After about twelve minutes of pushing, Dr. Greene said the words I’ll never forget in all my life: “Kate, reach down and grab your baby.”
Startled by her words, I instinctively reached down.
There she was. I grasped my baby girl and pulled her to my chest.
I clutched her to me with a desperation I had never felt before, trying to press her right into my heart. Everyone else in the room seemed to fade into the background. My little angel, my little love.
She was the most beautiful thing in the world. Her round, pretty face was punctuated with a button nose, and strawberry blond hair graced the top of her head. Dark blue eyes peered at me, examining me with the wisdom of an old soul.
I realized Jim was crying. He reached down and enveloped the baby and me in his arms and I forgave him for muting the TV.
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Mom pull a hankie from her purse and wipe a tear. “Don’t worry, darling, I’ve already memorized her face. No one’s switching her on us.”
•CHAPTER THREE•
We were moved to a bright recovery room with a view of Saint Ignatius Church. Jim slouched in a corner of the room on a hospital cot.
Mom had left for the day, ticketless. It was only 5 P.M., but felt much later.
I held my sleeping pumpernickel in my arms. I was told that newborns mainly sleep the first week. It’s difficult to wake them even to nurse. Right now sleep sounded great. Jim and I were exhausted.
“I wish I had space in this stupid hospital bed for you,” I said, raising the bed slightly, then lowering it again.
“Don’t worry, honey, I’m fine,” Jim grumbled from the corner cot.
“I miss you way over there.”
He stood, stretched, and hobbled over to me, his legs cramped from a long night of worry and catnapping on a bad cot. “Let me hold her awhile.”
I handed the baby to him. He settled himself against the windowsill and admired her. “Hope for the next generation.”
I knew, of course, that his remark was connected to George. But I didn’t have the energy to think about that. “I need to sleep awhile, honey. .”
I was already drifting off when I felt the covers being tucked against my chin. “Take care of Laurie,” I mumbled.
“Is that her name?”
“If you like it,” I said, drifting to sleep.
“I do. Get some rest. I promise to take good care of Laurie.”
I slept a fitful hour, dreaming that I was swimming in the bay. In the dream, I became entangled with a dead body that seemed to pull me under. As I freed myself from the corpse to swim toward the surface, my ankle caught in the strap of a bag. The sound of cries pierced the water. Suddenly, the water was full of bags and corpses. A shrill cry startled me awake.
I gasped for air as I awoke. Jim was standing over me with the baby in his arms. “Are you all right?”
I nodded, dumbfounded.
“Sorry, honey, I didn’t mean to wake you. She’s crying and I don’t know what to do.” Jim handed me the baby.
“I think she’s hungry, or wet, or both.” I placed her near my breast. Instead of latching on, she only cried louder, howling into my face. Jim laughed but I felt like crying, too.
“Maybe we should call the nurse,” I said.
Before we could do anything, a tall, slender African-American nurse glided into the room. Her name tag read GISELLE.
“What is it now? Little baby girl giving her parents a hard time? Hush now, they don’t know what they’re doing, girl.” She rewrapped Laurie’s blanket around her.
In an instant the crying stopped. Laurie gratefully curled into Giselle. Jim and I stared at her.
“Did anyone teach you how to swaddle?” she asked.
“I thought she was swaddled,” Jim replied.
“Not tight enough. Babies like to be wrapped tight, like a little burrito, or they feel like they’re falling.” She handed Laurie to Jim and turned to me. “How’s Mama?” she asked, expertly taking my blood pressure and temperature.
“Now that you mention a burrito, hungry.”
Giselle smiled. “Dinner’s coming up. What about pain medication?”
“Yes, please,” Jim said.
When dinner was served, I handed Laurie off to Giselle. Laurie would spend the night in the nursery down the hall. Giselle would bring her in whenever she needed to nurse, which felt like every couple of minutes but at the same time too long in between. I missed Laurie terribly when she was out of the room, but felt exhausted when she was brought in.
After gobbling down the hospital dinner of cardboard sliced ham and runny applesauce, I eagerly turned to chat with Jim. He was sacked out on the cot in the corner.
I shifted to the edge of the bed to make my way to the restroom.
Wait a minute.
I didn’t need to pee. What a miracle, to go from running to the restroom every five minutes to not needing to go for an
Finally, I reached for a pen and paper and scratched out a to-do list.
To Do (When I Get Home):
1. Get better at breastfeeding.
2. Lose weight.
3. Take a gazillion pictures of Laurie.
4. Call work and let them know about Laurie and plan a return date-yuk!
5. George? Where is he?
Was he dead? What could have happened? I thought about suicide. Certainly if he had become homeless, it seemed possible. Why hadn’t he come to Jim and me if his only option was the streets?
What about an accident? Could George have
The medical examiner had said the body was badly decomposed. How long would it have to be underwater to decay? Had it been caught on something that kept it submerged? Seaweed?
My mind flashed on the Mafia movies and bodies being held down with concrete.
What if he had been murdered?
“Jim,” I called. He lay motionless on the cot, in a deep, exhausted sleep. “Jim,” I called again.
He sat up, startled. “What is it, honey? Something wrong?”
“I can’t sleep. I’m thinking about George. What if it’s him, dead in the bay? What if he was murdered?”
“Murdered? My God, Kate! I mean, he’s probably not hanging out with the cream of the crop, but. .” He paused, letting out a sigh. “We don’t know anything yet. The medical examiner asked if George had any identifiers
