17. Kendall
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Kendall
THEN
Hospitals are deceptively aseptic. The linoleum floors and fluorescent lights give that sterile effect they’re going for, but it’s a ruse.
A lie. Hospitals contain the sickest of the sick.
People who are infirm and vulnerable. Some might think because it’s a hospital and the supply of disinfectant and bleach is endless, they could practically eat off the floors, but that’s not true.
It can’t be. Not when lurgy and death has the tendency to linger like smoke crawling around sharp corners.
“I’m going to do a quick check.”
I nod, blankly staring past the nurse’s shoulder. She lowers the sheets, dipping her gloved hand past the mesh underwear I’m wearing. I’m assuming she’s checking for bleeding or any signs of infection, whatever it is nurses do for moms after they give birth.
But the fact of the matter is that I’m not a mom. Moms have children, or at least a child. They birth babies that live longer than a few hours. They get to nurse them and change their diaper. I haven’t done any of those things.
“Your meal tray is here,” the nurse tells me. I think her name is Cindy. Or Sandy. I’m not sure. I don’t really remember. “Do you want me to leave it on your table?”
I shake my head.
“I’ll leave it by the sink then.” She reaches beyond the railing for my call remote.
It’s attached to a thick cord and there’s a large red button on it with a silhouette of a nurse.
She places it by my hand, patting it as a reminder that I can call for her anytime I need.
I vaguely remember her walking out of the room.
My hospital gown feels rough against my skin.
It’s been washed and dried and starched too many times.
The blankets feel just as rough, making the bed feel uncomfortable and stiff.
I’m wearing a sanitary pad. A common post-birth necessity and another detail I vaguely remember the doctor explaining to me.
There’s no baby, but I’ll still experience some bleeding.
And cramping. All of which I feel right now.
A gush of blood between my legs. A twinge in my lower abdomen.
But I don’t feel the baby.
Those flutters and waves and ripples are all gone. And I’m empty. Completely hollow.
The door handle clicks open. My eyes sweep across the room before finding Sylvia gingerly walking through the door.
She went back to my apartment in the morning to get some clothes after I ruined the ones I wore here.
They’re at the bottom of the trash bin now, a lump of loss and guilt tossed in there with the hopes that I can somehow move on from this.
She has a tote bag dangling from her fingers with what she brought.
Except that’s not all she brought back with her. She also brought James.
“Hey,” Sylvia calls gently.
I respond with a listless smile.
“I brought an extra sweater since it’s kind of cold in here,” she explains. “And those fuzzy socks you like.”
I catch James cautiously following her steps, as if he’s unsure of his place here.
It feels like he’s an outsider, invading a space that was never intended for him.
But regardless of how estranged he is from me, I can’t help but notice the details lining his face.
His ruddy cheeks and his sunken eyes, bloodshot and sorrowful.
His hair stretched out in different directions, his clothes rumpled. The same ones I last saw him in.
“I also brought some chai tea bags,” Sylvia continues. “I just need to find some hot water so I can steep one.”
Another weak smile lifts the corners of my lips and she strokes a comforting hand down my arm.
“I’m going to see if they have some at the nurses’ station.”
The door creaks at the hinges when Sylvia leaves, a detail I didn’t notice until now.
It’s loud like a protest, a whine fading into a groan.
When Sylvia takes with her the squishy buffers offering the smallest bits of solace between James and me, everything becomes amplified.
The surge of air from the vents. The muffled announcements from the PA system that only sounds in the hallways. The shuffle of James’s footsteps.
“You aren’t going to get in trouble with work?” My voice sits on a tight rope, balancing on a dangerous teeter between tears and spite.
He shakes his head, taking another hopeful step forward.
“I guess you didn’t have to make up a reason to play hooky after all.”
My cold shoulder isn’t received in the way I expect. Instead, James creeps closer, dragging a heavy chair to my bedside.
“Kendall, I came as soon as I got Sylvia’s message,” he pleads. “I hadn’t gotten her calls until I landed, and I got on the next flight back. I tried so hard to find something sooner, but—”
“The doctor said I can go home soon,” I cut him off. “Probably in a few hours. Sorry you came here for nothing.”
“No, that’s not—”
“I’m kind of tired,” I snap, pulling my blanket over me.
I haven’t slept yet, and I can feel my body fight through the aftereffects of sleep deprivation.
My head hits the pillow, but sleep still evades me.
I turn my face away from him, not bothering to close my eyes.
Instead, I lay there, my gaze drifting away from him.
He doesn’t leave, but he also doesn’t stay.
I layer myself under the sheets, creating a protective barrier that sets me apart from him, and he remains on the other side.
He doesn’t dare attempt to break through, no matter how badly I want him to.
He detaches himself from my grief, sitting with some form of his own, and I’m left completely alone.
Me and the memory he’ll never really fully understand.
I never told Sylvia, but when I was rushed into the waiting room, I saw a couple.
It was only for a split second while I sat in a wheelchair before being moved to the labor and delivery unit, only a thick towel sitting between me and the vinyl material, but it was enough for me to get a glimpse of them.
They had a car seat, and the woman was holding a little baby bundled up in a soft cream-colored blanket.
The man—her husband, I assume—was cradling the woman’s head while placing light kisses to her temple.
It was obvious he was reassuring her, talking her through whatever brought them to the emergency room during a normally celebratory holiday season.
They probably had plans, baby’s first Christmas.
Maybe even a special outfit picked out like a miniature cable-knit sweater with adorable shoes or something in gingham or plaid.
Now, lying in my own bed with the clock slowly ticking to dawn, I don’t care what their plans are.
If the baby had a mild case of the cold and Mom and Dad’s paranoia caused them to seek medical attention when a dose of baby Tylenol would’ve sufficed.
Or it was something more serious, and they were being good parents by bringing them in. I don’t give a shit.
James is sound asleep next to me. I can hear his light snores, his mouth slightly ajar and his chest rising and falling with every rumble that leaves his lips.
We managed to get home without speaking a word to each other.
I told Sylvia I’d be fine with James and urged her to get home and get some sleep. She looked as sleep-deprived as I am.
I didn’t tell James anything, and he didn’t push.
I didn’t tell him the baby came too early and the doctors couldn’t do anything to stop it.
I didn’t tell him the only option I was given was to have a baby that wasn’t ready to face the outside world.
I didn’t tell him why all of this happened.
Not only because I didn’t want to, but because I didn’t know.
Even the doctors didn’t know. I didn’t tell him it was a girl, and that I held her for exactly one hundred and forty-three minutes until she took her last breath in my arms. Instead, I shoved all of those memories into an air-tight seal and shoved it under my mattress where I could pretend it never existed.
A sliver of light cracks through the small slit between the curtains.
James stirs next to me, and the mattress creaks as he turns to his side.
I lift my head to see if he’s waking up only to feel his breathing even once again.
And then I see the crib. All white and new and eager in its corner. And I start to feel…rage.
I whip my comforter off me and stomp to the crib.
I drag it to the door, gripping the wooden spindles as it scrapes against the hard floor.
Once I have it in the living room where there’s more space, I flip the lights on.
All of them, the kitchen lights, the lamp in the living room, the overhead light above the dining table.
I take a good look at it. Under the harsh glare, I see the crib for what it is.
It taunts me. There’s no baby to fill its space, no frilly sheets and plush blankets to welcome an adorable bundle of joy.
I failed, and it wants me to know how badly I failed.
I find the tools we set aside after James built the crib.
A screwdriver, a measuring tape, a small box of nails.
A hammer. I grip it in my hands, and when the first loud crack hits the wood, the tears start to stream down my face.
I swing over and over until the wood starts to splinter off into shards.
“Kendall.”
I kick the legs, causing the crib to fall on its side, landing more hard whacks. More chunks of wood pile in heaps. And I feel James’s arms around me.
“Kendall!”
I fight against his hold, wriggling my arms and aiming another blow over the curved railings. James manages to wrap his hand around mine before it hits the wood, and I surrender. The hammer lands on the ground with a hollow thunk. And I sob.
“It’s okay,” he whispers. His thumbs wipe my cheeks and he smooths my hair away from my face. “It’s okay.”
“No, it’s not okay!” I pull away from him, shoving him a few steps back. “How can you say it’s okay?”
His palms face me. “Okay, you’re right. I’m sorry.”
“No! You don’t get to say ‘it’s okay.’”
“I’m sorry,” he repeats.
“You weren’t there!”
“I know,” he responds, his chin quivering.
“You weren’t there while I watched her die in my arms,” I continue. “You weren’t there when they took her from me!” My arms flail and I gasp for air. My chest feels like someone punched a large hole into it, and it hurts so fucking much. I want to make it stop, but I don’t know how.
“It was a girl?” he cries. I forgot. I forgot I didn’t tell him. I forgot I kept all these little details from him and about my angry, spiteful promise to never tell him.
I manage a nod.
A part of me bends. Not enough, but just a little. Like an uncooked spaghetti noodle. I curve my anger to make room for his grief. But then I remember how alone I was in that cold hospital room, and I snap.
“I guess you’re off the hook.”
“What?”
“There’s no baby, so you’re off the hook.” The words sound icy, and I don’t care. I don’t have it in me to soften this so we can somehow come out of it alive. There’s nothing left to salvage.
“Hey, don’t say that.”
I head toward the kitchen to find the broom when James steps in my path.
“Can you please talk to me?” he pleads.
I whip my face to see his eyes filled with desperation and fear. How did we become this? We were so annoyingly happy just a few days ago. How did we get here?
“We don’t need to keep pretending this is actually something,” I argue bitterly.
“We made this stupid decision to have a baby and move in together after what, six months together? Now there’s no reason for you to stick around.
We can just go on with our lives. You can go back to your place and forget this ever happened. ”
The broom isn’t where I thought I left it, and I try the bedroom next. James follows close at my heels.
“Kendall, can you please talk to me?”
“What?” I demand. “What do you want to talk about?”
“I-I don’t—I don’t know,” he sputters. “Let me take care of you.”
“I can take care of myself.”
He cups my face in his hands and I watch him cry. We both cry. Our sobs and sniffles mix together, and I don’t know what sounds come from who. But it doesn’t matter that we’re both mourning like this. I can’t sit here and let my loss mix with his. If I do, I’ll never move on.
I bury my face into my hands and cry into my palms. “I just want to be alone,” I finally say through my tears. “Please. Just let me be by myself.”
James lets me go. He mumbles something I don’t quite hear, but it must’ve been some despondent goodbye whispered through tears.
Because through the shiver rattling my chest, I hear footsteps fading into the background.
The door opens and closes with a quiet, courteous click.
And the next thing I know, I’m all alone in my apartment, surrounded by the rubble of what I thought our future was going to be.