“It’s all right, Dad. Go see Mom and then come back for me.” She continued to stare at the babies. She counted fourteen, all of them perfectly fine.
A young couple came up alongside her. “There he is, hon,” the man said. “In the second row, third from the left.”
The woman wore a robe and her hair looked unkempt, but her face fairly glowed. “Isn’t he beautiful? Oh, Jerry, he’s just fantastic.” They nestled against each other. Melanie felt tears stinging her eyes. “Which one’s yours?” the woman asked.
Melanie swallowed the lump in her throat. “My sister’s in the other room. There … there was a problem.”
The couple recoiled, making Melanie feel that they were afraid to get too near her. As if her sister’s “problem” might somehow rub off on their happiness. “I’m so sorry,” the woman said.
“Me too.” Melanie’s lips moved woodenly.
When her father returned, she walked outside with him. The air felt brittle, like a sheet of thin ice. The sky was pitch black, as if all the stars had gone out. Melanie’s teeth chattered. In the car, with the heater going full blast, she asked, “How’s Mom?”
“Sound asleep.” He ran a hand through his rumpled hair and over his unshaven face. “I put your backpack in her room.”
Until that moment, Melanie had forgotten about it. “Thanks.”
“I figure we should sleep until nine or so, clean up, and come back. That okay with you?”
“Fine.”
“Whatever is wrong with the baby, the doctors will probably be able to fix it,” he said. “Medical science can work miracles these days.”
His words brought Melanie a ray of hope. He was right. She’d seen stories on TV about amazing surgeries and other astounding procedures. “Do you think the doctors can help Jennifer? She’s so tiny.”
“They’re helping all those preemies. You saw it with your own eyes.”
“Maybe you’re right,” Melanie said, feeling her spirits lift.
“We’ve got to think positive,” her father said. “We’ve got to hold on to hope. We don’t know anything yet. Her problem might be very fixable.”
Melanie reached over and her father took her hand and squeezed. “You’re right,” she said. “I mean, after all, it’s almost Christmas. Nothing bad can happen at Christmas.”
Her father managed a smile. “That’s my girl.”
Melanie stared out the window, blinked back tears, and told herself again and again, Nothing bad can happen at Christmas.
Five
It seemed to Melanie as if she’d just lain down when her alarm clock went off. Surprised that she’d even fallen asleep, and still groggy, she stumbled into the bathroom and took a shower. After dressing, she went downstairs to find her father in the kitchen, drinking coffee. He had showered and shaved but still looked exhausted. “I just talked to the nurses and your mother’s still asleep. Even so, I’d like to get down there as soon as possible. We’ll grab something to eat on the way.”
Melanie nodded. “I’m ready when you are. How’s Jennifer?”
“She’s holding her own.”
“What if she—” Melanie stopped, unable to express her greatest fear.
“Let’s go,” her father said.
Outside, sunlight streamed down and the sky was clear and crystal blue. During the drive back to the hospital, Melanie watched people rush along the sidewalks and past store windows. The sights and sounds that had excited her only days before, now depressed her horribly. How could everybody be happy when her whole world was falling apart? How could she think about Christmas when she didn’t know what was wrong with her brand-new baby sister?
At the hospital, she and her father went straight to her mother’s room. Her mother was just waking. After hugging her, Melanie excused herself, knowing her parents would want to talk privately.
She went immediately to the neonatal ICU and anxiously looked through the glass window for Jennifer. When Melanie located her incubator, she saw that her sister was hooked to IVs and a heart monitor. Her tiny fists were clenched, as if she were holding on for dear life. “Hang in there, Jennifer,” Melanie whispered under her breath. “The doctors will fix you.”
Melanie returned to her mother’s room to find her sitting up in bed, her eyes red and puffy. “Your father went to the nurses’ station,” her mother said. “Evidently, Dr. Singh left instructions that he was to be called as soon as I woke up.”
“They haven’t told you anything?”
Her mother shook her head. “I still feel groggy. Hand me that water pitcher, please.”
Melanie watched her mother scoop out a handful of ice chips and wrap them in a washcloth, then press the cloth to her eyes and cheeks. “How do you feel, Mom?”
“Awful.” Her mother’s voice quavered. “This was supposed to be a happy day, Mellie. A happy day.”
Melanie wanted to throw herself into her mother’s arms and cry, but realized she had to act strong for her mother’s sake. “Jennifer looks all right,” she offered, attempting to sound encouraging. “I saw her through the window and she looks like she’s sleeping. She’s pretty, Mom.”
The door opened and Melanie’s father walked in. “The doctor’s on his way.” As his wife got out of bed, he asked, “Should you be up?”
“I’m sore, but I’m fine. I want to go and see my baby as soon as the doctor leaves.”
Melanie’s father had just settled her mother in a chair when they heard a rap on the door. A short, brown-skinned man with dark eyes and black hair, wearing a white lab coat, came in and introduced himself as Dr. Singh. “I’m a neurologist, and I’ve been called in to consult on your daughter’s case.”
“A neurologist!” Frank Barton said, sounding confused. “But why?”
Dr. Singh looked at Melanie and she stepped closer to her mother’s side. She eyed him defiantly. There was no way she was going to leave the room. “I do not have good news,” the doctor said with a slight accent. “And there is no gentle way to tell you this.”
Melanie’s blood ran cold with his words. She saw her mother grip her father’s hand.
“Tell us,” Connie said.
“Your baby has been born anencephalic.”
“Meaning?” Frank asked.
“Meaning that she lacks a fully developed brain. I’ve done a CT scan, and your baby is missing all of her cerebral cortex.”
Melanie couldn’t quite absorb what the doctor was telling them, but she heard her mother cry out and her father gasp.
Dr. Singh reached into his lab-coat pocket and took out a drawing of the human brain. “The brain consists of three sections,” he said, pointing to each area. “The cerebral cortex, the cerebellum, and the brain stem. Jennifer has only these bottom two portions. Her upper brain never formed. Instead, there’s only a fluid-filled sac.”
“Will she be retarded?” Connie asked.
The doctor’s face filled with sympathy. “It means that she has no consciousness, no ability to think or reason.”
“But she’s alive,” Connie blurted out. “She is … isn’t she?”
“At the moment, yes, but infants with this kind of birth defect do not survive. I’m sorry.” Although Melanie could barely see his face through her tears, Dr. Singh looked genuinely sad. “Frankly, it’s remarkable she’s lived this long. These infants usually die at birth. Maybe two thousand are born each year in this country. We don’t know why their upper brains don’t develop in the womb, but they don’t. Their brain stems are usually intact, as is your baby’s, so their nervous systems can function for a time. Their hearts beat and they can breathe, but they can’t see, or hear, or respond.”
“Neither could Helen Keller.” The words were out of Melanie’s mouth before she realized it. He couldn’t give up on Jennifer. She wouldn’t let him!
“Helen Keller had high intelligence. Her handicaps were imposed by illness, not by a birth defect,” the doctor said kindly. “Jennifer has no capacity for intelligence.”
“W
hat could I have done to cause this?” Melanie’s mother cried.
The doctor shook his head. “You did nothing wrong, Mrs. Barton, believe me. These things are often picked up by ultrasound, but in your case, it wasn’t. Most parents who know in advance that they’re carrying anencephalic babies choose to abort them.”
Melanie saw her parents cringe. “We would not have done that,” her mother whispered. “Regardless of whether or not we had known.”
“Then it does not matter,” Dr. Singh said.
“Isn’t there anything you can do for her?” Melanie’s father asked, distraught.
“All we can do is keep her warm and fed.”
“How much time does she have?”
“Possibly a few days. Longer if we put her on a respirator.”
“You’re certain?”
“I have been a physician for twenty-one years. I have seen six such cases of anencephalic babies. Three were aborted. Two were stillborn. The one that survived lasted but a week.”
Melanie’s mother stood, swaying slightly. “She’s our daughter. We want to see her.”
Dr. Singh nodded. “Of course.”
As she followed her parents and the doctor down the hall to the neonatal nursery, Melanie felt caught in a nightmare. Surely she’d soon wake up and discover all this had been a bad dream.
Dr. Singh took them behind the nurses’ station and into a small room. There he directed them to put on sterile gowns and then led them into the neonatal ICU. Christmas music that had filled the corridors faded, replaced by the constant beeping of electronic monitors.
The doctor stopped beside Jennifer’s incubator and Melanie’s family gathered around it. Melanie stared down at her tiny sister. Jennifer’s chest rose and fell rapidly. The round pads for the lead wires attached to her chest looked huge and dark against her pale skin. On the monitor screen, her heartbeat was etched by a green line.
“Hello, Jennifer,” Melanie heard her mother whisper. “How are you, my little one?”
“We’re right here with you, baby girl,” her father said.
Melanie couldn’t speak around the lump in her throat.
“How much does she weigh?” she heard her mother ask.
“Six pounds, two ounces. And she’s nineteen inches long.”
“Our Melanie was eight and a half pounds.”
Melanie couldn’t grasp her mother’s words. How could she have ever been so little, so delicate and fair?
“Can we hold her?” her mother asked.
Dr. Singh opened the incubator, took a flannel blanket, and wrapped it around the unresponsive infant. He placed her in her mother’s arms, careful not to tangle the wires.
Connie cuddled the baby against her chest. Frank traced his finger down the baby’s cheek. Against Jennifer’s tiny features, his finger looked as if it were attached to a giant’s hand. Maybe the doctors are wrong, Melanie thought. How could any human being who looked normal be so damaged?
Melanie wanted to hold her, but she was terrified. What if Jennifer stopped breathing in her arms? The knitted hat slipped backward and Melanie recoiled. Beneath the hat was a large, swollen mound of a head covered with fine brown hair. Jennifer’s head was misshapen, like an overfilled water balloon, and until now, hidden by the hat. Instantly sick to her stomach, Melanie rushed out of the room. Her sister wasn’t normal at all. She was a freak.
Six
“Are you okay?” Melanie’s father was bending over her as she lay on a sofa in the lounge. A nurse was taking her blood pressure.
“What happened?” Melanie asked. She felt light-headed.
“You fainted,” the nurse said, “but I caught you before you hit the floor.”
Melanie struggled to sit up, but her father and the nurse both insisted she stay put. “I—I felt a little sick in there. I just got a little woozy, but I’m all right now. Honest.”
“You didn’t get much rest,” her father said. “I’m sure you’re just wiped out.”
“This has taken a toll on all of us,” her mother said. She was leaning on Dr. Singh’s arm and looking anxious. “I don’t want anything to happen to you, Mellie.”
Grateful that neither of her parents said what the three of them knew was true—that the sight of Jennifer’s deformed head had been too much for her—Melanie said, “I’m sorry.” She felt ashamed.
A nurse pushed a wheelchair up behind Melanie’s mother. “Please, Mrs. Barton, you should be back in your room in bed.”
“I’ll take her,” Frank said.
“No, stay with Melanie.”
“I’ll go with you,” Melanie insisted, sitting upright. “I feel fine now.”
Her mother looked up at Dr. Singh from the wheelchair. “Thank you for letting me hold my baby. It meant a lot to finally touch her.”
“Your family may be with her anytime. I have told the nurses to allow you admittance. It will be good for all of you.”
Once her mother was settled in her bed and given medication to make her sleep, Melanie drove back home with her father. “Is Jennifer really going to die, Dad?”
“That’s what the doctor said.”
His answer broke her heart. “It’s not fair. She’s just a little baby.”
“You’re right—it isn’t fair. But there’s nothing we can do about it.” He cleared his throat. “Listen, I want to be with your mother when she wakes up.”
“I want to go with you.”
“No. I want you home, resting. You can come later.” His refusal was firm and left no room for argument.
At the house, Coren and Justine were sitting on the front porch, huddled in sweaters, coats, and mittens. They jumped up and ran to the car before Melanie’s father had even turned off the engine. “What’s happening?” Coren asked. “We haven’t heard from you.”
“I have to return to the hospital and I want Mellie in bed,” her father told them.
“Dad, please. Let me talk to my friends.”
“We won’t stay long, Mr. Barton,” Justine promised.
Her dad agreed and drove off. Melanie led her friends inside and plopped down with them on the living room sofa. “It’s awful,” she said on the verge of tears.
“Tell us everything,” Coren said.
As Melanie spoke, they began to cry, too.
Coren found her voice first. “No brain? I—I can’t believe it.”
“Well, I didn’t make it up.”
“And so she’s just going to die?” Justine looked incredulous.
Melanie didn’t trust her voice, so the three girls sat in strained silence. Melanie stared gloomily at the Christmas tree. Had it only been hours since she and her mother had sat in this very room with the soft light shining, the scent of pine all around them, planning for the birth of the baby? It seemed like a lifetime ago. Now the tree looked garish and fake, the heaps of presents gaudy. She saw the pile marked for Baby Mortimer/Morticia and cringed. How stupid of her to have wrapped and tagged them until she knew for certain there would even be a baby. She jumped to her feet.
“Mom doesn’t need to come home and see all this stuff,” she said. “Help me carry it up and put it in my closet.”
Justine and Coren scrambled to pick up the packages.
Melanie headed up to her room, opened her closet, and asked her friends to dump the gaily wrapped gifts on the floor. She shut the door firmly.
“Do you want us to leave?” Coren asked.
Melanie shook her head. “No.” She didn’t want to be alone. She knew she couldn’t sleep, no matter how much her parents wanted her to.
“Want a soda?” Justine asked.
“Okay. There are cans in the fridge. Why don’t you get us all one?”
“Back in a flash.” Justine ran out.
Melanie began to pace around her room. “Why did this happen to us?” Suddenly angry, she slammed her fist into the bed pillow. “Why my sister? Do you know how long I’ve wished for a sister?”
“You’re like a sister to me,”
Coren said, a plaintive tone in her voice.
“But Jennifer’s my really and truly sister. If you could see her little face. I—I …” Her voice broke. Coren came closer, but Melanie waved her aside. “It’s Christmas, Coren. Now every Christmas for the rest of my life, I’ll remember this horrible, horrible Christmas. What was God thinking? Doesn’t he know how much this baby meant to us?”
Coren didn’t reply. Melanie realized there were no answers to her questions.
Abruptly, she left her room and went to the nursery that stood ready and waiting for the baby who would never come home. Sunlight streamed through the pretty curtains her mother had made for the room. Rows of stuffed animals stretched across the dresser top. Melanie had lined them up like fluffy sentinels to watch over a baby who would not see them. She toyed with the mobile hanging over the crib. The stars and moons twisted, then hung limp. “Mom played classical music for Jennifer every day,” Melanie said, her voice breaking. “And she never heard a note.” Melanie felt as if the walls were closing in, as if she were suffocating. She wanted to scream and kick and run away. Instead, she stood stock-still, unable to move.
Justine came into the room, carrying cans of soda. “Maybe you shouldn’t torture yourself by being in here.”
“Come on.” Coren took Melanie’s hand and led her back to her own room.
She lay on her bed and sobbed. She wept for the baby, for her parents, for herself. Finally, when she was all cried out, she fell into an exhausted sleep.
Melanie awoke with a start and sat upright, disoriented. Lamps were on in her room. Outside the window, gray December dusk had fallen. Coren and Justine were lounging on the floor, reading magazines, a deck of cards spread out on the carpet. “What time is it?” Melanie asked.
“Five o’clock,” Coren said.
“You stayed all afternoon while I slept?”
“Of course. We weren’t about to go off and leave you.”
Touched, Melanie said, “Thanks. I hope you weren’t too bored.”
“You snore,” Justine said with an encouraging smile.
Melanie made a face at her and the three of them laughed. For Melanie, the laughter felt good. She couldn’t recall the last time she’d smiled. “Is my dad home?” She slid off the bed.