Suzanne's Diary for Nicholas (14 page)
All you need is an hour, a break, and when you wake up, it will all feel better.
Just fall asleep, fall asleep now, fall...
“Suzanne, what’s the matter?”
I turned over on the daybed at the sound of Matt’s gentle whisper. I still didn’t feel too good. He leaned in closer, and
he looked concerned. “Suzanne? Can you talk, sweetheart?”
“Seeing Connie tomorrow,” I finally said. This was strange. It took all my strength just to get those few words out.
“You’re seeing Connie right now,” Matt said.
When we arrived at Connie’s office, she took one look at me and said, “No offense, but you look less than stellar, Suzanne.”
She took my blood pressure, then blood and urine samples, and finally, an EKG. All through the tests, I was in a daze. I felt
hollow inside, and more than a little worried.
Following my examination, she sat down with Matt and me. Connie didn’t look happy. “Your blood pressure is up, but it will
be a day or so before we get your blood work back. I’ll put a rush on it. In some ways things are steady, but I don’t like
how you were feeling today. Or how you
look.
I’m inches away from admitting you. I agree with Dr. Davis about the abortion. It’s your decision, of course, but you’re
putting yourself at grave risk.”
“God, Connie,” I said, “short of stopping my practice altogether, I’m doing everything else right. I’m being so careful, so
good.”
“Then stop working altogether,” she said without missing a beat. “I’m not kidding, Suzanne. I don’t like what’s going on with
you. If you go home and make your
number one priority
absolute rest, then we have a chance. Otherwise, I’m checking you in.”
I knew Connie meant what she said. She always did. “I’m going home now,” I mumbled. “I can’t give up on this baby.”
Dear Nicholas,
I am so sorry, sweetie. A month has passed and you have kept me busy. I am also tired, and I haven’t had a chance to write.
I’ll try to make it up to you.
At eleven months, your favorite words are
Dada, Mama, wow, watch, boat, ball, water (wa), car,
and your very favorite is
LIGHT.
You are crazy about lights. You say, “Yight.”
You are like a windup toy these days. You just keep going and going and going and going and going.
I was in the middle of giving you my “be a good boy” rap when the phone rang. It was Connie Cotter’s nurse, who put me on
hold for the doctor.
It seemed to take forever before Connie got on the line. You came over and wanted to take the phone away from me. “Sure. Why
don’t you talk to Dr. Cotter,” I said.
“Suzanne?”
“Yeah, I’m here, Connie. Taking it easy at home.”
“Listen . . . we got your most recent bloods back . . .”
Oh, that awful doctor’s pause, that search for just the right wording. I know it only too well.
“And . . . I’m not happy. You’re heading into the danger zone. I want to check you in right away. Start you on fluids. I’ll
show you the results on your bloods when you get here. How soon can that be?”
The words roared through my head with the force of a gale, taking all my strength with it. I was devastated. I had to sit
down immediately. With the phone still to my ear, I lowered my head between my legs.
“I don’t know, Connie. I’m here with Nicky. Matt’s at work.”
“Unacceptable, Suzanne. You could be in trouble, sweetie. I’ll call Jean if you won’t.”
“No, no. I’ll call her. I’ll do it right now.”
I hung up, and you held on to my hand like a strong little soldier. You knew just what to do— you must have learned it from
your daddy.
I remember tucking you into your crib and pulling the cord on your music box. “Whistle a Happy Tune” begins to play.
It’s so beautiful
— even in my nervous state of mind.
I remember turning on your night-light and closing the curtains.
I remember that I was on my way downstairs to call Grandma Jean, then Matt.
That’s all I remember.
Matt found me lying as limp as a rag doll at the bottom of the stairs. I had a deep gash alongside my nose. Had I fallen down
the entire flight? He called Grandma Jean and rushed me to the ER.
From there, I was transferred to the Critical Care Unit. I awoke to a whir of frantic activity around my bed.
Matt wasn’t there anymore.
I cried out for Matt, and both he and Connie were at my side in seconds. “You took a bad fall, Suzanne.” Matt was the first
to speak. “You passed out at the house.”
“Is the baby okay? Connie, my baby?”
“We have a heart rate, Suzanne, but the situation isn’t good.
Your
pressure is off the charts, your proteins are skyrocketing and . . .”
She paused long enough for me to know there was another big
and.
“And what?” I asked.
“And you have toxemia. That could be why you passed out at the house.”
I knew what this abnormal condition meant, of course. My blood was poisoning both the baby and me. I had never heard of it
occurring this early in a pregnancy, but Connie couldn’t be wrong.
I was hearing what Connie was telling me in dis-jointed sound bites. I wasn’t able to form whole sentences in my head. I felt
as if I were being lobotomized. I thought I could actually feel the toxic blood swelling up inside me as if I were a dam about
to break.
Then I heard Matt being ordered out of the room, and an emergency team rushing in. Doctors and nurses were swarming all around
me. I could feel the oxygen mask covering my nose and my mouth.
I knew what was happening to me. In layman’s terms:
My kidneys were shutting down.
My blood pressure was dropping.
My liver was barely functioning as guardian against the poisons.
My body was beginning to convulse.
Fluids and medications were given through an IV to stop the convulsions, but then I started hemorrhaging.
I knew I was shutting down. I knew so much more than I wanted to. I was scared. I was floating out of my body and then falling
into a dark tunnel. The passing black walls were narrowing and squeezing the breath out of me.
I was dying.
Matt sits vigil by my bedside, day and night. Daddy never leaves me alone, and I worry about him. I have never loved him more
than I do now. He is the best husband, the best friend, a girl ever had.
Connie visits constantly, three or four times a day. I never knew what a great doctor she is, and what a great friend.
I hear her, and I hear Daddy. I just can’t respond to either of them. I’m not sure why.
From what I can tell listening to them, I know that I’ve lost the baby. If I could cry, I would weep for all eternity. If
I could scream, I would. I can do neither, so I mourn in the most awful silence imaginable. The sadness is bottled up inside
and I ache to let it out.
Grandma Jean comes and sits with me for long stretches at a time, too. So do friends of mine from around the Vineyard, doctors
from the hospital and even from Boston. Melanie Bone and her husband, Bill, visit every day. Even Matt Wolfe, my lawyer friend,
came by and whispered kind words to me.
I hear bits and pieces of what people are saying around me.
“If it’s okay, I’m going to bring Nicky in this afternoon,” Daddy says to Connie. “He misses his mother. I think it’s important
he sees her.” And then Matt says, “Even if it’s for the last time. I think I should call Monsignor Dwyer.”
Matt brings you to my hospital room, Nicholas. And then you and Daddy sit by my bedside all afternoon, telling me stories,
holding my hand, saying good-bye.
I hear Matt’s voice cracking, and I’m worried about him. A long time ago, his father died. He was only eight, and he never
got over it. He won’t even talk about his father. He’s so afraid of losing someone again. And now it’s me he’s going to lose.
I just hold on. At least I think I’m still here. What other explanation can there be?
How could I possibly hear your laughter, Nicky? Or you calling out, “Mama,” to me, in the black hole of my sleep?
But I do.
Your sweet little voice reaches down into my abyss and finds me in this deep, dark, place where I’m trapped. It is as if you
and Daddy were calling me out of a strange dream, your voices like a beacon guiding me.
I struggle upward, reaching toward the sound of your voices—up, up, up.
I need to see you and Daddy one more time....
I need to talk to you one more time....
I feel a dark tunnel closing behind me, and I think that maybe I’ve found my way out of this lonely place. Everything is getting
brighter. There is no more darkness surrounding me, just rays of warmth, and maybe the welcoming light of Martha’s Vineyard.
Was I in heaven? Am I in heaven now? What is the explanation for what I’m feeling?
That’s when the unexpected happens.
I
open
my eyes.
“Hello, Suzanne,” Matt whispers. “Thank God, you came back to us.”
T
HERE WAS
only so much of the diary that Katie could take at any given time. Matt had warned her in his note:
there will be parts that may be hard for you to read.
Not just hard, Katie knew now, but overwhelming.
It was difficult for her to imagine right now, but there
were
happy endings in life.
There were normal, semisane couples like Lynn and Phil Brown, who lived in Westport, Connecticut, on a really cool little
farm with their four kids, two dogs, and one rabbit and who were still in love as far as she or any of their other friends
could tell.
The next day Katie called Lynn Brown and volunteered to sit for the kids that night, a one-night-only offer. She
needed
to be with the Browns. She needed the warmth and comfort of a family around her.
Lynn was immediately suspicious. “Katie, what’s this all about? What’s going on?”
“Nothing, I just miss you guys. Consider it a pre-anniversary present for you and Phil. Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth.
I’m
in
Grand Central Station right now. I’m on my way.”
She took the train to Westport and was at Lynn and Phil’s by seven. At least she hadn’t stayed late working at the office.
The Brown kids—Ashby, Tory, Kelsey, and Roscoe— were eight, five, three, and one. They loved Katie, thought she was so neat.
They loved her long braid. And they loved that she was so
tall.
So off went Lynn and Phil on their hot “date,” and Katie took the kids. Actually, she was incredibly grateful to Lynn and
Phil for “taking her in.” They had met and liked Matt Harrison, and basically they knew what had happened between him and
Katie. They didn’t understand any of it, either. Lynn had predicted that Katie and Matt would be married within the year.
What a great night it turned out to be. The Browns had a small guest house that Phil was always threatening to fix up and
make respectable. That was where Katie always went to hang out with the four kids.
They loved to play tricks on her, like hiding her suitcase and clothes or taking her makeup and putting it on (Roscoe included).
She took the kids’ pictures with her Canon camera. They washed Lynn’s Lexus SUV. Went on a group bike ride. Watched the movie
Chicken Run.
Ate an “everything” pizza.
When Lynn and Phil got home about eleven, they found Katie and the kids asleep on pillows and quilts thrown all over the guest-house
floor.
She was actually awake and heard Lynn whisper to Phil, “She’s so cool. She’ll be a great mom.” It brought tears to Katie’s
eyes, and she had to choke back a sob as she pretended to be asleep.
She stayed at the Brown house through Saturday afternoon. She finally took the six o’clock train back to New York. Before
she left, she told Lynn that she was pregnant. She was exhausted, but she also felt alive again, rejuvenated—better, anyway.
She believed in small miracles. She had hope. She knew there were some happy endings in life. She believed in families.
About halfway into the trip, Katie reached down into her bag and pulled out the diary.
S
HE GOT
off the train from Westport at the gorgeously renovated and restored Grand Central Station, and she needed to walk some.
It was a little past seven-thirty and Manhattan was filled with traffic, most of it honking taxis or cars returning from weekend
and vacation homes, the drivers
already
on edge.
She was on edge, too. The diary was doing that to her more and more.
She still didn’t have the answer she needed to move on with her life. She wasn’t over Matt—and she wasn’t over Suzanne and
Nicholas.
She was thinking about something she’d read earlier in the diary, the lesson of the five balls: work, family, health, friends,
and integrity.
Work was a rubber ball, right?