I loved that gift so much. I cried and threw my arms around Shay’s neck. I know that night he truly could feel my gratitude. I treasured that shingle more than any other gift he’d ever given me; it was a time I needed to know more than ever that he still loved me.
***
I was the primary care giver for Rie-Rie. I fed her, changed her and bathed her. I don’t remember many evenings that Shay went into Kelly’s room, where we had placed the crib, to tuck little Rie-Rie in the way he did the other two. I made a point to watch, as I didn’t want to ask him about something that was just my imagination. Oh, he would try to give her a graham cracker if she was in her high chair, or he’d pick up her toy if she knocked it on the floor. If I asked him to get her from her high chair and give her to me, he’d do that. I saw him play peek-a-boo with her at the table several times. But if we went somewhere with the kids, Shay always carried Wessy and held Kelly’s hand with his other hand.
One afternoon, Shay came in and ran upstairs to get his billfold. When he came down he said, “Your baby’s awake and standing up in her crib.”
“Shay Westover, you called her ‘my baby.’ Isn’t she our baby?” I snapped. “Why didn’t you just pick her up and bring her down?”
“Callie, let’s not hash that out all over again. You know I’m trying. I do love her; she’s a sweet little baby. But when I do pick her up, she always cries.”
“You know why she cries? She doesn’t know you! She doesn’t feel any warmth from you.” I regretted it right after saying it.
Shay gave me a disappointed look. “Now you know better than that, Callie. I would never do anything to hurt that child’s feelings, at least not on purpose.”
I think I disappointed him for even suggesting such a thing. I was overly sensitive about the baby.
***
Marie was ten months in April, but she was still tiny. She didn’t sleep well. I would put her down and in a few minutes she was awake and crying. This went on for several weeks.
“Callie, you’ve got her so spoiled by holding her all the time that now she just wants to be held all the time.”
“That’s not true,” I told him. “I pick her up because she cries so pathetically, I can’t stand to hear her sobs.”
“Well, she is going to get over that. A few nights of crying, as long as she’s dry and fed, will do her good. Then she’ll see you’re not going to come running and pick her up and hold her all night so she can sleep.”
“I won’t let her cry like that,” I said.
“Yes, you will, and it starts tonight. Just look at how tired you are, princess. The doctor says you’re anemic; you’ve been taking iron pills. Callie, you need some rest. Marie is wearing you out. Tonight, she learns a new routine. You go to sleep and I’ll stay awake to see that she knows no one is coming to her rescue. A couple of nights of that and I guarantee you, she’ll start sleeping through the night,” Shay said in his that’s-the-way-it’s-going-to-be voice.
I went to bed at 9:30, right after I put Rie-Rie down for the night. Shay came to bed at 10:00. One thing I loved about Shay, he never let any problems we were having outside the bedroom into the bedroom. He was as loving and sexy as usual. I told him that I thought maybe he was the reason I was so tired.
About forty-five minutes after I put Rie-Rie down, she was crying.
“Oh for gosh sake,” Shay said. “This has got to stop. I can’t even make love to you without that child interrupting.”
He got up and told me to go to sleep, saying he’d take care of it. I must have dropped off immediately; I was so exhausted. I woke up about 4:00 a.m. and Shay wasn’t in bed. I panicked—everything was so quiet. I got up and he wasn’t in the sitting room. I crossed the hall and went into the girls’ room, and there he was, asleep in the rocking chair, holding Marie up over his shoulder, cradling her neck with one hand, the other around her back. Big macho man, going to make the little baby cry all night so he could turn her schedule around, well he’d just been busted.
I gently took Marie out of his arms and laid her in her crib. Shay woke up and said quickly, “Don’t lay her down, Callie!”
“Why?”
“I don’t know, I just don’t know,” he said. “From what I’ve seen working with farm animals, it seems like when she lies down something’s hurting her. Maybe like a pressure or a pinched nerve, ’cause if you hold her up she settles down. Callie, you take her to the doctor tomorrow and see what he says. Tell him exactly what she does and how she acts. No need for her to lie down until we find out if she’s okay.”
So we took her to our bed and took turns holding her upright all night.
After Shay left to go out to work, I called the doctor and made the appointment. He got us in that morning, so Yonnie came over to babysit. They did lots of tests on Marie. The doctor could tell what I was talking about, because of the way she cried when he laid her on the table. Then he sent us over to the hospital for X-rays.
It was about 3:30 that afternoon when our doctor came in and told me the heart-wrenching news: Marie had a severe heart defect, a mass close to her heart. If she lay on her back, it pressed into her back, causing pain, if she lay on her stomach, it pressed into her stomach, causing pain.
“What can we do?” I asked.
“She needs open-heart surgery, Kathrine. I’ll be honest with you,” said Doc Sam, “the mass could be cancerous. The survival rate for this type of heart surgery is not good. They don’t even do it here in Hudson. It would have to be done in Lincoln. That is, if you decide to have it done.”
“What happens if she doesn’t have the surgery?”
“She’ll only live a few more months, Callie. I’m so sorry.” I could see his great concern, not only for Marie, but for me, as well.
I’d heard of people ‘going through the motions,’ but not really being there. Well, that’s what was happening to me. I took Marie and made it to my parents’, where I just let it all out. Mom called Maggie and asked her to have Shay come get us when he got home for the day. I was moving in slow motion. I was trying to comprehend what the doctor had just told me. He had pretty much said that either way our little Marie was going to die.
***
That evening, when Shay got there, my mother caught him up on what was happening. I truly saw a sad man. He was silent. He didn’t know what to say.
“Callie, what do you want to do? Do you want her to have the surgery?” Shay asked. “You’re not going to just give up on her, ’cause, woman, I’ve never seen you give up on anything in your life. You’re a fighter, a survivor. This is where that faith you have, Callie, comes into play, right here and now. Only you can make the decision.”
Shay walked me to the car with his arm around me, putting Marie and me gently into the front seat of the Impala to take us home. Someone would come get my car tomorrow. What a silent drive, with the exception of little Marie sitting on my lap making her chatting sounds in her little sweet baby lingo. She was talking to us. Tears ran down my face as I watched and listened to her.
I was amazed that it was Shay who realized something was wrong with Marie, after all the time I’d spent taking care of her. If I’d just taken her in for a check-up, they wouldn’t have found what Shay had discovered. Shay observed well. He was so good at figuring things out. If they hadn’t found the heart defect, and I’d have lost her at home, I would always have blamed myself. But Shay, he just knew something was wrong.
I spent the night up with Rie-Rie and made my decision. We were going to do the surgery, pray for a miracle, and put her in God’s hands. I called the doctor the next day and he scheduled the surgery for the next week. I had been anemic, but the iron pills had helped boost my blood count, and the doctor suggested I give a little less than a pint of my blood to be sent to Lincoln, just in case. I went into Hudson the next day and they took less than a pint. I don’t think I had much blood to give, but what was mine was Marie’s. I would have given her my heart, if it would have helped.
Mom came out the next day with her suitcase and said that she’d stay for a while. Maggie came over every day, and she also helped a lot. I don’t know how I’d have gotten through without their help. Shay scheduled with Sterling and the crew to be gone four days the next week. We left around 8:00 a.m. that Tuesday. If everything stayed on schedule, Marie would be having her surgery at 8:00 a.m. the next morning. When we left, I hugged Kelly and Wessy as if it were the end of the world. Both Mom and Maggie hugged me tight and said they’d be right there with us in spirit.
“Shay,” I said, as we drove out toward the highway. “See that empty spot there under that big oak tree? That’s where I want you to build Rie-Rie’s new swing set, so I can always see her out the window.”
“You got it, darlin’, but first I’m making her a big sand box so she can bring sand in on Mommy’s carpet,” he said with a forced cheery voice, putting his hand on top of her little head and tousling her reddish curls.
It was two and a half hours to Lincoln and every mile was torture. I was glad Shay knew his way around the town. I only knew the main area, from my days at Bette Bonne.
Shay checked us into a motel room before we headed for the hospital to check in our precious Marie. It was a long day. She had so much work done and she cried so hard and long, I couldn’t take it. The nurse finally told Shay that when they needed to do a test that was going to be hard for Marie, he should take me down to the cafeteria.
Surgery was going to be long and delicate. They said little Marie’s doctor from Hudson, Doc Sam, was coming to Lincoln to be there with us through the surgery tomorrow. Shay and I went to the motel at 9:00 that night. Shay ordered a burger, I told him I couldn’t eat.
“Callie,” said Shay, “If you don’t take care of yourself, how will you be well enough to take care of Rie-Rie?”
I ate a few bites of his burger, and tried to go to sleep.
We were at the hospital by 6:00 a.m. Shay and I got to hold Marie for a few minutes, and then it was time for her to be prepped and taken to the surgery room. We were escorted to the family room to begin our long and terrifying wait. Doc Sam had come all that way just to be with us. I was so happy he cared enough to be there. Doctors just had a different bedside manner back then, they got personally involved, and believe me, doctors, that’s a good thing.
We went down to the cafeteria for coffee and tea with Doc Sam. I wanted to pray at the table and our doctor prayed with us. Then the three of us headed back to the waiting room. We’d had ten and a half months with Marie. She was part of us, and we weren’t ready to give her up. After what seemed like forever, the surgeon came out. His face said it all.
“Mr. and Mrs. Westover, Marie made it through the surgery, but she has slipped into a coma and she is not going to survive. We did all we could. She may live twelve, maybe fifteen hours at the most. I’m so sorry.” He shook Shay’s hand and left.
I just let out a bloodcurdling scream. “No, no, not my baby, not my little girl. How can you do this to me, God? Do you hate me that much!” I sobbed as I sunk into a chair.
Shay tried to comfort me, but there was no comfort to be had. There was going to be no baby; where could I find comfort from that?
They said we could see her in ten-minute intervals each, every hour.
“What the hell?” Shay said to them. “We’re going to lose her anyway. What are you afraid of? That she’ll get germs?”
“Sir,” the nurse said, “it’s hospital policy.”
“Well, you can take your hospital policy and shove it,” Shay told her, as he opened the door and took me in to be with Rie-Rie.
***
I held her little hand, and I told her that Mommy and Daddy were there. I told her that she was getting the greatest honor in life, to go to heaven ahead of us and get things ready for all of us. I told her that some day we’d be there with her. I just kept kissing her.
She had several close calls through the night, but she made it through. The morning shift of nurses that came on were extremely strict, even threatening to have Shay removed from the hospital if he didn’t keep me outside of the room. I got the honor of watching my child through a glass window. They actually made us watch her from outside looking in through the glass. I wondered who made these stupid rules. We heard the buzzer, that horrid sound, as she started to flat-line; and then she was gone.
I had my hands on the window and I dug my nails into the glass as I sunk to the floor, sobbing, leaving smudge-trails from my fingers. Shay picked me up and asked our doctor to see if there was a room he could lay me down in for a while. By the time he got me to the room, I’d quit crying and become completely withdrawn. Shay sat there, holding me for several hours. I asked Shay if he’d call home and tell my mom and dad, Sterling and Maggie.
“Tell them not to tell Kelly and Wessy,” I said. I wanted to do that. Shay made all the arrangements for us to take her home with us. I was amazed to hear Shay say to the staff:
“You get all the paperwork done, all the requirements. We’re staying in Lincoln tonight and we’ll pick her up tomorrow. She’s our daughter, we brought her here and we’re taking her home.”
You couldn’t just transport a dead body without special papers, special procedures and preparations. I’d never thought about these things before, and I didn’t want to think about them now.
***
Shay helped me up so we could get out of there and go to the motel. We wanted to be anywhere but in the hospital. Our doctor said he’d like to talk to us both before we left.
“Kids,” said Doc Sam, “my heart is with you. You have suffered the greatest of losses and yet there is something I need to tell you. Kathrine,” he spoke slowly, “when you donated your blood for Marie, for surgery if the need arose, one thing came out of that: Kathrine, you are not Marie’s biological mother. The blood is absolutely a non-match.”
I guess I fainted. When I awoke, everything was blurry. Then I saw Shay and asked if I had dreamed that the doctor said I wasn’t Marie’s mother.
“No, you weren’t dreaming, Callie. You aren’t Marie’s mother,” said Shay. “Neither of us are her parents. We have someone else’s baby.”
I felt woozy again.
“Callie, I saw the results of the blood work, she’s not ours. She has a rare blood type. I couldn’t believe it!”
“Shay, this is a nightmare. We are living in a hellish nightmare!” I cried.
I slept that night because the doctor gave me a strong sedative. I awoke to the motel phone ringing. At that moment I didn’t remember that Marie was gone, it took a couple of seconds for it to crawl back into my mind. Shay reached over and answered the phone. I could tell he was talking to the mortuary. I just lay there, still in a daze. Was it a nightmare? Just listening to Shay’s side of the conversation, I knew everything had been real. After Shay hung up, he told me we needed to take some clothes for Marie to the mortuary for her to be buried in.
I wanted her to have something special, as special as she was. Shay and I found a little baby store and bought her a pink dress with a matching bonnet, pink anklets and little pink booties. Marie was so small she could still wear booties. She was ten months and weighed just under fifteen pounds. Martha and I each weighed a little over ten pounds at birth. Marie was just a tiny, precious gift from God.
“Do you want to get her a blanket, Callie?”
“Yes, something in a pale pink and white knit.”
We found a blanket, and then drove to the mortuary to drop off her little clothes.
“Are you going to be here until tomorrow?” the man asked.
“Ya know,” said Shay. “We’d really like to leave late this afternoon, can you handle everything by then?”
“We’ll have everything ready for you by four," they said. “Just come by.”
Shay and I went to lunch, but instead of jabbering away as I usually did, I just sat there, numb. What could either of us possibly have to say? We arrived at the mortuary at 4:00 to get little Rie-Ri
e.
God, how was Kelly going to understand? She was just four years old. I was twenty-five and didn’t understand. We went in and they had her ready for us to view. She was just a sleeping angel, just sleeping. She looked so beautiful, with some little reddish curls showing from the bonnet. Her little hand was wrapped like she was holding the edge of the blanket. I bent down and kissed her and touched her face. Shay touched her face and took hold of her little hand. Thank goodness Shay was there to hold me up. The one thing I didn’t do was cry. I had no tears left.
***
They closed the tiny coffin and gave Shay all the paperwork for the Hudson Funeral Home. One of the men carried the tiny coffin to the back of the car and waited for Shay to open the trunk.
Samson and Sunset Page 22
