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Divided By One

Divided By One

– Nonfiction by Suzanne Galante –

Featured in issue 16 of Dreamers Magazine.

Homemade Insanity

Once we rolled into the patient parking garage, exhaust fumes encased cars that circled and hovered and eased between yellow lines. The pollution amplified the sickness that lodged itself into my stomach before toes touched carpet that morning.

Outside, the ocean blew cold through the hillside neighborhood, but fresh air soon mixed with cigarette smoke from loiterers near the hospital’s doors. Their hands gripped phones and pinched thin white cylinders. They wore heavy
jackets and blue jeans or white coats and blue scrubs.

Coffee-scented air rose from the cafeteria stairwell as we moved toward the admitting office. Inside, our son wiggled from my lap, reaching for communal toys. I tried not to imagine the layers of dried saliva coating them. We pressed our names onto paper, agreeing to this and that. “I’ll let them know you’re on your way.” the receptionist said.

“Seven, please,” I muttered, as doors closed, our elbows nudging strangers as the elevator shimmied. Breakfast scents mixed with the sourness from our moistened shirts. As we exited, we were confronted with more common hospital smells of disinfectant and diapers. The predictable succession offered a strange sense of order in that world where Danskos or Crocs – depending on the nurse – squeaked on pink- and blue-speckled floors.

We set Riley into a crib located in the same spot that we lifted him from fourteen months earlier and considered the luck of him being born in 2003. Half a century earlier, he would have transitioned from womb to earth. But to us, three open-heart surgeries spread over three years were offered, granting the possibility of birthdays and elementary school. You cannot prepare to bring your child back, though, to flirt with death, even if the surgeries boasted good odds.

The same rainbowed dividers separated patients. The same alarms chimed, indicating completed infusions or heart rates that spiked or oxygen saturations that dipped. Once wrapped in hospital-issue pajamas, giggles erupted from my boy as I rolled his car along his arms. Tears followed – a long pre-op day of needles in veins, stickers on skin, blood pressure cuffs squeezing limbs. After 10 p.m., he was still awake, probably wondering why we weren’t home.

“How are we supposed to sleep?” Aaron barked, gesturing to the stiff-backed chair next to Riley’s bed.

“Maybe they don’t think parents will stay,” I said, pulling hair into a ponytail.

“If you have a newborn, maybe. But who would leave their toddler alone here?”

“Go to the waiting room,” I said, gesturing toward the door. “In a few hours we’ll swap.”

Aaron wandered away with arms clenched as he unconsciously nibbled cuticle.

“Nur-nee,” Riley said, opening and closing his fist.

“Okay, but then it’s sleepy time.” Since his first surgery, he’d become a person and we’d fallen in love. He had perfect eyes and perfect ears and ten toes and ten fingers and chubby legs and perfect hands that reached for mine.

It was still dark when the orderly released the brakes and rolled Riley’s crib to the elevator. Riley asked for water by putting his thumb near his lips. “Not now, baby,” I said. He motioned more forcefully.

There was a waiting nook outside the OR. The anesthesiologist appeared. “I’ve got some medicine for Riley. It should help him relax,” she said, passing a liquid-filled syringe to Aaron. “It also has an amnesic quality to it; he won’t remember much of this.”

“Do you have some for me?” I asked.

“I get that question a lot,” she said. Riley threw his plastic car and asked for water again.

“Don’t have any water, but Daddy has some medicine for you.” “Nee-nee-nye,” he said, pushing an index finger to his other palm.

Aaron squirted liquid into his cheek just like we did at home. He asked for more by pinching fingers together. Ten minutes later, words strung into song emerged from him:

“Mommy, Mommy, Daddy, Daddy, bus, book, Mommy, hello, Daddy, hug.”

“I’ll give you a hug.” Aaron picked him up. “I’m glad to see you’re feeling happier.” We knew it was drug-induced, but his demeanor helped us relax. A wall clock pulsated like a heartbeat. A housekeeper mopped around our feet. A doctor appeared. “They’re just about ready for him. Maybe five minutes.”

Aaron set Riley on the mattress and tousled his hair. I pulled him into my lap. Shaking began in my feet and swarmed through limbs like bees. Riley turned and smiled as his fingers reached for my nose.

The doctor reappeared. “We’re ready to take him. Surgery should last five, six hours; we’ll find you in the waiting room on the 7th floor when we’re done.”

“Thanks,” Aaron managed. I pressed my face into Riley’s hair, trying to memorize his wispy locks, his mossy scent.

“Come on, Riley,” she said, scooping him from my arms. A pulse oximeter cord dangled from his toe.

“See you soon, buddy. I love you.” Aaron clutched Riley’s car to his chest.

“Bye bye,” he said, waving. Double doors parted, then closed. Aaron’s hands pressed on his skull while my body curled like a pill bug. “He’s gone and I gave him to them,” I whispered before heaving sounds emerged from my chest. How did other mothers say goodbye?

“They’ll give him back. They will,” Aaron said, as if trying to convince himself.

No one told us what we should do while doctors opened his ribcage and stopped his heart. While doctors altered his circulation so that more oxygen-rich blood would pump through his single ventricle. Eventually someone asked us to move, to make space. We were just one couple among hundreds who inhaled and exhaled and wailed in that corridor each year.

Aaron took my arm; we eventually arrived in the waiting room. The scent of greasy trash from a dozen family breakfasts wormed into my nose before bile coated my tongue. If we were lucky, we would do this all over again next year.

About the Author – Suzanne Galante

A double-certified word nerd, Suzanne Galante is founder and editor in chief of Six Hens, a literary magazine launched in 2015 as a grief project that highlights women’s stories about life’s defining moments. Her byline has appeared on top websites and in national print media. She was also one of the first paid bloggers. She holds an MFA in Writing from the University of San Francisco and a BA in Journalism from Northeastern University. She has been writing as Mother in Chief since 2005.

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