Lift (2 page)

I specialized in family “candids,” even though when I got to people’s houses, the kids looked like they’d just come from that glossy green salon in Oz where the Cowardly Lion had his hair curled. I shot kids in the sandbox, on the swing, in the bath; making mud pies, blowing bubbles,
smelling flowers; twirling, running, laughing. The trick to pleasing the client, I figured out pretty fast, was cropping out every nick, scrape, and bruise, along with the pimply parts, the second chins, and any flash of impatience or disappointment in either parent’s brow. It’s embarrassing, how much we want to idealize family.

Before I photographed you girls, I licked you clean like a mother cat and then sat you in a patch of open shade where the sun wouldn’t make you squint or drape you with shadows. I framed out the dirty cuffs of your shirts and the neon plastic toys you wouldn’t put down. I shot down on you so your eyes would seem bigger. I made you smoother and more beautiful than you could have ever been. Except you were, for a second. I was there. I saw it.

Most of the pictures taken after you turned four and became self-conscious have no character. You couldn’t stand in front of a camera without making
a peace sign or bunny ears or baring your teeth like you do for the dentist. The only good shots I got after that were when you were too consumed by something—weaving a hot-pot holder, peeling off your toenail polish, memorizing the dialogue between Troy and Gabriella—to notice me skulking around with my Nikon.

I had my camera the day Claire put her foot in the ocean for the first time. We’d stopped off at a stretch of beach after lunch at this greasy, delicious Mexican place and even though it was too cold to swim, Claire, you stripped off your clothes and greeted the sea like an audience, or your oldest friend. Before we got back in the car, you had to wash the sand off your body in one of those almost-painful public showers where the pressure’s been set too high. You found so many ways to thrill yourself in those jet streams, ways that would make your Catholic grandmother blanch. Neither
Dad nor I were inclined to stop you. You’re only two and a half once.

After a couple of years of family photography jobs around Berkeley, Children’s Hospital in Oakland hired me to take the cover shot for its donor report. I was so flattered. I charged my batteries and packed up my macro lens—the one for super close-up shots, like eyelashes and baby toes—and drove to Oakland, thinking that I should go for one of those hand-in-hand shots, a big adult hand holding a preemie hand. I hoped the newborn’s fingers would be small enough to make the contrast really dramatic. I actually
hoped
that.

I was a few minutes early, so I hung around the lobby waiting and watching. A young guy came in on a bike, wearing his baseball hat backward,
looking like the boys I knew in college. I watched him dig around in his pocket and show the nurse his license, and she nodded. “Your son is in Room Eleven. I’ll take you back.” I started looking around at everyone then, wondering what news they were waiting to get and which of them seemed the most ready.

I drifted over toward a huge dollhouse by the check-in counter and marveled at the tiny lamps with pleated fabric shades and pulls no bigger than sesame seeds. In the parlor, there was a miniature silver tea set that had a pitcher, a spoon, and a sugar bowl with a lid that you’d need tweezers to pick up. Upstairs, a girls’ room had twin spool beds with pink coverlets. The whole thing was protected by Plexiglas, to make sure nothing bad happened to it.

Eventually, I was led into the NICU, where the babies were the same way—tiny, mesmerizing, pro
tected by Plexiglas. Ken, a small, earnest guy who escorted me around, took me to Leon, born the day before, at fourteen ounces. He had a tube down his throat and wires taped to his chest. Near his face, someone had laid a piece of fabric about as big as a gum wrapper. Ken said it was a scent square.

“Parents wear the fabric on their skin—moms tuck it in their bras, dads rub it between their fingers—and before they leave for the night, they set the square by the baby’s nose,” Ken said, “so he’ll know them when they return.”

My mouth went dry. I found an Altoid in my purse and sucked it like it was an anti-anxiety pill, or a pacifier. Ken introduced me to William, a NICU nurse who’d been singled out for his giant hands. I snapped my lens into place and positioned Leon’s hand in William’s. People would respond to the image of those tiny fingers, they’d write checks, even without seeing the scrawny legs, the bulging,
salamander eyes, the baggy skin that had been expecting so much more.

Ken and the hospital folks loved the photographs, and in time I buried the memory of that room full of eggshell fragility and found ways to convince myself that I’d never have to go back to Children’s.

When the printed brochure arrived in the mail a month later, I held it out for Dad and said, “Claire was born ten times bigger than that baby. Can you imagine?”

But Dad doesn’t play that game. He’ll stew all night about a technicality in a contract at work that may or may not lead to a spat with a strategic partner, but real things? Things involving you guys? I don’t think he can bear to consider them, so he lowers his emotional garage door and locks it from the inside.

I squandered the last summer we spent in the Lewiston Avenue apartment, the one in Berkeley that you can’t remember. Georgia, you were almost two, Claire, you were just a baby and, truthfully, I was wishing you both older. Especially you, Claire. I wanted you to sleep, just until 4 a.m., then 5, then 6. When you woke up in the night, I’d reswaddle you in the straitjacket hold and tuck you into the vibrating seat. For hours. I’ve since heard that seat referred to as the Neglect-O-Matic. And I didn’t breast-feed you long enough. You started every feeding with a bite that made my toes curl, and I wanted to get pregnant again before Dad changed his mind, and then you and I passed thrush back and forth between your mouth and my nipples for a month and that was it. Eleven weeks. You were
a healthy baby, ten pounds at birth. I knew you’d be fine. Even so, I felt sheepish about stopping, especially living in Berkeley, where I once saw a bilingual four-year-old lift his mother’s shirt at a barbecue saying, “Mama,
leche
!” But if you have allergies or undue colds, I’m sure it’s my fault and I’m sorry.

One Friday night, toward the end of the summer, Claire, you got your first fever. Dad was taking out the recycling, a Diaper Genie sausage over his shoulder like a garland, and I was doing the last of the dishes. We were both watching the clock, waiting for the babysitter to unleash us for the night. I felt your forehead. I looked at Dad like maybe we should stay home, and he said, “Yeah, all right, it’d be good to save the money anyway.”

Your fever held all weekend. On Monday, little red dots like paprika turned up around your diaper area. Sarah came over after work.

Sarah was your pediatrician. We picked her because she went to Harvard (especially appealing to Dad) and worked less than a mile from our apartment (especially appealing to me). After I got to know her, I insisted—several times over many months—that she have a drink with our single friend Mike, even though Dad thought Mike would “geek it” since Sarah was “pretty good-looking.” A year later, they were engaged, and we’d secured a lifetime of house calls.

Sarah checked your ears and throat. She looked at the bottom of your feet and between your toes. Then she rubbed her thumb over the string of dots. “I’m checking for blanching,” she said. “See how they stay red? That’s different than a rash. A rash would turn white.”

“Okay…,” I said.

“Well.” Sarah closed your diaper and handed you to me. “I don’t want to panic you, Kelly, but I
think you should take her over to Children’s Hospital, to get some tests.”

“You want me to take her to Children’s Hospital?”

“Just to be on the safe side,” she said, nearly convincing me.

“Um, okay, that’s fine,” I said to Sarah, projecting composure as best I could. “Edward should be home soon, so I can leave Georgia with him and get over there.”

“Okay. Call me after you talk to him.” Sarah left and I dialed Dad. Before I could tell him much of anything a call came through on the other line. It was Sarah. She had called Children’s.

“Give Georgia to a neighbor. You need to get Claire in there. They’re expecting you.”

“Why?” I stood up, looking at Claire in her bassinet.

Sarah said the tiny red dots around your diaper
area were petechiae, which sometimes indicate meningitis.

“Oh my God,” I said, in a state of animal panic. “Georgia—! Sarah, what exactly
is
meningitis?”

“An infection—in the membranes that protect the brain and the spinal cord—”

My scalp prickled. My hands were shaking. I darted around the first floor, looking for keys, my purse, the diaper bag. Georgia, you were in the kitchen taping things together like you loved to do—an egg carton from recycling, a white paper bag from the pharmacy, several leftover bra liners for nursing mothers that cost me a fortune.

“So just listen,” Sarah said. “When you get there, they are going to take some blood and do a culture—and they’re going to do a lumbar puncture, a spinal tap, and they will start her on IV antibiotics immediately—”

My vision blurred for a second, like I’d stood up too fast. “They’re going to give Claire
a spinal tap
?”

“Yes,” Sarah said.

“Georgia!” I put your shoes on the table in front of you. “We gotta go, right now—” I needed you to hurry but I didn’t want to scare you, so I added “honey” at the end.

“It’s gonna be okay,” Sarah said. “But Kel, don’t let anyone make you wait.”

“Untreated,” Wikipedia says, “bacterial meningitis is almost always fatal.” Included in the entry is a color photograph of someone’s shiny, purple infant whose limbs had to be amputated because the infection led to gangrene. I’d been worrying about you choking on a mancala bead or falling through the slats on the deck, but gangrene?

Dad left work to meet me at Children’s. When he appeared in the waiting room, I wanted to throw myself at him, but something about his pace and
his expression said he needed to see me managing, not dissolving. Looking up at him, I wished I knew his faces a little better. Cousin Kathy once told me it takes ten years to learn your spouse; we’d barely been married for three. I shook off any hint of a breakdown and said, “All the forms have been filled out. We’ve been waiting to go in for about five minutes.” Kathy also told me once, “We’re never ready for the things that happen. When the big stuff happens, we’re always looking in the other direction.”

A nurse called out, “Claire? Claire Lichty?” Dad and I stood. A nurse took us through double doors to an ER room where we could wait for the doctor. I held you, taking in the room. Every drawer was labeled: IV catheters, vinyl gloves, number 10 needles. Above the red trash can for biohazard waste was a laminated reminder that this was a Germ Free Zone! Against the wall was a blanket warmer,
and overhead, a set of heaters the nurse referred to as French-fry lights, to keep the babies warm.

“Hi, I’m Leo Benjamin.” The doctor looked down at the chart in his hands while I threw information at him.

“She’s been running a fever since Friday, 101, then 102, now 104,” I said. “She’s not eating, or crying. She’s really not herself in any way at all.”

“Okay,” he said, “we’re going to give her some tests. We’ll draw some blood, collect a urine sample, start her on an IV. We’ll have to do what’s called a lumbar puncture.”

“Our pediatrician told us,” I said, wanting him to move faster.

Dr. Benjamin nodded toward a drawer, and the nurse took out two pairs of sterile gloves. They both put them on, and the nurse took you from me. She helped Dr. Benjamin hold you down on the table. He spread your legs open at the knees and you
screamed the scream that is given to each of us as a tool, the scream of violation. I started to lunge forward but Dad took my arm. The doctor pulled back the skin above your vagina to access your urethra and insert a catheter. I stepped closer to the table, into the heart of your vehemence, as urine drained into a clear plastic bag. It’s one thing to know your child is in pain, it’s another to attend it. Finally, Dr. Benjamin secured the catheter and you were back in my arms. We were both sweating.

Next, we were shown to a room just for spinal taps, where a staffer stood tall like a naval cadet. “This is Jeff. He positions and stabilizes the babies during the procedure,” Dr. Benjamin explained.

Jeff held out his hands. Against every instinct, I handed you off. With your feet in one hand and your forearms in the other, Jeff rounded you out. After swabbing your back with yellow iodine, Dr. Benjamin pushed a long needle between two of
your lower vertebrae, “past some dura mater.” Your razory screams tormented me. I crossed my arms and bit down on my lips and rocked back and forth in a soothing motion, like I’d accidentally driven into a bad neighborhood and was assuring myself that somehow I’d find my way out. I didn’t look at Dad. I couldn’t spare the emotion.

Dr. Benjamin pulled the needle back slowly, calmly, despite your awful shrieking. “That’s all we need. We’ll take this to the lab and start the evaluation.” He stood and handed you to me. You were hot and whimpering. I held you, heart to heart, your hands around my neck. Although I’d betrayed you, although I’d stood by while people spread and bent and stabbed you, you still wanted me most of all.

“We can start her on antibiotics now. Stephanie will put an IV in,” Dr. Benjamin said.

Our friend Deirdre is a pediatric ER doc in
Boston. She told us this thing once, long before I became a parent, that I’ve never forgotten. She said no matter how stark the diagnosis, parents never fall over or scream like they do on TV. They keep breathing and listening and asking very good questions, and minute-by-minute they expand on the spot to take it in. I hoped I was that adaptive. I hoped I was as sturdy as the dad in baggy shorts with his hat flipped around.

I’d been steady and reasonable for both Dr. Benjamin and the nurse, playing to the audience as I do, but after they left, I said to Dad, “This is too—I don’t know. If we get out of here okay, I’ll never have another baby.”