LITMIR.BIZ

       Room for the Truth

      THERE WAS A FLURRY OF ACTIVITY IN THE PREOPERATING room. Efficient-looking people in official-looking coats were bustling back and forth around us. The huge metal doors of the operating room swung open and shut, and the anesthesiologist appeared.

      Hannah’s body was limp in my lap. Her eyes were open, but they rolled lazily around in their sockets. She was wrapped in her pink blanket, wearing nothing but her red shoes. An hour earlier she had refused to wear a hospital gown.

      “It’s not pretty, and it doesn’t match my shoes,” she had said.

      “How’s she doing?” the anesthesiologist asked, wrapping her fingers around Hannah’s wrist, feeling her pulse.

      “My shoes,” Hannah said weakly.

      “What did she say?” the doctor asked.

      “Hannah’s worried you’re going to take off her shoes,” Claude explained. “She made a deal with the surgeon that she could wear them in surgery.”

      “Oh, I heard about that,” the anesthesiologist said. “You must be a very special patient, Hannah. Dr. Saad gave us specific orders that you be allowed to wear your red shoes. I won’t forget.”

      Hannah nodded and closed her eyes. The doctor pushed another syringe of sedative into the IV line. Hannah’s head dropped against my chest with a thud. I held my breath as long as I could. Hannah didn’t move. The operating room doors swung open again, and two nurses wheeled a long gurney covered with a white sheet into the room. One of them leaned over, gathered Hannah’s body in her arms, and lifted her off my lap. Laying Hannah in the middle of the white sheet, the nurse covered the lower half of her body with a hospital blanket.

      My eyes studied Hannah, looking for any sign that she was aware of being taken from me. She didn’t flinch. She looked tiny, lost in the middle of the huge white expanse. I struggled to keep from believing she might already be dead. This was the first time in five days she’d been more than an arm’s length away from me. A sob broke out of my chest. Claude held me as we watched the nurses push Hannah’s gurney toward the operating room. The doors parted to let Hannah and her attendants through, then swung shut behind them. Claude and I didn’t move, barely able to believe what was happening. A minute later, the doors swung open and one of the nurses appeared. She handed me Hannah’s shoes, wrapped in a clear plastic bag.

      “She was completely sedated before we took them off,” she said. “Make sure the recovery nurse gets them, so we can put them on before she wakes up.”

      She smiled sympathetically.

      “She’s in good hands. It’ll be okay,” she said softly before walking away.

      Claude and I were led to a curtained alcove in the family waiting area. There was no room in that tiny space for anything but two chairs and the truth.

      The first hour we sobbed uncontrollably in each other’s arms. When there were no tears left, we began to talk. For years, I had loved Claude as deeply and imperfectly as I was able. From the moment we met, I had been drawn to him like a little boy’s finger to the tip of a flame. He had seemed wise and mature compared with the other men/boys I knew. He was earnest, hardworking, and handsome. He also seemed deeply hurt and unusually angry sometimes. I was, too. There had been something about our mutual hopes and hurts that had brought us together. We had married while I was still in college, when he was twenty-five and I was twenty.

      As we clung to each other and waited for news from the surgeon, Claude and I knew one thing: Our children were more important than anything else either of us would ever do. They were the reason we were together, and we wanted to have more. It was a truth so deep that it cut cleanly through any doubts or fears we might otherwise have had.

      “Let’s get pregnant again as soon as we can,” Claude said. With my face buried in his shoulder, I nodded.