Flying Changes

"Can I go see him now?" says Eva, sitting up. She brushes an imaginary strand of hair behind her ear and continues holding the pillow.

  "He's still sleeping," I say. "What did you find out about Jeremy?"

  "He's been upgraded to good condition," says Mutti. "He has a hairline skull fracture and a broken wrist."

  An involuntary cry escapes my lips. "That's all? Oh, thank God. Thank God."

  Eva stares at me, startled.

  "I'm sorry, baby. Don't pay any attention to me," I say, crossing the room and sitting beside her. I lean forward and wrap my arms around her, rocking from side to side. "So, what say we find some dinner and get some rest? We'll see them both tomorrow."

  The last thing I want is food, but I must keep Eva occupied until I've figured out what the hell I'm going to do.

  A couple of blocks from the hotel we find a cheap roadhouse that has a good selection of salads. It's a noisy place, with heavily lacquered tables and a sports bar in the corner. As the hostess seats us at a booth, Eva asks about the washroom.

  The second she disappears around the corner, I drop my menu and lean forward, grasping Mutti's hands. I drop my head onto my arms, breathing through my mouth and trying not to hyperventilate.

  "Schatzlein, Schatzlein, what is it?"

  "It's Roger. I can't let her see him."

  "What do you mean? Why?"

  I lift my head and moments later find my mouth moving silently.

  "Annemarie, tell me! Please!"

  "He's in a coma. They had to remove part of his skull to relieve the pressure on his brain."

  Mutti stares at me. After a moment she declares, "There's more. What is it?"

  "Can I get y'all a drink while you're deciding?" The cheerful voice crashes into us, the contrast nearly farcical.

  Both our heads jerk around. A large-boned waitress stands by our booth. She's smiling expectantly, with a hip thrust out and her pen poised above her pad.

  "Uh--" I say. "Uh--"

  "Please leave us for a minute," Mutti says sharply.

  The waitress's expression sets like concrete. She tucks the pad into her waistband and clicks her pen shut. "Sure, no problem," she says, her teeth still clenched in a smile. She spins on her heel and sails away.

  She's offended, and the absurdity of this leaves me open-mouthed. Is our distress not visible? Is it not palpable?

  "You can't keep her from seeing him. He's her father," says Mutti.

  "I know. I know. Oh, Mutti, what are we going to do?"

  "I don't know, but--"

  "Shhh, here she comes," I whisper harshly. I look into my lap and rearrange both my expression and my napkin.

  Eva slides into the bench beside me. She freezes, looks from Mutti to me, and then back again.

  "Oma? Are you okay?"

  "I'm fine, Liebchen." Mutti picks one of the laminated menus from the table and pushes her glasses up her nose. "Now, what looks good?" she says, staring hard at the menu. After a moment she notices she's examining pictures of oversized frothy drinks and flips it over.

  With an anvil in place of my heart, I try my best to read the menu. After repeated attempts, I realize that if someone removed the menu right now I wouldn't remember a single option.

  When the waitress returns--only slightly sullen and doing her best to hide it--I order the same salad Eva does. I can't endure the thought of anything related to flesh.

  We pick our way through dinner, none of us making much of an effort at eating or conversation. But sitting in a noisy atmosphere surrounded by people whose lives are still normal provides some distraction. The restaurant itself is cheery enough, with brass rails and fake ferns. There's a television in every corner, each playing a different sport, and I find my eyes drawn inexplicably to the one above Mutti's head.

  Mutti looks studiously at her soup, turning it over and over with the spoon. She is still absorbing what I told her. For that matter, so am I, although I'm further along in the process. Eva still has no idea, and I try to imagine what she believes. Does she envision Roger as an intensive care patient a la The Bold and the Beautiful? Bandages here and there, and a slim oxygen tube running beneath his nose? A few well-placed bruises on a face that retains its shape?

  Perhaps she believes he's got a lacerated spleen, or some other thing that requires surgery but that, once fixed, won't affect his lifestyle. Maybe a gash beneath his eyebrow that will heal into a rakish trophy of his close call. I wonder whether she worries about comforting him over the loss of Sonja--as I did, until I saw the truth.

  As we turn into the hotel's entrance, Eva says, "Can we stop in and see if he's awake yet?"

  My stomach flips. I rub her upper arm--it's a comforting gesture, but I'm fully prepared to grab hold of her if she tries to head across the street.

  "I think we should wait until morning," I say.

  "Your mother is right," says Mutti. "It's always hard right after surgery. We'll go over in the morning, after he's had a chance to rest."

  As we head into the hotel's lobby I think, What are we doing? Protecting her, or setting her up? At some point I'm going to have to tell her the truth. I just know it can't be now, because I want to buy Eva one last night's sleep before her mind is overrun with ghastly images.

  We watch sitcoms and other light fluff until ten, and then shut everything off. I share a bed with Mutti, leaving Eva on her own because I'm afraid I'll thrash and keep her awake. Truth be told, I'm sure she prefers her own bed anyway.

  Before long, Eva is asleep--I can tell from her breathing pattern. Mutti is so still as to be dead, although I know she's awake; I lie with a fevered brain and shattered heart. We're probably thinking the same thing.

  If I could sneak over and remove his respirator, I would. I have no doubt it would be the right thing to do. I know the situation is different from Pappa's--he made his intentions clear, participating not only in the decision but in the act--but wouldn't Roger, if he could? The irony is that after I broke my neck and was paralyzed, I wanted desperately to be unplugged. Thank God nobody complied. But everything's different for Roger. My limbs weren't paying any attention to my brain, but at least my brain was okay.

  And then it hits me, and I can't believe I haven't thought of it before. Sonja is dead. Roger will probably never wake up; and if he does, he will no longer be the person he was. What in the hell is going to happen to Jeremy?

  I need to splash water on my face. I get up quietly, groping my way through the blackness with my arms in front of me. When I turn the corner and locate the washroom, I slip inside and flick on the light.

  As I lean over the sink to splash my cheeks, my tongue touches one of my back molars. It feels strange. Hollow, somehow. When I reach into my mouth to investigate, it comes out in my fingers. I look at it, horrified, and then try to stick it back into the hole. I press it in, but there's no root left, and eventually I give up. While investigating the raw space with my tongue, I accidentally touch the tooth next to it. When it breaks free from my gum, I want to vomit. I move my fingers from tooth to tooth, plucking them as easily as grapes until I'm holding a fistful of teeth.

  I huff with increasing frequency, staring aghast at the mirror and pulling my cheeks back with my fingers to look at my gaping, pitted gums, until--

  Boom! I'm back in bed. I have my teeth. It was all a dream; a terrible, terrible dream. But now I really do need to go to the bathroom, as much as I don't ever want to face that mirror again.

  Four different times I get up and go into the bathroom only to realize--when I find a carnival outside the bathroom's nonexistent window, or a camel in the bathtub, or a sink full of blood--that I'm still in bed next to Mutti.

  I'm conscious but completely paralyzed. I scream for Mutti in my head, panicked, convinced I'm dying. If only she would sense my distress and poke me, do something to break the spell. I try everything--I count to three and try to lift my head. I concentrate on my hand, trying to move just a finger, but nothing works. Again and again, I feel the victory of
swinging my legs around and going into the washroom only to find that I'm still lying prone in the bed.

  The phone rings. It rings a second time before I realize I'm not still dreaming.

  I jerk upright, slapping the wall beside my bed in an effort to find the light switch. When I finally locate it, I flick it on and grab the phone.

  "Hello?" I gasp into it.

  "Is this Annemarie Zimmer?" says a male voice.

  "Yes."

  "This is Dr. Lefcoe. We spoke earlier at the ICU. Chantal told me where you were staying."

  I swing my legs around--for real this time--and clutch the phone to my ear. "Yes. What's up? What's going on?"

  Eva is awake now, squinting. She raises herself onto an elbow, staring at me.

  "I'm very sorry to have to tell you this, but your husband went into cardiac arrest a little over half an hour ago," the doctor continues. "We did everything we could, but there was just too much trauma. His system simply shut down."

  I continue clutching the phone with both hands. My mouth moves, but nothing comes out.

  "Mrs. Zimmer? Are you still there?"

  "Yes," I whisper.

  "Do you understand what I'm telling you?"

  There's a long pause. "Yes," I repeat.

  "Do you have any questions?"

  "No."

  "Someone will be in touch tomorrow about making arrangements." He pauses. "I'm so sorry for your loss."

  "Thank you," I say.

  I set the receiver back on the telephone and stare at it, stunned. When I finally raise my eyes I find my mother sitting next to Eva, clutching her hand.

  I look from one face to another, and finally land on Eva's.

  "He's gone," I say.

  There are a few seconds of silence. Then Eva opens her mouth and screams. She screams again and again and again, earth-shattering, earsplitting screams that rise and fall like a siren until I'm sure someone will call the police. Eventually her shrieking subsides into sobbing. As Mutti holds her from the front and I wrap my arms around her from the back, she wails an endless repetition of denials through an increasingly hoarse larynx.

  Chapter 16

  A social worker named Sandra Compton calls the next morning. She wants to meet with us, will come to our hotel room if that's what we prefer. She wants to know if it's all right if she brings a hospital administrator, if we're ready to begin making arrangements.

  I sit on the edge of the bed, twisting the phone cord around my fingers, and wishing Eva weren't in the room.

  "The only thing is that technically I'm not Roger's wife anymore. So I don't know if the arrangements are mine to make. It's not that I won't do it--his current wife died in the same accident--it's just...Well, I don't know how these things work."

  "Did he have any other family?"

  It dawns on me that she's speaking of Roger in the past tense, and I'm still using the present.

  "Just my daughter, and she's underage," I say, lowering my voice in the hope that Eva won't hear me, which is just possible because she and Mutti are involved in some sort of heated discussion behind me. "And his son," I add quickly, remembering Jeremy. "But he's just a baby."

  "Yes, I know about him. Did Roger's wife have any family?"

  "I don't know," I say. "I'm sorry."

  "Don't be sorry. I'll look into it and see what I can find out."

  The noise behind me increases. I twist at the waist and find Eva putting on her jacket as Mutti fusses and clucks.

  "I'll call you back in a little while," the social worker says. "Will you be in your room?"

  "I don't know. Hang on a sec," I say, pulling the phone away and covering the mouthpiece. "What's going on?"

  "She wants to go see Jeremy," says Mutti.

  "I am going to see Jeremy," retorts Eva.

  I bring the phone back to my face. "We'll either be here or at the hospital. My daughter wants to go see her brother."

  "Yes, of course," says Sandra. "I'll catch up with you at one place or another. I also want you to know that grief counseling is available for both you and your daughter. You may have been divorced, but that doesn't mean you're not grieving."

  I give my head a little shake, baffled.

  I realize that she must think I'm in denial and need permission, but, my God--of course I'm grieving. I spent more than half my life with Roger. He wasn't the man for me, but he was a good man, a decent man, and what he went through is beyond comprehension. What kind of a monster wouldn't grieve? I'm grieving even though I'm glad he didn't survive.

  I'm glad he didn't survive.

  I feel like someone has slammed a brick into my open chest.

  "I...uh...uh..." A flash of color passes in my peripheral vision. It's Eva, with Mutti close on her heels. "I'm sorry, I have to go," I say and hang up.

  I grab my purse and rush after them.

  As we get off the elevator on the children's floor, a nurse pushes a portable crib toward us. An IV bag hangs from a pole. Its tube leads to a thin baby's splinted arm. A haggard woman trails behind, holding her forearms, hugging herself. I hold the elevator door open for them.

  As they approach, an alarm screeches.

  The procession stops, and the nurse turns back to face the nurse's station. Three surprised faces pop up--boom! boom! boom!--with the frantic insistence of whack-a-mole.

  "It's just me," the nurse shouts, waving at the prairie dog heads, which drop back down.

  A security guard rushes round the corner. He stops when he sees the nurse. "Sorry, Rob," she says. "Just me. Taking mister here down for an ECG. Want to unlock the elevator for me?"

  The guard nods and turns. He punches a code into a keypad beside the elevator and trudges back whence he came.

  As the nurse, crib, and weary mother enter the elevator, I stare in astonishment. The mother gives me a searing look and I realize with horror that it looks like I'm gawking at her emaciated baby. I wasn't, although his condition sends a horrified shock through my core. I was staring at the device attached to his ankle.

  Do they really have to put anti-theft devices on the babies? Are there people really sick enough to steal sick babies? As we pass between flat white panels that look for all the world like the devices at the doors of most clothing stores, I realize there must be.

  The three of us approach the nurses' desk. I feel like I'm walking down an ever-lengthening tunnel.

  The nurses are expecting us. Sandra warned them, I suppose, although I'm grateful since it saves us from having to explain ourselves. We may be dry-eyed, but we're walking wounded. I know our composure--or mine, at least--wouldn't survive the ordeal of having to explain why we're here. I'd shatter like a Christmas ornament.

  But the nurse knows all, and leads us down a brightly painted hall with murals at regular intervals. Cookie Monster and Elmo playing in the sand. Another muppet I don't recognize holding a dozen multicolored balloons. Flowers with faces, ladybugs, and sunshine. Bluebirds dipping down in carefree delight.

  Mutti and I flank Eva. We clutch hands, a human chain.

  "Most of the children here have family staying with them," the nurse says over her shoulder. She has an odd shape--thin shoulders and a small waist that opens onto large hips. Her legs are bent at an odd angle--they seem to get further apart below the knees. "Since Jeremy has been on his own, we've been taking turns," she continues. "We've come to think of him as our baby," she says. "He's an awfully good boy. Here he is, the poor little mite." She turns into a doorway.

  The room is deeper than I expected, with a crib in the center and a window at the back. There's a gliding rocker beside the crib, and there, in another nurse's arms, is the famous Jeremy.

  The nurse cradles him close, giving him a bottle. I inch closer. I have seen pictures, of course--Eva flew out to Minneapolis immediately after his birth and brought home about three dozen pictures, which I viewed with Teflon eyes. The framed picture in her room has been updated at regular intervals, and while I've noticed its changing contents, I
've avoided looking too closely. It was too painful. It reminded me of what Dan and I could never have.

  But here he is, directly in front of me, and I can't take my eyes off him. He's gorgeous. His blond hair sticks up in soft tufts. His cheeks are round, his eyes wide. Their color surprises me--they're a deep crocus purple--until I remember that all babies are born with blue eyes and that they change over the course of the first year. Roger's eyes are--were--of the deepest brown. His daughter has them, and so will his son.

  Jeremy's cheeks had been moving in and out as he drank, but they stop as his eyes flit from person to person. His right wrist is in a blue fiberglass half-cast, resting on the nurse's generous forearm. There's a raised purple bruise in the center of his forehead. His hands and fingers are pudgy, and my heart about stops when I realize that his knuckles are inverted, mere dimples. I had forgotten that about babies.

  The nurse who brought us here leans over him. "Well hello, sweet pea," she coos, stroking his cheek. His eyes glom onto her face. "How's my little sugarplum?"

  Jeremy blinks and then moves his cheeks in and out, exactly once, as he takes another sip.

  "Carrie, this is Jeremy's sister," says the nurse who brought us here. "Her name is Eva."

  Carrie looks up in surprise. "Well, I'll be," she says softly. She shifts to the edge of the rocker. "Would you like to give him his bottle?"

  Eva hovers at a distance.

  "Come on now, don't be shy. There's nothing to it."

  "Will I hurt his arm?" Eva asks without moving.

  "No," the nurse says, shaking her head vehemently. "It's protected by the splint. And besides, that's coming off soon. Jeremy is a lucky boy--his fracture was only a greenstick."

  Jeremy is a lucky boy--my stomach lurches at the words.

  The nurse holding Jeremy rises as Eva inches forward. "Come on, honey. Don't be shy. You just take a seat right there. Put your feet up on this footrest. That's right. Julie, get her a pillow to put across her lap."

  As the baby is transferred to Eva, a chubby pink foot with perfect pea-pod toes pops out from beneath the flannel blanket. He, too, is wearing a house-arrest anklet.

  An hour later, I'm in the rocker with Jeremy, having rescued Eva when it became apparent she had no clue how to burp a baby.

  It all came back instantly--the warm little Easter egg of a body, his complete and utter trust in me as I leaned him forward and rubbed and patted his rounded back. After a belch of seismic proportions, I wiped his chin and brought him back against me. He simply melted, nestling his downy head beneath my chin. He placed his thumb in his mouth and zoned out; not napping but staring into space with his long-lashed blue eyes.