Chapter 24
Jake
A
nna was screaming. She was like a lunatic, demanding to go back to the hospital.
“What’s wrong with you?” he shouted over her yelling. He tried to wrap his arms around her.
She swatted them away. “Get away from me. Just take me back to the hospital. He’s dying. I can feel it.” Her eyes were glazed, her mouth twisted into a wicked sneer. He’d never seen her like that. Not sure he’d ever seen anybody like that, even the most demented, panicked psychiatric patient.
Over her shoulder, he saw her parents crowded in the doorway between the kitchen and the family room, their faces masks of fright. He motioned them away. They disappeared.
He needed to get control, needed to bring some sanity to this insanity. “Darling,” he said, struggling to quiet his wavery voice. “Why don’t we call the ICU? Let them tell you how well Eddie is doing.”
“Now, Jake. I have to go NOW.” Her voice was getting hoarse.
“You’re going to leave Chris? What kind of a mother abandons her son?”
Her face twisted as if he had slapped her. He gasped at the contorted image before him, at the weight of the moment. How could he do that to her? Something had snapped inside him, something huge and dark and ugly.
She sank to the couch, sobbing. “Poor Chris. Poor little Chrisy. Jake, please help me.” She was weeping so hard she could hardly speak. “I’m so scared. Eddie’s going to die. You didn’t listen to me when he got sick. Now you’re not listening to me when he’s dying.”
He slid his arm around her shoulders, tried to draw her to his side. “Anna, honey . . .”
She stiffened. He didn’t know what to say to her. He wanted to erase what he had said about abandoning Chris, but couldn’t undo the telling. He rubbed her forehead; she pulled away, sobbing.
“Please take me to the hospital.”
He whispered into her ear, smelled the clovelike odor of her hair. “We’ll get through this, Anna. I know we will.”
The rain blew sideways across the hood of his car, the wind so fierce the wipers couldn’t keep up.
She had been anxious at home, detached, almost dreamy in the way she drifted around the house as if she didn’t belong there. Then she went completely berserk. Her parents had been bewildered—no, surely terrified—when she started screaming. In the end, he’d driven her to the hospital—if he hadn’t, she would have asked her father or called a cab; she’d get there somehow. As they neared the main entrance, she seemed to settle down a little. After he pulled to a stop, she dashed out of the car into the rain shower, ran through the door, and disappeared down the darkened corridor. Now he was on his way home through the stormy night that was black as soot.
Suddenly, the red beam of a traffic light glimmered through the inky torrent. His foot hit the brake. The car skidded to a stop. He waited for the red to flip to green, tapped his fingers on the steering wheel. Beacons off the headlights of the cross traffic swept through the raindrops as cars crept, one by one, across the flooded intersection.
A Bob Marley song had just ended on the radio. Now an announcer read the sponsors, Nature Conservancy of Michigan and The Mosaic Foundation of Rita and Peter Heydon, and in his sleepy, nasal voice, reminded the listeners of the time—9:40
PM
—and the station—WUOM, 91.7 FM.
A drum beat pulsed against the inside of the car. Voices reverberant as thunder howled the words to the song. The music transported him back to medical school, back to his first date with Monica. The lamps in the bar had been dim, the sound system had throbbed, and she had swayed in the light reflected from the crystal ball that slowly turned overhead. He had been mesmerized by the way her hips rolled beneath her pale pink dress, the way her feet stepped on the wooden floorboards to the beat of the music, and the way her arms—bare except for silver bracelets that jangled at her right wrist—shot into the air as she yelled, “Y . . . M-C-A.”
He twisted the volume dial on the radio to the left. Lower, lower. He couldn’t bear to listen to that song.
The rain continued to pelt the car. Through the din of the storm, he thought he heard a siren. He turned his head to get a better bead on the sound. It was gone. A moment later, the whine of the siren returned. He stared at the rearview mirror, saw only a curtain of water out the back window. The sound grew louder. He slowed the car. Now he could see it. An ambulance. Coming behind him. He pulled the car to the curb and the ambulance screamed past, its lights flashing through the rain and its rear tires spraying watery rooster tails. Wherever he went, it seemed, medical crises followed.
Thoughts of Eddie raced through his mind. The second baby had been more his idea than Anna’s. He believed Chris should have a brother, one close enough in age to be a pal. In his family, there had been three Campbell boys in three years and he was the oldest. Growing up, they were the stair-step kids that raced their sleds through the snow on Forbes Hill most weekends from November through February. They were the three wise men in the Christmas program at St. Matthew’s United Methodist Church, stumbling down the aisle in their dad’s and uncles’ flannel bathrobes, clutching tea boxes or Coke bottles covered with aluminum foil. At home, Jake, Rick, and Luke were the yard crew—one behind the mower, one behind the rake, and one behind the edger—as well as the dishwashing crew—one at the dishpan, one with the towel, and one, the put-away guy, standing on a chair next to the kitchen counter, setting the clean glasses and plates on the cupboard shelf. He wanted the same for his kids: freedom, wild schemes, responsibility, fun.
Anna had balked. “I think we should wait a little longer, at least until you’ve finished your training,” she’d said with a groan when he first brought up the subject of another baby. “Then you’ll have more time to spend with us, and Chris can enjoy being an only child for a few more years.” She was an only child and seemed to want Chris protected from the intrusion of a younger sib.
Two Easters back, after saying good-bye to their company, after rocking Chris to sleep, after washing the plates and the wineglasses and retiring to their bed, they had begun the familiar nuzzling and stroking that signaled love making. He ran his fingertips up and down her backbone. She moved closer to him and buried her face in his neck. His pointer finger drew circles around her nipples. Her knee wedged against the firmness between his thighs.
As the heat between them intensified, she had reached into the bedside drawer for her diaphragm. As fast as a bobcat, he grabbed it from her hand, bent it in half, and then let go, launching it into the painting that hung above the dresser on the opposite wall.
“That’s so childish, Jake,” she said as she scrambled out of bed to retrieve the diaphragm.
“Chris needs a brother. Or even a sister.”
“Not yet, he doesn’t.”
“Well, let’s skip the contraception this time and see what happens.”
As she stomped back toward the bed—the diaphragm cupped in her hand, the ivory skin of her belly flushed from anger, her nipples pointed straight at him and bobbing with each determined step like corks at sea—a wave of intense passion washed over him. Her fury, her unmitigated rage aroused him even more.
She pulled on her nightgown, lay down with her back to him, and tucked the covers around her neck.
“That ended it for tonight. It’s hardly the way to coax me into having another baby.”
Now he clutched the steering wheel as the car crawled through the rain. If he could change his wife, he’d give her a better sense of humor, make her more playful. She took most things too seriously, was congenitally unable to see the lighter side of many situations. She was a good mom and in many ways a good wife, but she’d be better at both if she could have more fun.
Then several months later she had acquiesced about a second baby. He wasn’t sure why. She was like that at times—completely inexplicable. Maybe it was a hormone-driven, maternal urge. Maybe she just gave up resisting. In any event, she became pregnant right away.
To his relief, once she was pregnant, she seemed delighted to have another child. She rigged up a baby bulletin board for Chris, who was clueless about his impending big brotherhood, and bought children’s books to help him with the concept. After the ultrasound confirmed another son, she crocheted blue edging around a set of flannel blankets, saying, “The baby should have a few new things of his own, rather than using Chris’s old stuff.” She studied lists of names and then settled on Edward, her grandfather’s name.
“Poor guy,” he had said when she announced her choice.
“Why?” Her head was tilted, her face twisted with wonder. “What’s wrong with Edward?”
“Nothing, except it’s your granddad’s name.”
“What’s the matter with that? We can’t name him after
your
grandfathers. Wayne and Donald are dorky names.”
“I don’t want to name him Wayne or Donald, either. It’s tough for a guy to carry someone else’s name. If he’s an Edward, he might think he has to grow up to be a successful Baltimore banker like his great-grandfather.”
“Is that bad?”
“Yes, he needs to grow up to be his own person, not the clone of a dead relative.”
“It’ll be fine.” She had snuggled up to him and laid his hand on her bulging belly. “Little Edward can be whoever he turns out to be.”
It was four in the morning when her water had broken. Thankfully, he was home that night. He had dreamed of swimming in the Mediterranean Sea, in water the temperature of fresh pee, and woke up to find her side of the bed soaked and Anna in the bathroom.
“Jake,” she called, that one word spiked with urgency.
“I’m awake,” he said groggily. “What happened?”
“My water broke and I’m having contractions.”
“Yup.” He jumped off the soggy mattress and reached for his underwear. “Let’s go.”
“Call Rose Marie and tell her we’re bringing Chris over.”
Anna, the organized. She had arranged for the sitter to watch Chris while she had the baby, irrespective of the time of day or night. What to do with Chris during the birth hadn’t crossed his mind until she told him of the plans. Sometimes she amazed him.
Her labor lasted only three hours and was uneventful. That’s the way you want it, he thought. Normal. Regular. No complications.
As she was wheeled into the delivery room, he had walked beside the gurney, holding her hand. After she scooted onto the table and dug her heels into the stirrups, he perched on a stool beside her head and smoothed several strands of limp hair away from her damp forehead. She breathed in little shallow gasps and softly moaned in an easy rhythm.
Although he’d been the dad in the delivery room before, he had still been uncomfortable the second time around. His memories from medical school of possible obstetrical disasters were too fresh. Abruptio placenta. Placenta previa. Uterine rupture. Amniotic embolism. Puerperal sepsis. Eclampsia. All very bad.
Sweat oozed from his forehead and ran down the sides of his head. With each contraction, she clutched his hand and let out the scratchy sound of an angry goat. Her fingernails dug into his skin. It came back to him like a nightmare. That awful evening during his junior year on the OB rotation. He’d sat up all night monitoring the labor of a young mother and then watched, horrified, as she delivered a hydropic, dead little boy. That baby’s face was so puffy that his eyes and mouth were mere slits, and the yellow-tinged skin of his legs had split open like overcooked bratwursts.
But Eddie’s delivery was as normal as the labor had been, ending when his vigorous, healthy son had emerged from his lovely, exhausted wife. Tonight, driving home through the storm, those memories of Eddie’s beginnings now seemed as meaningless as the former beauty of a road-killed cat. Now, Anna was crazed. Thank goodness Chris hadn’t witnessed her breakdown. He hoped his son hadn’t heard any of it. When he returned home, he’d have to face his in-laws, have to explain what had happened. Panic attack was the word he’d use to explain her behavior.
Suddenly the rain ceased beating against the windshield. The car was beneath an overpass. It seemed as if he were traveling through the eye of a hurricane. The car then exited the other side and the rain pounded the hood as fiercely as before. Two blocks farther up would be another overpass, with weedy railroad tracks running overhead.
As much as Jake wished otherwise, Eddie wasn’t doing well. They had tried to wean him off the ventilator that afternoon, but whenever the nurses attempted to lower his backup rate or the PEEP or the inspired O
2
level, his blood gases tanked. Maybe that had set Anna off.
What would ultimately happen? he wondered. The ICU docs were so good at keeping people alive—at least keeping their hearts pumping and their lungs trading oxygen for carbon dioxide—that Eddie could go on like this for a long time. If he was still intubated after two weeks, they’d do a trach. Anna would resist a tracheostomy; she would see it as a step backward, which in some ways it would be. He’d have to find a gentle way to explain to her that without it, over time the endotracheal tube would rub raw the lining of their son’s nose and throat.