The Encounter

The radiologist calls at 4:30 PM.  I gaze out the third story window.  The sky is sapphire, and threads of cloud ride the troposphere; I watch as a father carries an empty car seat into the hospital.  The radiologist’s voice is apologetic, and I can hear the hint of a South African accent.  She wants to break it to me softly.  But I already know.  The images stare at me from my computer screen—the white lakes of ventricles filled with blood, the ugly smudges of venous infarction overlaying both sides of the cerebrum.  I could tell her the ventilator is turned as high as it can go, and a bank of infusion pumps squeeze pressors, steroids, antibiotics, and blood into the baby’s veins, that I have nothing else to layer on.  That it is not enough.  Instead, I thank her.  Tell her it’s OK.    

I hesitate before I enter the room, let the alcohol dry on my hands.  Something ratchets down in my throat. 

The mother sits on the daybed under the hospital window, the top of her shirt still loose from pumping milk her baby will never receive.  The father sits beside the incubator, unshaven, his face expressionless, every shred of emotion already leached from his body. 

I slide a chair between them, “I’m sorry but I have bad news to share with you.”

The father nods; I can see tears gather in the mother’s eyes. 

“The head ultrasound showed a large bleed,” I say.

“What does that mean?” the mother asks. “Why?” says the father.    

Half an hour later, after I have said everything that can be said, she whispers thank you, so softly I can barely hear the words.  For some reason it cuts.  I want to protest, “No, you can’t thank me.  Not for failing to save him, not for running out of options or for ferrying this news of a brain bleed.” 

“I’m so sorry,” I say again, and step out into the quiet, bright hallway. 

That night after work I meet my family at the park.  The contrasts are overwhelming.  The first days of Spring converge with a visit from grandparents my children haven’t seen for a year and a half.  Cherry blossoms puncture the browns of the still threadbare trees; up close we discover the slivered fissures of buds.  There is a warm wind and people are everywhere, walking dogs, sitting on park benches, lying on blankets. 

My girls bounce a ball to each other and a toddler they met careens towards them, unsteady, her top ponytail bouncing.  When she grins I can see her scattered white teeth.  She reminds me of my oldest daughter at that age—the top ponytail was the only hair style I could ever manage.  They roll the ball to her and she pumps her arms with glee and hoists the ball over her head and drops it backwards.  Her giggle is like sunshine. 

As I watch them play, it seems as if there is something I am supposed to understand.  But all I have is the strange comingling of heaviness and beauty. 

Later, we walk the path to an ice cream shop.  Whitewashed cinderblock with picnic tables set out in the muddy grass.  A rectangle of stringed lights over the tables speaks whimsy.  A couple at a nearby table catches my eye, the woman with straight flaxen hair, scattered freckles over the crest of her cheek; the man leans over a stroller.  They don’t notice me. 

Inside, while we wait in line my youngest daughter wonders if they have root beer floats while my son tries to talk me into getting him a large waffle cone with three flavors. 

There is a painted sign on the wall that says, “You can’t buy happiness, but you can buy ice cream and that’s kind of the same thing.”  A woman behind us has a t-shirt with the lyrics of a worship song on the front. 

As I stand gazing out at the parking lot the family walks by, and suddenly, it dawns on me. I took care of their baby years ago.  In an instant the weight of their story tears into me.  Because I wrote it in my book.  Because their story has become a part of me. 

I don’t know what to do.  I stand in line for a few minutes before I am sucked out the door, into the gravel parking lot where they are pulling the minivan doors closed.  A moment later the red taillights glow and the van arcs back and accelerates down the road.

Seven years.

Like an apparition they are gone.  It is a moment that should impart wisdom, should breathe redemption into the bad ultrasound results and the heart-wrenching conversation I had earlier that day.  But there is no moment of crystalline clarity.  No revelation.  Just the gravel under my feet, the soggy potholes and sweet smell of pollen.  There are things I can observe: they are still married, they have two more children, they still live in the same city.  I saw them smile. Yet there are also those things I can’t know: How did they move through the days then and how do they move through the days now, when blessing and tragedy inhabit the same space?  Are they happy? Would the answers to these questions bring absolution or meaning or forgiveness for things far beyond my realm of control?

Instead, I stand in the parking lot as the light seeps from the sky.  A minute later I will join my family at the picnic table and hold a paper cup of doggie ice cream, my dog’s wet tongue slathering my hand, and watch my children devour their ice cream and bask in their grandparents’ attention.  I will see the green of my wife’s eyes under the string lights.