Life and Other Inconveniences

by Higgins, Kristan

  The night slipped by, measured by contractions, by Ashley’s soft groans, her grip on his hand tightening and easing.

  When the transition came to the third stage of labor, they asked Ashley which position she preferred for pushing. She wanted to sit with her feet in the stirrups, and Miller stuck by her side like a burr. “You can do this, babe. You’re almost done.”

  “I better be,” she said, gritting her teeth.

  She’d been in labor for twenty hours. He had to wonder how she could keep going. How the baby was still okay, squished in there for almost an entire day.

  “One . . . two . . . three . . . ,” he said. “Doing great, honey. You’re amazing.”

  She pushed. And pushed. And pushed. Miller understood why women had babies, because he would’ve been a whimpering wreck begging for death by now. But his wife . . . she was otherworldly in her strength. An Amazon.

  Half hour. Forty-five minutes. An hour.

  Why was this taking so fucking long? How could the baby survive? He knew how, but it didn’t seem right.

  “You’re making great progress,” Dr. Dunn said. “I can see a little bit of the head. Reach down and touch your daughter, Ashley.”

  And so, before the baby was even out, Ashley became the first person to touch her. It would haunt him for the rest of his life. She looked up at Miller with an expression of such joy, such love and wonder, that he knew everything would be fine.

  He was wrong.

  She suddenly fell back on the bed. “I’m cold,” she said. “I’m freezing.” Another contraction gripped her and she tried to push again, but she was weaker this time.

  The nurse, Chelsea, got her a blanket, even though Ashley was covered in sweat.

  “You okay, babe?” he asked.

  “Fine.” Her eyes were too wide.

  She didn’t look fine. She was abruptly white. Her teeth were chattering, and her muscles were shaking.

  “Ash. Ashley,” he said. She didn’t answer. “Doc?” Miller said. “Is she okay?”

  “This is normal for the third stage,” the nurse said, glancing up from between Ashley’s legs. “Her muscles are in overdrive.”

  “Get . . . the baby . . . out,” Ashley said. “It hurts . . . a lot.” It was the first time she’d complained about anything.

  “A few more pushes, and you’ll have your girl. It’s a little late for an epidural,” the doctor said, looking between Ashley’s legs. “This baby will be out in five minutes. You’re almost there.” She glanced up. “You good, hon?”

  “Yep.” There was a grimness to her voice, but when she looked at him, Miller’s heart started a sick, rolling thump.

  “Doc,” he began.

  “Next contraction, I want you to bear down, the best push yet, sweetheart,” Dr. Dunn said, and Ashley did, hard. Her teeth were chattering, and her tremors had turned to almost violent shaking. This couldn’t be normal.

  “Almost there, honey,” Miller said. He felt like crying, and not with joy.

  Ashley nodded. Tried to take a deep breath and then coughed. It was a deep, nasty, evil sound.

  “Babe?” he said.

  Ashley’s eyes rolled back in her head, and she was suddenly limp. The monitors began to bleat.

  “Ashley?” the doctor asked. No, yelled.

  “Oh, shit,” the nurse said.

  Miller heard a wet splat. “Ashley? Honey?” She didn’t stir.

  “Ashley! Ashley! Wake up!” the doctor barked. “Fuck! Get a crash cart in here and call the NICU! Massive transfusion protocol, stat! She’s coding!”

  The words flew past in a blur, and terror bottomed out in his stomach. All he knew was that his wife was not awake. He pressed his forehead against hers. “Ashley,” he said. “Ash. Wake up! Wake up, honey, our baby’s almost here! Honey! Wake up!”

  Then someone was dragging him by the arm, pulling him away from her. “Stand here and don’t move,” the person said, and he stood alone in the corner, stunned as if he’d just been clubbed. There were so many people around Ashley, and everyone seemed to be yelling. The bed was lowered so she was flat, and they were ripping open her johnny coat.

  They were giving her chest compressions. Chest compressions! Miller’s mind went to a white roar of fear. There was so much noise, the monitors blaring, Dr. Dunn yelling things like “Suction, suction, where’s the transfusion team, goddamnit?”

  Was that blood? Was that a puddle of Ashley’s blood on the floor? What the fuck was happening?

  The doctor’s hands were in Ashley, pulling the baby out; how could they do that to her? They were going to tear her in half! “Is the tube in?” Dr. Dunn said. “If this is AFE, she’s got a probable PE.”

  “Ashley,” he said, but it came out weak, like a question.

  “Chelsea, push on her stomach or we’ll lose the baby, too,” Dr. Dunn said to the nurse, who was grim faced and way, way too rough.

  What did that mean, “lose the baby, too”?

  “Please,” he begged, out loud or silently. “Please, honey. Please. Please. Please.”

  A bluish, blood-soaked alien was pulled out of his wife and handed to a team of four or five people draped in gowns, who fled the room. Blood poured out of Ashley, and now a doctor was straddling her, pushing so hard on her chest Miller heard a pop and distantly realized a rib had just snapped.

  “Get the fuck off and shock her!” Dr. Dunn yelled.

  Was this really happening, or was this a dream? “Wake up,” he said, to himself and Ashley both. “Wake up now.”

  This was not how it was supposed to be. They had a tube in her mouth. “Doll’s eyes,” someone said, and yes, her eyes were sliding around the wrong way.

  Like she was dead. Like she wasn’t there anymore.

  Miller stood there, arms dangling like pieces of seaweed, useless and weak, at his side. “Ashley?” he said, more loudly this time.

  “Get the husband out of here,” someone said.

  “No,” he said. Or something. He said something.

  “You’re in the way,” a woman said. “We can help her better without you in the room. Your baby needs you.”

  “Please save her,” he whispered.

  “We’re doing everything we can,” she said, and her eyes were kind and sad.

  Then a different person—a man this time, wearing a uniform. There were so many people! A guard? Yes, a security guard led him down the hall. “You need to pray now, mister,” the man said. Miller looked at him, uncomprehending.

  There was a waiting area, and the man guided him to a chair and then stood in the doorway, looking down the hall. More people were running to Ashley’s room, talking, yelling, barking at each other . . . but Miller’s mind could only hold the one sound, the splat of blood on the floor. Only one sight—the bluish, bloody thing being pulled out of his wife.

  Pray, the man said. He had forgotten how.

  “I’m the hospital chaplain,” a woman said. “Can I call someone for you?”

  He looked at her. “What?”

  “Can I call someone to wait with you?”

  “Oh. No.” Why call anyone now? He would call when there was good news. When the doctor came out and said, “Man, that was crazy! She’s doing fine, Miller. You can go in now.”

  The woman took his hand. “Lord, we ask for your strength and comfort for this man. Watch over his wife and child.”

  Save her. Save her. Save her.

  Ashley, that was. She was the only one who mattered. The baby was immaterial now.

  The chaplain’s mouth was still moving. The man was still standing in the doorway, head bowed, lips moving. That was nice. The man was praying for him. That was very kind. Miller thought he might pass out. But no. He should stay here for when Ashley woke up. Sure, she might be sick for a little while, but he would take care of her. He always
had. It was his job. His calling. He was a great husband.

  Time had stopped. The world had stopped, really. Eventually, a nurse came in. “Your baby’s doing fine,” she said, and her mouth wobbled as she tried to smile. “Do you want to see her?”

  “No.”

  The nurse looked at the chaplain. They stood up and talked. “Miller, come this way, please,” the chaplain said, and they took him into a room where they told him to sit, and then the nurse went to a plastic bassinet and took out a bundle. She put it in his arms.

  It was a baby. He supposed it was his baby, his and Ashley’s. It had a pink face and its eyes were closed. “Your little miracle,” the nurse said, tears in her eyes. “Perfect Apgars,” and Miller did not give one rat’s ass. The baby was wrapped tightly in the blanket, like a burrito. There were bruises above its eyes, and a smear of blood on its forehead.

  Ashley’s blood.

  The chaplain stayed but stopped speaking.

  A long, long time later—hours, maybe, Dr. Dunn came into the waiting room, white faced. She sat next to him, tears in her eyes, and said she was afraid she had very bad news. Ashley hadn’t made it. In a very rare complication, it seemed amniotic fluid got into her system, and it caused a catastrophic event, an embolism to her lungs, massive hemorrhaging and cardiac arrest. They’d tried to revive her for more than an hour, but her condition was simply too dire. Dr. Dunn was very sorry. So sorry. Such a rare event, so sorry it happened to Ashley. She reached out and put her hand on Miller’s knee.

  “So she’s . . . she’s not alive anymore?” he asked.

  “I’m so sorry for your loss, Miller.”

  Ashley hadn’t made it. Was that right? She was dead? The word sat there like a boulder, crushing the air out of his lungs. Dead. Ashley was dead.

  That didn’t seem possible. More likely, it was a mistake. “Are you sure?” he asked.

  “I’m afraid so.”

  “Could you just answer the question with one word, please? Is my wife dead?”

  Dr. Dunn’s mouth wobbled. “Yes.”

  There was just white now. White and quiet. He actually might pass out, he thought distantly.

  Ashley was dead. It . . . they wouldn’t lie about that. It must be . . . it must be true.

  “Can I see her?” he asked.

  “Of course.”

  He went back down the hall with Dr. Dunn, to the room he and Ashley had walked into so happily the day—really? just a day?—before.

  His wife lay on the bed, covered in blankets, only her head showing. The floor was smeared with her blood, though Miller could tell someone had tried to clean it up. He was grateful for the attempt.

  The nurse, Chelsea, was crying, and a tech was wiping Ashley’s face. A tube lay next to her throat. The tech took it away, then turned off the monitor, which showed only flat lines.

  One by one, they left in silence, leaving him with his wife’s body.

  The baby was still in his arms. He’d almost forgotten. He could’ve dropped it. They shouldn’t have left him alone with a baby. He was clearly not father material.

  But Ashley was born to be a mother.

  “Ash?” he whispered, because surely she would open her eyes when she heard his voice. “Ashley? Please, honey.”

  There were miracles, after all. Remember the baby who had died, then they put him on his mother’s chest, and an hour later, the baby woke up? Also, that Christmas special of Call the Midwife, where the dead baby was in the leather bag with the hot-water bottle and then it wasn’t dead anymore? He and Ashley had avoided that show until she got pregnant, then spent an entire long weekend binge-watching it and eating spaghetti. So yeah. Miracles. Lazarus, come forth! He remembered that Bible story, he sure did! Best one in the whole book! Total miracle. So how about one now?

  I believe, Miller prayed. Please. Please bring her back.

  It seemed that his prayers went unheard, or ignored, or God just side-eyed him on the request. Ashley’s eyes remained closed. Her chest did not rise or fall. Her hair spilled out on the pillow behind her, her beautiful honey-colored hair. Her freckles stood out, because her face had no color now.

  The baby stirred.

  Right. The baby.

  He unwrapped it—her—and placed the baby on his wife’s chest, skin to skin, and folded her arms around the baby. Ghoulish, that, but the baby didn’t seem to mind. Should he take a picture? Jesus, no! Where did that thought come from?

  Was her soul close by? Was she waiting for him to say something?

  “The baby’s fine,” he said, not recognizing his own voice. “You did it, Ashley. She’s fine, and I’ll . . . I’ll take good care of her.”

  After a while, the baby started to fuss, then cry, then scream, furious that her mother was dead. He didn’t blame her.

  Miller just sat there, looking at Ashley. Eventually, a nurse came in and gently rewrapped the baby. “Let’s get her down to the nursery,” she said, and guided Miller out of the room.

  He stopped in the hall and turned around, going back in for one more look.

  He realized this would be the last time he saw her face, felt her hair.

  “I love you,” he said, and kissed her. Her lips were not hers anymore. They were just layers of dying cells. He rested his head against her cool forehead. His tears slipped from his face to hers, into her hair. “I love you,” he said once more, then straightened, wiped his eyes with the heels of his hands and forced himself to leave the room. He had to call her parents.

  She was dead, and he was alone, and all the happiness they’d had for so long, since the second week of sophomore year of high school when she’d smiled at him in European Studies . . . all that happiness, all those moments, all those brilliant stars against the night sky were dead, too.

  CHAPTER 16

  Clark

  Clark London grew up with the understanding that he was supposed to have been better. A better son. A better student. A better athlete, artist, musician, conversationalist. He should’ve had a better body, a better face . . . His was nice-looking, but bland. He resembled his father, but a paler, more generic version. A weaker chin.

  But you get what you get. No use trying to change nature, right? Sheppard had been the good son, the perfect child. Even before his older brother disappeared, Clark could remember that feeling of being less than. Maybe it was age; maybe if Shep hadn’t died (or “gone away” as his mother still said, which made Clark grit his teeth every time), he wouldn’t have felt so inferior. But as it was, Sheppard’s death intensified things a thousand percent.

  He didn’t remember much about his childhood, to be honest. He’d loved his father, who, even though he was brokenhearted over Sheppard, still smiled at Clark, still threw him the football, still cheered him on as he did tricks in the swimming pool. When his father died, it left a huge blank space in his life. Clark, alone with his mother, her iciness, her unbreachable heart. Even years after he’d passed her in height, he felt small around her, and fearful, as if she might slap him, though she never had.

  Like most boys, he filled his spare time with TV, the pool, some friends who were kind of jerks but not that bad. Sometimes he’d take the sailboat out and just float on the Sound, glad to be away from his mother, watching the clouds float across the sky, thinking about how his father was with Sheppard now instead of him. Always second. Always the B-list son.

  Every night, he and his mother sat down for a joyless dinner during which he was criticized. “Honestly, Clark, must you scrape your knife that way? Must you?” He mastered the art of tormenting her—manipulating a bit of food on his upper lip and leaving it there, pretending not to notice until she snapped at him to use his napkin. Or he’d slosh his milk just a tiny bit so that she couldn’t see, and the milk would drip down the glass and through the tablecloth, staining the antique cherry table. If he could manage it, he’d fart
when he walked past her, not flush the toilet in the downstairs bathrooms, pick his scabs just because it bothered her. Sheppard would never have done that. Of course not. Sheppard was perfect.

  He stopped pretending to listen to her or make her like him when he was about ten. By then, Donelle lived with them. She was so much nicer than his mother. Donelle let him watch TV in her little den when Genevieve traveled, which always caused Helga to go to her room in a huff. Donelle played video games with him and asked him about his friends. She knit him a blue scarf in the softest cashmere and said it brought out his beautiful eyes. She’d never met Sheppard, so she didn’t know Sheppard’s eyes were the beautiful color, that startling blue that leapt out from photographs even now.

  As for his friends, well, they weren’t real friends. They were just boys he hung around with. The truth was, Clark didn’t know how to be with people very well. Still, his money, his family history, his mother’s instant fame in the fashion world couldn’t be ignored by the other kids, who weren’t as wealthy, whose houses weren’t as beautiful as Sheerwater, who didn’t have a three-bedroom apartment in the city waiting for them. His family had donated libraries and hospital wings. A driver picked Clark up from school every day. So even if the other kids didn’t like him that much, they knew better than to say it to his face. Unlike his mother.

  “You have to stop being so weak, Clark,” she said to him. “You’re thirteen. It’s time to start being a man. Show some interest in life, for God’s sake.”

  But what was there to be interested in? Lacrosse was okay, he supposed. He liked action movies. He could sail, but it had been way more fun with his father. He liked shooting at the Rod and Gun Club. He liked Playboy magazine and jerking off. He read comic books, waiting for the day when, like lucky Batman, his mother would die, and he would inherit a fortune and start being heroic.

  When he finished eighth grade at Stoningham Country Day School, he went off to Choate, where you could buy really good weed, get by on a fifth-grade knowledge of math, skip half of your reading assignments and still get into an Ivy League school, which Clark proved by getting into Dartmouth. The fact that there was a building there with his grandfather’s name on it didn’t hurt.