Kalila by Rosemary Nixon Page A

hospital clutter. A nurse is weighing Kalila’s diaper. You stand aside to watch the nurse’s back, the way her hair graces her slender shoulders, the tiny white scar on her forearm you want to run a finger over, the muscles of her upper arms flexing as she does her chores. When she finishes, she smiles at you and you turn to your baby, watching the way her small hand, lost in a baby dream, reaches out to nothing, fist clenching, opening, clenching, as if latching on to daylight.
    The nurse says, Okay. Her creatinine level is high today. One-ninety.
    What should it be?
    Forty.
    Machinery chugs.
    This means her kidney isn’t functioning, not filtering the blood. The nurse taps the intravenous bag, looks back at you, a look that’s almost coy. The baby’s most comfortable this morning on her tummy. She turns to other duties. One side of Kalila’s head is freshly shaved, what little hair grew back now gone, to clear a vein for another intravenous. The nurse returns to say they are administering a drug called Eprex — it makes red blood cells.
    My father-in-law died Wednesday, the nurse confides, so I’m just back. Her hands sort out the cords. He had a heart attack, then kidney failure. Had he lived, he’d have been institutionalized. She has moved to stand next to you, gives you a sideways glance, then back turned to check the drip, she says in a careful, casual voice, My mother-in-law had to make the decision to pull the plug. She taps the tube above Kalila’s isolette. It nearly killed her. She adds softly, She made the right one though.
    You look at her sharply, but she has moved to arrange an isolette drawer. To fill the silence, to cover its startling implication, you pick up The Little Prince , take over the space beside the isolette.
    â€¦ seeds are invisible. They sleep deep in the heart of the earth’s darkness, until some one among them is seized with the desire to awaken … It is such a secret place, the land of tears … The stars are beautiful, because of a flower that cannot be seen .
    The baby’s eyes are closed. You lean over her isolette, your cheek against its chill.

    Little princess. Once upon a time Phoenician sailors had a shipwreck, and along with pieces of their wreckage, they washed ashore. Wet and bedraggled, they stumbled onto the sand and gathered together to see what they could salvage. One sailor retrieved a small cooking pot, another several blocks of natron, a chemical used most often for embalming the dead. They searched the shore for roots and seaweed, berries, gathered together sticks on which they piled the natron, and, after several tries, managed to light a fire. It soon grew into a bright blaze. The sailors shivered around its searing heat until their eyes grew heavy, and, one by one by one, the men slid into sleep.
    Imagine their surprise when they awoke in dawn’s first light. A hard and shiny decoration stuck to their cooking pot. They snatched up the pot. The decoration rode along. They all peered through. The sand beneath their fire had melted, run in a liquid stream, until it cooled and hardened into glass against the pot’s rough surface.
    Little princess, glass can awaken, melt, dissolve, glass can open a closed door —
    You will your child this story.
    You will her imagination.
    You will her the energy to slip like an electron to another level.

Your heart whaps once, wham-whams erratically. You stare at the isolette, its small door flung ajar. Baby Leung’s name tag untaped and dangling. What are the probabilities? A baby’s fled his box.
    An aide is housecleaning the tiny room, polishing the little chamber with a cotton cloth. The nurses, pinch-faced, don’t look at one other, won’t look at you. Hammering silence. Kalila opens her eyes, makes to cry. You offer your finger, and her little face moves back to serene. Brief cool caress of darkness in your hand. A baby. A life.
    Here. Gone.
    You sink