Kalila (11 page)

Excuse me?

The doctors were wondering if you might be Jewish.

I look at her.

DiGeorge syndrome. No Jews in your family history? DiRiley syndrome? Your husband's?

Sure, I'll be Jewish. Don't we all stem from Adam? I have a drop of Jewish blood.

We're going to repeat her blood gases shortly.

Is she worse?

She tolerated physio. The nurse waves the toothbrush. But she's had dusky spells. Temp's down. Of course, we don't have the whole picture.

Of course.

The nurse walks to another baby, scours the wee chest with a bright red toothbrush.

I glance down at the chart lying open on Kalila's isolette.

The nurse returns to primly close the chart.

I slide onto the stool. What's this? A toque. Kalila, usually naked except for a diaper, is in a tiny white hospital gown, the kind that opens at the back, ties up the neck. Her huge blue diaper sticks out beneath it. And on her head, a blue-grey knitted toque. The kind a grandma would knit for a doll. It sits high, bending her ears. Matching her colour, dusky blue. She's breathing fast, as if air were being pumped in and out of her. Her stomach balloons, drops, balloons. A cut on her left foot. Blue bruising up the ankle. Her hand swathed in bandages, a needle stuck in, cardboard taped awkwardly round to hold it steady. Can't take my eyes off that little toque.

Who gave her this?

Her temperature was down, Mrs. Solantz. She wasn't warm.

Somewhere down the line a beeper sings.

Could I wash her nighties? Who gave her this?

The hospital does that, honey.

I insert my hands through the thick plastic isolette holes. Knee against the cold blue metal drawer. Kalila breathes. I take hold of the unbandaged hand. Stroke, and the baby's fingers curl.

Another mom seats herself by her baby at the far end of the room. Between us a long, untidy row of metallic boxes. Two doors at the bottom, an attempt at a dresser, dials and buttons cross the centre, made of steel. Babies perch in their top bunks, their lookout towers. Do the babies think this is an extended pyjama party? The glass, punctured with two armholes filled with plastic whorls to stuff a parent's love through. I look down past the rows of isolettes to a dad who has lifted the glass lid of his baby's tiny room and pulled out the shelf on which the child rests, the way he'd open an oven door and pull out the metal rack holding a tray of chocolate cookies. We are parents; we should be exchanging recipes, hollering down the aisles.

Hey! Could you bring me your Pork Medallions in Dijon Mustard Sauce?

Want to try my Chocolate Marbled Cheesecake?

The huge baby two rows over squawks. Works himself up, the big one with the voice. I get a sudden picture of baby Jesus throwing a tantrum. Glaring balefully at the lady hired to sweep out the hut. Jesus gumming dates and figs. Baby Jesus playing in the dirt of the cedar grove.
And she brought forth her firstborn son and wrapped him in swaddling clothes and laid him in a manger …
Hey, God, how come you got to have a healthy child? How come
your
kid got to live till thirty-three?

Silence, except for a nurse zooming the aisles, crying, Baby Schmidt's temp's up. Can you open the isolette? Take off a blanket. Oh, oh. Baby Minor's got loose stools. Yeah, greasy. Yellow. Better hold the MCT oil. Can someone call the cath lab for Baby Landonell's results? Medicine forced down, tubes inserted, blood let.

I rest my head against the glass. My right hand, if I reach, can just touch the paper skin; above it, the toque's prickly softness. Must be real wool. Kalila could be allergic. I want to warn my daughter, Don't accept gifts from strangers. Good lord, I forgot to hospital-proof my child!

No yanking out of each other's catheters.

No playing with needles.

No food tube fights.

No accepting toques from strangers.

The glass is cool against my forehead. Outside the window, snow falls.
Since you came, baby, the weather hasn't stopped
. I close my eyes to the silent drop of icy snowflakes. Take this blue baby and lay her out in snow, dust her into a blue-shadowed little girl wearing a grey unbuttoned coat, blue leotards, a dusky grey-blue toque. The child breathes peppermint air, sinks against the crispy crust, swings her arms in arcs, scissors her legs. Sshhish, Sshhish. Toque dark against the diamond glitter. The child's cheeks shine ruddy in the snow light. She calls, laughing, Mommy, I a angel, Mommy, I a star.

I open my eyes. Kalila is flailing her arms and blowing mucus. The nurse rushes over, occupying my space. The red musical apple in the isolette's corner sings at the baby's kicks. The nurse shoves in capable arms, siphons the suction tube up the baby's nose, draws out endless amounts of thick green mucus.

Has Dr. Byars contacted you?

Who's Dr. Byars?

I long for home, for a familiar language.

The nurse says, He'll talk to you. Snakes out the sticky tube.

Stories are meant to lead somewhere. To rising action. Climax. Closure. And they lived Happily Ever After. From its beginning, Kalila's story, like a woollen toque, unravelling.

What's wrong? I make myself say, but the words stay in my head. The nurse repositions the hose, shoves it down the other nostril. The baby jerks, hoarse breathing, dry, in harsh fluorescent light. When the nurse finishes, she raises the little bed within the isolette to a forty-five-degree angle. The baby makes a bubbly sound.

He'll contact you.

The little pasty grey-white face grows slowly pinker.

Is she worse? I want to hold her.

Honey, she's tired now.

I want to hold her.

The baby lies lifeless with exhaustion.

She'll sleep if I hold her. She always sleeps better if I hold her.

11:42 a.m. Babe received in mother's arms.

I hold the book I've picked at random off my bookshelf. Close my eyes. Picture my mother, reading with her finger, like a child after all these years. She can read at most an hour, then the page blurs. The doctors tell her macular degeneration is a mysterious disease. No one knows why an eye's blood vessels break and leak. Lately she has trouble recognizing faces. She tells people mostly by their shapes these days, their walk, their smell, their voices. Their outline is a blur. I can't make eye contact, she tells me over the phone. There are times I know I appear rude. I feel such shame.

On her last visit, Dr. Nichols jovially told her that in mythology, blindness is linked to inner sight. Birds see better than humans. My mother reading up on sight as she loses her own. Pigeons, for instance, see polarized light that is absent to the human eye. These same birds can be trained to pick out letters of the alphabet, a skill my mom is losing. A spindrift of sunlight at the window. My book slips from my knee. How I long for my mother's faith. Mine fell away somewhere. I listen to the prayer my mother will be praying.
Our Kind Loving Heavenly Father, Ye who said your kingdom is likened unto a child, Ye who said to the nobleman, Go thy way, thy child liveth, Ye who said, Suffer the little children to come unto me. Ye who sees the sparrow fall, Attend to the suffering of little Kalila
. I squint at a breath of sunlight shifting against the windowpane.

A sunny Tuesday morning. I find myself standing in the fresh produce aisle. Shoppers negotiate carts about me.

Maggie Watson! I turn in the act of picking up a mango. Remember too late the touch of its skin blisters my own. Standing at the far end of the aisle is a woman I worked with at the seniors' complex. Bernice stands large in her overcoat, open, revealing a fuchsia paisley dress. Her feet, stuck in serviceable white nursing shoes, squeak my way.

So, Bernice says.

Umm, Bernice says.

I pick up three pomegranates, pack them in my cart. How's life at Confederation Lodge?

Things could be worse. Bernice pinches the kiwi. I moved to days. Remember Vivian? She worked in foods? She's developed a tremor in her left hand. Mm-hmm.

I set in my cart arugula, a bag of kale. Bernice goes for the romaine lettuce, leans close. Pear perfume. Who'd want to smell like fruit?

Bernice says, May be cerebral palsy. Vivian, she adds to my blank look. Oh, Bernice says, and Madge Middleton finally died. She snaps her fingers. Went just like that at Tuesday Bingo. It was so distressing for the others. And Ruth Barker, the activity coordinator —was she there before? — well, she took Velma's job — anyway, she didn't notice Madge had passed on, and kept shouting, Under the B-52! Under the O-12! Madge passed on in her folding chair beside old Julian Bates, who got so agitated when he noticed her gone, he hollered, Bingo! And Nattie Schue slid all the buttons off her cards. Was there a to-do when Nattie found she was out of the game for nothing! When all the excitement died, and the paramedics left, they had to start the game over on account of Nattie Schue.

I walk into morning light, pushing a cart of groceries I don't need: mangoes, shrimp, Chinese cabbage, lemongrass, leeks, a clump of beets. As I pull onto Sarcee Trail, window rolled down, the Rocky Mountains, the whole Bow Valley corridor, bursts into view in all its granite snow-topped sunlit splendour.

A chinook wind sings.

The world is turning on its axis.

Anything can happen.

Hand in your quiz. I trust it's jolted you awake. Surprises are stimulating. Keep you on your toes. Harvey, you already wrote the thing. What's the point of complaining now? Take out your notebooks. Fifteen minutes left. No. There's no such thing in my class as free time. Chaos theory. With whom did it begin?