Patricia Davids - His Bundle of Love

He couldn’t think of anything else to say. He bowed his head and sought comfort for himself and for her in the words he knew so well. “Our Father, Who art in heaven…”

Lost in a strange darkness, Caitlin searched for a way out. She had to find her baby. She didn’t want her daughter to know the terrible, gut-wrenching fear of being left alone—of wondering what she had done that was so bad her own mother would leave her. That was the one promise Caitlin meant to keep. No, she wouldn’t leave her baby—not ever.

Pain came again, deep inside her chest. She cried out, but no sound formed in her mouth. Perhaps it was her heart breaking because she missed her baby so. She tried to move her arms but she couldn’t. Something or someone held her eyes closed.

A faint voice called her name, and Caitlin struggled to listen. Her baby was fine, the voice said. Had she really heard those words? Joy filled her.

She listened closely. She knew this voice. It was a man’s voice. He was praying. The sound of his deep, caring voice saying those simple words brought a sense of comfort unlike anything she had never known.

Then the pain struck again and she began to choke. Somewhere, a shrill alarm sounded.

Mick paced the confines of the small waiting room outside the intensive care unit where he’d been ushered, and prayed as the minutes ticked by. Was Caitlin’s life slipping away beyond those doors? What would become of Beth? Why didn’t anyone come and tell him what was going on? Finally, twenty agonizing minutes later, a young doctor appeared. He didn’t look encouraging. Mick prepared himself to hear the worst.

“How is she?”

“Stabilized at the moment. She had some bleeding from her lungs. We’ve managed to control it for now.”

“Thank God.” Relief caused Mick’s tired muscles to betray him, and he sank into one of the blue tweed chairs in the room.

“If it doesn’t reoccur—she has a chance.”

Mick looked up. “You don’t sound very sure of that.”

“Her condition is critical. It’s best not to hold out false hopes.”

“Can I see her?”

“For a few minutes,” the young doctor conceded.

In the unit, Mick paused outside Caitlin’s door. What was he doing here? Why was he getting involved?

Because she didn’t have anyone else.

Stepping up to her bed, he leaned down and whispered, “Don’t worry, Sleeping Beauty. I’ll see that they take good care of you, and of Beth. You aren’t alone. God is with you.”

He pressed her hand but got no response. He studied her quiet, pale face. He had called her Sleeping Beauty, and the name seemed to fit. Her heart-shaped face with its prominent cheekbones and expressive flyaway eyebrows coupled with her short hair gave her an almost elfin appearance. What was it about her that drew him so? Was it only because she was alone that he felt this intense desire to take care of her? Somehow, he knew it was more than that.

Crossing to the door, he glanced back. Caitlin’s chest rose and fell slightly in time with the soft hiss of the ventilator. One breath. One breath.

“Rest easy. I’ll watch over little Beth for you.”

As soon as he said the words a deep sense of satisfaction filled him. This was right. This was what he was meant to do.

After leaving Caitlin, he went to see her baby. Beth lay on her side snuggled in a soft cloth nest covered with tiny red and blue hearts. The ventilator tubing and IV lines were neatly organized now, but a daunting array of machines surrounded her bed. Glancing around the unit he saw a number of other parents who like himself had been drawn here in the middle of the night. Most of them stood by beds looking uncertain, their faces a curious mixture of hope and fear, pride and pity.

He pulled up a stool and sat beside Beth. His heart went out to her. She was so little and so alone in the world.

One of her hands moved up to curl around the tube in her mouth, and her brow furrowed in a frown. Gently, he uncurled her fingers and gave her his thumb to grip instead. “You’re not really alone,” he whispered. “You’ve got the good Lord and me on your side.”

For the longest time, he stared at her tiny face. Each feature so perfect and so new. That she lived at all was nothing short of amazing.

“It’s amazing, isn’t it?”

The words mirrored his own thoughts so closely that he wasn’t sure he’d really heard them. He glanced up and saw a woman seated in a rocker holding a baby on the other side of Beth’s bed. She looked old to be a new mother. Her short, dark hair was streaked with gray at the temples and crow’s-feet gathered at the corners of her eyes, but she was dressed in a hospital gown beneath a yellow print robe.

“I’m sorry. Did you say something?” he asked feeling bemused, or maybe just sleep deprived.

“I said, it’s amazing. They’re so perfectly formed even at such an early age.”

He nodded. “Yes. I never knew.” His throat closed and tears pricked at his eyes. He struggled to regain control and after a moment, he pointed with his chin. “Is yours a boy or a girl?”

Her smile held an odd, sad quality. “I have a little boy.” She lifted the blanket so he could see the baby’s face. The features of a child with Down syndrome were unmistakable.

“He has a lot of hair,” Mick said, trying to find something kind to say.

She ran her fingers through the baby’s long hair. “Yes, he does. It’s so very soft,” she said almost to herself.

The baby began to fuss. She snuggled him closer and patted him until he hushed. She looked at Mick and smiled. “I wanted to thank you for the lovely saying on your daughter’s bed.”

Mick glanced at the foot of Beth’s bed. His Irish blessing had been written in green ink and surrounded by little green shamrocks drawn on a plain white card and taped to the clear Plexiglas panel. “It’s something my mother says.”

“It helped me so much.”

Smiling gently, he said, “I’m glad.”

She tucked her son’s hand back inside the blanket. “When I first saw my son—first realized what was wrong with him, I thought it would have been better if he had gone to be with the angels—” Her voice cracked. She blinked back tears when she looked at Mick. “Isn’t that terrible?”

Mick found himself at a loss as to how to answer her, but the nurse had come back to the bedside. She dropped an arm around the woman and gave her a quick hug.

“No, it isn’t terrible. We can’t help the way we feel. Disappointment, fear, sadness—they’re all feelings that catch us by surprise when something goes wrong.”

“I do love him, you know. It’s just that we’ve waited so long for a child. I’m almost forty. He was going to be our only one,” her voice trailed into silence.

A moment later she patted the nurse’s arm. “You’ve all been wonderful. Thank you. And you.” She looked at Mick. “Your mother’s saying pointed out to me that God knows what He’s doing. My son wasn’t meant to be an angel in heaven. He was meant to be an angel here on Earth, like your little girl.”

Gazing at Beth’s frail form, surrounded by everything modern medicine offered, he could only pray the woman was right.

“You look like death warmed over.”

Mick closed the door of his locker and cast Woody an exasperated glance. “Thanks. I could say the same about you.”

Towering a head taller than Mick, Woody Mills, a Kansas farm boy turned Chicago firefighter and a close friend, grinned. He pulled his cowboy hat off and ran a hand through a blond crew cut that closely resembled the stubble of the wheat fields he’d left behind. “Tough night?”

Mick nodded. “I never made it to bed.”

He wasn’t looking forward to staying up another twenty-four hours. Maybe they’d have a quiet shift, and he could grab a few hours in the sack.

“Woody!” They both turned at the sound of the shout. Their watch commander, Captain Mitchell, appeared in the open doorway. “Ziggy needs help in the kitchen. Give him a hand.”

Mick groaned, and Woody laughed. “That’s right, Mick’O. It’s Ziggy’s week to cook. So guess what we’re having?”

Mick leaned his head against the locker. “Spaghetti. Why can’t he cook something—anything—else? He knows I hate spaghetti.”

“Then it’ll be a good week to go on a diet. Besides, the rest of us like it, so you lose.” Still chuckling, Woody left the room.

The gong sounded suddenly and Mick raced for his gear along with the other men. He never found the time that day for a nap or for a plate of spaghetti. Two structure fires kept the company out for most of his shift. It was late the following morning when he found the time to call the hospital to check on Caitlin and the baby.

Caitlin’s condition was unchanged, but the news about Beth was less encouraging. She was requiring higher oxygen and higher ventilator pressures, and she’d developed a heart murmur.

“Her murmur is due to a PDA,” Dr. Wright explained to Mick over the phone. “It’s a condition that often occurs in very premature infants. Before a baby is born very little blood goes to the lungs. As the blood is pumped out of the heart, it passes through a small opening called the ductus arteriosus and goes back to the placenta for oxygen. After a baby is born, this artery closes naturally, and blood flows to the lungs. But in many premature infants, it doesn’t close and that’s a problem. We can treat her with medication, but if that fails, she’ll need surgery.”

“Isn’t surgery risky for such a small baby?”

“PDA ligation is a routine procedure, but let’s not get ahead of ourselves. It may close after the drug is given. I’m optimistic but this is one of the complications I mentioned. I’ll keep you informed. Also, our social worker needs to talk to you about signing paternity papers.”

It was the perfect opening to admit that he wasn’t Beth’s father. Only, he didn’t take it.

Inside the odd darkness, Caitlin drifted all alone. Sometimes it was as dark as midnight, other times it grew vaguely light, like the morning sky before the sun rose, but never light enough to let her see her surroundings. Voices spoke to her, telling her to open her eyes or move her fingers. She tried, but nothing happened. When the voices stopped, she was alone again.

It was pleasant here. No pain, no hunger, no cold; none of the things she’d come to expect in life. The urge to remain here was overwhelming, but she couldn’t stay. She had to find her baby. Once she found her baby she’d never be alone ever again. She would always have someone to love and be loved by in return.

At times, a man’s voice came. Deep and low, mellow as the notes of a song, it pulled Caitlin away from the darkness. He spoke to her now, and she knew he was watching over her little girl. Her baby wasn’t lost at all.

The voice told her all kinds of things—how much the baby weighed and how cute she was. Sometimes the voice spoke about people Caitlin didn’t know, but that didn’t matter. Sometimes, he spoke about God, and how much God loved her. He spoke about having faith in the face of terrible things. His voice was like a rope that she held on to in the darkness. If she didn’t let go, she could follow the sound and find her way out.

Now his voice was saying goodbye and she hated knowing that he was going away. She felt safe when he was near.

Something soft and warm touched her cheek gently. The fog grew light and pale around her. She opened her eyes and the image of a man with deep auburn hair and a kind face swam into focus for an instant, then the fog closed over her again.