Samson and Sunset (27 page)

  I gently took Marie out of his arms
and laid her in her crib. Shay woke up and said quickly, “Don’t lay
her down, Callie!”

  “Why?”

  “I don’t know, I just don’t know,” he
said. “From what I’ve seen working with farm animals, it seems like
when she lies down something’s hurting her. Maybe like a pressure
or a pinched nerve, ’cause if you hold her up she settles down.
Callie, you take her to the doctor tomorrow and see what he says.
Tell him exactly what she does and how she acts. No need for her to
lie down until we find out if she’s okay.”

  So we took her to our bed and took
turns holding her upright all night.

  After Shay left to go out to work, I
called the doctor and made the appointment. He got us in that
morning, so Yonnie came over to babysit. They did lots of tests on
Marie. The doctor could tell what I was talking about, because of
the way she cried when he laid her on the table. Then he sent us
over to the hospital for X-rays.

  It was about 3:30 that afternoon when
our doctor came in and told me the heart-wrenching news: Marie had
a severe heart defect, a mass close to her heart. If she lay on her
back, it pressed into her back, causing pain, if she lay on her
stomach, it pressed into her stomach, causing pain.

  “What can we do?” I asked.

  “She needs open-heart surgery,
Kathrine. I’ll be honest with you,” said Doc Sam, “the mass could
be cancerous. The survival rate for this type of heart surgery is
not good. They don’t even do it here in Hudson. It would have to be
done in Lincoln. That is, if you decide to have it done.”

  “What happens if she doesn’t have the
surgery?”

  “She’ll only live a few more months,
Callie. I’m so sorry.” I could see his great concern, not only for
Marie, but for me, as well.

  I’d heard of people ‘going through the
motions,’ but not really being there. Well, that’s what was
happening to me. I took Marie and made it to my parents’, where I
just let it all out. Mom called Maggie and asked her to have Shay
come get us when he got home for the day. I was moving in slow
motion. I was trying to comprehend what the doctor had just told
me. He had pretty much said that either way our little Marie was
going to die.

  ***

That evening, when Shay got there, my mother
caught him up on what was happening. I truly saw a sad man. He was
silent. He didn’t know what to say.

  “Callie, what do you want to do? Do
you want her to have the surgery?” Shay asked. “You’re not going to
just give up on her, ’cause, woman, I’ve never seen you give up on
anything in your life. You’re a fighter, a survivor. This is where
that faith you have, Callie, comes into play, right here and now.
Only you can make the decision.”

  Shay walked me to the car with his arm
around me, putting Marie and me gently into the front seat of the
Impala to take us home. Someone would come get my car tomorrow.
What a silent drive, with the exception of little Marie sitting on
my lap making her chatting sounds in her little sweet baby lingo.
She was talking to us. Tears ran down my face as I watched and
listened to her.

  I was amazed that it was Shay who
realized something was wrong with Marie, after all the time I’d
spent taking care of her. If I’d just taken her in for a check-up,
they wouldn’t have found what Shay had discovered. Shay observed
well. He was so good at figuring things out. If they hadn’t found
the heart defect, and I’d have lost her at home, I would always
have blamed myself. But Shay, he just knew something was wrong.

  I spent the night up with Rie-Rie and
made my decision. We were going to do the surgery, pray for a
miracle, and put her in God’s hands. I called the doctor the next
day and he scheduled the surgery for the next week. I had been
anemic, but the iron pills had helped boost my blood count, and the
doctor suggested I give a little less than a pint of my blood to be
sent to Lincoln, just in case. I went into Hudson the next day and
they took less than a pint. I don’t think I had much blood to give,
but what was mine was Marie’s. I would have given her my heart, if
it would have helped.

  Mom came out the next day with her
suitcase and said that she’d stay for a while. Maggie came over
every day, and she also helped a lot. I don’t know how I’d have
gotten through without their help. Shay scheduled with Sterling and
the crew to be gone four days the next week. We left around 8:00
a.m. that Tuesday. If everything stayed on schedule, Marie would be
having her surgery at 8:00 a.m. the next morning. When we left, I
hugged Kelly and Wessy as if it were the end of the world. Both Mom
and Maggie hugged me tight and said they’d be right there with us
in spirit.

  “Shay,” I said, as we drove out toward
the highway. “See that empty spot there under that big oak tree?
That’s where I want you to build Rie-Rie’s new swing set, so I can
always see her out the window.”

  “You got it, darlin’, but first I’m
making her a big sand box so she can bring sand in on Mommy’s
carpet,” he said with a forced cheery voice, putting his hand on
top of her little head and tousling her reddish curls.

  It was two and a half hours to Lincoln
and every mile was torture. I was glad Shay knew his way around the
town. I only knew the main area, from my days at Bette Bonne.

  Shay checked us into a motel room
before we headed for the hospital to check in our precious Marie.
It was a long day. She had so much work done and she cried so hard
and long, I couldn’t take it. The nurse finally told Shay that when
they needed to do a test that was going to be hard for Marie, he
should take me down to the cafeteria.

  Surgery was going to be long and
delicate. They said little Marie’s doctor from Hudson, Doc Sam, was
coming to Lincoln to be there with us through the surgery tomorrow.
Shay and I went to the motel at 9:00 that night. Shay ordered a
burger, I told him I couldn’t eat.

  “Callie,” said Shay, “If you don’t
take care of yourself, how will you be well enough to take care of
Rie-Rie?”

  I ate a few bites of his burger, and
tried to go to sleep.

  We were at the hospital by 6:00 a.m.
Shay and I got to hold Marie for a few minutes, and then it was
time for her to be prepped and taken to the surgery room. We were
escorted to the family room to begin our long and terrifying wait.
Doc Sam had come all that way just to be with us. I was so happy he
cared enough to be there. Doctors just had a different bedside
manner back then, they got personally involved, and believe me,
doctors, that’s a good thing.

  We went down to the cafeteria for
coffee and tea with Doc Sam. I wanted to pray at the table and our
doctor prayed with us. Then the three of us headed back to the
waiting room. We’d had ten and a half months with Marie. She was
part of us, and we weren’t ready to give her up. After what seemed
like forever, the surgeon came out. His face said it all.

  “Mr. and Mrs. Westover, Marie made it
through the surgery, but she has slipped into a coma and she is not
going to survive. We did all we could. She may live twelve, maybe
fifteen hours at the most. I’m so sorry.” He shook Shay’s hand and
left.

  I just let out a bloodcurdling scream.
“No, no, not my baby, not my little girl. How can you do this to
me, God? Do you hate me that much!” I sobbed as I sunk into a
chair.

  Shay tried to comfort me, but there
was no comfort to be had. There was going to be no baby; where
could I find comfort from that?

  They said we could see her in
ten-minute intervals each, every hour.

  “What the hell?” Shay said to them.
“We’re going to lose her anyway. What are you afraid of? That
she’ll get germs?”

  “Sir,” the nurse said, “it’s hospital
policy.”

  “Well, you can take your hospital
policy and shove it,” Shay told her, as he opened the door and took
me in to be with Rie-Rie.

  ***

I held her little hand, and I told her that
Mommy and Daddy were there. I told her that she was getting the
greatest honor in life, to go to heaven ahead of us and get things
ready for all of us. I told her that some day we’d be there with
her. I just kept kissing her.

  She had several close calls through
the night, but she made it through. The morning shift of nurses
that came on were extremely strict, even threatening to have Shay
removed from the hospital if he didn’t keep me outside of the room.
I got the honor of watching my child through a glass window. They
actually made us watch her from outside looking in through the
glass. I wondered who made these stupid rules. We heard the buzzer,
that horrid sound, as she started to flat-line; and then she was
gone.

  I had my hands on the window and I dug
my nails into the glass as I sunk to the floor, sobbing, leaving
smudge-trails from my fingers. Shay picked me up and asked our
doctor to see if there was a room he could lay me down in for a
while. By the time he got me to the room, I’d quit crying and
become completely withdrawn. Shay sat there, holding me for several
hours. I asked Shay if he’d call home and tell my mom and dad,
Sterling and Maggie.

  “Tell them not to tell Kelly and
Wessy,” I said. I wanted to do that. Shay made all the arrangements
for us to take her home with us. I was amazed to hear Shay say to
the staff:

  “You get all the paperwork done, all
the requirements. We’re staying in Lincoln tonight and we’ll pick
her up tomorrow. She’s our daughter, we brought her here and we’re
taking her home.”

  You couldn’t just transport a dead
body without special papers, special procedures and preparations.
I’d never thought about these things before, and I didn’t want to
think about them now.

  ***

Shay helped me up so we could get out of
there and go to the motel. We wanted to be anywhere but in the
hospital. Our doctor said he’d like to talk to us both before we
left.

  “Kids,” said Doc Sam, “my heart is
with you. You have suffered the greatest of losses and yet there is
something I need to tell you. Kathrine,” he spoke slowly, “when you
donated your blood for Marie, for surgery if the need arose, one
thing came out of that: Kathrine, you are not Marie’s biological
mother. The blood is absolutely a non-match.”

  I guess I fainted. When I awoke,
everything was blurry. Then I saw Shay and asked if I had dreamed
that the doctor said I wasn’t Marie’s mother.

“No, you weren’t dreaming, Callie. You aren’t
Marie’s mother,” said Shay. “Neither of us are her parents. We have
someone else’s baby.”

  I felt woozy again.

  “Callie, I saw the results of the
blood work, she’s not ours. She has a rare blood type. I couldn’t
believe it!”

  “Shay, this is a nightmare. We are
living in a hellish nightmare!” I cried.

  I slept that night because the doctor
gave me a strong sedative. I awoke to the motel phone ringing. At
that moment I didn’t remember that Marie was gone, it took a couple
of seconds for it to crawl back into my mind. Shay reached over and
answered the phone. I could tell he was talking to the mortuary. I
just lay there, still in a daze. Was it a nightmare? Just listening
to Shay’s side of the conversation, I knew everything had been
real. After Shay hung up, he told me we needed to take some clothes
for Marie to the mortuary for her to be buried in.

  I wanted her to have something
special, as special as she was. Shay and I found a little baby
store and bought her a pink dress with a matching bonnet, pink
anklets and little pink booties. Marie was so small she could still
wear booties. She was ten months and weighed just under fifteen
pounds. Martha and I each weighed a little over ten pounds at
birth. Marie was just a tiny, precious gift from God.

  “Do you want to get her a blanket,
Callie?”

  “Yes, something in a pale pink and
white knit.”

  We found a blanket, and then drove to
the mortuary to drop off her little clothes.

  “Are you going to be here until
tomorrow?” the man asked.

  “Ya know,” said Shay. “We’d really
like to leave late this afternoon, can you handle everything by
then?”

  “We’ll have everything ready for you
by four," they said. “Just come by.”

  Shay and I went to lunch, but instead
of jabbering away as I usually did, I just sat there, numb. What
could either of us possibly have to say? We arrived at the mortuary
at 4:00 to get little Rie-Rie.

  God, how was Kelly going to
understand? She was just four years old. I was twenty-five and
didn’t understand. We went in and they had her ready for us to
view. She was just a sleeping angel, just sleeping. She looked so
beautiful, with some little reddish curls showing from the bonnet.
Her little hand was wrapped like she was holding the edge of the
blanket. I bent down and kissed her and touched her face. Shay
touched her face and took hold of her little hand. Thank goodness
Shay was there to hold me up. The one thing I didn’t do was cry. I
had no tears left.

  ***

They closed the tiny coffin and gave Shay all
the paperwork for the Hudson Funeral Home. One of the men carried
the tiny coffin to the back of the car and waited for Shay to open
the trunk.

  “Please, put my daughter in the
backseat,” Shay said as he held the seat forward.

  After gently placing her tiny coffin
on the backseat, we got in the car and drove away.

  What a different drive home than the
one coming up, with Marie sitting on my lap making her little coos
and chattering up a storm in baby lingo. Shay had me sit close to
him so he was there to hug me tight when I needed it. Several
times, he put his head on my shoulder.

  When we got to Hudson, Shay went
directly to the Westwood Funeral Home, got the tiny coffin out and
asked if I wanted to go in with him.