8. Jori (II)
Over
the past three days she had spent in the hospital, Jori had seen other new
mothers wheeled by her open door with their arms and laps heaped with flowers,
balloons, and gift bags, while their happy husbands walked alongside them,
carrying their newborns in infant seats.
When
it was time for her to leave, there were no gifts or decorations to pack up,
for no one but Howie had come to visit.
All of her family and friends were in Indiana, almost a three hours’
drive away, and she’d told them to wait to make the trip when she and Lucy were
home. Now, alone in her room with Lucy
while AJ went down to pull the car up and get the carseat out, Jori felt sorry
for herself.
“Looks
like it’s just us, baby girl,” she whispered, leaning over to plant a soft kiss
on Lucy’s forehead. The movement pulled
at her incision, and she winced as she settled back in her wheelchair, trying
to get comfortable again. She hadn’t
expected to be in so much pain, three days after giving birth, but then, she
hadn’t expected to give birth via C-section either. The complications she’d suffered had made
everything else complicated, too. She
couldn’t even hold her baby without the support of pillows placed strategically
to protect her incision, and even then, it hurt. Breastfeeding had been a nightmare so far,
but Jori was determined to keep trying, hoping it would get easier with time. She knew it was best for her baby, and that
was what mattered. Everything she had
endured over the past few days – the pain, the fear, the whole near-death
experience – had been for this little girl.
Lucy. Looking down at the sleeping infant nestled
in the crook of her arm, it was hard for Jori to imagine that this was the life
she’d helped to create, the little person she’d carried for nine months. She had felt Lucy move inside her belly, but
the baby she now held in her arms was as still as stone. Even at three days old, it was easy to see
her resemblance to AJ – the high forehead, the heavy-lidded eyes, the fine
layer of dark hair on her head. But
though she’d spent hours staring at Lucy, her eyes taking in every last detail
of her daughter’s face, Jori had yet to see herself in the infant’s
features. “I must have passed on all the
dominant genes,” AJ had gloated, when Jori had said something about it the
night before. He had said it jokingly,
but to Jori, it was no joke. In her
eyes, there was no baby more beautiful than Lucy, but if AJ hadn’t placed her
on Jori’s chest and told her she was theirs, Jori worried she might not have
recognized her own child. She’d been
unconscious when Lucy was born; she hadn’t been able to see her slide out into
the doctor’s hands or hear her first cry.
She hadn’t gotten to hold her right away, when she was still red and
wrinkled and wet. Those precious moments
she had missed haunted Jori.
But
now was not the time to dwell on them.
AJ was back, lugging the car seat.
“Ready to go?” he asked excitedly, setting the seat down on the bed.
Jori
nodded. She was eager to get Lucy home,
though a part of her was nervous. Here
in the hospital, she’d had help available whenever she needed it – help with
feedings, help changing diapers, even help getting up to use the bathroom
herself. Once she went home, she would
be on her own. AJ would be around, of
course, but although he had boundless energy and the best of intentions, he didn’t
know any more about babies than Jori did.
What if we turn out to be terrible
parents? she wondered, watching anxiously as AJ took Lucy from her arms and
strapped her into her car seat. His
hands moved clumsily, awkward at first, but in the end, Lucy was snug and
secure in her seat, and they were on the way.
Again,
Jori felt a strange sense of disconnect, as she was wheeled out of the hospital
by a nurse, while AJ carried Lucy. He
put the baby into the back seat of his car, connecting the car seat to its
base, while the nurse helped Jori in on the other side. She tucked a towel between the seatbelt and
her stomach as she waited for AJ to finish fumbling with the car seat.
“How
ya doin’?” he asked at one point, reaching across the seat to squeeze her
thigh.
Jori
shrugged. “Okay, I guess. I just wanna get home.”
AJ
nodded. “You bet, babe.” He closed the door and trotted around to the
driver’s side. “We’re on our way!” he
announced as he slid behind the wheel, jamming his key into the ignition. As the engine sprang to life, Jori worried
the rumbling and jostling of the car would disturb Lucy, but the newborn stayed
sound asleep and didn’t stir the whole way home. AJ drove ten miles slower than he usually did
and used all of his signals, taking care to protect the precious cargo in the
back seat.
When
they pulled into the pothole-filled parking lot behind their building, AJ
jumped out to help Jori first, then went around to get Lucy. They made slow progress up the stairs, Jori
clinging to the banister as AJ stayed behind her, his free hand touching the
small of her back while the other held Lucy’s carrier. It was a relief to make it to the second
floor landing outside their apartment door; Jori’s abdomen burned as if she’d
just done a hundred sit-ups, and her legs felt like jelly. When AJ handed her the key, she unlocked the
door gratefully and led the way inside.
It
was chilly inside the apartment; AJ must have turned the heat down during one
of his trips home to pick up clothes.
He’d spent the better part of the past three days at the hospital with
Jori and the baby, and it was wasteful to squander money heating an unoccupied
apartment. Still, Jori couldn’t help but
shiver. She turned up the thermostat on
the way into Lucy’s bedroom.
“Here
we are, Baby Lucy,” AJ cooed in a soft voice, as he carried their daughter into
the artfully decorated nursery. “This is
your room. Do you like it? Your mama sure busted her butt to make it
look nice.”
Jori
smiled, her heart swelling with pride and joy as she watched AJ lift Lucy out
of her carrier and show her around the room.
Finally, the nursery was complete.
They
lay Lucy in the crib, under the starry sky with the mirror to reflect her
sleeping face. For a long time, the two
of them just stood there, arms folded over the crib rail, staring down at the
perfect piece of art they had created together, marveling over the miracle that
was Lucy Sky Diamond McLean.
“You
look beat, babe. Why don’t you go lie
down?” AJ suggested in a whisper, though he barely glanced over at her. He didn’t seem to be able to take his eyes
off the baby.
Jori
hadn’t realized how much she had started to lean on the crib. She wasn’t ready to leave Lucy, but as she
straightened up, her incision screaming in protest, she knew she wouldn’t be
able to stand there much longer. “Maybe
I’ll go take a shower,” she said. “I
need to wash the hospital stench off me.”
AJ
laughed. “Alright. You need any help?”
Jori
flashed him a tired smile. “Tempting as
that sounds, you better stay here with Lucy.
I’ll be fine.” She pried her
hands off the crib rail and forced herself to turn away, hobbling off to the
bathroom.
After
three days of sponge baths in the hospital, Jori really was craving a
shower. She shed her clothes, carefully
avoiding looking at her reflection in the mirror. She knew how terrible she must look, her red
hair hanging limp and greasy, her body bloated with leftover baby weight, her
belly bandaged with a large, white dressing that covered her incision. She peeled off the dressing carefully,
grimacing at the sight of the angry red slash running down the center of her
swollen belly. It was going to leave an
ugly scar. Even after she lost the baby
weight, she would never feel comfortable wearing a bikini again.
The
jagged red line blurred before her eyes as they filled with tears. Jori hadn’t prepared for this, had never even
consented to having surgery. She knew
that AJ had made the decision while she was bleeding to death and that it had
saved both her life and Lucy’s. She
didn’t blame him for that. But she did
resent the obstetrician who had performed the emergency C-section. Most Cesarean scars ran horizontally below
the bikini line, but in her haste to get the baby out safely, the doctor had
sliced Jori open from her naval all the way down to her pubic bone. The long, vertical incision would heal and
fade with time, but Jori knew she’d never be able to hide it completely. The realization made her feel violated. She hadn’t just been cut open; she’d been
gutted like a fish.
By
the time she stepped into the shower, the tears had started to fall, blending
with the hot water as they dripped from her face. She had a good, long cry as she showered,
scouring her skin and scrubbing her face until it was as red and raw as the
edges of her incision. The effect erased
all traces of tears from her cheeks, and when she got out of the shower and
wiped the fog from the mirror, it was impossible to tell she’d been
crying. She wrapped herself in a towel,
hugging it to her swollen breasts, and carefully combed out her long hair. When she left the bathroom, the apartment was
silent; Lucy was still asleep.
“I’m
gonna take a nap, babe!” she called softly to AJ. “Wake me up if the baby cries.”
“I’m
on it, Jor, don’t worry about it. Get
some rest,” AJ’s voice drifted back to her.
Jori
knew Lucy would need to nurse again before long, something AJ couldn’t help
with, but maybe she had an hour for a quick nap. She threw on an oversized t-shirt and crawled
painfully into bed, her belly throbbing as she tried to find a comfortable
position. But no sooner had she closed
her eyes than she heard the baby start to cry.
Jori sighed as she struggled to drag herself back out of bed. Welcome
to motherhood, she thought.
***