Briana's Gift Read online

  Dr. Kendrow leads us out. Just before we step through the door, I look up and see that someone has hung a long sprig of mistletoe from the doorjamb. I think, Kiss it all goodbye. Then the doors close behind us with a whoosh and we leave the room holding death and head down the hall toward the room holding life.

  Neonatal ICU is brightly lit, brimming with color. Nurses are dressed in pale blue slacks and tops printed with teddy bears, baby bunnies, kittens and puppies. Incubators line walls and look like transparent eggshells with babies inside lying bundled in blankets, small packages awaiting home delivery.

  “This way,” Dr. Kendrow says, and we follow her to an incubator near the front of the unit.

  My heart’s beating fast as I peer inside the thick plastic shell. A tiny, perfectly formed human being lies on a clean sheet, naked except for a diaper about the size of a single square of toilet paper. A mask covers half her face, and cotton balls are taped across her eyes.

  “To protect her eyes from the lights,” Dr. Kendrow says. “She was born a little jaundiced; many newborns are. It disappears after a few days under this special light.”

  Bree’s baby is doll-sized. I watch the rapid movement of her chest. It reminds me of hummingbird wings hovering over the red feeder outside our kitchen window. Electrodes are taped to the baby’s upper body, and wires lead to a machine beside the incubator. I watch the quick, steady movement of the green light on the screen representing her beating heart. I remember the green line on the machine beside Bree’s bed. That was a machine-generated line. This one is not.

  I search for my sister’s image on what I can see of the baby’s face. Mom is the first one to recognize Bree’s genes because she says, “Briana had a full head of black hair when she was born too.”

  I feel relief. This really is my sister’s baby. “Can I hold her?” I ask.

  “Not yet,” the doctor says. “But clean your hands with these wipes and you can touch her.” She gives us each a foil-wrapped disinfectant cloth.

  I scrub my palms and fingertips hard.

  Dr. Kendrow raises the lid. I rub my hand lightly down the baby’s skinny leg, still curled from being crammed inside Bree’s body. Her foot is the size of my thumb and her skin is soft as powder.

  Mom’s hands are such a contrast to the baby’s satiny skin that it takes my breath. I realize how deformed her disease has made her joints, and it makes me sad. We both withdraw our hands and Dr. Kendrow lowers the lid. “You can come visit her anytime day or night.”

  A card is taped to the outside of the incubator with a pink stork stamped on it. It reads: SCANLAND, GIRL. For some reason, this surprises me. The baby has been recorded, her existence written down. What has lain so long a mystery inside my sister is now a fact, made more real by our family name affixed to a card.

  Dr. Kendrow asks, “Have you chosen a name yet?”

  Mom glances at me. “That’s Susanna’s job.”

  But the doctor already knows this. I fidget, recalling a list of names from the baby-naming book that I’ve scribbled down. The choices rip through my head. None seems to fit the baby. “Well…I—I…not yet,” I mumble. Dr. Kendrow probably thinks I’m stupid. How hard is it to choose a name?

  “There’s plenty of time for that,” the doctor says. “She’s going to be here for a few weeks.”

  “Any idea how long?” Mom asks.

  “Until her lungs are fully developed. We’d like her to weigh about five pounds too. She’ll lose some of her birth weight at first, so it might not be until after the first of the year before she goes home.”

  Lose some weight! Is she kidding? I can’t imagine the baby any smaller. As soon as school is out for the holidays, I vow to be here every day and watch over her. That’s all I want. To stay and not leave her.

  “Just remember, she’s been born too soon,” the doctor goes on to say.

  Is this some kind of warning?

  “We have one of the top NICUs in the South, though,” she continues, as if to reassure us. “She’ll have the best care we can give her.”

  We say nothing, just stand and stare down at the infant inside the bubble.

  “We should go,” Mom says finally.

  I start to protest, then remember why we have to leave. Briana is dead and must be buried. I close my eyes, trying to conjure up my sister’s face. All I see is the baby. Small and fragile and fighting to learn how to breathe on her own.

  I’m fourteen years old and this is the third time I’ve gone to a funeral home to do the visitation thing. That’s when a person’s casket is put into a room at a funeral home with lots of flowers, and people come from all over town to “pay their last respects.” It’s a hateful ritual. At my father’s visitation, I peeked at him in his casket and cried because he wouldn’t wake up. My tears didn’t bring him back, but on the plus side, I didn’t have to stay very long.

  At Grandma’s visitation, Bree and I hung with Mom four whole hours, except when Bree sneaked out back to smoke and have a make-out session with her boyfriend of the moment. I never told Mom this, even though I know it was wrong of Bree to do it. At the time, I wanted to get away from the place too. The smell of the flowers was getting to me, and people I didn’t know kept asking me questions and trying to hug me—comfort me, they said.

  This time is different. I’m still trapped in a room with a ton of flowers and my mother, but there’s no sister to help me pass the time. Mom’s holding the visitation on Saturday morning, to be followed by the funeral and burial. Bree’s casket is open and people keep telling Mom she looks beautiful. I don’t look at her in the casket at all.

  I’m blown away by the number of people who show up. People who knew Bree from school. People she’s worked with. People who hardly even knew her. I can’t figure out why so many people show up.

  I ask Mom and she says, “No one except you and I got to see her the whole time she was in the hospital. They knew she wasn’t really alive that whole time, but they still need to tell her goodbye.”

  I wonder if anyone has told Jerry out in L.A., but decide I don’t want him to know because I’m afraid he’ll have a change of heart and come take his baby. She’s ours now. Didn’t he already tell Bree he didn’t want the baby?

  “Hey, Susanna.”

  I turn around and see Stuart dressed in a dark suit and a tie, and I realize I’ve never seen him dressed up before. He looks terrific. I feel my spirits rise just looking at him. “Where’s Mellie?” I ask, because they often seem to appear together.

  “She has that mandatory dance rehearsal. She had to go, but told me she’ll call you later.”

  I’ve forgotten. Her big holiday ballet extravaganza is on Saturday night, following our Friday night holiday performance at the school. I’m supposed to go. “Oh yeah. Now I remember.”

  “Are you all right?”

  “I guess.”

  “Can we go outside? I don’t like it in here.”

  I see Mom across the room surrounded by clients of hers. “I can’t stay long,” I say, knowing the visitation ritual ends in a half hour.

  He takes my elbow. I’m glad to leave the building, but although the day is sunshiny, it’s cold. I wrap my arms around my shoulders.

  “We can sit in my parents’ car,” he says. “I know they’ll be inside there for a while.”

  In the car, it’s toasty warm and I lean my head back against the seat. “The baby’s beautiful,” I tell Stu, then wonder why I said it. He hasn’t asked about the baby.

  “Maybe Mellie and I can come up and see her over the holiday break.”

  “I’ll ask the doctor.” I want my friends to see her. I want them all to wish they had a tiny baby to love the way I do.

  “I guess you won’t be helping at the Christmas tree sale today.”

  I haven’t given the sale and my promise to help a single thought.

  “You don’t have to. I know Mr. Mendoza will excuse you and I’ll bet he lets you keep your extra credit too.”

  B
ut I want to go. After Grandma’s funeral, Mom wouldn’t even let us watch TV. I was sad about Grandma, but I was bored too. Mom’s already told me that lots of people will come by the house today after the graveside service. Plus, she’s said that we won’t go back to the hospital to see the baby until tomorrow. “I’ll bet Mom will let me come and help.” I tell Stu how people will show up and stand around eating and talking. “Then they all leave and we’re alone staring at the walls. I don’t want to sit around doing nothing the rest of the day. I’ll go crazy!” I look out the window and see the long black hearse at the side entrance of the funeral home. I know that soon they’ll put Bree’s casket inside and take it to the cemetery. Parked behind the hearse is the black limo for me and Mom. Last time, Bree was sitting in a limo with us. My family’s dwindling, one by one, being taken to cemeteries right and left. I shudder just thinking about it.

  “You do funerals different from our tradition,” Stu says.

  “How so?”

  “After the funeral we sit shiva.”

  “What’s shiva?”

  “Remember when we were in the sixth grade and my grandfather died in New York?”

  I remember.

  “The family gathers together. We sat in the house with my grandmother for a week after he was buried.”

  “Go on!”

  Stu continues. “Honest. We sit shiva for all close family members.”

  “For a whole week?”

  “If it’s possible. Dad told me that the family does this because a person’s spirit supposedly continues to dwell in the place where he lived. We even sleep at the house of the person who’s died if there’s enough space. If that’s not possible, we leave after dark, but we have to be back in the morning. Family and friends bring food and we sit around together. People talk about good times. They share memories. It’s supposed to help us grieve and realize the living have to go on with their lives.”

  I think about Bree’s spirit, but I don’t picture her spirit living in our house, because all she wanted was to run away and have exciting adventures. I tell Stu, “Bree’s spirit lives in her baby.”

  I’m not going to cry at the cemetery. I’ve cried an ocean of tears already, and this time half the people in Duncanville are standing around watching and listening to the pastor saying words of farewell. I refuse to dissolve in front of them.

  I stand next to Mom under a canopy. Everybody else is standing in the hot sun, I’ll bet wishing that the pastor would hurry up and finish. Stu and his parents are off to one side. He catches my eye and winks, and I go all gooey inside. I shouldn’t feel this way at my sister’s funeral service, but then I recall how much Bree liked boys and I bet she’d get a laugh out of me drooling over a guy while so many other people are crying over her.

  When it’s finally over, I ask Mom if I can go to the school and the tree sale instead of the house. “You have your good clothes on,” she says. Just like Mom to think about this first.

  “I’ll stand around and collect tree money,” I tell her. “I won’t get messed up. Promise.”

  She agrees—too overwhelmed to argue with me, I guess—and so I hitch a ride with Stu. Sitting in the backseat next to him feels wonderful, and I pretend his mom and dad aren’t up front driving us and the circumstances are different. At the school, Stu removes a duffel bag from the trunk and after his parents drive off, he says, “I’m going to the locker room to change.”

  Mr. Mendoza and his wife come over and say how sorry they are about Bree and that I didn’t have to come. I tell them it’s all right, that I need something to do to get my mind off the funeral. Mrs. Mendoza insists on driving me home after the lot closes tonight. I’d rather be with Stu for the drive, but I know it isn’t fair to have his mother take me out to my place when Stu only lives a few blocks from the school.

  People are showing up to buy trees, so I get busy. I recognize faces from the funeral, but only a few people bring it up. With Christmas closing in, most just want to buy a tree and leave.

  “Only fifteen days until Christmas,” I hear a woman say to her husband. Their two kids are squabbling and pushing each other into the trees we’ve anchored in such neat rows.

  The dad roars, “Stop it or Santa won’t come this year.” The little boy starts crying and his sister sticks out her tongue at him.

  I get a lump in my throat because the scene seems like something from a TV show, so sitcom ordinary. A dark cloud descends on me and I feel like I’m going to shatter. I say “Excuse me” and take off, not wanting to break down in front of these strangers. I make it all the way across the football field before I fall apart. I duck under the bleachers and lean against a concrete wall. The bottom falls out and I can’t stop the flood. I’m so into crying that I don’t see Stu come up beside me.

  “Susanna,” he says, and I jump a foot off the ground.

  He pulls off his sweatshirt and hands it to me. I bury my face in the fabric and muffle my sobs. He puts his arm around me and I turn into his chest, covered only by a thin T-shirt. Mashing the sweatshirt between us, I fight to control myself. “You should go home,” Stu says kindly. “I have my cell and I’ll call Mom to come get you.”

  Before he can fish his cell from his jeans pocket, I look up into his face. I see worry for me written in his eyes. Something blows in my heart. Without thinking about it, I throw my arms around his neck and kiss him square on his mouth. I cling to him, sealing my lips against his and tasting the salt of my own tears. When I break off, I toss down his sweatshirt and run as fast as I can back across the field.

  Later at home, I relive what has happened. I kissed Stu, my friend since elementary school. I acted like a crazy person and cried like a baby, soaked his sweatshirt and all but told him how I feel about him. Now I’m so embarrassed I want to hide under a rock.

  Mrs. Mendoza saw me running and caught me when I arrived at the parking lot. She put me in her car and drove me straight home. I’m glad to see that all the visitors are gone and our house is quiet. Mom thanks Mrs. Mendoza for bringing me home and closes the door. By now I’ve dried up, but it wouldn’t take a rocket scientist to see that I’ve been crying hard.

  “Want to talk?” Mom asks.

  “Bree’s dead,” I say.

  “That part’s over now and we don’t have to ever do it again.” Mom looks resigned. “Would you like something to eat? There are casseroles and soups and Crock-Pots full of food on the kitchen counter. You’ll feel better if you eat, Sissy.”

  Mom thinks everything can be fixed with food. What she doesn’t know is that my bad mood is about more than Bree. I’ve just made a fool of myself with Stu. “Later,” I say.

  She goes to bed and I sit in the dark and watch a candle glow on the coffee table. After a few minutes, I notice that my Christmas cactuses are drooping low in their pots. I turn on a lamp and see that they have bloomed and the flowers are so plentiful that they’re dragging down the stems. The flowers are bright fuchsia. I touch the blossoms and feel weepy again.

  This is the first time I’ve ever grown anything on my own that lived. And they decide to bloom on the day we bury my sister. I resent that they look so pretty when I feel so awful. I set them outside in the cold and go to bed.

  “She’s a beauty,” a nurse named Colleen says. She’s standing next to me in the neonatal unit and we’re looking down at Bree’s baby inside the incubator. The baby’s wearing a pink terry-cloth shirt, a hat and booties and a diaper. The pads and tape are gone from her eyes and the breathing mask has been removed. “Would you like to hold her?” Colleen asks.

  I’m wearing a hospital-issue gown over my street clothes and I’ve scrubbed my hands with antibacterial soap. I nod and the nurse lifts the lid, unsnaps the lead wires on the baby’s chest from a nearby machine and gently lifts her. Colleen coos, “Your aunt’s here, baby girl.”

  My hands are shaky, but I take the baby. As I hold her stretched across my palms, I’m shocked at how small and weightless she feels.

  “H
old her upright,” Colleen says. “Talk to her.”

  What do I say to a baby? My mind goes blank. “Hello,” I whisper.

  The nurse reaches over and tickles the baby’s chest. “When they’re premature, you have to remind them to breathe.” The baby squirms and I tighten my hold. “She’s not as fragile as she looks. Go ahead and hold her closer.”

  I place her on my shoulder and she rests there, makes a little grunting sound that melts my heart. “What are the wires for? Is her heart okay?”

  “Her heart’s fine. The machine is a monitor for keeping tabs on her breathing. It beeps if she goes too long without taking a breath on her own. If the machine makes a noise, we jiggle her until she takes one.”

  “How long before she remembers to breathe without that monitor?” I’m wondering how we can take her home if she needs a monitor.

  Colleen reads my mind. “Sometimes we send babies home with a monitor. We’ll have to wait and see how she does.” Colleen motions me to a platform atop a table. “Come over here and let me show you how to wrap her.”

  On the table warmed by lights, the nurse places the baby on a cotton blanket. I watch as she wraps her up like a moth in a cocoon and hands her back to me. “It’s called swaddling. It keeps the baby snug and warm. Reminds them of the womb and comforts them. Now you try it.”

  I don’t do a very good job and the blanket is sloppy and loose. While I try again, Mom shows up and watches over my shoulder. “I used to do this for you girls,” she says.

  “Did you bring her clothes?” I ask.

  Mom is holding a small bag from the baby’s nursery at home. Dr. Kendrow has told us the baby can wear her own clothes if we’d like to bring them to the hospital, and I’ve picked out two pairs of the cutest jammies. Bree bought them when she bought the furniture. I rewrap the baby blanket, this time more tightly, and pick up the baby. “She’s about the size of a football,” I say, laughing, and hold her out to Mom. “Your turn.”