The entrance is flanked by a man and woman. She is bent double and sobbing violently. He stands a few feet away, staring blankley, his posture though is crumpled, defeated. I pretend not to see, I don't want to witness their pain when here, fate lies so delicately in the balance.
My shoes squeak softly on the cushioned linoleum, hurried anxious paces to the intercom. Pushing impatiently through double doors my tired eyes adjust to the dimly lit corridor. As I walk past a side room I see a crowd of white coats huddled over a bed, their movements are not frantic but sedate and they speak in whipsers. It's something no parent should ever see and with bittersweet relief the small frame laying still isn't my loved one I contiue on.
There is a woman beside him as I approach, she is plump and has a kind smile and speaks so loud and jolly it's jarring. She stands for a few minutes, clipboard under her arm, carefully turning dials and adjusting switches. Things I can't do, things I know nothing about. I sit watching, feeling useless. She offers me hope and then tea. I take the hope.
You're sleeping. You're always sleeping. How I used to wish you would sleep longer, so I could rest for more than an hour. But now as you lay there unconscious I pray to a God I am not even sure I believe in that you'll cry out, wanting a feed, wanting me to hold you. Because to be so quiet and still feels wrong. Noise and commotion is life, you laying here feels too close to death.
The bedside is lit up with green and red lights flashing in premature celebration, above the bleeps and humming of machines I think I can hear you breath. I watch your tiny chest rise and fall, and resting there you look so content but I know how fragile you are and it makes me ache. My outstreched hand reaches through a porthole, into your tiny encapsulated world of tubes and wires, and with the greatest care I touch you. Your skin feels warm and smooth, your pudgey pink flesh feels like Play Do on my finger tips. The urge to pick you up and embrace you is overwhelming but I just sit and watch and wait.
I am brought tea anyway and it's left on the small table from which hangs pages and pages of notes in scrawny handwriting, words written in a language I didn't understand at first but now I am fluent. Across the room, I see a woman. She is much younger than me and her pretty face is contorted by worry and anguish. Besides her is a colourful pile of story books, and in her hand is a small furry bear, white with a large pink bow. Staring into the perspex box before her, she sits perfectly still. Tears are falling from her grey circled eyes but she seems oblivious. In the rare minutes she is not in the chair, when the white coats visit her child, I have heard them speak among themselves in sombre tones. I know things are bad. The nurse only offers her tea, no hope anymore.
The next time the two embrace, her baby, despite layers of carefully wrapped blankets, will be growing cold.
She turns around and I feel guitly. This place is heavy with guilt and despair. As I look into her eyes I see nothing. Dead eyes. I know as her child dies before her, helpless, something inside her is dying too. My heart is already too shattered to break anymore. All I can do is look back. She turns away and I realise I am crying too. Time warps in this place of perspex makeshift halfway caskets. Somedays it feels like hours have passed when it has been but mere minutes. Somedays I sit for hours to find, as I look at the window at the end of the room, that darkness has fallen but arriving seemed only a fraction of time ago.
The tea is cold and daylight has gone when I feel a hand on my shoulder. I hate this. I hate leaving you. At first I begged, pleaded to stay, for days I made a fuss. Even now leaving feels like betrayal. But I have assurance, promises you'll be ok, that soon you'll be back home and safe where you belong. Across the room, I see a nurse helping the woman to make a small foldaway bed on the floor next to her baby girl. She glances at me once more, at my son laying before me, and I want to run to her, and hold her, and say it will be alright for her too. But I know it won't. And I know she wants to know, wants to know more than anything, why? Why her child, why her? But I have no answer, no explanation. All I have is guilt.
As tears that never seemed to stop roll down her cheeks I look away.
Bending, I blow a thousand kisses to my you and pledge to return in the morning. I push my hand through the circle and you grip my finger tightly, your eyes are still shut but you're aware I am here, waiting. For the first time in days a small smile plays on my lips and I know you will be fine. As I leave, I turn around and see the woman still sat in the chair next to the incubator, staring. Just staring. Waiting.
When I arrive the next day I have a spring in my step and I feel light. When i arrive the next day both mother and child have gone. The guilt, it never leaves you.
rating: 16
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