Hope is Kindled

A nurse rushes past the open door. I could hear his squeaking shoes from the start of the hallway, but they didn't slow down so I didn't look up when he passed. I sit in an uncomfortable, hospital green chair in the corner of a sterile, beeping room with my hands clasped, leaning over my knees, staring intently at the tv on the wall. My neck aches from the angle, good god why do they put them up so high. It's currently showing a Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit marathon, TLC is playing reruns of Toddlers in Tiaras, The History Channel is playing Ancient Aliens, Lifetime is playing the new Gypsy Rose docu-series with reruns of the original for the rest of the week, so, Lord of the Rings it is. I was due for a rewatch anyway. I'm not in the mood to watch anything new, so I've been watching Frodo gather his friends and climb the summit of Mount Doom.

A new set of footsteps begins at the swinging doors at the end of the hall. These are lighter on their feet, but still quick, still purposeful. They stop just a few feet before our door. I look up in the moment's pause. I think I hear a deep breath and then an older nurse steps through the doorway.

"Here you go, hon." She hands me a steaming mug of chamomile.

"Thank you." I look at her expectantly, but she only returns a dissatisfied, apologetic look that says no news. I'm sorry.

I look at my tea. It's not her fault. It's Stitt, it's Mullin, it's Bullard, it's Walters and their whole little club up in the city...

She pats my shoulder and gives a sidelong glance at the hospital bed beside me. Then she turns and walks out the door. Her footsteps recede into the distance and disappear behind another set of swinging doors. I look over at the wall of monitors, I don't know what they mean, but there's no red, no blinking lights, no alarms going off, just the steady ticking of the time bomb. Her heart rate seems so slow. I feel my own pulse below my jaw, the neck beard I've been sporting these last long weeks course against my fingers. She's much slower than me, is that supposed to happen? Well fuck, none of this is supposed to happen. I whip out my phone but then realize I don't even know what I would google.

"coma heart rate?"

"pregnant wife in coma, heart rate slow, should I be worried?"

"heart rate when anxious?"

"my wife is in the hospital because a clump of cells stuck to the wrong wall and now she's in a coma... heart rate?"

I throw my phone into the drawer of the side table and look back at Frodo. Except it's not Frodo, it's Pippin and Gandalf looking out over the plains in between the growing darkness above Mordor and the corrupted gleaming city of white, all blanketed under the dark of night. This scene feels different now, it feels close.

"It's the deep breath before the plunge."

"I don't want to be in a battle, but waiting on the edge of one feels even worse..."

The mind takes us strange places. Never making its point clear until it's right in front of us, never revealing its motivations until it's too late to take back any sort of meaningful control. I've had a lot of time with my thoughts, my mind. I thought we had come to a kind of agreement, so why do I catch myself wandering to that unopened box by our bedroom door. Sitting there as a once happy reminder, now so heavy I can't hope to go back to that room, sleep in that bed. I've gotten so good at making excuses to not go back to that apartment that I don't think I ever will. All because of that ghost made of cardboard and packing tape.

GROW WITH BABY! 4-IN-1 CONVERTIBLE CRIB

Her mom was always a bit quick to the draw. We didn't want to rush things after we found out we were pregnant. Then, Jen brought up wanting to start a family to her mom and, well, she bought all the baby furniture she thought we needed and decided we would open it "advent style".

"Oh, absolutely not, we are not doing that." We were in the kitchen washing up from lunch, her mom had gone out to the garden.

"Hey look, the way I see it, it's free stuff. And who knows maybe it'll be fun, we can sit there, look pretty, and make it out with a fully furnished room for Baby."

"Oh it'll be fun, for sure," her words dripping with sarcasm. "I'm sure she'll get a real kick out of it. She'll watch us squirm as she plays the innocent, excited grandma to our ungrateful daughter and son-in-law."

"Have you considered that she may actually be excited to be a grandma? That maybe this is her way of making it up to you for being... well for being the way she was? Just think on it, Jen."

"Just say she was a shit mom and let's move on. And I have thought on it, I don't want to. She's not getting her hands on that room. Conversation over." She splashed me in the face with the soapy water and that was that...

All it took was a look into her mom's guest room. It was piled with boxes and boxes of baby gear, all gender neutral, all nice. Like really nice, we could never have afforded all that on our own. I had to try real hard to forget that I ever saw that room. On the drive home, Jen asked me to pull over. I held her hair as she threw up into the shoulder off I-35. When we got back in the car, she sat there for a moment and then dissolved into sobs. I tried consoling her. I reassured her that we didn't have to take any of it, I apologized for pushing her, but in the end she insisted that we do it. I was too surprised to ask why.

Every week we would get a new piece for Baby's room, week one: A crib. We knew we were going to be moving out of our one bedroom into a little two bedroom house near downtown before Baby got here, so we left it in the box. Giant block letters hung above a picture of a bouncing toddler holding onto the rail, beaming at the camera.

crafted with love, thoughtfully designed to grow with baby

The words float around my mind, clumsily jostling my thoughts and pushing at the edges of my subconscious.

What was she thinking, giving her hope like that. What is it, like twenty percent of pregnancies end up being miscarriages? And other than that it's a one in eighty chance it'll be ectopic? Then up both those probabilities thanks to her endometriosis. There were so many places this could have gone wrong, so much time between those first six weeks and the full forty. Her mother hasn't visited. Not once. I've been sitting in this rotting room for weeks and this woman, she hasn't made a single appearance. Her only daughter is in a coma, and she hasn't even called. The nurse said they got a call asking about Jen, but the woman sounded...unwell. She told her to come to the hospital to register as a guest or to reach out to "the husband" if she couldn't make the trip. She sputtered some nonsense about pointless bureaucracy and when the nurse tried to get a word in, the woman hung up. Maybe it's for the best, if she doesn't want to 'reach out to the husband' she can deal with the guilt of abandoning her daughter.

Part of me thinks she has every right to be upset with me, to hate me. From where she's standing, there's one suspect for her daughter's present condition, and that's me. After all, I put that baby in there, aren't I to blame at least for that? She's all too ready to send me to the chair before Jen's even... before she... but she's still alive, she's just asleep, and she is going to wake up. Making her mother my enemy now, antagonizing her any more, well it'll only make things more difficult, and Jen hated it when we fought.

I know she's in that bed beside me. If I focus, I can see her sleep-soaked breaths in my periphery. I see the white and purple of her paper robes. Her name is on the monitors, on her progress sheets, the patient documentation. But it's like looking at a black hole. From her surroundings, from this room, I know she must be there, but when I try to look at her, I... I just can't. There's a black fog above that bed, above those shoulders, and to look at it would be to surrender what's left of my waning, sane mind.

Footsteps approach the room, sharper than the nurses' sneakers, coming from the opposite direction. I look up as she walks in, clipboard in hand.

"You're the husband?" I haven't seen her before, but she has a hospital name tag, Dr. something or other, I can't make it out from here.

"I am."

"Hi," she extends her hand to me, I stand and shake it "I'm Dr.McCarthy, I'll be taking over your wife's care from Dr. Fuller. He, well, to put it frankly he backed out."

"He- he what?"

"He surrendered care. Has there been any movement in the last few hours?"

I realize I haven't really been paying attention. "Um, well, I- I'm not sure. I haven't noticed. Should she be moving? I thought her heart rate looked a little slow earlier, but I really don't know-"

She puts her hand up to stop my rambling and gives me a gentle smile. "It's ok. We really don't know when she'll wake up,"

When. She said when.

"but if you've noticed anything it wouldn't hurt to note. Do you remember what her heart rate was?"

"Uh, no. I'm sorry."

"That's ok. Listen, the new legislature goes into effect tonight at midnight, so we will be accelerating her processing." She grabs a chair and sits across from me. "It's important to me that you know that we won't be rushing the procedure. In fact, nearly everything is already set, looks like it's been that way for a few days now" She rustles through some of the pages on her clipboard. "All that we need is your sign-off on the surgery."

"Surgery?"

"Yes, she will need an emergency salpingectomy. The egg implanted itself in the wall of her right fallopian tube. We will have to remove the pregnancy as well as the tube." She speaks so matter of fact. It's a bit startling, but comforting compared to the careful tiptoeing I’m used to here. "Um- I have to let you know, the pregnancy will be terminated."

"Is it dangerous? For Jen, I mean."

"She will be going under anesthesia, so the general risks with that apply here, but other than that, it's a generally safe procedure, and we’ll even test the tube for cancer once it's out. If you're worried, here’s a pamphlet with details on the whole process. I myself will be the operating surgeon. I've performed dozens of these, all of which were successful."

I look at the pamphlet she hands me. Diagrams, risks, and instructions cover the pages. Incisions, organs, tools.

"I've already booked the operating room, but if you don't want to go ahead with surgery, we can cancel. I apologize for reserving it before speaking with you, I needed to make sure we would be able to use it in the event that you agreed."

Even though she's apologizing, it feels rehearsed. Like it's out of necessity rather than genuine remorse. She seems anxious to get this process moving. I can tell she's trying to resist the urge to look at Jen, stealing a rushed, worried glance every so often when she thinks I’m not looking. She's only been here maybe five minutes and there's been more progress than there's been in weeks.

"You've booked the operating room?" I ask her, she looks at me. Her shoulders stiffen and she shifts in her chair, worry creeping into the corners of her eyes.

"Yes. Like I said, I wanted to make sure we have the opportunity to operate as soon as-"

"That's ok. When is her surgery?" I say as I sign the waiver and start on the patient intake form.

She lets out a breath, "The room is booked for 9:30 tonight."

"What time is it? Sorry, it's hard to keep track of time in here."

"Right now, it's quarter past five." She looks around the room, at my bags set by the bathroom door, the hospital bedding stretched over the arms of the sofa. "You know we can get you a hotel room nearby? There's a la Quinta down the street. Not the Ritz, but it's gotta be better than here."

"I'm fine." I pause. "Are you sure you're willing to do this?"

"I'm sure. Like I said, I’ve done this procedure dozens of times before." She gives me a knowing look. She knows the risks, even before the clock strikes tonight, it’s still a risk to her, at least that’s what Fuller always tiptoed around. The politics of it all. "I'll let you finish filling that out, if you need anything, let me know." She starts to get up from her chair.

"Please... bring her back." I sound more pathetic than I intend, but I am begging. She looks back at me and smiles empathetically. Then she turns and walks out the door. Before I can ask her to leave it open, she pulls the door closed as she leaves. It’s like all the air is sucked out of the room. I throw the clipboard down onto the chair and lurch for the door, flinging it open and breathing in the sterile air and out the stale. A nurse whips her head at me, clearly alarmed, I look like a madman. I school my face into feigned pleasantness and stride in the other direction towards the vending machines. I punch in the numbers for two Dr.Peppers and a Kit Kat bar, then I head back to the room.

One of the nurses must have shut the door after I left. I wonder if it was the one who saw me gasping for breath through the open door. Whether she closed the door in fear of whatever it was that was suffocating me. I reach for the handle as the KitKats thunk onto the floor. I sigh and push the door open, then grab the candybar and head in. As I pass the threshold, however, I can’t help but see her. My eyes naturally land straight on her face as I raise my head and I can’t wrest them free.

She looks just like she did that night. Just sleeping, eyes gently closed, mouth slightly parted. She doesn’t know. She doesn’t understand. She’s sitting there, rotting, waiting to…

No one wants to think about how they would handle seeing their partner like this. No passerby can understand. Looking at her, I can’t stress it enough, she just looks like she’s sleeping. Her breath is regular, she looks like she could be comfortable, save for the paper gown and machines hooked up to her. I didn’t know what to do that morning. I woke up, before her as always, and pressed a kiss to her cheek. She didn’t stir so I pressed another to her jaw, knowing surely this would break her sleeping face into a waking smile as it always had done, but it didn’t. I didn’t feel her cheek pull up against mine, didn’t feel her shift with a sigh as she woke. Instead she lay there, unmoving and silent. I tried the cheek again, but nothing, so I shook her shoulders, lightly at first but then-

“Amon Din” I can’t see the TV from where I’m standing, but I know the scene. Gandalf looks expectantly to the mountains of Gondor, swelling orchestral music fills the scene as a small bonfire, a beacon, is lit on the mountain, the first of many.

She will be ok…

“The beacon! The beacon of Amon Din is lit!” A guard shouts as Denethor slinks back into the shadows.

“Hope is kindled.”

She has to be.