Nobody's Child (21 page)

J
ULY 27

Rectilinear. The entire room screamed, “Square.”

In the harsh purple glare of artificial light, Laura Ann's eyes wandered foot by foot from the familiar view of Sophia's bed to the walls, floor, and ceiling, every surface made up of right angles. Sophia, the only curve in the room, lay fast asleep, snared in a web of medical plastic that connected her to machines, monitors, and life-giving fluid. The hospital spider spun a cocoon about her, locking her to the bed, her home for the past month.

Standing at the one narrow window, Laura Ann rubbed sleep out of her eyes. To the east, the first rays of a rising sun broke over the ridge and the old gravestones of Greenwood Cemetery, a penetrating glare that beat back the recliner aches of a night's fitful sleep. It seemed just moments ago she'd been with Ian, seated at Sophia's bedside, the three of them talking late into the night. Where had he gone? How late did he leave?

Below her window, employees exited cars, headed for an early morning hospital shift. Most of them clad in blue or green, some in the brown garb of this floor's medical smocks, they ignored the lone girl above, a soul desperate to feel sun, to taste wind, and hear the outside world.

Nurses clamored in the hall, bustling with the first sounds of a new day. The cutlery on breakfast carts clanged, announcing the arrival of another bland meal. New voices replaced old ones, women conferring in muffled tones about patients, the high pitch of their voices echoing against a background of electronic chirps. Beeps for Sophia's respiration if it went too low. Beeps for her blood pressure if too high. Every heartbeat announced with a digital tone, in synch to the metronome of the Staples World Clock, ticking the seconds away behind her. Two million seconds spent in this room, and counting.

Green. She starved for grass, for trees, and for the color of life. Laura Ann turned back to the room, its only green a single metal port for oxygen, situated above Sophia's bed. Life green, it poked out of the off-white wall, a valve unused. She moved to the bed, her hand to Sophia's shoulder, rising up and down with her friend's shallow breaths. Laura Ann, starving for the outside world, stood guard, while inside Sophia another life grew.

She marveled at the ring on her finger, then glanced back at the clock, another six hundred seconds since she arose to capture the sunrise at half-past five. Every second precious for this baby, yet every one an eternity. She swallowed her pain and prayed for Sophia—for her child—and for six more weeks.

“Laura Ann?”

The voice tugged at her, a fist pounding on the door of her dream.

“Laura Ann?” The voice begged again, higher in tone, almost raspy. She awoke.

Sophia panted in her bed, her head turned to the side, an IV-punctured arm and hand thrust Laura Ann's way. Beneath crusty lids, in the dimmed light of the nighttime hospital room, Laura Ann saw fear in her friend's eyes.

“Laura —,” she gasped. “I — I can't breathe!”

Laura Ann shot straight up, her eyes diverted first to the clock. A few minutes before nine p.m. Then to the monitors above the bed. Her oxygen saturation, blood pressure, EKG, fluid drip rates — terms and metrics she'd learned fast as Sophia's hospital companion. Bright lights warned of trouble on every display, one glowing red with a fearsome pronouncement: “Hypoxia.” Red lights mirrored the panic in her friend's eyes.

Sophia gasped again, her fingers clutching at something in the air. “I — I can't catch — my breath,” she wheezed, struggling against some unseen monster on her chest, her face flush with desperation. Before the next pant, a brown-clad nurse burst through the half-open door, headed straight to the bed.

“Saturation's way down,” Laura Ann said, forcing her voice to sound calm. She squeezed her friend's hand. “She can't get a breath.”

“Heart rate's up. Look at that flutter,” the nurse said, a finger to the EKG display. She pushed a button on the call panel above the bed, summoning another nurse. “Page Dr. Murphy. Possible A-fib in 44B.”

All business, the nurse turned to Sophia. Her friend's confused eyes darted back and forth between them, from Laura Ann to the woman in brown. Her mouth wide open, she gulped at air. Moments later, her eyes rolled back, a bare whisper escaping her lips. “I'm so — so weak.” Her right hand moved over her chest, dragging the oxygen saturation sensor with it.

“Hurts. Here.” Sophia's fingers rested over her heart, and her eyes closed. Moments later, they shot open, and she lifted out of the bed, her hands jerking tubes with them as her fingers sought her belly. She nearly tipped over two poles of IV fluid, pulling a web of tubing when she bolted upright.

“Oh!” she screamed, her voice cut short by a lack of air, her hands to her abdomen.

Another monitor beeped, the spike of a first contraction displayed, like watching a wave pile into a Hawaiian beach, growing fast from a low swell into a towering wall. She screamed again, a short burst wheezing into a sad whine. No air in her lungs to complain, Sophia fell back on the bed.

The nurse stabbed at a blue button on the call panel again. “Code Blue! Cardio in 44B. On-call OB to 44B. Stat!”

Hands flew across the bed, the nurse moving with an urgency Laura Ann had not seen in weeks. For a brief moment, the nurse caught Laura Ann's eye, her words laced with fear. “She's in labor.” Another nurse dashed in the room, medical terms shared between them that Laura Ann could not understand, but whose implication she could not mistake.

Sophia's life—and James's—hung in the balance.

Dr. Murphy stood at the door of Labor and Delivery, draped in a surgical gown, a mask over his face. “She's asking for you, Ms. McGehee.”

Laura Ann jumped up from her plastic seat and headed for the swinging doors behind the doctor. Inside the Delivery Suite, another nurse stood at the gateway to a room where gowned nurses and technicians bustled in and out. Ushered away from Sophia an hour ago, Laura Ann had waited in desperate prayer.

The nurse waved her in, pointing toward a bed where three nurses attended to various monitors and another swabbed cleanser on Sophia's belly. The dark orange of the antiseptic confirmed her fears. Caesarean birth.

Sophia's gaze caught Laura Ann's, and a weak smile lifted her pale cheeks. She extended a frail hand and Laura Ann took it.

“I can breathe better now.” Sophia's limp squeeze belied brave words.

“Rest. It won't be long,” Laura Ann replied. “There's a baby on the way.” She forced a smile, some sign of the joy they both wanted to share at this incredible moment. But she felt no joy.

Sophia pulled at her hand, a sideways nod of her head urging her to move closer, to some place private. The nurse to Laura Ann's left, swabbing at a bare belly, caught a glimpse of Sophia's eyes, then set down her antiseptic and motioned to the other nurses. “Give them a moment,” she said, shooing her coworkers out the door. She smiled in Laura Ann's direction as the team left the room.

Laura Ann wrapped both her hands about Sophia's, leaning close. She felt breath on her cheek, shallow regular pants, not the zesty life of the vibrant woman who landed on her drive a month ago.

Sophia's fingers tightened with the quiver of her chin, lips drawn tight. “It's time,” she said at last, words whispered in a shaky voice.

Laura Ann fell upon her, burying her face in the pillow next to Sophia's head, her arm seeking some hold of her friend. Below her, she could feel the timid heave of Sophia's weak chest, each breath a struggle, fed by too little air and a desperately weak heart.

Cotton and pine. Laura Ann breathed freely of the scent of fresh-pressed sheets and the aroma of Sophia's hair, washed just yesterday when Laura Ann tended to her. The soft tresses of her friend's black locks lay like scattered weeds between Laura Ann's face and the pillow. She pulled Sophia as tight to her as she dared, seeking to absorb her into her bosom and pour into her the strength her friend craved.

“I am blessed,” Sophia said. Neither woman moved, their minds tracking like those of identical twins. Sophia nudged her and Laura Ann rose up. She lifted her hand to place her forefinger
over Laura Ann's lips, tarrying for a moment, drawing in the deepest breath she could muster. “I'm blessed to be the mother of this baby — no matter how long that lasts.”

Sophia's hand moved behind Laura Ann's neck. She pulled her face close, wet cheek to wet cheek, mingling tears like their mixed blood in Sophia's womb. “Our son,” she said, emphasizing her words with a gentle squeeze of the nape of Laura Ann's neck.

Sophia relaxed her grip and circled Laura Ann's neck in a feeble hug. She kissed Laura Ann on the cheek as they drew close, then whispered, the warmth of her breath gentle on Laura Ann's ear.

“I love you.”

The touch of a hand on her shoulder roused Laura Ann from prayer. Dr. Murphy stood above her in the waiting room, his smile stretching from ear to ear. Wet clumps of short hair poked out from under a tight disposable surgeon's cap and splotches of blood stained his surgical gown, Sophia's life spilled on his chest.

“It's a boy,” he said, pointing toward the delivery suites. “You can see them now.”

Seconds later Laura Ann burst through the door of Sophia's recovery room. Brilliant white lights lit the area where green-garbed nurses bustled about Sophia's bed. They parted to make room for Laura Ann.

Her old smile was back. Someone had returned her glasses, gentle black rectangles framing her eyes, perched on a broad nose. Her eyes cast down, then back up to see if her friend witnessed the miracle that lay wrapped on her chest. A wrinkled red face peeked out above a tiny blanket.

Laura Ann stopped short of the bed. For all the weeks that
she'd dreamed of seeing the fruit of her own body, she was unprepared for this. She bit her lip, desperate to hold this child, yet terrified by the impact of what she'd done.

Sophia beckoned her with a nod of her head. Frail arms cradled a tiny life on her bosom. She pulled him close, her lips resting on the child's forehead. After a gentle kiss, she looked up, her smile drawing Laura Ann toward her.

Beneath the thick white blanket the baby wore a fluffy blue knitted outfit. Closed eyes and swollen lids hid tiny black lashes. The baby lay still, asleep in her arms, wisps of angelic black hair spilling out from under a tiny blue knit cap. Sophia's nose snuggled against his head. Her own eyes closed in some unspoken comfort as she drew in the baby's new smell.

Laura Ann stood at her side, in awe of the life that lay in Sophia's arms. Her friend lifted the tiny package a bit and offered the child in Laura Ann's direction.

“James,” she said, her voice weak but determined. “Our baby boy.”

So tiny and light. Laura Ann feared she'd drop the newborn when the nurse passed him into her arms. James's five pounds felt no heavier than a bag of feathers.

Laura Ann pulled him close, his face against her chin, whisper-thin strands of black hair tickling her when she kissed his forehead. Soft like a calf's nose, his warmth met her lips for the first time. She held him close. His sweet new-baby smell poured a soothing balm over months of pain.

A lifetime of Bible lessons and nighttime readings with Daddy stirred her deep inside, warm memories of passages that spoke about the blessings of children, mixing that very moment with her own dream of motherhood. She held the bundled blessing tight to her cheek. James's warmth and tiny breath bound him to her heart. Another link in the family chain.

She looked to the side to catch Sophia's eye. Her friend's eyes were closed but her mouth hung open in a strange way.

“Sophia?” Like a cue for the heart rate monitor, the very moment she spoke that name the equipment screeched a warbling alarm. “VT” burned cherry-red on the front panel over her head.

James flinched in her arms.

“Code Blue!” a nurse yelled, her voice echoing down the hall. All eyes turned from the final cleanup of Sophia's caesarian wound to the monitor, which displayed a trace like an undulating roller coaster, not the sharp peaks and valleys of her normal rhythm. Sophia's heart, to judge from the crisis erupting around her, was headed for a shutdown.

“Crash cart!” a voice yelled. Bodies parted for a silver table on wheels, loaded with equipment and wires.

“Give me the baby. Now,” another nurse commanded in a stern voice. Before Laura Ann could respond, the sure hands of an older woman wrapped about the tiny child. Laura Ann backed away from the bed.

Eyes closed, Sophia gulped for air, her right hand jerking against a gaggle of tubes and wires as she sought to reach something on her chest. Exhaling with a moaning wheeze, she bent upwards out of the bed. Her eyes never opened.

“Sustained ventricular tachycardia,” a nurse announced in a clinical voice devoid of emotion.

Dr. Murphy whisked past the doorjamb. “Stable?”

“Some pulse,” the nurse replied. Behind her, another nurse stood by, clipboard in hand and her eye on the clock. Measuring Sophia's time.

Laura Ann heard the queer whine of a defibrillator on the cart, its tone increasing in quick steps with the building charge. Nurses prepared equipment, slung wires, and forced hypodermics of unpronounceable drugs into Sophia's IV line. The
women worked as one with Dr. Murphy, the captain at the helm of their mercy ship.

“Losing her pulse. Got something, but not much.”

“Cardioversion,” Dr. Murphy ordered, reaching out to take two paddles from the nurse. “Clear,” he announced, checking left and right as he lowered the devices to her bare chest and squeezed a trigger. Jolts of electricity coursed through Sophia's body, her back arching off the bed as her muscles reacted to the intense shock.

“Heart rate, one sixty-five,” someone announced.

“Two hundred joules,” Dr. Murphy called out, not lifting the paddles from her skin.