When I Ran Away by Ilona Bannister

Author:Ilona Bannister [Bannister, Ilona]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Published: 2021-03-30T00:00:00+00:00

London, January 2016; Baby, 11 days old

The lights, the color of the walls. There’s no windows. I don’t know where the air comes from. When we got here Harry took Rocky and started running. He carried Johnny, took the baby and ran. Without me. What if the baby dies before I get there? Don’t look at the ceiling. Look at the floor. I don’t know where the air comes from in here. I need air. A flash of the oxygen mask they put on me when they took him out. A cage on my mouth.

I don’t hold the baby much; I try, once a day, but he’s so small. Like holding a feather with a boxing glove. But since we got home a few days ago I’ve started watching him. All night sometimes. I still can’t sleep because it’s chaos behind my eyes and it’s easier…I mean, I’m not so scared if I keep them open. So I watch him through the mesh on the mini crib. Even though I can’t pick him up when he wakes at night Harry still put it on my side of the bed. As if the baby is contagious and if I sleep next to him I’ll catch it, the love I’m supposed to have for him.

He slept for three hours at a stretch but this time he kept sleeping. Parents always complain about the baby waking up but I don’t. I’m in a state of constant alert while he’s sleeping, waiting for him to wake up again. Because if he wakes up then he’s alive. But this time, tonight, he slept for too long and his breathing was fast, then slow, then fast, then faster. Too fast. I woke Harry up. Turned on the lights. A drop in the pit of my stomach. Harry’s eyes. Shit, what do we do? Little blue hands. Still breathing, he was still breathing.

Harry had Rocky and Johnny strapped in the car before I made it down the stairs. I’m so useless, I can’t even get the kids in the car, but at least maybe I got this right, maybe I did this right, the baby was in trouble and I knew. Really, oh, congratulations, you’re an amazing mother.

There wasn’t time for me to say to Harry that I should stay and he should go with the baby. Maybe this is better. What would he have said? What the fuck is wrong with you? What mother doesn’t take her sick baby to the hospital? Harry wouldn’t say “fuck,” though.

Harry says, “Sit in the back, between them.”

“I can’t, how?”

“Sit between them, watch the baby.” He’s scared. And since he’s the only one here who’s not crazy or a child, that worries me.

I squeeze between the car seats but it hurts. Numb and painful at the same time in different places across my middle.

He doesn’t park the car, just leaves it in front of the hospital and throws the doors open. He holds Johnny’s hand on one side and carries the baby in the car seat on the other.

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