She Poured Out Her Heart (16 page)

She set the plate on the table and opened the refrigerator to pour his milk. “Robbie, come eat.” He didn't answer, since he had recently learned how much fun it was to ignore her and make her shout for him, and she readied herself to call him again, in that tone of peevish worry that had come to define motherhood for her.

It felt like rain drumming on a roof, except that she was the roof.

She stood at the open refrigerator, bathed in chill, noisy air. The baby had gone quiet inside her. “What?” she said out loud, or thought she did. Her ears roared. What was wrong?

Once more, the sensation of pounding, scattered rain bearing down on her.

Pay attention.

Now.

Jane dialed Eric's pager number, and when he didn't answer, she left a message for him to call her. “Robbie, you have to come with me. Where are your shoes?” She hoisted him up barefoot. In the garage she strapped him into the car seat and jammed his shoes onto his feet. Went back into
the house for her purse and his sandwich, poured the milk into his toddler cup. “Here,” she said, giving him a section of sandwich. “Can you eat that? Can you hold your milk too? All right, just eat your sandwich.”

“I don wanna sanwich.”

“Eat it anyway.” She backed out of the driveway and set off, driving as carefully as she could, since the car was behaving so oddly, as if it was floating just above the road surface.

Or no, she was not registering the feel of the tires, as if she had been wrapped in soundproofing. Here was the baby driving itself to the hospital, but that was foolish, since babies did not know how to drive.

Of course she knew the way to the ER from all her visits with Robbie. The clerk at the desk remembered them. “Oh no, what's he up to this time?” Smiling down at Robbie, who Jane was half-dragging, half-pushing. He still held a portion of sandwich in his fist and was bawling about having to walk, loudly enough for anyone to think he'd needed stitches.

“It's me, it's the baby.”

The clerk's face took on a new, brisk expression. “You have your insurance card?”

Jane did. There were questions to answer. Was she in pain? Had there been any bleeding?

“Not really,” Jane said, then, realizing she needed to use more guile, said, “Yes, some. Yes.”

“I'm sorry honey, what did you say?”

She was having trouble talking, as if she'd been punched in the mouth. The clerk's face was round and she'd dusted it with some kind of yellow powder, like the full moon. “Moon,” Jane said. Then, “Some. Sure.”

She sat down to wait, holding Robbie between her knees to keep him from running off, and tried to reach Eric again. She called her obstetrician and was on hold when they came to take her back to the curtained-off exam room.

The doctor, a woman, was one they had not seen before. She was not enchanted by Robbie's presence, though she tried smiling and speaking
to him in a loud, arch tone that at least made him stop fussing and stare at her. To Jane she said, “Tell me about the bleeding.”

“I'm not sure,” Jane said. She knew it was the wrong answer. She hung her head, embarrassed. She felt the doctor looking at her, deciding.

“What are your other symptoms?”

“Just that, I know something's wrong.” With one arm she tried to corral Robbie, who was reaching for the cabinet top where they kept supplies. She noticed that she had put his shoes on the wrong feet. She tried again with the doctor. “It's the mind-body connection.”

“Mrs. Nicholson, I really think you should make an appointment with your obstetrician so you can discuss your concerns.”

“Please don't make me leave here.”

The doctor decided, visibly, not to say anything. She took Jane's blood pressure and listened to her heart and put her hands on Jane's stomach. “I can't feel her,” Jane said.

“She's asleep,” the doctor said, soothing now.

“Will she wake up?”

“That depends on you.”

“It isn't fair that it's all on me,” Jane said, but by then the doctor had gone away.

They had left her quite alone. It was peaceful, as before. Limitless, luminous, like the inside of an infinite pearl. She floated, she flew. And it came to her that she could choose to leave everything failed and sad behind and stay here, and there would be no fear in it. She'd had no real gifts besides this remarkable one. She could step easily out of her life.

She had been so very tired. The whiteness buoyed her like water, lifting and cleansing. She had pushed and pushed, trying to fit herself into the shape that was expected of her. It had left her bruised and raw. And now there would be no need to keep trying. The whiteness blessed her. It forgave everyone for everything.

But the doctor had returned. She had a face like a moon, and like a clock also, a moon clock, and she said, You are forgetting something.

Go away, Jane told her. Leave me be.

Tick tick tick, the doctor said. How can she be born without you? Are you that selfish?

I am that tired.

You came asking for help. You wanted to save her.

I wanted someone else to save her.

But there is only you.

I am tired of me.

Yes, but it's not as easy as you think it is. Dying.

“Jane? Honey?”

They were dragging her back. She would not open her eyes.

“Honey? Can you hear me?”

The inside of her head had been scraped dry. Light beat against her eyelids. She tried to speak but her mouth was parched.

“What? I can't understand you.” Eric's voice was right in her ear. She raised a hand to swat him away. “Everything's fine. Don't worry.”

How fine? How not to worry? How to live in the world and not worry? “The baby's all right. There was a tear in the placenta. We've got it under control. You were bleeding internally. It's just amazing that you knew something was wrong.”

She opened her eyes to a slit. Painful light blurred the outlines of the room. Eric's face hung over hers like something large and inflated. He said, “How are you feeling? Can you talk? It's all right, just rest. I have to tell you, it was touch and go there for a while. But you hung in there, thank God.”

Was he crying? Would he have been sad to lose her? Of course he would. Her little boy too. She felt the baby inside her shift. Everything that tied her here, strand by strand.

Eric wiped at his eyes, smiled. A crooked smile, still wobbly at the edges. “Robbie's fine too. Well, he ran smack into a cart and put a gash in his scalp, but we were right here in the ER, so it's all good.” He leaned
over and kissed her forehead. “Hang in there, you're incredible. You're the absolute best mother in the world.”

No she was not, but she would have to be. She would remain here, and the lives of her children would be her life. There could be no more escape into the extraordinary, into bliss, into delight. “That's my girl,” Eric said. “You're a trouper. You're the best, I mean it. You're like Supermom.”

B
onnie's brother Charlie crashed his SUV into a bridge support on Lower Wacker with a blood alcohol of .22 and landed in the hospital and a whole lot of trouble. The woman who was riding with him was also seriously and expensively injured. One of Bonnie's cop friends called her and told her Charlie was at Mount Sinai. Bonnie drove herself there through the glassy, predawn streets. It was October and already cold enough for frost. She blasted the defroster and ran the windshield wipers in an attempt to keep the ice from creeping up like dread.

Charlie was still drunk. He'd cut his face when the airbag inflated. He had dislocated his shoulder. He had a lacerated liver and a shattered kneecap. “Hey Sis,” he greeted her. “I hadda accident.” His face was swollen and they'd painted his leg with iodine and put his knee in a brace. He'd vomited onto his gown, but they'd cleaned it up. He looked bloated, clammy, dissolute, shockingly bad.

“I guess you did.” Although if you drank yourself blotto and then got behind the wheel, that was a different order of accident than getting hit by a meteor in your backyard. “How do you feel?”

“My knee hurts like sin. They screwed it up, I'm serious, it feels a whole lot worse now that they, what is it they do? It's bullshit. None of
these people speak English, I'm all ‘What? What?' Hey, how's Kelly? How bad's my car?”

“They're taking care of Kelly. Don't worry about the car right now.” Charlie wasn't going to be driving anything for a long while. The party was over, he just didn't know it yet. “I have to make some phone calls, OK? Hang in there, be right back.”

Claudia came from Wisconsin the next day and then there was what she and Charlie used to call Mamma Drama. No one did it better than Claudia. She buttonholed doctors and nurses, orderlies and housekeepers, vigilant for lapses in the standard of care. She wanted to read charts, she wanted to talk to the dietician about meals. Charlie, who would have otherwise laughed her off, turned piteous. Unpleasant realities were crowding in on him. He had surgery for his busted kneecap and the pain drugs further unmanned him. His friend Kelly was discharged from the hospital after her own repairs. Ominously, she would not respond to Charlie's calls.

“You don't think he'll have to go to jail, do you?” Claudia asked Bonnie, and Bonnie said he would at least have to go to court. She wanted to stay noncommittal. People went to jail for DUIs, it happened. It should probably happen more often. A good lawyer, the kind Stan and Claudia could afford, would no doubt be able to grease things so that Charlie would end up with probation and fines. But there would be lawsuits, and going ten rounds with the insurance companies, and money paid out, probably a lot of it. Stan wouldn't want to help. Claudia would talk him into it. It wasn't going to make for any happy family reunions. And Charlie? At least he hadn't killed himself or anybody else. There was a bleak sort of comfort in that.

While Charlie was still in the hospital, Claudia asked Bonnie, “Isn't Jane's husband a doctor?”

“Yes, why?”

“I'd like a second opinion.”

“On what? Eric's at a whole different hospital. He's a cardiologist.”

“I'd feel better if somebody we knew looked at him. I don't have full confidence in these people.”

“Mom, he doesn't practice here. He's a heart doctor, how does that figure? And you've never even met him.”

Claudia turned stubborn. She set her small, well-groomed chin and said she didn't see why Bonnie objected to using every available resource, this was a serious, serious situation and her brother needed her support, why was she being so selfish?

Bonnie called Jane. “He doesn't have to. It won't accomplish anything except reinforce my mother's delusions that everybody should rally to Charlie's defense.”

“I'll ask him,” Jane said. “I bet he will. He'll do it for you. Anyway, he likes swooping in and talking doctor-talk to a worshipful audience.”

“Really, he doesn't have to,” Bonnie said, wondering at Jane's tone. It was the kind of spousal snark that usually meant the speaker was mad about something else entirely. “Make sure he knows that. And it's not really for me, it's for my mother. That's not the same thing.”

“How's Charlie?”

“He's still pretty banged up. At least he can't drink while he's in the hospital. I was hoping this would be enough of a wake-up call, but he's back to feeling very sorry for himself because of all the terrible things he's been through. You know, poor me, poor me, pour me a drink.”

There was one of those lapses in the conversation when Jane had to cover the phone and go referee the children. “Sorry,” she said, coming back. “Robbie was teasing Grace and she bit him.”

“I thought Robbie was in kindergarten now.”

“Only half days. Full time isn't till first grade. Listen, I have to get back to the slugfest. I'll have Eric call you, OK?”

Eric said he'd stop by for moral support. “You know I can't change treatment orders or anything like that. Anyway, I'm sure they're perfectly competent.”

“Tell my mother that, she won't believe me. I think she's just looking for somebody to blame for the whole misery besides Charlie.”

And so Eric made a visit to Charlie's room and endeared himself to Claudia by agreeing with her, hospitals often made mistakes, doctors too, although, he said, Mount Sinai was very well regarded. He cracked jokes with Charlie and conferred with a nurse about the medical regimen. Everything looked like it was coming along fine, he said, not allowing himself to meet Bonnie's eye. The doctors here had everything on the right track. It was just going to take a little tincture of time to heal. He wasn't wearing his white lab coat, of course, only a sports jacket and a tie. Still, he was so doctorlike in his easy authority, his confidence and bearing, there was no mistaking him for anything else.

“Oh, I wish you practiced here,” Claudia said, smitten.

“No you don't. I'm really a hard-ass. I like to boss my patients around.”

“Listen to you, I don't believe you for a minute. Why don't we have a doctor in the family, it would be so helpful. Why did neither of you children go to medical school?”

“Poor role models,” Charlie suggested.

“Neither of them ever thought in practical terms,” Claudia said, appealing to Eric. “Charlie was going to live a rock and roll life. Bonnie took a lot of courses in, what were they, ancient civilizations? And she ends up in these horrible true crime stories. You're so intelligent, darling, you just don't plan things out very well. There's no reason you couldn't have been a doctor.”

“Or at least married one,” Bonnie agreed.

Charlie said, “Lay off Bonnie, Mom. You're embarrassing her in front of the real doctor.”

“No, really, it's great,” Bonnie said. “Otherwise I get so full of myself.”

Eric said, “I wish I could stay a little longer, but I've got to get home. Charlie, best of luck. Claudia, a real pleasure.”

“Thank you so very much. I can tell you're a wonderful, wonderful
doctor. Do you have children yourself?” Claudia asked, extending her hand for him to shake.

“Yes, a little boy and a baby girl.”

“And they're both going to medical school,” Charlie said.

Bonnie stood up to leave with Eric. She kissed Claudia on the cheek. “I'll be back tomorrow after work, call me if you need anything.”

“I'm like, a black hole of neediness,” Charlie told her. “A gaping maw.” He looked cleaner than he had when he'd been admitted, but years of galloping drinking were taking their toll. His face was both puffy and shriveled. He was growing a drunkard's inflamed nose.

Eric and Bonnie walked out together, past the nursing station, around the corner to the elevator. The day shift had gone home and the halls had an empty, echoing feel. “Do they still have candy stripers?” Bonnie asked. “You know, the girls in the red and white pinafores who walk around cheering people up?”

“I think they're just called volunteers now,” Eric said. “Older women, mostly, and they wear smocks. There's some younger kids who help with transport. They wear polo shirts and khakis.”

The elevator came and they rode it down. Bonnie started to say something about the decline in standards, and what it must have been like when nurses wore real nurse outfits, not just pajamas, but she was sick to death of saying amusing things, and when she and Eric emerged from the building into an early dark and misty rain, she burst into angry tears.

“Hey,” Eric said, putting an arm around her shoulders and guiding her away from the door, along a sidewalk with a concrete overhang. “Hey, it's OK.”

“This is not,” Bonnie said between sobs, “about my mother humiliating me. That's nothing new.”

“It's OK,” he said again. He wrapped both arms around her and Bonnie leaned into him and cried for all she was worth. She was cold, miserable, and Eric tightened his hold on her and they stood there a long time. The fine rain turned the light from the streetlamps into halos and
veils. Cars rolled by on the street, their tires skimming the puddles. “It's just so sad,” Bonnie said, surfacing. “My whole sad, stupid family. I mean, me too.”

“I don't think you're stupid,” Eric told her. Bonnie hiccupped and sniffled and let herself cry some more. She'd forgotten the comfort you could take in a man. It was so seldom offered to her, she was so accustomed to doing without it. She hung on for dearest life. Eric was tall enough so that the top of her head fit into the hollow of his shoulder, and she buried her head in the solid warmth of him and breathed the smells of his clothes and his skin and felt the rumble and pulse of his body, its secret shiftings, and it was only Eric after all so it was all right and then the next moment it was not all right and she pulled away.

“God,” she said. “I'm such a mess, I'm sorry.”

“You're fine.” He looked embarrassed. She was an idiot. Well, everybody knew that already. “I mean, you're not fine now, but you will be. Your brother's going to get better.”

“And my mother's going to stay the same. It's OK, I'm used to it.”

“She's a little hard on you.”

“It's just her way. A fond, doting, ultimately hostile way.”

They laughed. Eric patted her on the back and dropped his arms and Bonnie turned and dug in her purse for anything resembling Kleenex. “Thank you again,” she said, still looking. Giving up. Maybe she had some in the car. “For the unofficial medical consult. Hospital chaplain services. Much appreciated.”

“Sure. Sometimes all it takes is a little doctor juju.”

They headed out to the parking lot and Eric said he would walk her to her car, it was already dark, and Bonnie said there was no need, she was right over there, and anyway he didn't need to stay out in this rain. Not wanting to tell him how many times a week she got into her car by herself after dark, and in far worse neighborhoods. They hugged again, to show there was no harm in it, and Bonnie said to say hi to Jane. She got into her car and started the engine and the windshield wipers. Eric
stood where she'd left him, watching. She backed out and tapped the horn as she drove away.

Claudia stayed in town, moving into Charlie's apartment in Lakeview and doing a lot of energetic and scandalized cleaning. Charlie couldn't manage stairs without help, he needed groceries and cooking, he needed to be hauled back and forth to doctors' appointments, he needed cheering up, Claudia said. “Try a candy striper,” Bonnie suggested.

“What? Are you making a joke? Please tell me what's so funny.”

“Nothing, forget it.” They were on the phone. Bonnie called so she didn't have to go over there. “How is Himself?”

“He's supposed to be doing exercises, but he says they hurt too much. I think he's depressed.”

In the background Bonnie heard music, some kind of Goth-punk banshee chorus. “He sounds depressed.”

“I don't know why more of his friends haven't come by. There was a girl, but she didn't stay long. I know what you're thinking. I was perfectly nice to her. We have to meet with the lawyer Tuesday. I don't believe he's looking forward to it.”

“The lawyer will tell you it's a very serious situation but he's going to do his expensive best to give you a good result.”

“I don't suppose you want to come along,” Claudia said, without much hope. “He doesn't always listen to me.”

“Maybe he'll listen to the lawyer. The lawyer will tell him to stop drinking, clean up his act, go to AA, and show a judge he's changed his ways. Of course, that means he actually has to change his ways.”

“Oh I don't know, honey. He's so miserable right now, I don't know if this is a good time to tell him he has to start a whole different life style.”

“When is a good time? After his next DUI with injuries? What does Stan think of all this?”

“Stan is being difficult,” Claudia said, primly, and Bonnie waited for her to say more about it but she didn't.

“You can't keep doing everything for Charlie, Mom. Are you familiar with the term ‘enabler'?”

“Would you stop it? You always think you have to be so smart about everything, making fun of people who have actual feelings, like that makes you better than the rest of us, but you're not. You don't care about Charlie, he's only your family, not some homeless crazy person.”

Bonnie let the phone slide away from her ear. Then she picked it up again. “Mom? Just who was I supposed to be, huh? Exactly how have I disappointed you, I'm really having trouble nailing it down.”

But Claudia had resumed her usual ladylike and plaintive manner. “Sweetheart, I'm sorry if you're unhappy, but you're going to have to work on that yourself, because right now I'm very concerned about your brother and it's taking all my energy. I have to go now, love you.”