Funeral with a View (17 page)

The pitter-pat of
little footsteps and a high pitched mumbling drifts into the funeral parlor. If
I still had a heart it would be pounding with excitement. The sounds can only
mean one thing: Jude is ushering the twins and my little girl back inside. It
feels like an eternity since I’ve seen Celeste and I find the chest that I
don’t have aching to lay my spectral eyes on her.

The twins, Sam and Jeff,
walk in first. Damn if they’re not growing at a geometric rate.

My young niece and nephew
are an interesting amalgamation of their parents. They inherited Rob’s lean,
lanky build, but get their light hair and blue eyes from Jude. As far as
personalities, Jeff is like Jude, wild and a bit of a good natured smart ass,
and Samantha is quiet and reserved like her father. It would be nice to see how
they’ll change over the years but I doubt I’ll get the chance.

Finally. In walks little
Celeste, led in by her Aunt Jude. Catherine’s sister kneels down and whispers
in her ear. Celeste nods uncertainly, big brown eyes nervous as she takes in
all the serious-looking strangers. That’s to be expected from a six-year-old
who’s been thrown into something she knows little about. Still, she’s the
cutest thing in the world, despite the nervous cast to her face. I watch as she
shyly shuffles her way over to her mother, blond pigtails swaying in time with
her steps.

“Hi, Mommy.” She taps
Catherine on the knee. Cat gives a start, obviously not having noticed her
approach. That’s my little ninja. Celeste could skulk with the best of them. Her
catching us unawares as Mommy and Daddy ‘wrestled’ in the bedroom was proof of
that.

“Hey, you.” Catherine
pulls Celeste onto her lap. “Did you have fun playing with your cousins?”

“It was okay, I guess.”

“Just ‘okay’?”

Celeste’s shoulders slump
and her eyes focus on the floor as she swings her legs, shiny new shoes
dangling a foot in the air. “Yeah. We played tag and I didn’t even fall down
once.”

“That’s good, sweetie.”

The little one’s pride
quickly fades. “But …”

“But what?”

Celeste’s eyes dart from
Catherine to her cousins then back to the floor. “Sam and Jeff were mean to
me.”

Cat’s head snaps around
to address her sister. “Oh really?”

“They got into a little
argument outside,” Jude sighs. “It’s nothing to worry about, Cat. I had a
chat
with the twins.” She shoots a glare at Sam and Jeff. They shrink like ants
under a magnifying glass and shuffle off, heads bowed. My wife wasn’t the only
one who’d inherited The Colonel’s evil eye. Like father, like daughters.

“Mommy, Sam and Jeff said
there’s no such things as angels.” The hurt in her voice is palpable. “And
that’s just not true, right, Gramma Beth?”

Mom puts on a brave face.
“So very untrue, Pookie Bear. We’re surrounded by guardian angels all the time.
They watch over us and protect us.”

“See, Mommy? I teld them,
but they kept saying I was wrong. They kept saying I’m too little, and that
angels aren’t real.” Her next words are a whisper. “But I want them to be
real.”

“Why do you want them to
be real, Celeste?” Catherine asks.

“’Cause if they’re real,
then I won’t have to miss Daddy so much.”

Catherine becomes
worried, her face haunted. “Beth, can you do me a favor, please?”

“Of course, sweetheart.”

“Can you bring Celeste
into the lobby? I have a bag out there by the coats with some coloring books in
it.”

Mom’s smile is sad. “Of
course I can. How about we do some coloring, Celeste? Just you and Gramma?” She
tickles Celeste’s neck, makes her giggle.

“Okay.” Celeste hops off Catherine’s
lap. She and my mother head toward the lobby, hands interlocked. Before they
vanish through the double doors, my daughter looks over her shoulder in my
direction. Her brow scrunches, and she turns her attention to her mom one last
time. Then they’re gone.

Once they’re out of the
room, Catherine folds in on herself, hands covering her face and shoulders
shaking. Jude puts an arm around Cat and rubs her back. A small consolation,
but it’s a hell of a lot more than I can do.

“I’m scared.”

“We’ll be there in a few
minutes.”

Gritting my teeth, I
thought back to how a normal March evening had turned into a nightmare come
true. And like most nightmares, it blindsided us.

Catherine and I were
sacked out on the couch watching
Blazing Saddles
when, in the middle of the
classic baked bean scene, she’d walked off to the bathroom. It wasn’t long
before I heard her scream.

“Rick?
Ricky
!” The
fear in her voice chilled me. I stumbled over the back of the couch, rushed to
the bathroom, and threw open the door.

“What? What’s wrong?”
Catherine was sitting on the toilet, shaking and scared out of her mind. Her worried
expression told me something was very,
very
wrong. She held up her trembling
hands. They were covered in bright crimson.

“Ricky …” She looked
down, and I followed her eyes to the source.

“Oh fuck.” My mind had
caught up with the situation and gave my body a mental kick in the ass. “We’re
going to the hospital.
Now
.”

I squeezed her blood-tacky
hand as I drove one-handed at a breakneck pace. When I saw what had happened,
I’d reacted. Didn’t even bother calling 911. I knew I could make it to the
hospital faster than if we’d waited for an ambulance to arrive.

We skidded to a halt in
front of the emergency room, startling a large orderly on his way in. I slammed
the gear shift in park and bounded out before the shocks had a chance to absorb
the abrupt change in momentum.

“We need help!” The hospital
employee was already jogging toward us. “My wife has lost a lot of blood.” I
tore open the passenger side door and cradled her in my arms. Catherine’s face
was pale and sweaty, eyes glassy.

The orderly rushed over
with a wheelchair, and as soon as I deposited my wife in it, he spun around and
we darted inside.

“Get Dr. Horner,” the orderly
called out, voice loud but calm.

“Ricky, don’t tell
anyone,” Catherine pleaded, begging me with her eyes.

I nodded.

A dignified man with
thick-rimmed glasses and silver hair pushed through the swinging double doors,
his white lab coat billowing behind him. He looked at the dark red stain between
Catherine’s legs.

“She’s pregnant,” I said.

He nodded. “Do you have
any allergies, miss? Latex? Any medicines? Anything?”

Cat shook her head
slowly. “No.”

“Okay, let’s get her in
back,” he commanded. A team of nurses appeared behind him as if by magic and
then they disappeared through the double doors from which he came.

Lost and alone, I stood
in the lobby, staring at the portal that had swallowed my wife like an offering
to a leviathan.

A voice broke my fugue
state.

“Sir? Excuse me. Sir?” I
turned to see a matronly woman calling to me from behind the round admissions
desk. Like a zombie, I lumbered over and placed my hands on top of it. She
noted my ring. “Who’s your wife’s doctor?”

“Dr. Ann is her OB/GYN.
Dr. Ann Conera.”

“If you could, please
fill out these forms.” A clipboard appeared, and she slid it toward me.
“Please, sir?”

“Right, okay. Thank you.”
I took the clipboard and fell into a chair. I pulled my insurance card out of
my wallet and prepared to fill out the multitude of forms before me, but none
of it made any sense. Dropping everything on the chair next to me, I buried my
face in my hands.

~~~

“Your wife is going to be
okay, Mr. Franchitti.” Dr. Horner looked at me with kindly eyes. He pulled off
his sea foam green surgery cap and ran his hands through his sweaty gray hair.
“Unfortunately, the baby didn’t make it.” I’d realized that as soon as I saw
the scene in our bathroom. Words failed me. I looked at the floor. “I’m very
sorry. The good news is that there’s no material remaining …”

Material

I stopped listening after
that, only catching words like ‘infection’ and ‘observation.’ Everything else
he said disappeared into the ether. My wife was going to be okay. There was
nothing more important than that.

“Can I go see her?” I
asked.

“She’s sleeping right now
…”

I looked him in the eyes.
“Can I go
see
her?”

The doctor pursed his
lips. “Yes, I don’t see any harm in it. But don’t disturb her.”

“Thank you,” I said, the
words lacking emotion.

My wife looked so small
and helpless. Tubes and IVs snaked out of her arm, leading to monitors and
machines I didn’t even know the names of much less what functions they served. I
watched the slow rise and fall of her chest, her face slack with sleep. Not
knowing what else to do, I kissed her lightly on the forehead and settled into
the bland green chair in the corner of the room. I stayed up as long as I could
before I was overcome by a dreamless sleep.

~~~

“Are you sure you
shouldn’t let your family know what happened?”

“I’m sure.”

Catherine hadn’t said much
on the drive home. I’d made attempts at conversation—about
anything
—but
her replies were terse. She’d spent most of the morning with her head turned,
staring at the recovery room wall with her limp hand in mine, and the only time
she hinted at emotion was when Dr. Ann stopped by to check on her.

“The hospital called me
last night,” Dr. Ann had said somberly. “I’m so sorry. I spoke to Dr. Horner
afterward and if there’s a silver lining to all of this, it’s that there isn’t
any scarring or internal issues. There’s absolutely no reason why you won’t be
able to conceive and carry again.” Catherine bit her lip as Dr. Ann spoke of
miscarriage percentages. Her eyes pooled with unshed tears, and she remained
silent. Not a scream, not a whimper, not even a ‘why’. The lack of reaction
unnerved me. It was if someone had reached in and turned off her inner light. I
couldn’t blame her. Her last doctor’s visit—on Valentine’s Day not even a month
ago—went well. The first loss was a horrible blow. But this one? This one would
linger, I could feel it.

After that appointment,
we’d eaten at a romantic Italian bistro.

“I’m stuffed,” Catherine
had said, leaning back with her hands on her stomach.

“You sure there’s only
one kid in there? With the amount of food you put away tonight, it looks to me
like you’re eating for three, not two.”

She puffed her cheeks.
“Will you still love me when I’m big and fat?”

“More of you to love,
baby.”

“I was thinking …”
Fingers caressed her C&R bracelet, and candlelight danced off the polished
silver.

“Don’t hurt yourself.”

She threw a packet of
butter at me. “As I was
saying
, wiseass—maybe we shouldn’t tell anybody
about the pregnancy right away.”

“Why not? You’re not
getting superstitious in your old age, are you?”

“No, it’s not that. You
heard what Dr. Ann said. Even though the percentage of having a second
miscarriage is lower than the first, the first trimester is still the most
likely time for something wrong to happen. I think we should wait it out before
we announce it. This way nobody gets worked up if things don’t work out.”

We were on our own this
time. I’d promised her I wouldn’t tell, and I’d learned the hard way not to
break that promise, no matter how much it went against my ‘puker’s’ nature.

Dr. Ann cleared her
throat, shattering the memory.

I followed her out of the
recovery room.

“She’s in shock, Rick. I’ve
seen it plenty of times, especially when it’s not the first loss. The only
thing you can do right now is be there for her. If she seems distant or angry, you
must realize that it’s not personal.”

Now, Catherine stared
into the backyard from where she sat at the kitchen table while I placed her
meds on the counter.

“You should take a week
off. I know you have the time. There’s no need for you to go back to work right
away.”

“I’m not taking the week
off. I’m sure I’ll be fine.”

“Okay, as long as you’re
sure.”

“I just said I was sure,
didn’t I?”

“Yeah, you did. Sorry.”

“I’m not an invalid,
Rick.”

“That’s not what I meant.
I know you’re not. I’m trying to help, that’s all.”

“I know.” She stood up.
“I’m going to lie down for a little while.”

“Do you want me to get us
something to eat?” I called after her as she headed up the stairs. “I could go
to the deli and pick up whatever you want?”

The sound of the bedroom
door closing was the only answer I got.

The next few weeks were
anything but comfortable. Life had become a pale imitation of itself, as if we
were fleeting shadows of real people living a life together. Wake up, go to
work, arrive home, eat dinner, engage in meaningless chit-chat, sit and stare
at the idiot box, go to bed … wash, rinse, repeat. Physical contact bordered on
extinction. Other than a chaste peck on the cheek or an unintended brush up
against one another, there was nothing. Our sex life was dead and buried. I
couldn’t remember a time when we’d been so sexually inactive, but ever since
the trip to the emergency room it was like someone had thrown a switch and cut
the power. Tension enveloped our everyday lives, night and day, day and night.
I felt suffocated, and despite Dr. Ann’s advice, I couldn’t help but take it
personally after a time.

The weeks turned into
months and I fell into a funk. Exhaustion followed hot on the heels of
sleepless nights, which chipped away at my temper. What at first I’d fought to
compartmentalize carried over into everything, and it got to the point where,
outside of work relationships, I'd nearly cut myself off from everyone,
including my mother and Bill.

Still, I honored
Catherine’s request to keep quiet about what happened that night in March. Not
an easy thing to do. I wasn’t used to keeping things bottled up for so long. Only
when it affected my work did my gums loosen.