Free Kalila by Rosemary Nixon Page A

extended pyjama party? The glass, punctured with two armholes filled with plastic whorls to stuff a parent’s love through. I look down past the rows of isolettes to a dad who has lifted the glass lid of his baby’s tiny room and pulled out the shelf on which the child rests, the way he’d open an oven door and pull out the metal rack holding a tray of chocolate cookies. We are parents; we should be exchanging recipes, hollering down the aisles.
    Hey! Could you bring me your Pork Medallions in Dijon Mustard Sauce?
    Want to try my Chocolate Marbled Cheesecake?
    The huge baby two rows over squawks. Works himself up, the big one with the voice. I get a sudden picture of baby Jesus throwing a tantrum. Glaring balefully at the lady hired to sweep out the hut. Jesus gumming dates and figs. Baby Jesus playing in the dirt of the cedar grove. And she brought forth her firstborn son and wrapped him in swaddling clothes and laid him in a manger … Hey, God, how come you got to have a healthy child? How come your kid got to live till thirty-three?
    Silence, except for a nurse zooming the aisles, crying, Baby Schmidt’s temp’s up. Can you open the isolette? Take off a blanket. Oh, oh. Baby Minor’s got loose stools. Yeah, greasy. Yellow. Better hold the MCT oil. Can someone call the cath lab for Baby Landonell’s results? Medicine forced down, tubes inserted, blood let.
    I rest my head against the glass. My right hand, if I reach, can just touch the paper skin; above it, the toque’s prickly softness. Must be real wool. Kalila could be allergic. I want to warn my daughter, Don’t accept gifts from strangers. Good lord, I forgot to hospital-proof my child!
    No yanking out of each other’s catheters.
    No playing with needles.
    No food tube fights.
    No accepting toques from strangers.
    The glass is cool against my forehead. Outside the window, snow falls. Since you came, baby, the weather hasn’t stopped . I close my eyes to the silent drop of icy snowflakes. Take this blue baby and lay her out in snow, dust her into a blue-shadowed little girl wearing a grey unbuttoned coat, blue leotards, a dusky grey-blue toque. The child breathes peppermint air, sinks against the crispy crust, swings her arms in arcs, scissors her legs. Sshhish, Sshhish. Toque dark against the diamond glitter. The child’s cheeks shine ruddy in the snow light. She calls, laughing, Mommy, I a angel, Mommy, I a star.
    I open my eyes. Kalila is flailing her arms and blowing mucus. The nurse rushes over, occupying my space. The red musical apple in the isolette’s corner sings at the baby’s kicks. The nurse shoves in capable arms, siphons the suction tube up the baby’s nose, draws out endless amounts of thick green mucus.
    Has Dr. Byars contacted you?
    Who’s Dr. Byars?
    I long for home, for a familiar language.
    The nurse says, He’ll talk to you. Snakes out the sticky tube.
    Stories are meant to lead somewhere. To rising action. Climax. Closure. And they lived Happily Ever After. From its beginning, Kalila’s story, like a woollen toque, unravelling.
    What’s wrong? I make myself say, but the words stay in my head. The nurse repositions the hose, shoves it down the other nostril. The baby jerks, hoarse breathing, dry, in harsh fluorescent light. When the nurse finishes, she raises the little bed within the isolette to a forty-five-degree angle. The baby makes a bubbly sound.
    He’ll contact you.
    The little pasty grey-white face grows slowly pinker.
    Is she worse? I want to hold her.
    Honey, she’s tired now.
    I want to hold her.
    The baby lies lifeless with exhaustion.
    She’ll sleep if I hold her. She always sleeps better if I hold her.
    Sing your way home at the close of the day .
    Sing your way home, drive the shadows away .
    11:42 a.m. Babe received in mother’s arms.



I hold the book I’ve picked at random off my bookshelf. Close my eyes. Picture my mother, reading