Here to Stay (36 page)

“One more,” she whispered and rose up to finish.

Erik turned his head then, and watched his son be born. As if in an underwater dream, he saw Kees emerge. Saw the doctor’s hands turn him prone, the cord trailing behind, and for a moment Kees was held aloft like an offering.

Born.

And borne.

His face was turned away and something about the tiny pale back curved over N’Dour’s blue-gloved palm stopped Erik’s breath. The fragile spine visible through translucent skin. Wet whorls of hair stuck down to the eggshell skull. He looked neat and tidy in the doctor’s hands. He was perfect.

He’s alive.

It was a mistake. A bad dream. He’s alive.

Then the baby’s limbs flopped out, dangling over N’Dour’s forearm and the moment shattered. A sound escaped Erik’s chest. He was filled with a stunning sense of finality at the sight of those limp, lifeless arms and legs. As if there had been a flicker of hope, a valiant attempt to try, but then everything gave out. And Erik was awash with a sudden and sorrowful blame.

I’m sorry,
he thought.
I let you down. Oh, Kees, I’m so sorry…

He swayed and wobbled on his legs as the doctor brought the baby up and onto Daisy’s chest. Lee smoothed a blanket over.

“Un beau garçon,” N’Dour said softly.

Erik put his hands over Daisy’s, their fingers piled on top of the tiny infant. Daisy didn’t move. Her eyes were closed, her face a pinch of chalk.

An undeterminable length of time unfurled. Then a soft hand settled on Erik’s shoulder and Lee asked if he would like to cut the cord.

“Go,” Daisy said, her eyes still closed. “Do everything.”

The cord was clamped in two places and N’Dour showed Erik where to cut between. The blades felt flimsy and inept, chomping and hacking through the last lifeline. Cutting all hope.

Vaguely, from some past conversation, he recalled Daisy telling him about a book and soulmates being severed. A blade slicing the bond and releasing enough energy to rip a hole in the sky.

He gritted his teeth and cut through. The air around him remained intact. He let the scissors fall from his fingers and went back to Daisy’s side. He put his hands on top of hers again.

He didn’t cry. He was too confused.

He was waiting for the sky to tear open.

THEY GAVE HIM A bath together, dressed him in the onesie and cap the hospital provided and carefully wrapped him in the swaddling blanket. Daisy was shaking by then, limbs trembling as the excess adrenaline poured out of her body, skin shivering with another low-grade fever. Fluids and antibiotics hung from her IV pole. Dr. N’Dour ordered a bit more Fentanyl and, once back in bed, Daisy fell asleep.

“I am so sorry,” N’Dour said, one of his hands swallowing Erik’s and the other clasping Erik’s upper arm.

Erik could only nod and touch the kind doctor’s arm in return. Mute with gratitude, he then turned and hugged Lee Malone harder than he’d ever hugged a human in his life.

“You’re so good to her,” she said, swaying side to side with him. “You are an amazing husband.”

“Thank you,” he managed to whisper.

She stepped away and put her hand on his face, bright tears rimming her eyes. “Go lie down now. Hold her. Don’t let go.”

After she and N’Dour left, Erik heeled off his shoes, picked up Kees and settled next to Daisy in the reclined bed. The baby’s tiny capped head was no bigger than a baseball in Erik’s palm. The point of the swaddled bundle barely made it to his elbow. He could tuck Kees against his chest like a football and make a dash for it.

Daisy nestled closer to him, mumbling something. Erik brushed her head with his mouth then turned eyes back to the child in his hand.

This is my son.

He stared at the wizened little face. Two lines for eyes. Tiny hairs for brows. A mouth set in a serious straight line. Gently Erik moved the cap back. He had hair. Not a lot, but enough for Lee to clip some. She’d wrapped the minuscule lock with thread and put it in an envelope for them to keep.

He remembered Daisy had kept a lock of his own hair all those years they were apart.

“Because it’s what you do,” she said.

Erik carefully pulled the cap into place. His fingertip traced the delicate curve of Kees’ cheek. He looked so solemn. So contemplative. Occupied with deep, important thoughts.

This is my son.

“It has no name,” Daisy said, her eyelids fluttering. Her hand lay small and limp against his shirt. The gold of her rings dull in the room’s flourescent light. Her wrist slender within the hospital bracelet. Erik blinked as its typed letters swam into focus.

FISKARE, MARGUERITE B.

He tilted his head, reading, as if only now realizing who she was.

“Marguerite Fiskare,” he mouthed.

He eased Kees’s tiny wrist from the blanket, the little slip of plastic fastened about it.

FISKARE, KENNET J.

On his own wrist, the documentation officially linking him to the other two.

FISKARE, BYRON E.

He clenched his fingers in a fist, the tendon in his wrist making the bracelet rise up and down. A heartbeat beneath his name.

They belong to me. This all belongs to me.

It belongs to my name.

His throat melted and his eyes bubbled over as he gathered Daisy closer. He laid the baby on his chest and curved his arms around both bodies. His wife in a drugged, fitful sleep. His son in an eternal sleep.

It does have a name.

This is my family.

And he clutched it all and wept for it.

“I KNOW IT SEEMS odd to take pictures,” the social worker said. “Sort of irreverent. Even macabre. But it’s not. Please don’t think anyone will think strangely of it. However you want to remember your baby, do it.”

Erik tried to relax into instinct. Holing up alone with Daisy and grieving privately seemed the thing to do. But it felt wrong. It was making everything worse.

“Is it all right with you if Will and Lucky come in?” Daisy finally asked. And it was all right. More than all right. Erik wanted them badly. Wanted friends close by until his mother and the Biancos could get there.

So they gathered in the little room, the four of them. They took turns holding Kees, took turns holding each other. Lucky had brought her camera and discreetly took some pictures. Just a few. Just to remember.

Lying beside Erik in the bed, Daisy touched his necklace. “Put it on him,” she whispered. “Please.”

He unclasped it and put it around Kees’s small head. Arranged the charms so they clustered together on Kees’s heart. He and Daisy held him.

Lucky took a picture.

Will and Erik sat side by side in chairs. Will held the baby and they stared across the room at Daisy and Lucky in the hospital bed, curled up together like sisters.

“She did that the night you left Lancaster,” Will said. “Got right in the bed with her. Held onto her all night.”

“It’s what you do,” Erik said. He could barely move his jaw he was so tired.

“I envy that about women. No taboo rules or bullshit when it comes to physical comfort. Your best friend is smashed in pieces, you get right in bed with her and hold the pieces together.”

“Want to sleep over tonight?” Erik said. “Hold my pieces?”

Will slowly turned his head. “Did you actually just make a joke?”

Erik closed his eyes and managed a weak smile. “No.”

The inability to get to Erik immediately after the shootings had always haunted Christine. She all but loaded herself into a slingshot and flung herself toward Canada. She was there now, with Peter, while Fred had gone with Will to the airport to get the Biancos.

Christine rocked Kees in the cradle of her elbow, her finger tracing the little face.

“Look how thoughtful he is,” she said, blinking back tears. “You looked like this after you were born, Erik. Just like this. Thinking, thinking, thinking.” She sniffed hard and held the bundle to her breast. Her other arm reached to pull Erik close.

“You looked just like this,” she whispered.

Francine and Joe put their hands together and held their grandson, heads bent low. After a while, Joe moved to sit on the edge of the bed where Daisy had dozed off. He stared at the wall, a silent soldier, stroking his daughter’s forehead. Fred sat on the wide windowsill, hands laced around a knee, looking out at nothing.

Erik sprawled in a chair, his temple on Christine’s shoulder. Her hand caressed his hair. His neck began to ache but he didn’t want her to stop. He slid down to sit on the floor, put his face on his mother’s knee. She rubbed his back. Pete came to sit where Erik had been and put a rough hand on his brother’s head.

Francine continued to hold Kees. One loving, fearless fingertip stroked between his eyebrows and over the fragile crown of his head. She sang a little song in French.