Forever Innocent
Page 57

The room was never silent, but whirred and buzzed with alarms and machines. On the first day, I thought I would go mad with it, but eventually I learned to cope. We had nothing to do but this, no school, no job, just be there for Finn, to sit in the ward, watch them run the tests or wheel him out when he had to be assessed on some other floor.
The journey had been hard on him, and at the new hospital we saw the nurses come over to him when he had something called apnea, where he stopped breathing. Apparently during one of the nights we weren’t there, they had to do CPR to restart his heart. We were waiting for some definitive word, and we talked to so many doctors, from normal baby doctors to heart specialists. It seemed every time they made a decision, something would happen to Finn, and they would want to assess him again.
Corabelle’s mom tried to convince us to go home for prom, to try to enjoy a night out. Corabelle had a fit. “How can you even suggest that, when Finn is so ill?”
The last time we saw the neonatologist, on the morning of prom, he said the surgeon would be meeting with us. “Why hasn’t he already had surgery?” Corabelle demanded, shoving a printout in the man’s face. “Five days is the recommended maximum to keep the ductus open. It’s been seven!”
I could see what Corabelle couldn’t. The man’s face was a mask of professionalism, of detachment. They’d given up on Finn, but they hadn’t told us yet. I couldn’t bring myself to say this to Corabelle, even though I knew.
Her phone had been blowing up with messages all day. Everyone seemed to think that since Finn was okay all week, he’d be okay for the night. Several of Corabelle’s friends sided with her mother, telling her to get back home and attend her prom.
“They don’t get it.” Corabelle threw her phone in her purse. “We can’t go dance and laugh and have our pictures made. This is our whole life.” She pressed on her swollen breasts. “Besides, I can’t exactly pump milk in the middle of the crowning of the king and queen.”
I sat on the floor of the NICU, leaning back against the seat of her rocking chair, her knees on either side of my shoulders. My arms wound around her legs. I didn’t know how anybody did this long-term, just waited. Corabelle had talked to some of the other mothers, but their babies were all doing well, growing and getting better. She couldn’t bear it any more than seeing the curtains get wrapped around a family and a bed, rolled along a track to hide their tragedy from the other occupants of the ward. Two babies had died in the week we’d been there, and both times Corabelle had sobbed half the night.
Our favorite NICU nurse, Angilee, came and got us for the last meeting with the doctors, her face somber. Unlike the other times, when they talked to us in the ward or the hallways or the waiting rooms, this time we were led to a conference room with a large table and rolling chairs.
A nurse brought in a cart with a computer on it inside the room. Inside was one of the NICU doctors who talked to us every day, plus two other new ones, a man and a woman. They stood when we walked in.
My senses immediately went on alert. This was too formal. Something bad was about to go down. At the last minute another woman rushed in, dressed in regular clothes.
I don’t remember everything they said. They showed us an MRI of Finn’s brain they’d done during the night. They talked about lack of oxygen and mental activity, about what sort of life he might lead even with surgery.
Corabelle demanded to know why surgery hadn’t happened yet, more force in her voice than I’d ever seen. I remember staring at the image of a brain, all strange colors like they’d dyed it with Kool-Aid. Then Corabelle was standing up, shouting, and I pulled on her, tried to bring her down. “They want us to take out the tubes,” she said to me. “Don’t just sit there and let them take out the tubes.”
One of the doctors turned to me. “Finn is almost completely dependent on the ventilator now. Instead of growing stronger for surgery, he’s weakened. There really isn’t any hope for a recovery.”
“So you get to decide?” I asked. “You make the choice about whether he lives or dies?”
The doctor looked over at the others. “It’s come down to how long this will go on.”
“But you’re supposed to fix his heart,” Corabelle said, her face doused in tears. “You were supposed to do surgery.”
“It’s a complex surgery,” one of the other doctors said. “We don’t think the prognosis in this case is good enough to attempt it.”
“So you’re saying no?” Corabelle said. “Is that what you’re saying? No surgery? No chance?”
The woman spoke up then. “No decision of this magnitude is ever made by one person.”
Corabelle sagged in her chair, dropping her head to the table.
The first doctor stood. “I’m very sorry for your loss,” he said.
I wanted to punch him. It hadn’t even happened yet. Finn was still in there, breathing along with a machine, his heartbeats still registering on the monitors. He wasn’t lost. He was in there.
Corabelle ran from the room, back to the NICU. I wanted to follow her but the woman in regular clothes stopped me. “We have forms to be taken care of,” she said.
“What sort of forms?” I demanded.
The doctors filed out as she spread papers out on the table. “This is just to initiate measures to make the baby comfortable.”
“Comfortable how?”