On Being an Adult (Pain)

I don't know how my traitorous body is keeping me in this room. My brain is bouncing around my skull and screaming what I cannot make my vocal cords say. A lot of the screaming is garbled, but occasionally I can make out, "How can so much blood come from the body of my son?" and other such nonsense that the brain puts together to form sentances. The doctors practically drip from the gallons that pour from his body, my David.

The minivan didn't know he was my son when it sped off, leaving him crumpled on the asphalt. The bike tire that had bent around his leg now lays discarded in the corner. He had begged for weeks to get it for Christmas.

I heard one of the interns comment that it would be lucky if David could walk again, a miracle if he can ride. An older doctor, a professional, told him to shut up.

The doctors are keeping a careful eye on me. They worry because I haven't begun to cry, yet. My husband is keeping Travis and Shelly occupied. No, Keith, is not a threat to their reign. I, on the other hand, am standing 4-feet from the door, arms at my sides. And a blank stare in the direction of the red ball of muscles, skin, and bone that used to be my David. As a woman they expect me to cry and shriek and run to the gurney, my silence puts the docotrs on edge.

Oh, how I wish I could cry, give into the hurt, but how can I? Travis keeps glancing at me, not really interested in the 1974 Reader's Digest, but Keith is keeping him quiet with his scrounged reading material. Shelly sleeps with her head on my husband's chest, I wish I could be like her. Snuggle up with Keith, like the day I found out I was pregnant with Travis, but that can't happen. Shelly is a little girl that needs her daddy and I am a mother that needs to be strong for my children who aren't a mangled lump of pus.

David's screams bring me back to the present situation. I had been doing a good job, drowning his screams out with the horrible flood of thoughts bombarding my cortex. Sharp focus that comes along with trauma shows me the stratification of blood that cover the doctors' hands and lower arms, they have been working for so long that the bottom layers of rust brown have been covered with the red orange and blue red of fresh blood.

I now understand Seethe's desire to kill her children rather than let them return to a life of slavery. I need to fight the impulse to shove the doctors aside and make this madness go to its natural end. The simplicity of allowing my baby to die fights the complexity of making me calm enough to allow my baby to live. Deep breathing muffles the thoughts in my head as I wander over to the wall and slide down to my husband. Let fate have its way with me, I will face what comes with the morning.