“As well as can be expected.” I shrug, running a self-conscious hand over my nest of hair, licking my lips and wishing for a little color. An army of friends, family, nurses, and doctors have come through and I haven’t thought twice, but without a word, this one woman reminds me that I’m probably not presentable. She’s flawless as usual.
“You want to hold her, Angela?” Grip asks. “Your husband just took his picture.”
“Where is he?” Mother looks around the room.
“He went to talk to Rhyson.” Grip clears his throat when my mother’s face falls. It’s a sore spot for her that Rhyson has extended forgiveness to my father but still barely tolerates her. Of the two, she cracked the whip hardest when Rhyson was a child. She gave him prescription drugs to cope with his anxiety, and when he was addicted, she delayed getting him help because she didn’t understand how serious it was.
“Yes, let’s get the picture.” She takes Zoe, and at first her arms are wooden, her posture arrow straight. Then, when she looks down at her granddaughter for the first time, maybe for the last, her face softens and her mouth quivers. Her body curves protectively around the little blanketed bundle. I’m astounded to see a tear skate over her powdered cheek. Then my mother does what no one else has dared to do. She inches the hat back to see Zoe just as she is. She looks up at me, and tears spring to my eyes at what I see on her face—not the agony I’ve seen with some, not the shadow of death, but awe.
“She’s wonderful, Bristol,” she says, blinking rapidly against more tears. “And of all the things you’ve done, I’ve never been prouder of you than I am right now.”
I can only nod because my throat is clogged, my lips sealed. My mother is flawed, but I stopped my running tally of her mistakes long ago. The list got too long and just became a record of my bitterness. Despite all of that and as much as we’ve clashed through the years, I am an offshoot of this tree. I hope I grew straighter and that my roots have gone deeper. I hope my branches will reach wider, offering shelter that my mother often withheld, but if I ever have the breadth of a sequoia or the strength of a sycamore, watching her study my daughter with unflinching love, I know Angela Gray is the tree where I began.
The nurse patiently takes more pictures with everyone while they hold Zoe and some with Grip and me.
“We’ll put these in Zoe’s memory box,” she says when the room is empty of everyone except Ms. James, Rhyson, and Kai.
“Thank you.” An ache fists my heart in an ironclad grasp as I take Zoe from Ms. James. A sharp, deeply drawn breath lifts Zoe’s chest, and everyone in the room goes completely still.
“Is she okay?” I ask the nurse, fear icicling my blood. “What was that?”
“It’s what we call an agonal gasp.” She steps closer, pressing a stethoscope to Zoe’s tiny chest. “It’s not out of the ordinary.”
Agonal? How can it be considered ordinary for an infant to be in agony?
“Can I listen?” I ask, eyeing the stethoscope.
She hesitates before nodding and passing the instrument to me. I put one earpiece in my ear and Grip grabs the other, with the chest piece resting on Zoe’s tiny torso. We listen to her heart in stereo, our eyes meeting in shared awe that we made her together, in shared fear that, any minute now, she’ll be taken as quickly as she came. We fear that this little mallet in her chest pounding a steady rhythm is the only thing standing between our happiness and complete destruction.
The defiant little thump thump thump of Zoe’s heartbeat caresses my ears. It’s the sound of her life persisting, surprisingly strong, but I know how fragile she is. It’s written on the nurse’s face in lines of sympathy.
“You said . . .” My courage falters, but I gather it between my lips again and force myself to ask the question plaguing me. “You called it an agonal gasp. Is she in . . . well, is she in pain?”
As if we’re one, I feel Grip holding his breath just like me as I wait for her response. If Zoe’s in pain, I did this. If she’s in pain, was I selfish to want her? To want to meet her? To hold her?
“Research tells us that an anencephalic infant feels no pain because the part of the brain that communicates pain isn’t developed,” the nurse replies, stowing the camera on a side table and turning to face us. “Doctors will tell you they are just reflexive, vegetative, and feel nothing at all.”
She leans forward, looking around like she’s about to share a secret. “But I don’t believe that,” she whispers.
“You don’t?” Grip’s question is covered in the same dread that lines my insides as we wait. “You think they feel?”
“I know they do.” She smiles even as tears fill her eyes. “They feel your love.”
Grip looks down at me, a slow smile flowing from his eyes to his
lips, and nods to her.
“Thank you,” he says.
“If everyone has seen her,” the nurse continues, her tone pivoting back to kind professionalism. “I need to ask if you want . . .”
Her words stall, but then she takes a deep breath and goes on. “Do you have a family priest or minister? Your birth plan didn’t reference one, but I thought I’d ask.” Her face is gentle but deliberately blank. “Do you want last rites?”
Oh, God. I can’t do this.
The realization pounds from inside my head, slamming against my temples, pushing against my chest, banging at my lips from the dry interior of my mouth. The words want out. They want all these people who think I’m capable of letting my baby go to know it’s a lie.
I cannot.