Concealed Attractions (Cedar Island Tales) (50 page)

She took him into the shower with her, and in the steamy heat, he seemed to
breathe
better after sneezing twice and clearing his nostrils of mucus. She sang to him and when he snuggled close, she stroked his back
, telling him what a good boy he was, that he would feel better soon.

Late that
evening,
after spending several hours walking the baby to get him to settle,
Danni
refilled the humidifier and placed it near the cradle.
As the clock neared midnight,
Jimmy
nursed briefly
when she tucked him next to her in bed. After he
fell
asleep, she
placed
him
in the cradle
and tucked the rainbow blanket around him
. Before she
climbed in
to bed, she checked on him and
Jimmy
seemed to be sleeping easier.

Exhausted,
Danni
fell into bed, knowing the baby would wake her when he needed to feed again.

The
sun was streaming through the window of the bedroom
when
Danni
woke up
, her breasts aching and overfull
.
Why hadn’t J
immy
asked
to n
urse at dawn, as he usually did?

Danni
climbed out of bed
and approached
the cradle. A film of bubbly moisture surrounded
Jimmy’s
nose and mouth and
he had kicked off his covers.
She placed her hand on his chest.
Her heart clutched.
She picked
him
up and brought him to her chest,
shocked
at how
limp
he
was
.

As if from somewhere near the ceiling, she saw herself holding the baby, willing his body to heat up, like the little oven he usually was, not this tepid warmth she now felt as she clutched him
, warmth that seemed to be receding even as she held him
. He
was not breathing.
She shook him
then pounded his back.
Still h
e did
n’t
respond.

She remembered being told about Sudden Infant
Death Syndrome. But she and Ben
didn’t smoke. She always placed the baby on his back
for sleep
. Wasn’t he on his back when she’d picked him up? Or had he moved onto his side when she was asleep?  She should have heard him move. But she’d been so tired. Why hadn’t she kept him in bed with her, where she’d
have felt
him move?

The next few minutes were a blur
as she fought down her panic
and began
to breathe into his mouth and nose, as they’d been taught in the childbirth classes. But she’d never imagined she would need to do it
.
She had to get help, raced into the kitchen
,
called
9-1-1
,
and resumed
doing mouth-to-mouth
until
the paramedics
walked in the door
.
The
big
EMT
took
Jimmy
from her
and
immediately
resumed
resuscitation.
She remembered him from when he’d brought a wolfhound to the clinic.
Dann
i
stood
nearby
,
unable to stop shaking
, watching, praying
.
When
Mike
finally stopped
his efforts to revive the baby,
he
handed
Jimmy
to his partner
and
took
Danni’s
hands
in his
.

“
Dannilynn
, he’s gone. There’s nothing
more
we
can do.
But w
e
have to take him
to the hospital
now
. You can come with us.”

She
nodded, too numb to speak,
climbed into the back of the ambulance
,
unable to think past what the
paramedic
had said.
He
couldn’t be right
.
Jimmy
couldn’t be
gone
.

“He
wo
n
’t like that
,” she said, when the
EMT
placed Jimmy’s body on the padded backboard to strap him down. She
reached around the man and
picked up
Jimmy’s limp form,
wrapped his blanket
around him
, and
clutch
ed
him to her chest
.
“He
rests better
when he can
feel the sides of his cradle
”
—
her
throat closed against the words
and her vision blurred
—
“or my arms around him.”
Big
M
ike
let her hold him the rest of the way.

The world seemed to spin in slow motion as the siren
mark
ed
their progress away from the little cottage where she’d been so happy with Jimmy and Ben
.
Danni’s
breasts were full to bursting
with milk
, sustenance
her baby
needed but
w
ouldn’t
be taking
anymore
, aching for the baby
pressed so close
.
She had a
hole in her heart as wide as the world.

Why
had she not heard
that
Jimmy
was in trouble
?
What kind of a mother didn’t hear her
own
baby struggling for air?
She didn’t want to
imagine
what
Ben w
as going to say.
How
could
she
tell
him
? What w
ould
he do?
Would he blame her?
How could this have happened?

D
octor
Wright
was waiting for them when the ambulance
arrived. She led the way into the
exam room
, followed by
Danni
and the
paramedic
, who spoke briefly to
the doctor
.

“Leave us for a bit. I’ll come talk with you later,”
Angela
said.

She turned to
Danni
.
“I have to examine him,
sweetie
. Please lay him
down
.”
The doctor
examin
ed
the baby
quickly
, asked
only
a few questions, and
then took
Dannilynn
in her arms
and hugged her
.
“I know t
his is hard. But I want you to
know you
didn’t do this. M
oms sometimes
think that. He was early.
I’m thinking about three weeks, and this happens more often with boys, particu
larly if they a
re
premature
.
You’re very full.
When you go home,
stand in the shower and massage your breasts. The milk will come out
and you’ll be more comfortable
.
This looks like SIDS.
I saw petechial hemorrhaging.
It’s a
sign.
We’ll confirm that with
an autopsy—”

Danni
gasped
at the words and seemed to come out of
the fog of grief
and confusion
that enveloped her
.
“No!
You can’t.
”

“
It’s required
, hon
, in any unexplained death
.
I’ll get back to
you as soon as his body can be released to the funeral home.
Should
I call
your mom
?”

Danni
picked up Jimmy’s still form
and clung to him
. “
Okay
.”
S
he had no idea how long
she sat in the little cubicle
,
but sometime later,
she
heard the doctor say,
“No, come to the hospital. I’ll wait for you. I don’t know. You may want to call him.
She’s in shock.”

But I’m not
in shock.
She couldn’t be. When a person was in shock, weren’t they unconscious?
She was hurting
all over
,
dying
from
grief
. How could her baby be dead?

S
he began to shiver and turn cold,
cold and numb
, except her heart was
a burning ember,
trying to burst out of her chest
, and her lungs hurt from breathing
.
This must be what it’s like to die, except I’m hurting so
much. Isn’t death supposed to have
no feeling?
Only when the doctor
entered
the room
again
and gently took Jimmy did
Danni
release her hold on her precious child.
What did I do? I must have done something wrong.

Anna called the clinic. “
Joe
l
?”

“Yes.”

“Somethin
g terrible has happened. Where’
s Ben?”

“He’s working at the farms
near
Clifton
. What’s up?”

“It’s the baby. Could you let him know that he needs to come b
ack—as soon as possible?”  S
he told him what little she knew.

“I’ll get him right away. How is
Danni
?”

“
I haven’t
spoken to
her yet
.
Doctor Wright
says
she’s in shock
.
I’m on my way to be with her.
”

She
drove
to the hospital
,
bundled Danni into the car and
started to drive
to her house
. But
Danni insisted on going
to the cottage.
Once there, she
sat
immobil
e
on the couch,
holding the baby’s blan
ket, rocking back and forth,
unable or unwilling to
speak
.
Anna didn’t know what to do. Whe
n she held
Dannilynn
, her daughter
’s back
stiffened
, as if she was holding herself together by sheer will
.
Her face h
eld
no expression
and she seemed not to see her surroundings
.
She didn’t cry, she didn’t talk, she just sat
clutching
Jimmy’s
blanket. When she did stand up, she paced between the cradle and the rocking chair, touching
each in turn
, as if unable to decide what to do next.

When the minister arrived, he
spoke
with Anna.
Dannilynn
did not respond to his questions
,
her haunting gaze looking past his face when he spoke to her.
Next to arrive were the police, who asked
Danni
a few
questions and left again
when she couldn’t seem to focus on what they wanted to know
. They told
Anna they would come back later
.