously. “So today’s the day, is it? You’re taking our Otis?”

  The nurse grinned. She was tall and pretty. She had a wide gold band on her finger, and he thought: She’s happy. She has a husband. Maybe a family. Maybe the only thing she worries about is whether or not she’ll get a refund at tax time.