by Dan Dillard
“Honey, I wish I could be there with you. You let me know and Stephanie and I will be right there.”
“I know, Mom. I need you there, with Steph. She’s too young for all this tension. It’s so horrible in here. Everyone is on edge, praying. So many sick people.”
“It’s a hospital, dear. Tabby’s procedure is common, I’m sure she’ll be fine,” his mother said in her best soothing tone. “And don’t count this little girl out. Children are much tougher than you give them credit.”
She was right on both counts. Children were tough, and Tabby’s surgery was common. “A ninety-five percent chance of survival,” is what the surgeon told them during the consultation. “But you never know for sure until you get in there so we can’t guarantee anything,” he also said. Ray wanted a guarantee. He wanted the hospital, the doctor, the staff to be responsible for his wife, for her life, for her well-being. Do no harm, right? That was their schtick. Then they schtuck you with the bill and drove their Mercedes to the golf course.
The door that led to the operating rooms buzzed and clicked open and the surgeon walked through them. The man looked through the waiting area for someone. Ray hoped it was for him. Waiting to wait was painful, and he wanted to get things over and done with. He wanted to get on to the healing part.
“I know, mom. Hey, I see the doctor. I’ll call you as soon as I know anything. And thanks,” Ray said.
“No thanks necessary. Okay honey. I love you,” his mother said.
“Love you too. Hug that little girl for me.”
“I will.”
He pocketed the tiny smart phone and approached the doctor, who looked at him with vague recognition and then smiled. A hand was extended for Ray to shake, but he just looked at it. It was an alien thing sticking out in the air. A thing which would be inside his wife’s body in the next few minutes and Ray was terrified to touch it. The doctor put his hand down at his side.
“She’s done with prep and ready to go in to surgery,” Dr. James Babbit said. He wore light blue scrubs, disposable shoe covers and a tie-back cap on his head. Ray stood silent, listening intently. Watching the doctor’s intense eyes. “I’m on my way in to scrub up and we’ll get started. The procedure usually takes between thirty and forty-five minutes.”
Ray checked his watch. “Is that all?” His eyes darted from the watch to the doctor to the doors that led into surgery and back, starting all over again.
“Relax, Mr. Noonan. This is routine. I’ve done over two thousand of these procedures.”
Ray let out a nervous sigh, glad for a bit of relief.
Dr. Babbit held the hand out again for him to shake. “I’ll take good care of her. You should be able to see her in just a couple hours. Home tomorrow if all goes as planned.”
“Thanks, Doc. I’m just nervous.” Ray reluctantly touched the alien hand. He gave it the fish grip, something he always hated when he was on the receiving end, but there he was providing the limp handshake. He had no strength to squeeze and was afraid to squeeze.
“Do you have any other family here?”
“No. Her parents are by the phone, but they live twenty-five hundred miles away. My mother is home with our four year old. It’s just me here. We’ve got loads of support though, emails, phone calls. She has a lot of friends.”
Dr. Babbit smiled. “Good. You can never have enough good thoughts. Hey, the chapel is right through the door there, if you’d like to use it.”
Ray looked in the direction of Dr. Babbit’s pointing finger. “Thanks. I might do that.”
The doctor nodded, smiling in a positive way. He patted Ray on the shoulder and was about to get to work. “Do you have any questions, Mr. Noonan?”
Ray hesitated before asking the question. Did he have questions? He did, but did he want to ask any of them? Did he want to know the answers? Then the words were on his lips. He couldn’t help himself. “Have you ever lost a patient to gallbladder surgery? Be honest.” His stomach rolled and he felt himself turning pale as soon as he said it.
“I’m always honest, Mr. Noonan. I have lost fourteen patients to this type of procedure, but they were either elderly and weak or they came in as emergency cases. It is a very safe operation and your wife is in fine health. I am required to tell you that there’s always that unforeseen possibility.”
Possiblity. Ray worked with numbers. He did marketing. It was all possibilities, but he knew how often optimism was rewarded with disappointment. “Fourteen people?”
“That’s less than one percent. Now, I think we say ninety-five percent overall. All doctors and all cases tracked and that number is rising with new discoveries and new technology.”
Ray frowned and his arms crossed his chest, hands finding elbows.
“Mr. Noonan, I hate statistics. That’s why I don’t like to discuss them. Those folks that I lost on the table were all my patients. They were people. We did the best we could with each one of them, and we’ll do our very best to take care of your wife, Tabitha.”
“Tabby,” Ray said.
“Tabby. She is in the best hands. My staff is top notch.”
Ray considered the explanation and it did make him feel a little better. Even if it was a canned explanation and this Dr. Babbit was reciting them like a sales pitch. Something still nagged at him. “Thank you.” Ray’s voice wavered and he felt tears straining to spill over his lower eyelids.
“Mr. Noonan? I will do my best and I’m very good at my job.”
“I just don’t want her to suffer. I mean, God forbid something should go wrong…I just want to make sure she doesn’t suffer.”
Babbit smiled. It was warm and natural looking. He was warm and natural looking, even a little goofy with his hair tucked underneath that sky blue scrub hat. “Of course. Hey, we’ll be done before you know it. Please, talk to your friends and family, visit the chapel. She’ll be in recovery and you two will be home before dinner with that little girl.”
Ray smiled weakly and watched as Dr. Babbit disappeared behind the automatic doors to the operating room area. He took a seat in one of the uncomfortable chairs and thumbed through a magazine. When he reached the end, he looked around. A young woman cried in her husband’s arms on the other side of the room. The husband comforted her as best he could, rubbing her golden hair with the hand of a manual laborer. Tears crested his lower lids and his chest quaked as he cried along with his wife. Ray looked away, finding another couple, older, sitting with a young woman as a nurse gave them good news. The family breathed a collective sigh of relief and smiles beamed. He focused on them as long as he could.
He flipped through emails and texts, answering many of them with the same words, She’s in surgery, should take forty-five minutes, I’ll update when I know something. He had typed the phrase a dozen or more times when he realized someone was calling him from the waiting area.
“Mr. Noonan?”
He looked up to see an attractive nurse with Asian features, looking around the area. She wore pink scrubs and had her hair in a bun, tucked away inside matching cap. A disposable mask hung around her neck and she carried a clipboard.
“Mr. Noonan?” she said again.
He stood and held up his hand. “I’m Ray Noonan.”
The nurse approached him, but her lovely face held no comfort.
“Sir, my name is Colleen. I wanted to let you know there has been a complication with your wife’s cholecystectomy. We tried to use laparoscopy, but her case is more complicated and the doctor has to open her up so he can better see what he is doing.”
His palms became sweaty and he sat down. The world around them seemed to blur and all he could see was the nurse’s face. She put a hand on his shoulder.
“Is she alright?” Ray asked.
Her hand didn’t provide any comfort, but merely kept him in the real world. “Her body is under a lot of stress, but she is stable at this point. Dr. Babbit wanted me to update you because the procedure will take a bit longer than originally thoug
ht.”
Ray winced. “Open her up?” The words were terrible, heartless. Hell, they weren’t even clinical.
“Yes sir. The opening will be about twenty centimeters across.” She held her fingers up to show him the approximate size. “This will require a longer recovery, and an overnight stay, Mr. Noonan, should you need to make some arrangements with work or family. We’re taking care of her, sir,” Colleen said, smiling in a clinical fashion.
“Oh. Okay.”
“I will need your signature here because we are changing the procedure from laparoscopy to open.”
He scrawled his name on the line to the right of her finger.
“Thank you,” she said. “Let me go and get the team back to work, then.”
“Uh huh.” He couldn’t say anything else. He wanted to smash Colleen’s pretty jaw for delivering the words in such an evening-news fashion, for saying these horrible things without as much as an ounce of compassion.
Ray called his mother to explain. “She’s having some sort of problem, Mom, and they have to make a larger incision. I swear the nurse said it would be eight inches.”
“Good Lord,” his mother said. “I’m sure it will be alright. She’s young. Tabby’s a strong woman.”
“I know, but this was supposed to be so simple. Can I speak to Stephanie?”
“She’s sleeping, but I’ll wake her, give me a min…”
“No, no,” he interrupted. “Don’t wake her. And don’t tell her anything’s wrong. I just wanted you to know, because I’ll have to stay here with her tonight and maybe tomorrow as well. You ladies should be able to come see her once she’s in recovery.”
“I’ll be there as soon as you say. It’s only a fifteen minute drive,” his mother said.
“I’ll let you know when she’s in recovery, Mom. Get some rest.”
“You too, baby.”
He flipped through the email list again. “Mom?”
“Yes, Raymond?”
“Would you send out an update to the rest of the family? I can’t concentrate.”
“I will. You focus on what’s important.”
“I’m going to the chapel. I’ll call you later.”
“That’s an excellent idea.”
He hung the phone up, stood on weak legs and walked to the chapel. It was a quiet room, covered in dark wood and flowers. A stained glass window cast multicolored light on the unremarkable podium. No one else was there. Ray knelt in the front and crossed himself.
“Father, give Tabitha the strength she needs. I would gladly take her place, take her pain. That child needs her mother and so do I. I humbly ask for her to come through this and be healthy.”
Tears leaked from his eyes as he stood up. He sat on the front pew and stared at the stained glass. It was an abstract image, resembling a star, bright white in the middle and fading out into a dark blue field. He sat there for several minutes when there was a tap on his shoulder.
“Mr. Noonan?”
He turned to see Dr. Babbit. His face was stern, not relaxed like before. There was a small smudge of blood on the shoulder of his scrubs. Tabby’s blood. It had to be. Ray couldn’t stop staring at it. It was still bright, still fresh, red and alive. In his mind, the cells were darting around inside that drop searching for their heart so they could be pumped around again on the long, redundant ride. At least he hoped it was long. The doctor began to speak and Ray Noonan’s world turned into a droning hum. The words coming from the doctor’s mouth changed Ray’s life forever, changed his daughter’s life forever. He slid from the wooden pew to his knees and then collapsed into a pile on the floor. Tabby was dead.
There was a swirl of staff surrounding him, checking his vitals and offering him water or a soda.
“I have to see her. I have to see her. What do I tell Stephanie?” he muttered, over and over, struggling to speak through his sobs.
He was then ushered to another room, a private office where he sat across the desk from a counselor named Robert who had a self-assured smirk on his face. Ray hated that smirk. Robert offered him coffee.
“No.”
“Would you like some water? A soda maybe?”
“No, I don’t want a fucking drink. I need to see my wife.”
Robert paused and his smirk twisted downward. It wasn’t quite a frown, but Ray found it satisfying in the moment. “I understand, Mr. Noonan. And you will very soon, but we need to give them time to prepare her.”
He looked at Robert with hatred. “Prepare her? She was fine two hours ago. A little discomfort, but alive. What are they preparing her for now?”
“I understand you are upset, sir.”
“You don’t understand shit. Not a goddamned thing.”
“Mr. Noonan, is there anyone I can contact for you? Anyone you can call to help you through this?”
“I have to tell my four-year-old daughter. Can you tell me how to do that?”
Robert frowned at that. “I can tell you honesty is important and it will help with the grieving in the long run. How you explain it to her is something you might want to discuss with your church. They can help in trying times. Would you like for me to contact your church or the hospital chaplain?”
Church. Hadn’t he been praying when the doctor came to deliver the news? Hadn’t God just stood him up at the altar?
“No, thank you. God and I aren’t on the best of terms at the moment.” Ray stood up and left the room, headed to the waiting area. He made a scene at the nurse’s station asking to see his wife and was escorted back to a private office. Then he was escorted to a place where he could see Tabby. She had been cleaned and her wound dressed and covered. That morning, she was lovely, even with her hair in a simple ponytail and no makeup. Even with the hint of concern in her face, she was lovely. He couldn’t stop staring at her as they sat waiting for her to go into prep. As she filled out the last bits of paperwork. As she laughed and told him not to worry, but to prepare himself for doing all the housework for a week or so. He had promised he would.
He cried and kissed her lifeless mouth and rubbed her hair.
“I love you. I didn’t tell you enough, but I do. I love you so much,” he said.
After fifteen minutes, he was out in the hallway again, stunned and exhausted. Then his phone buzzed in his pocket. It was his mother, calling from the house.
“Mom?” he said, sobbing.
“Oh God, Raymond, did something happen?”
“Mom,” he repeated, unable to put any other words together.
“Raymond. You tell me what happened. Do you need me there? Honey?”
“Mom, she’s gone.” He muttered something about complications, something about unpredictable reactions, jargon he regurgitated from the doctor-speak. His mother gasped and cried. “Please don’t tell Stephanie. I want to be there for her,” Ray said.
“I won’t. Oh Lord, that poor sweet baby. What about Tabby’s parents?”
“Can you tell them?”
“I will. I’ll call them right now.”
“What am I going to say to Stephanie?”
“We’ll figure it out, honey.”
There was more paperwork, then a shuttle to take him home because he was in no shape to drive. He walked in the house after 10:00 pm. His mother stood in the front entry waiting on him. She hugged him like he was that little boy with a skinned knee.
“I don’t know what to say, Raymond. Tabitha is with loved ones, she’s in a better place and you’ll see her again one day.”
“I don’t want comfort right now. I have to tell my child that her mother is dead. Nothing will make me feel better about that.”
His mother covered her mouth with a liver-spotted hand. She reached that same hand out to him as he passed her, walking slowly up the carpeted staircase.
A joyful, “Hi Daddy!” was followed by a terrible silence. Mrs. Noonan watched up the stairs, waiting for the terrible silence to end. When the loud sobs came, she grabbed the handrail and rushed to her son an
d granddaughter’s sides.
Stephanie clung to her father, one hand dragging a stuffed monkey, named Bananas, as he carried her, pacing across her bedroom.
“Hi Grandma,” Stephanie said, crying. “Mommy is in heaven.”
“I know angel. Your momma is watching you right now, and she still loves you, just like she always did.”
The little girl buried her head into the crook of her father’s neck and cried. He bounced her the way he had when she was an infant. When he could no longer stand, he sat on her bed and rocked her and when she fell asleep, he curled up next to her and watched the ceiling. At midnight, Mrs. Noonan poked her head in to check on them.
“I’m not sleeping,” Ray said.
“Would you like me to fix you something?”
“Whiskey?” he said.
His mother, who had never been a big drinker and had frowned upon his own occasional drinking in the past said, “I’ll pour. I could use one myself. She asleep?”
“Yes. Has been. She looks just like her. Smells just like her.”
“She’s a perfect angel, son. Just like her mother. You were blessed to have the time you did together.”
Ray sat up and carefully stood so as not to wake the little girl. He smiled at his mother and put an arm around her. She hugged him tightly.
“Her mom and dad are on their way. They found a flight out of San Francisco that leaves any minute now. They should be here by morning.”
“I should have called them,” he said.
“I took care of it, like you asked.”
“I know, but I should’ve followed up. I should’ve…”
“You were right where you should have been. That baby needs you more than she ever has, or ever will, right now.”
He nodded, taking one last glance at Stephanie before heading down the steps to the kitchen. His mother poured two fingers of brown liquor into a juice glass and handed it to him. He swallowed half of it. Then she poured herself one and sat across the table from him.
“Your father was so much better at being strong for the family. I thought my world was crashing down when he died, but you were there, you and Tabby. Then that precious baby upstairs, Ray. We’ll get through this.”
“Dad used to bring you flowers all the time.”
“He said he’d keep me in fresh flowers while I was alive. He didn’t like graveyards, said he wasn’t going to go visit any old box of bones with a marble marker.”
