Bundle of Trouble

•CHAPTER THREE•

We were moved to a bright recovery room with a view of Saint Ignatius Church. Jim slouched in a corner of the room on a hospital cot.

Mom had left for the day, ticketless. It was only 5 P.M., but felt much later.

I held my sleeping pumpernickel in my arms. I was told that newborns mainly sleep the first week. It’s difficult to wake them even to nurse. Right now sleep sounded great. Jim and I were exhausted.

“I wish I had space in this stupid hospital bed for you,” I said, raising the bed slightly, then lowering it again.

Who could ever get comfortable in one of these?

“Don’t worry, honey, I’m fine,” Jim grumbled from the corner cot.

“I miss you way over there.”

He stood, stretched, and hobbled over to me, his legs cramped from a long night of worry and catnapping on a bad cot. “Let me hold her awhile.”

I handed the baby to him. He settled himself against the windowsill and admired her. “Hope for the next generation.”

I knew, of course, that his remark was connected to George. But I didn’t have the energy to think about that. “I need to sleep awhile, honey. .”

I was already drifting off when I felt the covers being tucked against my chin. “Take care of Laurie,” I mumbled.

“Is that her name?”

“If you like it,” I said, drifting to sleep.

“I do. Get some rest. I promise to take good care of Laurie.”

I slept a fitful hour, dreaming that I was swimming in the bay. In the dream, I became entangled with a dead body that seemed to pull me under. As I freed myself from the corpse to swim toward the surface, my ankle caught in the strap of a bag. The sound of cries pierced the water. Suddenly, the water was full of bags and corpses. A shrill cry startled me awake.

I gasped for air as I awoke. Jim was standing over me with the baby in his arms. “Are you all right?”

I nodded, dumbfounded.

“Sorry, honey, I didn’t mean to wake you. She’s crying and I don’t know what to do.” Jim handed me the baby.

“I think she’s hungry, or wet, or both.” I placed her near my breast. Instead of latching on, she only cried louder, howling into my face. Jim laughed but I felt like crying, too.

“Maybe we should call the nurse,” I said.

Before we could do anything, a tall, slender African-American nurse glided into the room. Her name tag read GISELLE.

“What is it now? Little baby girl giving her parents a hard time? Hush now, they don’t know what they’re doing, girl.” She rewrapped Laurie’s blanket around her.

In an instant the crying stopped. Laurie gratefully curled into Giselle. Jim and I stared at her.

“Did anyone teach you how to swaddle?” she asked.

“I thought she was swaddled,” Jim replied.

“Not tight enough. Babies like to be wrapped tight, like a little burrito, or they feel like they’re falling.” She handed Laurie to Jim and turned to me. “How’s Mama?” she asked, expertly taking my blood pressure and temperature.

“Now that you mention a burrito, hungry.”

Giselle smiled. “Dinner’s coming up. What about pain medication?”

“Yes, please,” Jim said.

When dinner was served, I handed Laurie off to Giselle. Laurie would spend the night in the nursery down the hall. Giselle would bring her in whenever she needed to nurse, which felt like every couple of minutes but at the same time too long in between. I missed Laurie terribly when she was out of the room, but felt exhausted when she was brought in.

After gobbling down the hospital dinner of cardboard sliced ham and runny applesauce, I eagerly turned to chat with Jim. He was sacked out on the cot in the corner.

I shifted to the edge of the bed to make my way to the restroom.

Wait a minute.

I didn’t need to pee. What a miracle, to go from running to the restroom every five minutes to not needing to go for an entire night. I sat in silence.

Finally, I reached for a pen and paper and scratched out a to-do list.

To Do (When I Get Home):

1. Get better at breastfeeding.

2. Lose weight.

3. Take a gazillion pictures of Laurie.

4. Call work and let them know about Laurie and plan a return date-yuk!

5. George? Where is he?

Was he dead? What could have happened? I thought about suicide. Certainly if he had become homeless, it seemed possible. Why hadn’t he come to Jim and me if his only option was the streets?

What about an accident? Could George have fallen into the bay and drowned?

The medical examiner had said the body was badly decomposed. How long would it have to be underwater to decay? Had it been caught on something that kept it submerged? Seaweed?

My mind flashed on the Mafia movies and bodies being held down with concrete.

What if he had been murdered?

“Jim,” I called. He lay motionless on the cot, in a deep, exhausted sleep. “Jim,” I called again.

He sat up, startled. “What is it, honey? Something wrong?”

“I can’t sleep. I’m thinking about George. What if it’s him, dead in the bay? What if he was murdered?”

“Murdered? My God, Kate! I mean, he’s probably not hanging out with the cream of the crop, but. .” He paused, letting out a sigh. “We don’t know anything yet. The medical examiner asked if George had any identifiers on his body, you know. . to help them. . George has a pin in his ankle and he’s also had his appendix out.”

My heart stopped.

We could have known if it was George twenty-four hours ago!

In my calmest voice, I asked, “Why didn’t you tell the medical examiner that?”

Jim shrugged. “Part of me is always trying to protect him. What if the guy who called wasn’t even from the medical examiner’s office? What if it was someone who’s just trying to find out where George is? Like someone he owes money to or something like that.”

I held out my hand for Jim. He got up and crossed the room, sitting on the bed. “Honey,” I said. “That makes no sense. If it was someone George owes money to, why would they ask about his scars?”

Jim shrugged, then pinched the bridge of his nose. “All my life everyone has tried to help George. Growing up, my mom told me to take care of him. Your best friend for life, she always said. I did my best, but nothing was ever good enough for him. He always demanded more, giving nothing in return and managing to poison everything and everyone around him.” His face contorted in anger, then turned to sadness. “I didn’t want the joy of Laurie’s birth clouded over by news about George.” After a moment, he said, “I took down the guy’s phone number. I’ll call him when we’re home, make sure I’m really reaching the medical examiner’s office.”

We sat in silence for a moment. I put my arms around him and pressed my cheek against his. I understood his desire to postpone bad news.

As the sun came up, the room began to glow. I glanced at the clock and realized Laurie was due back at any minute.

“Sorry I woke you,” I said.

He stroked my hair. “Try not to worry about George. I’m doing it enough for the both of us. You focus on Laurie and on recovering.”

The day nurse wheeled in our little bundle, wrapped in a pink and blue striped swaddling blanket with a pink cap on her head. She looked like a tiny cherub with rosy cheeks. I noticed a scratch on her face. Laurie’s itty-bitty nails were extremely long. The nurse explained that hospital staff refused to trim them “because of the liability.”

How ridiculous was that? A qualified nursing professional wouldn’t trim those microscopic things. I’m supposed to?

How could I trust myself not to cut off a finger? Where was Giselle? And who was this day nurse who didn’t even have the decency to help us trim the little talons?

Laurie swung her hands frightfully close to her bright blue eyes. Jim and I decided filing them seemed a much safer option.

As I manicured Laurie, Jim called our family and friends announcing the birth of our daughter. When Jim dialed his Uncle Roger, I found myself holding my breath.

“Uncle Roger? It’s Jim. . we had the baby. . yeah. . beautiful baby girl. . six pounds, five ounces. . Laurie. Katie’s doing great.”

Jim listened as Roger spoke. I continued to eavesdrop, but couldn’t make out much from Roger’s end.

I mouthed to Jim, “Ask him about George.”

Jim waved me away, then turned his back to me.

I checked Laurie’s diaper. Her diapers were so tiny, Jim and I laughed every time we had to change one. She was dry.

I wondered if the nurse had changed her. In the baby preparation class, they told us we would now become “waste watchers.” Laurie needed to have as many wet diapers per day as she was days old. Two days old, two wet diapers. At least until the mother’s milk came in. Right now she was surviving solely on colostrum, the premilk.

How would it feel to have milk come in? Were you supposed to feel anything? So far, I’d noticed nothing. What if it didn’t come in? What then? How would I know anyhow? And even if it did come in, would it be enough?

Earlier this morning the day nurse had stood over our bed and observed me breastfeeding. She frowned as she wrote down on my chart: “Breastfeeding: mother-poor, baby-poor.”

How could she write that?

I’m an overachiever by nature, but the nurse’s remark about me didn’t bother me as much as the remark about Laurie. How could she say Laurie was “poor” at anything? I felt an immediate instinct to defend my little one. Forget that nurse. We would show her. We were going to become breastfeeding wonders.

When did Giselle’s shift start?

Jim hung up the phone, the sound interrupting my thoughts. “Uncle Roger hasn’t heard from the medical examiner’s office.”

“Oh? I didn’t hear you ask him.”

“I didn’t. But he didn’t say anything about it, so I know they didn’t call him.”

“Why didn’t you just ask him?”

“Why bother him? Hasn’t Roger been through enough?”

I felt my stomach tighten. “Aren’t you worried?”

Laurie answered with a wail as though she sensed her father’s distress.

Avoiding my question, Jim teased, “Go ahead and try that breastfeeding thing again. I hear you two are poor at it.”