Unsung Lullaby

by Josi S. Kilpack

  He wanted to forget about his appointment for the paternity test, to put it off for a week, or a month, or a year. But he knew he needed to get it over with. Maybe then he could focus on accepting what had happened.

  The lab was located in downtown Salt Lake, not far from his office. The waiting room was decorated with pink streamers and heart cutouts stuck to the wall, reminding him that it was Valentine’s Day. How perfectly awful that he should be submitting to this test, behind his wife’s back, while she recovered from surgery, on the holiday of love and romance. Some other hopeful couple had likely already taken the appointment Matt and Maddie had scheduled with Dr. Lawrence for this afternoon. They probably thought it was a good omen to have gotten in so easy.

  As the blood was drawn from his arm, Matt reflected on what lay ahead. For more than a week he’d put off telling Maddie about the paternity test, and he couldn’t tell her the truth now. He couldn’t imagine when or if he ever could.

  “How long until we know the results?” he asked a minute later as the attendant taped the cotton ball on his arm. He’d watched enough CSI to believe it could be fast, but he was smart enough to know that TV shows couldn’t always be trusted. The shame cut deeply, and he wanted to run away and never see these people again—but he needed answers first.

  “This is actually part of a series of tests and has to be done in a specific, court-approved lab. The sample will be going back to . . . New Jersey,” she said, reading the paperwork. “About three weeks.” She smiled, and it seemed odd that she didn’t understand the magnitude of this in his life.

  “How do I find out the results?” he asked.

  “You’ll want to ask whoever ordered the test. I don’t know those details.” She handed him a paper. “Here’s your receipt,” she said. “For your records.”

  Records, he echoed in his mind. Just the family history he wanted to keep around. He crumpled the paper and shoved it in the pocket of his jeans. He felt sick and exhausted and drowning in guilt and regret.

  When he returned to the hospital, Maddie was asleep. It shamed him even further to be glad he didn’t have to try to comfort her again.

  “Did you get your work done?” Trisha asked, standing up from the chair beside her daughter’s bed.

  What a loaded question. “Uh . . . yeah,” he said, taking Maddie’s hand and wanting to plead for forgiveness right there on the spot. “Thanks for staying with her.”

  “Sure,” Trisha said. For a few moments she watched him. “Are you okay?”

  “I don’t know how we’re going to get through this one,” he replied. He felt numb by everything and hadn’t the first clue how to move forward.

  “But you will,” Trisha said with a nod. Matt looked at her, surprised to realize she believed her own words. Their whole lives were built around the family they wanted to have. How could she be so sure they would get over that? And she didn’t know that Matt might have a child. The thought made him sick all over again. He could have a child he didn’t know—let alone want to have anything to do with—and Maddie was barren. What a pretty family picture that would make.

  The two waited for another half an hour, but Maddie was still out.

  “Why don’t you go home and take a shower?” Trisha offered. “I can stay longer. She was lucid for a little while this morning, and I’d like to wait for her to wake up again, see if she needs to talk or cry or whatever.”

  Matt didn’t care about the shower as much as he wanted to get away from there. He needed to sort things out, though he didn’t think he would ever find the peace he wanted. “I haven’t had one since this started,” he said.

  “Then go,” Trisha said with a smile. “Take a nap if you need to. I’ll be here until you get back. Your parents called a little while ago. They’re coming this evening.”

  Matt thanked his mother-in-law, went home, and threw his coat over a kitchen chair. The apartment was so quiet, so sad. He turned on the shower and stood under the hot water for a long time. Life suddenly felt like play dough, only it wasn’t his hands forming it into shapes. He felt out of control and without direction. He tried to think about tomorrow, next week, next month, but it was like an endless blank canvas. Somehow he had to become strong enough to support his wife through this while preparing himself for what might be the greatest challenge of all. He had no idea where to start.

  ****

  When Matt returned to the hospital Monday night, after his shower and failed attempt to take a nap, he recognized a familiar face—well, a familiar head. Maddie’s older brother, Kim’s husband, had shaved his head years earlier when the first signs of male pattern baldness had begun. He had a tendency to stand out.

  “Allen,” Matt called out from twenty yards away.

  Allen turned, smiling recognition with that sad, hesitant smile Matt was getting used to. Matt caught up and they headed for Maddie’s room together.

  “I’m glad you’re back,” Allen said. “Maddie’s been waiting for you. She wants a blessing. I thought I’d hang around long enough to assist.”

  Matt stopped. It took a step for Allen to realize it, then he stopped too. He had to turn around to face Matt. “She wants me to give her a blessing?” Matt asked with a lump in his throat.

  “Uh, yeah, you’re her husband,” Allen said with deep curiosity in his voice.

  What do I do? Matt asked in his mind. Of course he wanted to give her a blessing, but he’d just given blood for a paternity test his wife knew nothing about. Whether he was worthy in God’s eyes wasn’t the issue as much as whether he was worthy in his wife’s eyes. If she knew, he was certain she would not feel he was in any position to give her a priesthood blessing.

  “What’s up, Matt?” Allen asked, and Matt recognized the tone right away. Allen was a psychiatrist, and he’d mastered the even, uncalculated tone years ago. It was the tone that made his patients feel safe. But his patients weren’t married to his sister.

  “Uh . . . is anyone else here?” Matt asked, shoving his hands deep into his pockets and looking at the floor. “I mean, who could assist you in the blessing?”

  Allen looked at him long enough to double Matt’s discomfort, something that, given the day’s events, Matt would have thought impossible to do.

  “Your wife needs you in this. I know it’s hard, that you have peace to make with this thing, but she needs your guidance. Especially now.”

  Matt looked up after a few more moments of silence. “I can’t do it, Allen.” He wanted his voice to sound strong, but it sounded scared.

  “You’re her husband. This is why you have the priesthood—to bless your family.”

  Matt closed his eyes and raked a hand through his hair. “Allen,” he said with frustration. “You’re right—I need to make peace with things, but I haven’t yet. I can’t give her a blessing.”

  “Maybe you need a blessing too,” Allen finally said. Matt looked down and shook his head even though he knew Allen was right. If he’d ever needed comfort and direction it was now, but the fear of what might be said was more than enough reason to resist. Allen let out a breath. “Will you at least assist me with Maddie’s blessing?”

  Again Matt shook his head. Allen placed a sympathetic hand on Matt’s shoulder, but didn’t say another word. After a few seconds, he turned and went into Maddie’s room. Matt went the other direction and hid in a waiting room for over an hour. No one came to find him—not that they knew where he was anyway—and he spent the time with his head in his hands reliving all the moments leading up to this one.

  When he returned to Maddie’s room, she was asleep, and only her mother was in the room with her. Trisha put a finger to her lips and ushered him back outside.

  “We missed you for the blessing,” she said, but Matt didn’t detect any suspicion in her tone. “It was beautiful.”

  Matt nodded. He wondered how Allen had explained his absence and who had assisted in the blessing—though he assumed that Dale, Maddie’s dad, had come. Trisha continued, “They
gave her a sleeping pill, and she’ll probably be out all night. I was just about to leave.”

  “I’ll stay,” he said. He made to move past his mother-in-law, but she put a hand on his arm and held him back. “The blessing promised her strength to weather what was ahead, if she would support you and stay close to the Lord. I hope when the newness of all this wears off, she’ll remember that.”

  Matt held back the tears and nodded. He hoped she’d remember it too. “Thanks for staying. I’m sorry I wasn’t here for the blessing.”

  “We all grieve in our own way,” Trisha said, patting his hand. “Your parents want you to call them when you get a minute.”

  She left a few minutes later, and Matt sat in the chair watching Maddie sleep for hours. He didn’t call his parents back, not wanting to talk to anyone. Around midnight Maddie seemed restless, turning her head back and forth on the pillow, and moments later he found himself hurrying down the hall. The fear of facing her was too much. Once again he was running away. What a man he’d turned out to be.

  Chapter 14

  Hi, Mom,” Walter said, bounding through the front door as the bus drove away. He was in third grade at Twin Lakes Elementary School and took the bus since they lived almost five miles out of town.

  Sonja was at the kitchen table, reading legal papers and fighting a headache. She waved him away, but he stood there with a huge grin on his face.

  “What?” she asked a few seconds later. She’d slept until noon, but last night’s hangover was a stubborn one and she wasn’t feeling well.

  His smiled faded, and he finally shrugged and went into his room. At least he wasn’t playing that annoying video game. The noise drove her crazy, and she was tired of him complaining when she made him turn the sound off. Walter didn’t come out until Anna’s bus pulled up a half hour later—her high school was in Navajo city, forty miles away. Walter ran to the front door and opened it, waiting at the threshold. Sonja looked at him and shook her head. It drove her crazy how much Anna babied him.

  Sonja went back to the papers, aggravated that so much made no sense at all. She looked up again when she heard Anna singing happy birthday—the Navajo version of the white man’s song. Walter’s back was to Sonja, but she could tell he was smiling again. His birthday. How did she forget? She clenched her teeth in annoyance. Anna reached the door and gave Walter a big hug.

  “Did you have a good birthday?” Anna asked. She went to the small fridge that was as old as the trailer and pulled out some beans she’d been soaking overnight. Sonja watched her sister and felt the familiar but unwelcome envy well within herself. Few people believed they were sisters—half-sisters, actually. Anna’s skin was lighter than Sonja’s because Anna’s dad was Anglo. It made her look much more like Walter; they could have been siblings. Anna was sweet and demure, studious, and she believed in the stupid Navajo traditions. She was also young—a sin that was growing in its power the older Sonja got. Sonja would give anything to be young again, to have her life back. But instead she was stuck here with her son and kid sister. Sonja had realized it was time to find a job again since the child support still wasn’t coming in and the BIA money didn’t cover the expenses. That didn’t better her mood any.

  “I had a real fun day,” Walter said with a huge grin. “My class made me cards, and I got to choose the game we played at break.”

  “I’m glad. I got something for you too,” Anna said. “But you can’t open it until after cake.”

  “You made me a cake?” Walter yelled.

  “I’m about to,” she said. Sonja kept reading—choosing to ignore them since they were doing their best to ignore her. The long words in the documents were making her head spin. She lit a cigarette in hopes it would improve her mood.

  Anna did make a cake, and they had a traditional Navajo dinner of fried bread with beans. Afterward, Anna gave Walter a new backpack with Spiderman on it.

  “Wow, cool!” he said, putting it on. “What did you get me, Mom?”

  Anna turned to look at Sonja, and Sonja resisted wiping the accusatory look off her face. “I got you that Game Cube last month,” Sonja said with a shrug.

  “I thought that was to celebrate his new daddy,” Anna said. Then she quickly got up and went to the sink, avoiding the slap she must have sensed was coming.

  “It was both,” Sonja said with a look that told them not to push it. She didn’t have to put up with this. She stood up from the table, stuffing the papers back into the folder they had come in. “I’m going out. I’ll be back. Probably tomorrow.”

  They didn’t say a word, and she fumed about their ingratitude all the way to Gallup—until she found peace at the bottom of a shot glass.

  Chapter 15

  It was three days before Maddie was released from the hospital. Their fourth wedding anniversary, two days after Valentine’s Day, went by with only a bouquet of daisies blending with the other flowers well-wishers had sent. They didn’t talk about the four years they had spent together or the lifetime ahead. Matt didn’t even buy a card. He knew Maddie wouldn’t care. With the loss of her only ovary, she’d been forced into what the doctor called surgical menopause and had started hormone replacement therapy in hopes of avoiding the side effects of no longer having her own estrogen production. It was one more daily reminder of all she’d lost. The tension was high and the sadness overwhelming. Forcing a celebration was the last thing on their minds.

  She came home on Thursday and spent the next four days sleeping and watching TV. Matt hovered over her, desperate to help in any way he could. After two days, she asked him to give her space. How could he say no? Her mother came every day, and Kim stopped in a few times, but Maddie wasn’t much up for visitors. She seemed to have locked herself into her sadness and didn’t want anyone to try to rescue her from it.

  Matt went back to work the following Monday, grateful for the distraction but hoping that Maddie would be okay alone. He wanted to be there for her, to be everything she needed, but the secrets were overwhelming. She seemed unable or unwilling to let him help her anyway. He accepted the condolences of his co-workers and was grateful for a week’s worth of work waiting on his desk. Anything to keep him from thinking about all the things going on outside the office.

  ****

  Maddie woke up hours after Matt had left for work and slowly walked into the kitchen. It would be her first day alone. She wandered, straightening up here and there, before deciding to take a shower. Her movements were careful, her head foggy from the pain medication, and her belly still throbbing. Maddie ran the shower and took off her clothes. She caught her own reflection in the bathroom mirror, and for a moment she stared at herself, studying the body that had let her down. A scripture came to mind: “The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.” It was very fitting. She’d ached and longed and wanted so badly to have a child, yet she was trapped—a willing spirit in a broken body.

  She ran a hand above the incision on her belly and faced the fact that it would never swell as her child grew within her. Her breasts would never nurse a baby. She would never have stretch marks; she would never give birth or try to lose the baby fat—all those things women bragged about in their complaints. She was a woman, her body was designed to reproduce, and yet it wouldn’t. It’s over, she said in her mind. Then she met the reflected Maddie’s eyes in the mirror and said it out loud. “It’s over.”

  The words seemed to bounce off the walls in the small room, echoing in her head. Reality descended like air being let out of a balloon. She hadn’t cried since those first few days in the hospital—she’d been too drugged, too empty, and too lost. But as she stepped into the shower, and the water ran over her head and face, the tears started to fall again. The pursuit of parenthood was over. Soon she was shaking from the sobbing and wondering what she would do with the rest of her life.

  She stayed in the shower until the water ran cold, then stepped out, got dressed in clean pajamas, and took her pain meds before lying down on the guest-room be
d. She’d told Matt she preferred to sleep in the guest room for a little while, so he didn’t wake her in the mornings, but mostly she needed the distance. Being around Matt made it harder, as if she had to digest all this for them both when she could barely take it in herself. She was glad he hadn’t fought her over where she slept—but she wished things were different. For all the progress they had made, things weren’t as they should be. They no longer shared the dream that had made them better. Still shivering from the icy shower, she pulled the blankets up to her chin and stared at the blank wall.

  Each failure thus far had been followed with a step sheet for the next phase. Another test, another treatment, months of savings before they started again. But there was no solution this time. There was no way around it or through it or past it. It was what it was. How long will it take before I get used to this? she wondered. Would she feel like this for weeks, months—years, maybe? Forever?

  As the tears rose once more, Allen’s blessing came back to her, bringing a glimmer of peace. She’d felt the Spirit that night, even through the layers of pain she’d been entrenched in. She knew he had spoken the words her Father in Heaven wanted her to hear. But she hadn’t been ready to listen. Now the words of the blessing spilled forth from the corner of her heart where they’d been waiting. The blessing told her how loved she was by her Heavenly Parents, her earthly parents, and her husband. She’d been told to cleave to him, to keep her heart close to his, and to let the Spirit guide them through the trials they faced. It had been a beautiful blessing. But she didn’t know how to apply it.