AJ (IV)
It was raining on that dark day in May, when AJ woke up and dressed for work. The sun was already up, but hidden behind gray storm clouds, so it was still quite dim in the bedroom he shared with Jori. Her side of the bed was empty, the sheets rumpled from where she had restlessly tossed and turned. He knew she’d spent a long night up with Lucy, who still woke every few hours for feedings. AJ wished there was more he could do to help, but Jori had been insistent about breastfeeding, and he wasn’t exactly equipped to do that.
He found them both in the baby’s room, Jori in the rocking chair and Lucy in her arms. She was nursing. With one strap of her tank top lowered and her long hair draped over her shoulder, Jori looked beautiful as she held their baby to her breast. AJ stood in the doorway, just admiring her for a moment, before he snuck into the room.
“Morning, babe,” he whispered, bending down to kiss her bare shoulder. He squeezed in behind her, resting his hands on the back of the rocking chair as he smiled over her shoulder at Lucy. “Somebody was hungry, huh?”
“Uh-huh. Breakfast is served,” said Jori, sounding tired.
AJ watched the baby suckle her swollen breast with gusto. His eyes were drawn to the new ink shining on Jori’s skin. There, on her left breast, in a cloud surrounded by sparkling stars, was the name Lucy. AJ had gotten a matching tattoo on his chest, right over his heart. As a tattoo artist, he’d thought it was bad luck to put someone’s name permanently on his body, but that was before he’d known what it was like to love someone so unconditionally and eternally. The love he felt for his daughter was as everlasting as the ink in which her name was written.
Lucy in the sky with diamonds.
He could have stood there forever, just staring down at her, and later, he would wish he had. But the dull gray light filtering in through the window shade was deceiving; it was later than it looked, and he had to get downstairs to open the store.
“I gotta go.” He planted a kiss on Lucy’s forehead and another on Jori’s. “I’ll see ya later.”
“See ya,” Jori echoed, as he slipped out from behind the rocking chair and swept out of the room.
As he descended the stairs, AJ thought about the day ahead of him. It was a busy time of year. Business had picked up with the arrival of warmer weather, and the end of the second quarter was near, which meant quarterly reports to finish. He knew Jori had plenty to keep her occupied upstairs, what with a baby to care for and a wedding to plan, so she was far from his mind as he sat in the back room, working on his report while Howie ran the store.
In the beginning, it had been the other way around: AJ had manned the storefront, while his business partner handled the paperwork behind the scenes. But gradually, AJ had begun to take over more of the responsibilities, wanting to be self-sufficient in case Howie ever left him for a better opportunity or a business of his own. He was feeling more confident than he ever had about the store’s future; second quarter sales were up, and for once, it appeared as if Vintaj might actually turn over a profit, instead of barely breaking even. The boost in sales couldn’t have come at a better time.
He was singing along to the radio as he looked over the budget, when he heard the scream from above. Up until then, he hadn’t been paying any attention to the noises upstairs; he’d learned to block out the sound of Lucy’s crying – it was either that or drive himself crazy listening to it. But now he realized it had been oddly quiet before the scream had shattered the silence.
Alarmed, he jumped to his feet and ran into the back hall, where he heard footsteps pounding down the stairs. He met Jori at the base of them. Her face was a mask of fright. “Something’s wrong!” she sputtered. “Something’s wrong with Lucy!”
“What?” He grabbed her by the shoulders. “What do you mean? What’s wrong?”
Jori was hysterical. “I… I don’t know!” she shrieked, her voice shrill. “She’s so still. She’s so still. I think she’s-”
“Shh!” AJ could fill in the blank in his head, but he couldn’t bear to hear her say the word out loud. “Did you call 911?” he shouted over his shoulder as he started up the stairs, taking them two at a time.
“No, not yet.”
“Damn it, Jori, why not? If there’s something wrong with her, you get on the goddamn phone and call 911, right now!” He stormed into the apartment and made a beeline to Lucy’s bedroom, his heart hammering in fear at what he might find inside.
He could hear Jori somewhere behind him, fumbling for her phone. As he crossed the room to Lucy’s crib in the corner, he heard her shaky voice say, “We need an ambulance,” and rattle off their address. He looked down into the crib. Lucy was there, lying flat on her back, her head lolled to one side. She was completely motionless, her eyes closed, mouth partway open. “My baby, she’s not breathing!” He reached a trembling hand through the slats of the crib and held it over her mouth and nose, feeling for the faint breeze of her breath. He felt nothing. “I went to get her up from her nap, and she wouldn’t wake up!” He put his hand on Lucy’s shoulder, lightly shaking her. She didn’t stir. “I think she’s…” His hand moved to her chest, his fingers sliding under the neck of her sleeper. He pressed down, praying for the fluttery feeling of a pulse beating beneath his fingertips. Her skin was cool to the touch. “I think she’s dead!”
“No! Lucy, no!” AJ screamed, scooping Lucy up and clutching her to his chest. She felt limp, more like a doll than the warm, wriggly baby he was used to holding. He carried her into the kitchen, where Jori was pacing, the phone to her ear. “We’re taking her to the hospital, now,” he said.
Jori shook her head. Cupping her hand over the phone, she replied, “They said to wait. The ambulance is already on its way.”
It was the longest wait of AJ’s life, but it must have only taken a matter of minutes for the sirens to make their way up the street. A trio of EMTs trouped up the stairs and came into the apartment. Two of them took Lucy from AJ’s arms, while the third led AJ and Jori out of the room. She asked them to show her the room in which they’d found Lucy, so they took her into the brightly-painted nursery, where she asked them all kinds of questions. AJ answered without thinking, his mind still in the other room with his daughter. The interview passed by in a blur; later, he would barely remember it.
Finally, one of the other EMTs came to say, “We’re going to transport her to the hospital now.”
AJ looked up hopefully. “Is she alive? Did you save her?”
“We’re trying every measure to resuscitate her, sir, but so far, she hasn’t shown any signs of life. You and your wife should prepare yourselves for the possibility that we’re not going to get her back.” He gave them a grim, sympathetic look, putting a hand on AJ’s shoulder. “Can you follow us in your own vehicle?”
AJ nodded. Without a word, he reached out and took Jori’s hand. He squeezed it tightly, feeling the stone of her engagement ring digging into his skin. The pain was almost a relief, a reminder that he could still feel something. Up until then, he’d only felt numb. But he knew instinctively that more pain would follow, a pain far worse than he could prepare himself for.
He led Jori out of the apartment, snatching the keys to her truck off the hook by the door on his way. They followed the EMTs down the stairs and out into the parking lot, where the ambulance sat, its lights flashing. It was still raining, but a small group of spectators had gathered to gawk. Howie appeared out of nowhere and put an arm around AJ. “Is there anything I can do?” he asked. “Do you want me to drive you to the hospital?”
AJ shook his head. “Just watch the store,” he said, but in that moment, the store didn’t really matter. Throw the doors open wide; let the looters come and rob the place dry. He didn’t care. His only concern was the baby in the back of that ambulance.
“I will. I’ll be praying, too,” said Howie.
“Thanks, man.” AJ shook him off and took Jori over to her truck. She had spray-painted the white pick-up with a rainbow of colors, creating a tie-dyed effect. It looked out of place in a scene of such tragedy. “You want me to drive?” he offered, and Jori nodded, climbing into the passenger seat. He slid behind the wheel and crammed the key into the ignition. When he turned it, her Beatles music started blaring. Jori quickly shut if off.
They rode to the hospital in silence.
***
Sitting in a small waiting area in the hospital emergency room, AJ was struck with déjà vu. “This waiting is the worst part,” he ranted, anxiously jiggling his foot. “I about drove myself crazy waiting when we brought you here. You know, when you were… having Lucy…”
He trailed off, looking over at Jori. She was hunched over in the chair next to him, staring down at her hands, which were clasped tightly in her lap. Her hair hung limply over her slumped shoulders, hiding her face. She made no effort to respond to him.
“It’s gonna be okay, babe,” he whispered, sliding his arm around her. He pulled her to his side and held her close, rubbing her shoulder as he tried to console her with promises he couldn’t keep. “The doctors and nurses are working on her. They’re gonna get her back. She’ll be okay. It’ll all be okay.”
But he was wrong on all counts.
When the emergency room doctor came to speak to them, AJ jumped up out of his seat to meet her. “I’m Dr. Rigby, the attending physician,” she introduced herself briefly, not bothering to extend her hand. Her grim face told him the truth before she could say another word. “I’m so sorry, Mr. and Mrs. McLean,” she started, and neither of them bothered to correct her, for AJ and Jori were too stunned. “We did everything we could to revive Lucy, but she didn’t respond to any of our efforts. I’m very sorry, but your daughter has died.”
For AJ, it felt like the wind had been knocked out of him, and for a few seconds, he couldn’t breathe. He doubled over, his knees threatening to buckle, as all the color in the world seemed to fade to gray. The sound of Jori’s voice brought him back. “Oh God,” he heard her whimper, and he looked over to see her face fall into her hands. Knowing he needed to stay strong for her, he lowered himself back into his seat and slipped his arm around her shoulders again. He could feel her trembling as she started to cry.
Looking up at the doctor, all he could say was, “How?”
Dr. Rigby sank into the seat on the other side of him. “I’m afraid we won’t know until we run some more tests. From what we observed and the history you gave, Lucy seemed like an otherwise healthy baby who, for reasons we may never know, stopped breathing in her sleep.”
“But how?” asked AJ, shaking his head, unwilling to accept such a vague explanation. “How does that even happen? She was a healthy baby! What the hell happened to her??”
“I assure you, Mr. McLean, we’ll do our best to get to the bottom of it. I know this is difficult to hear, but when an infant dies unexpectedly, it’s required to allow the medical examiner to perform an autopsy. In some cases, the autopsy will give us the answers we’re looking for. But sometimes, no clear cause of death stands out, and in those cases, it may be attributed to what’s known as Sudden Infant Death Syndrome. You’ve heard of SIDS?”
He nodded, hearing her words but hardly processing them. All he could think of was the doctor telling him, “Your daughter has died,” her voice echoing in the hollow space inside his head.
“Someone from the medical examiner’s office will want to ask you both some questions – again, standard protocol in a situation like this. But before that happens, would you like to see Lucy?”
AJ looked at Jori. She shook her head, but he nodded. “Yes… please.”
“Of course. Come with me.” The doctor stood, and he got up to follow her, but Jori sat still.
“Babe?” he asked gently. “You really don’t want to see her?”
She shook her head again, hugging her arms around herself. “I can’t. I can’t stand to see her like that. Please. Don’t make me do it.”
“Okay. Okay.” Surprised, AJ looked from Jori to the doctor.
“That’s fine,” Dr. Rigby assured them both. “Mr. McLean, if you’d like, I can still take you to see your daughter.”
He looked uncertainly at Jori. “I’m gonna go see her, Jor, okay? I… I just want…” To hold her one last time? To say goodbye? He wasn’t sure; all he knew was that he couldn’t pass up what might be the last moment he got to spend with his baby.
Jori nodded. “Go,” she croaked, her voice catching in her throat.
“I’ll send someone in to sit with her,” said the doctor quietly, as she led AJ out of the waiting room. “We have some wonderful grief counselors here at the hospital who might be able to help.”
“Thanks,” he forced himself to reply, though he didn’t see how any stranger could take away the pain he knew was coming. He felt too numb to feel it then, but subconsciously, he knew how much his heart would hurt when the shock that had anesthetized him finally wore off.
He followed the doctor down a long hallway and into another room, where Lucy lay in the center of a long table. She looked so small lying by herself on that big table, and in his mind’s eye, he saw her as a newborn in her crib in the NICU, pink and perfect, with plump, rosy cheeks and ten tiny fingers and toes. He remembered being scared to touch her through the tangle of tubes and wires attached to her, but when he had, her skin had felt as warm and soft as it looked.
She looked different now. There were no tubes or wires this time; her body was wrapped in a white blanket, as if she were sleeping. But he could tell, this time, that she wasn’t just sleeping. Her cheeks were not rosy anymore; her face was pale gray, almost bluish. When he touched her, she felt cold and stiff. He knew she hadn’t just slipped away; she’d been dead since before Jori had found her.
“Would you like to hold her?”
A nurse appeared at his side, playing a gentle hand upon his arm. He nodded, allowing her to guide him to a chair and bring him the baby. When she placed Lucy in his arms, AJ looked down at her and thought, How can this be happening? Just over three months ago, he’d sat in a similar room at this same hospital and held his daughter for the first time. Just that morning, he’d watched Jori do the same. He remembered the way Jori had rocked her so gently, the way Lucy had suckled her so vigorously. She’d been alive when he’d left for work that morning, alive and healthy and fine. So how could this have happened? How, only hours later, could she be dead?
“It might take a few weeks to finish the investigation and get the autopsy results,” said the officer who came to question AJ and Jori. “The autopsy itself will be done within a couple of days, and then your daughter’s body will be released to whichever funeral home you choose to make the arrangements.”
But AJ couldn’t think of planning a funeral for a baby whose life had only just begun, and Jori just sat catatonically at his side, only speaking when addressed specifically by the officer. He knew it would be up to him to handle things, but how could he, when he felt like his heart had been ripped out of his chest, right through the place where her name was written permanently?
Lucy.
For the last year, ever since he had found out she was coming, she had been his whole life. He had lived and breathed for Lucy. How could he be expected to keep breathing, to go on with his life, without her in it?
It was horrible driving home that day, just him and Jori, entering the apartment that was filled with reminders of Lucy: her high chair in the kitchen corner, her toys scattered across the living room floor, her beautiful nursery looking just as they’d left it. AJ didn’t blame Jori one bit when, on her way back to their bedroom, she closed the door on her masterpiece. He couldn’t bear to look at it, either.
***
