Free Two Kisses for Maddy: A Memoir of Loss & Love by Matthew Logelin Page A

slumped toward the floor, and with all of my strength I tried to keep her from hitting it. Pat frantically pulled the wheelchair out into the hall and yelled for a colleague. Liz couldn’t have weighed more than 130 pounds during her pregnancy, and now she was probably closer to her prepregnancy weight of 110. I’m not the strongest guy in the world, but I’d lifted her many times, and I kept thinking that I shouldn’t have had that much trouble holding her up. Rather than fight it, I decided to lower her to the floor until I could get some help. Holding onto both her wrists, I set her body on the ground, putting her head on my left foot and creating a pillow with my shoe. Both PCAs were now in the room, and they tried to help me lift Liz from the floor.
    I looked at Pat, my eyes saying what my mouth couldn’t: What the fuck is going on here?
    “This is completely normal,” she said. “This happens all the time to women on bed rest.”
    And I believed her. I mean, what else could it be? Even with three of us, the struggle was mighty. I felt a small bit of relief when we finally got her into the bed. At least now she can’t hurt herself, I thought. I backed away from my wife, knowing that I would only be in the way. I watched as they shook her, slapping her face, yelling her name, telling her to wake up. I watched as she convulsed, her eyes rolling back in her head. I heard her gasping, saw her whole body shaking as if it was struggling to get the last bit of oxygen out of the air. It suddenly became very obvious that there was nothing normal about this situation.
    Fuck. Of course it’s normal. They just told me that it happens all the time. I saw Pat hit a button on the wall above Liz’s bed. Then over the loudspeakers in the ceiling, I heard a cryptic hospital code, but even after the past few weeks there, I still had no idea what the fuck any of them referred to. I didn’t immediately connect the two events. That code couldn’t be for Liz, could it? No way. Despite what reality was telling me, I held on to Pat’s words. Normal. Normal. Normal, I thought over and over.
    Suddenly, a bunch of hospital staff rushed into Liz’s room, one of whom instructed me to get out. I complied with the orders and stood just outside the doorway, trying to make some sense of the situation. Wait. Why am I being ushered out? More and more people brushed past me. It seemed like hundreds of people were in that room, but I knew that Liz was still behind them. They were all shouting, but I couldn’t understand a thing. As I stood in the hall, the rational part of my brain kept trying to tell me that something was seriously wrong, but my illogical thoughts kept repeating, Normal. Normal. Normal.
    A short woman, maybe in her midfifties, appeared by my side and introduced herself, but I wasn’t paying attention. We’d been in this hospital for three weeks, and I felt like I knew most of the staff at this point, but I had never seen this woman before. “Mr. Logelin. I think you need to sit down.” I thought, Who the fuck are you and why the fuck are you telling me to sit down? “Why?” I asked.
    “Please, sir, sit down. I don’t want you to faint.”
    Faint? I thought. “I feel fine. Can you please tell me what’s going on?”
    “Sir, I don’t know. They’re working on your wife.”
    My mind was racing. What the hell was that supposed to mean? I saw someone run into the room with those heart paddles they use in the movies. I guess they have to use them on her. Fuck. I bet that means that she has to stay in the hospital for a few extra days to recover. Shit. Does that mean I’m going to have to go home alone with Madeline? I don’t know if I can handle that.
    The crazy thing was that the rational part of my brain knew exactly what those paddles were used for, but with only movies and television shows as a reference point, it was difficult for me to fully grasp the gravity of the situation. I tried to get the attention of