Seattle

I worked for about a year at Children's Hospital in Seattle early in my career. I worked mostly on the pulmonary service, but floated to other departments and services to get a more diverse array of experiences, since I was there mostly still to learn.

I went in on a Saturday evening, unwillingly. I was still uncertain and inexperienced and spent most of my working time feeling a little uncomfortable. I didn't feel like feeling uncomfortable and uncertain; I wanted my weekend of feeling like myself and not an incompetent. I came in, they were short-staffed, they knew me well enough at that point, and asked if I could float to the ER. Should be slow. Just be back up. I agreed. You're new, and a learner: you don't want to say no, or be unwilling, or balk.

I walked into the ER from the hospital-side doors just as a woman came running in with a small boy in her arms from the outside-side doors. It was a straight shot, no one and nothing inbetween us. She stared at me for just a moment, then dropped to her knees, put her head back and screamed, but not a scream, more of a howl, that faded into almost nothing at the end. Nurses, doctors, everyone then to her, and the small boy. Guerney, monitors, packets of things being ripped open. The attending asking her questions as he works, and her answering, her hands pressed to her mouth. Jake, six years old, rafting on the river, was wearing a life jacket, got tangled in some rope and fell off the back, somehow rope catching in such a way as to hold him face down in the water, how long she could not be sure, she was tending to her other son, two, out in the car now.

The attending glances at me, I understand. I go to the white Bronco pulled up at the ER doors, two year old boy with curly blond hair in the back. I tell him my name through the open window, say I'm a friend, that his mom wants me to babysit him. I open the door, and he's not buckled. There would not have been time. I pick him up and am relieved he comes without protest. I walk in, but keep him facing back over my shoulder. Not to see. I say loudly, I have him, and go into an open bay.

Its relatively quiet. The ventilation system makes a soft whooshing sound, a little bit of a soundscreen. He says mama a few times and points, and it makes me nervous when he does. I have no good answer for that. I distract him with a cup of water, tongue depressors, cotton balls. He is content. He likes the cotton balls and pulls bits of fluff over and over, gets heavy-eyed, falls asleep. Its late, I think we've been in here an hour, or two. He's so heavy in my arms, melted on me. I've never had a kid fall asleep on me before.

The outer curtain opens, then inner. Guerney comes in. Jake, and Jake is dead. A nurse that I like, and Jake's mother. She looks at me and this son whose name I still don't know, looks away. Shock. This is what the nurse does.

She takes Jake's mother by the hand and says, would you like to wash him, and hold him. She doesn't speak or move. The nurse begins to work. She softly narrates herself as she does. Now I am taking his shirt off, I am cutting it off. Now I am taking out the tube in his throat. Now I am taking out the needle in his hand. This does not hurt him. The mother takes a step towards Jake, touches his hand, begins to cry, crawls up on the table with him, wraps her arms around him. The nurse strokes her hair and is quiet. This, for so long. Then Jake's mother gets off the table. She looks at the nurse. I think she sees her now.

The nurse beigns to talk to her as they both clean him. Jake's mother looks like a mother now. She is tidying and readying him with familiarity, ease, and habit. The nurse asks her questions. Where does he go to school. Does he like school. What are his interests, can he write his name yet. She never uses the past tense. Is that right or wrong? I don't know. Jake's mother answers, and smiles a little in the way that people do when they are enjoying talking about their kids.

Eventually Jake's mother comes and takes the two year old from me. He stays asleep, she looks at me and says thank you. She's calm now. I touch her hand, and say you're welcome. Of course. The nurse looks at me and I get it. Go. I leave, they have it from here.

I go dictate my note. I work two more times, pulmonary service, before starting a new job at a different clinic. I mean to pull the chart, to learn more, know more. What happened before, and after. I'm busy tying up loose ends. I never do.

I have kids fall asleep on me all the time now, and I know so intimately that feel. My kids, other people's kids. Every now and then someone's kid, or my own, feels exactly like that kid. Jake's little brother. It isn't because they're two, or blond and curly-haired, or on my left shoulder. Its just their body-feel. My body remembers it. Just that particular weight, tension, softness, heavyness.

Your body remembers anything imprinted on it in that way, I think. Your little lap-dog that you had for eight years. Old lovers. Your wife or husband's arm over your waist, deep under blankets, on the coldest nights in January, light snow just beginning to fall outside, through the streetlights.