Baby Alicia Is Dying (14 page)

Alicia was transferred to a sterile, plastic isolette. The hard protective shell contained a pair of rubber gloves that hung to the inside of the unit, and whenever Alicia needed attending, nurses placed their hands inside the gloves and took care of her. “She must be safeguarded against all germs,” Aunt Clare told Desi.

Alicia looked frailer and thinner with each day. Her once round cheeks became wasted, her rib cage jutted outward, and her arms and legs erupted with sores and lesions. She wore only a diaper and was wired with a maze of tubes hooked to machines that stood in a circle around her isolette. “Can I touch her?” Desi asked.

“Only with the gloves.”

Desi slipped her hands inside the unit and cupped Alicia’s small head in her hand. The infant barely moved. Desi hated touching Alicia this way. The rubber acted as a barrier. “Why doesn’t she look at me? Doesn’t she know I’m here?”

“She’s in a semicoma state,” Aunt Clare explained. “But I think she knows you’re here.”

Desi felt a tear trickle down her cheek, but
didn’t want to pull her hand out of the glove to wipe it away. “She’s too little to be so sick. Does she hurt?”

“She’s on pain medications.”

“I’ve read about new drugs—experimental ones. Are the doctors trying them on Alicia? They should,” Desi insisted.

“Everything possible is being done for her. Nothing can cure AIDS yet, Desi.”

There
had
to be more the doctors could do. “And the coma … will she come out of it?”

“They don’t know. Life is very tenacious, Desi. It holds on and hates to let go.”

“But it
will
let go, won’t it?” Desi stroked the baby’s body tenderly. “I love her so much. We clicked the moment we met. Being with Alicia has meant everything. She’s always had a smile for me. She’s always wanted
me
to hold her.”

“It’s no secret that the two of you have had something unique and special.”

“Maybe I’ve been wrong to care about her so much.” Desi’s voice fell to an anguished whisper. “Maybe if I didn’t care so much, this wouldn’t hurt so bad.”

“Of course you haven’t been wrong. Love takes risks, Desi, even against impossible odds. That’s what
real
love is all about.” Aunt Clare slipped her arm around Desi’s shoulders and guided her toward the door. “Come on, honey.”

Tamara was waiting in the hallway when Desi
stepped out of the ICU. They fell into each others arms. “Why is this happening to Alicia?” Desi sobbed. “She’s never hurt anybody. It isn’t fair.”

“No, it isn’t,” Tamara replied in a shaky voice. “I’ve asked Daddy the same thing, and he says that sometimes there are no answers, that sometimes we have to leave things to heaven and just believe that someone bigger and smarter than us has life under control. The only thing we can do is love each other and be there for each other through the parts we don’t understand.”

Desi longed to believe that Alicia’s cruel death could make sense, but she could not. Until now Desi had led an ordinary, uneventful life. Without Alicia how could she go back to it? Yet as long as Alicia was alive, Desi knew she couldn’t leave her. As long as the baby hung on, there was hope. Desi clung to her dream of a miracle as a lifeline.

That evening Aunt Clare drove her home. “I want to come live with you until this is over,” Desi told her when the car rolled into her driveway.

“But why?”

“Because all Mom and I do is fight about the time I spend at the hospital. She drove me once to visit Alicia, and I thought she might be coming around, but the sicker Alicia gets, the more uptight Mom becomes.”

“I can’t believe—”

“Believe it,” Desi insisted. “The other morning
she and Dad argued about it too. She thinks it’s unhealthy for me to be hanging around a dying baby. Why is she so insensitive?”

“I’m sure she doesn’t mean to be.”

“She hates me, Aunt Clare. She’s always hated me. I’m not like Valerie, and she doesn’t want anything to do with me and the things I care about.”

“Oh, honey—”

Desi didn’t wait for her to finish. She jumped out of the car and hurried into the house. Her mother was sitting in the living room watching TV. She looked up as Desi sped past and took the stairs two at a time. Alone in her bedroom Desi paced like a caged animal. If she could have her way about it, she’d move into the hospital. Of course that was impossible, but if she couldn’t stay with her aunt, then maybe she could stay with Gayle or at the ChildCare house. There had to be some way—

She heard loud voices coming from below, her mother and her aunt arguing. Heart thudding, Desi crept down the stairs to the living room. She hung back in the shadows of the doorway, watching and listening.

“It’s out of the question. Desi has a perfectly fine home right here,” her mother was saying to her aunt.

“These are unusual circumstances, Eva. The girl wants to be around Alicia more. Is that too much to ask?”

“I think the whole thing’s bizarre. Good heavens! Desi’s not quite fifteen, and she’s totally preoccupied with a sick, dying baby. It’s macabre. And it’s
your
fault.”

“Oh really!” Aunt Clare sounded disgusted. “Desi’s not some empty-headed piece of fluff, you know. She’s perfectly capable of deciding for herself what she wants to do with her time.”

Desi watched her mother advance toward her aunt. “How can she know? She’s never tried one other thing at high school this year. It’s all been that house and that baby since September.”

“Listen to yourself! You’re laying out her life to your standards. Maybe she
likes
working at ChildCare. Maybe she likes making her own decisions. Maybe she wants to do something meaningful with her life.”

“How do you know what she wants? Or what’s good for her?”

“Because I talk to her. I listen to her.”

By now the sisters were practically nose to nose. “Get something straight, Clare. She’s
my
daughter, not yours.”

Desi saw her aunt flinch. “I know she’s your daughter. You never let me forget it.”

“Maybe if you weren’t always poking your nose in between us, she’d be talking to me instead of you.”

“Why should she?” Aunt Clare countered. “What encouragement have you ever given her?”

“You’re always there to take up the slack. Always hovering in the wings, trying to take over my role.”

“What a hateful thing to say. Desi needs me.”

“And you’re always there for her, aren’t you? You’re the ever present, ever attentive aunt—full of suggestions for how she should spend her free time. Why, you even have a room in your home set aside for her.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“You’ve sapped Desi’s and my relationship for years. Maybe if you weren’t so available, she’d turn to her mother for some things.” Her mother balled her fists at her side. “You can’t ever make up for what happened sixteen years ago, so stop trying.”

Desi saw all the color drain from her aunt’s face. “So we’re back to that night, are we? When are you going to forgive me—forgive yourself—for something that wasn’t anybody’s fault?”
What are they talking about?
Desi wondered. She heard her aunt continue, “You’re not the only person in the universe to suffer a tragedy, you know, Eva. I lost someone I loved too. At least you have two daughters to fill up your life, even if you don’t appreciate them the way you should.” By now Aunt Clare was weeping.

Unable to take another minute of their fight, Desi hurried through the doorway. “Stop it. Stop yelling at each other.” Both women whirled toward
her. Desi started to cry, even though more than anything, she wanted to be strong. “Mom, Alicia’s so sick, and I want to spend every minute with her. I can’t just disappear from her life when she needs me. Why can’t you see that?”

Tears slid down her mother’s cheeks. “I just don’t want you hurt. You’re still a
girl
, not a mother. You shouldn’t have to experience such an awful thing.”

“I already hurt like crazy. Please think about it, Mom. What will hurt me the most? Alicia’s dying? Or Alicia’s dying without my being with her?”

Her mother didn’t answer. She stood clenching and unclenching her fists, her face wet with tears.

Desi turned toward her aunt. “Please take me back to the hospital, Aunt Clare. I can’t stand being in this house one more minute.”

She didn’t wait for her aunt to answer, but brushed past her mother, ran outside into the frosty night, jerked open the car door, and climbed inside. She was so cold, her teeth chattered.

Moments later her aunt got into the car and turned on the engine. She was crying hard. “I’ll drop you off and come back later,” she told Desi.

“Can’t you stay with me? I don’t want to be alone.”

“I have to get myself together. I’ll be back in a while.”

Desi nodded numbly, unable to sort through
what she’d heard pass between her mother and aunt. She didn’t understand. All she knew was that Alicia needed her, and that she needed be with
her
baby. No one was going to stop her.

Desi sat staring at the cold, hard floor of the ICU waiting room. Her arms rested on her knees, and her head drooped listlessly. She was the only person around except for the night nurses. She was tired, so tired. Yet she couldn’t sleep. It would be another forty-five minutes before she could get in to see Alicia. At four o’clock in the morning there wasn’t anything on TV to occupy her either. There was nothing to do but sit and wait. And ache.

Desi heard someone coming down the hallway. Heels clicked hollowly against the floor. The shoes approached, but she didn’t look up. They stopped in front of her. She stared down at pointed black leather toes and wondered why they looked vaguely familiar.

“Desi,” her mother’s voice said from above her.

Startled, Desi swung her gaze from the tips of the shoes to her mother’s face. “Mom! What are you doing here?”

Her mother stood ramrod straight, holding her purse in front of her like a barrier. “I wanted to see if you were okay.”

Desi averted her eyes. She was still angry at her mother. And deeply hurt.

“I thought you might like some company.”

“I thought you said you found this whole thing bizarre,” Desi countered.

“I said a lot of things I didn’t mean to both you and my sister.” Her mother’s eyes were red from crying. “Can I sit with you?”

Warily Desi shifted, and her mother lowered herself to the edge of the chair beside her. “How’s Alicia?”

“She’s not doing well.” A lump the size of a fist suddenly lodged in Desi’s throat. After she mastered it, she said, “Aunt Clare will be here soon.”

“No she won’t. I called her and told her I’d come be with you. It’s my place.”

Desi jumped up. “What other mean things did you say to her?”

“Please sit down. We talked for a long time … straightened some things out. She agreed that I should come. I am your mother after all.”

“I wish you’d never had me.”

“Don’t ever say that. I love you, Desi.” She said the last with a catch in her voice.

Desi stared at her coolly. “You love Valerie. But me—well, not me.”

Her mother released a long sigh and leaned her head back against the wall. “Clare told me that’s the way you felt. I didn’t believe her, but now I hear it directly from you. I need to explain some things.”

“What things?”

“About how mixed up I feel inside. About how seeing you so involved with Alicia has brought back so much pain for me.”

Desi’s hands felt icy cold, and her feet had gone numb. She returned to her chair, but sat sideways and on the edge like a small bird poised for flight. “Alicia’s dying. How can that hurt you?”

“Because—” Her mother’s face contorted, and for an instant Desi thought she might lose control. “Because I keep remembering Matthew.”

“My brother.” Just hearing his name gave the long-ago baby form and substance. She recalled his baby book with faded ink.

“He was so beautiful, Desi, and so very, very perfect. He hardly ever cried, you know.” Her mother’s expression had gone soft, and her eyes glowed. “Such a good little boy too. That night, I bathed him, powdered him, dressed him in this soft green flannel sleeper. The kind with the little rubber pads on the soles of the feet.”