She quietens as she carries out the test before motioning for Justin to lie supine on the cushioned bench and to extend his left arm. Sarah wraps a pressure cuff around his upper arm, making the veins more prominent, and she disinfects the crook of his arm.
Don’t look at the needle, don’t look at the needle.
He looks at the needle, and the ground swirls beneath him. His throat tightens.
“Is this going to hurt?” Justin swallows hard as his shirt clings to his saturated back.
“Just a little sting.” She smiles, approaching him with a tube in her hand.
He smells her sweet perfume, and it distracts him momentarily. As she leans over, he sees down her V-neck sweater. A black lace bra.
“I want you to take this in your hand and squeeze it repeatedly.”
“What?” he laughs nervously.
“The ball.” she smiles.
“Oh.” He accepts the small soft ball. “What does this do?” His voice shakes.
“It’s to help speed up the process.”
He pumps at top speed.
Sarah laughs. “Not yet. And not that fast, Justin.”
Sweat rolls down his back. His hair clings to his sticky forehead. You should have gone for the haircut, Justin. What kind of a stupid idea was this—“Ouch.”
“That wasn’t so bad, was it?” she says softly, as though talking to a child.
Justin’s heart beats loudly in his ears. He pumps the ball in his hand to the rhythm of his heartbeat. He imagines his heart pumping the blood, the blood flowing through his veins. He sees it reach the needle, go through the tube, and he waits to feel faint. But the dizziness never comes, and so he watches his blood run through the tube and down under the bed into the collection bag she has thoughtfully hidden down there.
“Do I get a Kit Kat after this?”
She laughs. “Of course.”
“And then we get to go for drinks, or are you just using me for my body?”
“Drinks are fine, but I must warn you against doing anything strenuous today. Your body needs to recover.”
He catches sight of her lace bra again. Yeah, sure.
Fifteen minutes later, Justin looks at his pint of blood with pride. He doesn’t want it to go to some stranger; he almost wants to take it to the hospital himself, survey the wards, and present it to someone he really cares about, someone special, for it’s the first thing to come straight from his heart in a very long time.
PART TWO
Present Day
Chapter 5
I OPEN MY EYES SLOWLY.
White light fills them. Objects gradually come into focus, and the white light fades. Orangey pink now. I move my eyes around. I’m in a hospital. A television high up on the wall. Green fills its screen. I focus more. Horses. Jumping and racing. Dad must be in the room. I lower my eyes, and there he is with his back to me in an armchair. He thumps his fists lightly on the chair’s arms. I see his tweed cap appearing and disappearing in front of the chair back as he bounces up and down. The springs beneath him squeak.
The horse racing is silent. So is he. Like a silent movie being carried out before me, I watch him. I wonder if it’s my ears that aren’t allowing me to hear him. He springs out of his chair now, faster than I’ve seen him move in a long time, and he raises his fist at the television, quietly urging his horse on.
The television goes black. His two fists open, and he raises his hands in the air, looks up to the ceiling, and beseeches God. He puts his hands in his pockets, feels around, and pulls the material out. They’re empty, and the pockets of his brown trousers hang inside out for all to see. He pats down his chest, feeling for money. Checks the small pocket of his brown cardigan. Grumbles. So it’s not my ears.
He turns to feel around in his overcoat beside me, and I shut my eyes quickly.
I’m not ready yet. Nothing has happened to me until they tell me. Last night will remain a nightmare in my mind until they tell me it was true. The longer I close my eyes, the longer everything remains as it was. The bliss of ignorance.
I hear him rooting around in his overcoat, I hear change rattling and then the clunk of coins falling into the television meter. I risk opening my eyes again, and there he is, back in his armchair, cap bouncing up and down, raising his fists in the air.
My curtain is closed to my right, but I can tell I share a room with others. I don’t know how many. It’s quiet. There’s no air in the room; it’s stuffy with stale sweat. The giant windows that take up the entire wall to my left are closed. The light is so bright I can’t see out. I allow my eyes to adjust and finally see a bus stop across the road. A woman waits by the stop, shopping bags by her feet and a baby on her hip, bare chubby legs bouncing in the Indian-summer sun. I look away immediately and see Dad watching me. He is leaning out over the side of the armchair, twisting his head around, like a child from his cot.
“Hi, love.”
“Hi.” I feel I haven’t spoken for such a long time, and I expect to croak. But I don’t. My voice is pure, pours out like honey. Like nothing’s happened. But nothing has happened. Not yet. Not until they tell me.
With both hands on the arms of the chair he slowly pulls himself up. Like a seesaw, he makes his way over to the side of the bed. Up and down, down and up. He was born with a leg length discrepancy, his left leg longer than his right. Despite the special shoes he was given in later years, he still sways, the motion instilled in him since he learned to walk. He hates wearing those shoes and, despite our warnings and his back pains, he goes back to what he knows. I’m so used to the sight of his body going up and down, down and up. I recall as a child holding his hand and going for walks. How my arm would move in perfect rhythm with him. Being pulled up as he stepped down on his right leg, being pushed down as he stepped on his left.
He was always so strong. Always so capable. Always fixing things, lifting things. Always with a screwdriver in his hand, taking things apart and putting them back together—remote controls, radios, alarm clocks, plugs. A handyman for the entire street. His legs may have been uneven, but his hands, always and forever, were steady as a rock.
He takes his cap off as he nears me, clutches it with both hands, moves it around in circles like a steering wheel as he watches me with concern. He steps onto his right leg, and down he goes. Bends his left leg. His position of rest.
“Are you…em…they told me that…eh.” He clears his throat. “They told me to…” He swallows hard, and his thick messy eyebrows furrow and hide his glassy eyes. “You lost…you lost, em…”
My lower lip trembles.
His voice breaks when he speaks again. “You lost a lot of blood, Joyce. They…” He lets go of his cap with one hand and makes circular motions with his crooked finger, trying to remember. “They did a transfusion of the blood thingy on you, so you’re, em…you’re okay with your bloods now.”
My lower lip still trembles, and my hands automatically go to my belly, long enough gone to no longer show swelling under the blankets. I look to him hopefully, only realizing now how much I am still holding on, how much I have convinced myself the awful incident in the labor room was all a terrible nightmare. Perhaps I imagined my baby’s silence that filled the room in that final moment. Perhaps there were cries that I just didn’t hear. Of course it’s possible—by that stage I had little energy and was fading away—maybe I just didn’t hear the first little miraculous breath of life that everybody else witnessed.
Dad shakes his head sadly. No, it had been me that had made those screams instead.
My lip trembles more now, bounces up and down, and I can’t stop it. My body shakes terribly, and I can’t stop that either. The tears; they well, but I keep them from falling. If I start now, I know I will never stop.
I’m making a noise. An unusual noise I’ve never heard before. Groaning. Grunting. A combination of both. Dad grabs my hand and holds it hard. The feel of his skin brings me back to last night, me lying at the bottom of the stairs. He doesn’
t say anything. But what can a person say? I don’t even know.
I doze in and out. I wake and remember a conversation with a doctor and wonder if it was a dream. Lost your baby, Joyce, we did all we could…blood transfusion…Who needs to remember something like that? No one. Not me.
When I wake again, the curtain beside me has been pulled open. There are three small children running around, chasing one another around the bed while their father, I assume, calls to them to stop in a language I don’t recognize. Their mother lies in the bed next to me. She looks tired. Our eyes meet, and we smile at each other.
I know how you feel, her sad smile says, I know how you feel.
What are we going to do? my smile says back to her. I don’t know, her eyes say. I don’t know.
Will we be okay?
She turns her head away from me then, her smile gone. Dad calls over to them. “Where are you lot from then?” “Excuse me?” her husband asks.
“I said where are you lot from, then?” Dad repeats. “Not from around here, I see.” Dad’s voice is cheery and pleasant. No insults intended. No insults ever intended.
“We are from Nigeria,” the man responds.
“Nigeria,” Dad replies. “Where would that be, then?”
“In Africa.” The man’s tone is pleasant too. Just an old man starved of conversation, trying to be friendly, he realizes.
“Ah, Africa. Never been there myself. Is it hot there? I’d say it is. Hotter than here. Get a good tan, I’d say, not that you need it.” He laughs. “Do you get cold here?”
“Cold?” The African smiles.
“Yes, you know.” Dad wraps his arms around his body and pretends to shiver. “Cold?”
“Yes.” The man laughs. “Sometimes I do.”
“Thought so. I do too, and I’m from here,” Dad explains. “The chill gets right into my bones. But I’m not a great one for heat either. Skin goes red, just burns. My daughter, Joyce, goes brown. That’s her over there.” He points at me, and I close my eyes quickly.
“A lovely daughter,” the man says politely.
“Ah, she is.” Silence while I assume they watch me. “She was on one of those Spanish islands a few months back and came back black, she did. Well, not as black as you, you know, but she got a fair ol’ tan on her. Peeled, though. You probably don’t peel.”
The man laughs politely. That’s Dad. Never means any harm but has never left the country in his entire life, and it shows. A fear of flying holds him back. Or so he says.
“Anyway, I hope your lovely lady feels better soon. It’s an awful thing to be sick on your holliers.”
With that I open my eyes.
“Ah, welcome back, love. I was just talking to these nice neighbors of ours.” He seesaws up to me again, his cap once more in his hands. Rests on his right leg, goes down, bends his left leg. “You know, I think we’re the only Irish people in this hospital. The nurse that was here a minute ago, she’s from Sing-a-song or someplace like that.”
“Singapore, Dad.” I smile.
“That’s it.” He raises his eyebrows. “You met her already, did you? They all speak English, though, the foreigners do. Much better than being on your holidays and having to do all that sign-languagey stuff.” He puts his cap down on the bed and wiggles his fingers around.
“Dad”—I smile—“you’ve never been out of the country in your life.”
“Haven’t I heard the lads at the Monday Club talking about it? Frank was away in that place last week—oh, what’s that place?” He shuts his eyes and thinks hard. “The place where they make the chocolates?”
“Switzerland.”
“No.”
“Belgium.”
“No,” he says, frustrated now. “The little round ball-y things all crunchy inside. You can get the white ones now, but I prefer the original dark ones.”
“Maltesers?” I laugh, but feel pain and stop.
“That’s it. He was in Maltesers.”
“Dad, it’s Malta.”
“That’s it. He was in Malta.” He is silent. “Do they make Maltesers?”
“I don’t know. Maybe. So what happened to Frank in Malta?”
He squeezes his eyes shut again and thinks. “I can’t remember what I was about to say now.”
Silence. He hates not being able to remember. He used to remember everything.
“Did you make any money on the horses?” I ask, changing the subject.
“A couple bob. Enough for a few rounds at the Monday Club tonight.”
“But today is Tuesday.”
“It’s on a Tuesday on account of the bank holiday,” he explains, seesawing around to the other side of the bed to sit down.
I can’t laugh. I’m too sore, and it seems some of my sense of humor was lost in the accident.
“You don’t mind if I go, do you, Joyce? But I’ll stay if you want, I really don’t mind, it’s not important.”
“Of course it’s important. You haven’t missed a Monday night for twenty years.”
“Apart from bank holidays!” He lifts a crooked finger, and his eyes dance.
“Apart from bank holidays.” I smile, and grab his finger.
“Well”—he takes my hand—“you’re more important than a few pints and a singsong.”
My eyes fill again. “What would I do without you?”
“You’d be just fine, love. Besides…”—he looks at me warily—“you have Conor.”
I let go of his hand and look away. What if I don’t want Conor anymore?
“I tried to call him last night on the hand phone, but there was no answer. But maybe I got the numbers wrong,” he adds quickly. “There are so many more numbers on the hand phones.”
“Cell phones, Dad,” I say distractedly.
“Ah, yes. The cell phones. He keeps calling when you’re asleep. He’s going to come home as soon as he can get a flight. He’s very worried.”
“That’s nice of him. Then we can get down to the business of spending the next ten years of our married life trying to have babies.” Back to business. A nice little distraction to give our relationship some sort of meaning.
“Ah now, love…”
The first day of the rest of my life, and I’m not sure I want to be here. I know I should be thanking somebody for this, but I really don’t feel like it. Instead, I wish they hadn’t bothered.
Chapter 6
I WATCH THE THREE CHILDREN playing together on the floor of the hospital, little fingers and toes, chubby cheeks and plump lips—the faces of their parents clearly etched on theirs. My heart drops into my stomach, and it twists. My eyes fill again, and I have to look away.
“Mind if I have a grape?” Dad chirps. He’s like a little canary swinging in a cage beside me.
“Of course you can. Dad, you should go home now, go get something to eat. You need your energy.”
He picks up a banana. “Potassium.” He smiles and moves his arms rigorously. “I’ll be jogging home tonight.”
“How did you get here?” It suddenly occurs to me that he hasn’t been into the city for years. It all became too fast for him, buildings suddenly sprouting up out of nowhere, roads with traffic going in different directions from before. With great sadness he sold his car, his failing eyesight too much of a danger for him and others on the roads. Seventy-five years old, his wife dead ten years. Now he has a routine of his own around the local area: church every Sunday and Wednesday, Monday Club every Monday (apart from bank holidays), butcher on Tuesday, his crosswords, puzzles, and TV shows during the days, his garden all the moments in between.
“Fran from next door drove me in.” He puts the banana down, still laughing to himself about his jogging joke, and pops another grape into his mouth. “Almost had me killed two or three times. Enough to let me know there is a God if ever there was a time I doubted.” He frowns. “I asked for seedless grapes; these aren’t seedless.” Liver-spotted hands put the bunch back on the side cabinet. He takes seeds out of his mouth an
d looks around for a bin.
“Do you still believe in your God now, Dad?” It comes out crueler than I mean to, but the anger is almost unbearable.
“I do believe, Joyce.” As always, no offense taken. He puts the seeds in his handkerchief and places it back in his pocket. “The Lord acts in mysterious ways, in ways we often can neither explain nor understand, tolerate nor bear. I understand how you can question Him now—we all do at times. When your mother died, I…” He trails off and abandons the sentence as always, the furthest he will go toward being disloyal about his God and toward discussing the loss of his wife. “But this time God answered all my prayers. He sat up and heard me calling last night. He said to me”—Dad puts on a broad Cavan accent, the accent he had as a child before moving to Dublin in his teens—“‘No problem, Henry. I hear you loud and clear. It’s all in hand, so don’t you be worrying. I’ll do this for you, no bother at all.’ He saved you. He kept my girl alive, and for that I’ll be forever grateful to Him, sad as we may be about the passing of another.”
I have no response to that, but I soften.
He pulls his chair closer to my bedside, and it screeches along the floor.
“And I believe in an afterlife,” he says, a little quieter now. “That I do. I believe in the paradise of heaven, up there in the clouds, and everyone that was once here is up there—including the sinners. God’s a forgiver, that I believe.”
“Everyone?” I fight the tears. I fight them from falling. “What about my baby, Dad? Is my baby there?”
He looks pained. We hadn’t spoken much about my pregnancy. Only days ago we’d had a minor falling-out over my asking him to store our spare bed in his garage. I had started to prepare the nursery, you see…Oh dear, the nursery. The spare bed and junk just cleared out. The crib already purchased. Pretty yellow on the walls. “Buttercup Dream” with a little duckie border.
Five months to go. Some people, my father included, would think preparing the nursery at four months is premature, but we’d been waiting six years for a baby, for this baby. Nothing premature about that.