Free Briana's Gift by Lurlene McDaniel Page B

happens to Bree now?” Mom asks.
    “Call the mortuary. They’ll help you handle every detail.”
    It strikes me like a blow that now we must face Bree’s funeral and bury her in Duncanville, next to Grandma, in the old cemetery on the hill. Once, when we were younger and were driving past it, Stu pointed at the headstones sprinkled over the green grass and said, “People are dying to get in there!” And Melody and I laughed.
Laughed!
I glance at Mom.
    “I’ve made some arrangements already,” she says softly. This shocks me.
When?
I think. The words never reach my mouth. I am mute. Dumbstruck. Mom turns to me. “I bought her a pale pink casket with white satin lining. Do you think she’ll like that?”
    She speaks as if Bree might veto the choice. The picture in my head of my sister in a casket is chilling.
Bree…pretty in pink.
    Mom strokes Bree’s arm down the length of the top sheet. “I love you, little girl.” She steps backward and so do I. I don’t think I can stand there one more minute without screaming. “We’re ready to leave,” Mom says.
    Dr. Kendrow leads us out. Just before we step through the door, I look up and see that someone has hung a long sprig of mistletoe from the doorjamb. I think,
Kiss it all goodbye.
Then the doors close behind us with a whoosh and we leave the room holding death and head down the hall toward the room holding life.
             
    Neonatal ICU is brightly lit, brimming with color. Nurses are dressed in pale blue slacks and tops printed with teddy bears, baby bunnies, kittens and puppies. Incubators line walls and look like transparent eggshells with babies inside lying bundled in blankets, small packages awaiting home delivery.
    “This way,” Dr. Kendrow says, and we follow her to an incubator near the front of the unit.
    My heart’s beating fast as I peer inside the thick plastic shell. A tiny, perfectly formed human being lies on a clean sheet, naked except for a diaper about the size of a single square of toilet paper. A mask covers half her face, and cotton balls are taped across her eyes.
    “To protect her eyes from the lights,” Dr. Kendrow says. “She was born a little jaundiced; many newborns are. It disappears after a few days under this special light.”
    Bree’s baby is doll-sized. I watch the rapid movement of her chest. It reminds me of hummingbird wings hovering over the red feeder outside our kitchen window. Electrodes are taped to the baby’s upper body, and wires lead to a machine beside the incubator. I watch the quick, steady movement of the green light on the screen representing her beating heart. I remember the green line on the machine beside Bree’s bed. That was a machine-generated line. This one is not.
    I search for my sister’s image on what I can see of the baby’s face. Mom is the first one to recognize Bree’s genes because she says, “Briana had a full head of black hair when she was born too.”
    I feel relief. This really is my sister’s baby. “Can I hold her?” I ask.
    “Not yet,” the doctor says. “But clean your hands with these wipes and you can touch her.” She gives us each a foil-wrapped disinfectant cloth.
    I scrub my palms and fingertips hard.
    Dr. Kendrow raises the lid. I rub my hand lightly down the baby’s skinny leg, still curled from being crammed inside Bree’s body. Her foot is the size of my thumb and her skin is soft as powder.
    Mom’s hands are such a contrast to the baby’s satiny skin that it takes my breath. I realize how deformed her disease has made her joints, and it makes me sad. We both withdraw our hands and Dr. Kendrow lowers the lid. “You can come visit her anytime day or night.”
    A card is taped to the outside of the incubator with a pink stork stamped on it. It reads: SCANLAND, GIRL. For some reason, this surprises me. The baby has been recorded, her existence written down. What has lain so long a mystery inside my sister is now a fact, made more real by our family