May 2014

Adam pressed his foot on the accelerator, willing the car to move faster as he sped toward the Cedars-Sinai Medical Center. All the while, in his mind, he went over and over the last conversation he’d had with Jane before he left for the studio that morning.

“Don’t even look at me,” she’d moaned from the couch where she was lying on her side. “I feel like a beached whale.”

A seven-month’s pregnant beached whale, to be exact, he had thought to himself. She still had six weeks to go before her due date, but he was finding it hard to imagine how she was going to get any bigger. He hadn’t told her that of course. He wasn’t suicidal, after all. Instead, he’d crouched down in front of the sofa so that his eyes were even with hers. “You look absolutely beautiful,” he’d lied, with a reassuring smile on his face.

“You’re a crappy liar,” she’d snapped back irritably. “I swear my ankles are the size of tree trunks.”

Adam had taken one of her hands and brought it to his mouth – not failing to notice that her wrist was about three times its normal size as he placed a lingering kiss on her palm. “I know a way to take your mind off your ankles,” he’d offered, with one raised eyebrow.

Jane had only rolled her eyes at him and pulled her hand away. “Maybe I should go to the doctor,” she’d said.

“Whatever you think,” he’d responded half-heartedly. The truth was, he hadn’t felt like taking her in again. He was scheduled to go in for a session at the studio today – working on the new album with the band. They were being incredibly patient with him, with all the doctor’s appointments and everything, but enough was enough already. She’d been a bundle of nerves through the whole pregnancy, and he felt like he spent every other day driving her to the doctor’s office because of some new little twinge she was feeling. Even the doctor had noticed. He’d taken Adam aside a few weeks ago while Jane was getting dressed.

“You need to help her relax,” the doctor had warned him. “All the worrying isn’t good for the baby.”

He’d been trying his best to talk her out of these little bouts of anxiety ever since. “What’s the point?” he’d said to her this morning. “You’re pregnant. You’re supposed to swell up like a water balloon, right?”

She’d glared back at him. “So I look like a water balloon now?”

“A very beautiful and shapely water balloon,” he’d grinned, taking both her hands and attempting to pull her up off of the couch. “Come on, I’ll prove it to you,” he’d said, nodding his head toward the stairs that led to their bedroom. “I’ve still got an hour before I have to get to the studio.”

Jane had smiled at him vaguely but pulled her hands away. “I’m sorry,” she’d said. “I’ve just got a splitting headache right now.” She’d shut her eyes and dug the heels of her hands into her eye sockets.

“Let me get you some Tylenol,” he’d offered.

“No,” she’d replied, closing her eyes and turning her face away from him, “I’m just going to lie down for a little while.”

With a shrug, he’d left her there to finish getting ready. He’d poked his head in to check on her one last time before he’d headed out the door, but she was sound asleep. He hadn’t wanted to wake her. He hadn’t said goodbye.

And to his shame, he hadn’t given her another thought all day. He should have called to check in on her, but he’d been so engrossed with the song they were working on that he’d forgotten. It had been nearly four o’clock when one of the producers had signaled to him from the sound booth. “I just got a call,” he’d said with a grim face. “You need to get to the hospital right away.”

Adam tried to tell himself now that it was nothing. Probably just some false labor. She’d been getting those pains every few days, and they freaked her out sometimes, but it always checked out fine when the doctor looked at her. That’s probably all it was. False labor. False alarm. Still, something in the back of his mind told him it was more than that. She would have called him if that’s what it was. He’d had his cell phone in his pocket all day. She would have called him – not the studio. Whoever had called the studio, it was someone who didn’t have his personal cell number. Probably some nurse. Which meant Jane hadn’t been in a condition to call herself. Which scared the living shit out of him. He tried to take a deep breath to steady his nerves as he swerved the car recklessly onto the exit ramp that led to the hospital.

“I’m here!” he was shouting moments later as he pushed his way past the waiting area and entered her hospital room. “I’m here. I’m here!”

He went to the bed where Jane was lying, but she didn’t even acknowledge his presence. She was lying on her side, holding her head in both hands, with her eyes shut tight with pain. “Jane,” he said, reaching out and trying to take one of her hands. He watched in horror as the hand clenched into a claw, and then her whole body seemed to spasm, her back arching, her face contorting.

“Help!” The room was filling with doctors and nurses. “Help her!”

“She’s seizing!” someone shouted.

“Magnesium sulfate 10 cc’s! Stat!”

Adam tried to get one of the nurse’s attention. “What’s going on?”

“I’m sorry sir. You can’t be in here.” She pushed him out of the room and shut the door in his face. He tried to go back in as more nurses rushed to the room, but someone blocked his path. He was being taken by the arm then. Led away to the waiting room. “What’s going on?” he demanded, looking around wildly for anyone with information.

“Sir, your wife is getting the best care possible.” A nurse was patting his hand and pressing him into a waiting room chair. “The doctor will be with you shortly.”

By “shortly,” apparently, she meant five and a half hours. That’s how long he spent in that waiting room, pacing back and forth, back and forth. Every half hour or so, he went over to the reception desk to ask for any news.

“The doctor will talk to you soon,” was the answer he kept hearing. Soon. And then another half hour went by. And another. And another. And he could only pace and pace. And try not to remember the way her face had looked, twisted beyond recognition. And try not to think about what it meant.

Finally, close to midnight, a grim-faced doctor came striding into the waiting room, with his gloves and a surgical mask still dangling from his hands. “Mr. Levine?”

Adam crossed the room to him in two steps. “What happened?”

“The baby is healthy,” the doctor said, attempting to nod reassuringly. “A little premature, but she’s expected to do very well.”

Adam knew it should be good news, but he could see in the doctor’s face that there was something else. Jane. What about Jane? “My wife?” he asked.

The doctor started to say words that Adam wanted desperately to understand, but they washed right over him in a tide of meaningless medical jargon. Preeclampsia… grand mal seizure… cerebrovascular accident….

Adam shook his head in confusion.

“Was she having any warning signs when you last saw her?” the doctor asked.

“Like what?”

“Headaches? Unusual swelling of the extremities?”

Adam stared at him. “Yes.”

“When was this?”

“This morning, but why—“

“You didn’t bring her in? Didn’t her obstetrician tell you to report any severe headaches?”

“I didn’t—“ Adam stammered. “I didn’t think—I didn’t know. What? What was it? What happened?”

“Preeclampsia is a condition that can cause a pregnant woman’s blood pressure to spike. When it gets too high, there can be serious complications.”

“What kind of complications?”

“Your wife has suffered a stroke, Mr. Levine.”

“What? Is she OK?”

“She’s unconscious right now.”

“But she’s OK, right? She’s—she’s not—“

“She’s alive. She’s stable at the moment.”

Adam closed his eyes and exhaled with relief. “Can I go see her?”

“You can see her,” the doctor nodded. “She’s unconscious.”

“When will she wake up?”

“There’s no way to know.”

Adam shook his head, still not comprehending. “What does that mean? An hour? A day?”

The doctor raised his hands in a helpless gesture. “There’s nothing more we can do for her. It could be a day, a month, a year…”

“Or never?” Adam whispered.

The doctor nodded. “Or never,” he said. “We can only wait and see.”

***

Adele was standing in the hospital hallway, trying not to cry, as she listened to the sound of her daddy and nanny Jane yelling at each other. She didn’t understand what they were talking about. Grownup things. Something about lying. And vegetables. And her mommy. They were talking about her mommy.

Adele wished she hadn’t been sent her out of the room just now. She wanted to see her mommy some more. The door was closed, but Adele went over and turned the doorknob now, gingerly pushing the door open and peeking inside. Daddy and Jane both had their backs to her, and they were busy yelling at each other. They weren’t paying attention. Adele tiptoed into the room and back over to the bed where her mother was sleeping.

She felt scared. She didn’t like it when Daddy yelled. It always made her cry. And she’d never ever heard nanny Jane yell before. That scared her even more. Adele felt tears welling up in her eyes. She climbed up onto the bed and curled herself up into a ball in the crook of the sleeping woman’s arm.

She tried to tune out the yelling, thinking instead about the Sleeping Beauty movie. She hummed her favorite song to herself again.

I know you, I danced with you once upon a drea—

Adele let out a sudden gasp. She had just realized something. She knew how to wake her mother up. She didn’t know why the grown-ups were so stupid. It was obvious. It was in the movie. There was a spell she had to say. She struggled to remember it. There were a lot of hard words. She strained with every ounce of concentration to dredge the verse up from her memory:

Not in death, but just in sleep,

The fateful prophecy you'll keep,

And from this slumber you shall wake,

When true love's kiss, the spell shall break.

Adele whispered the incantation into her mother’s ear, stumbling over the words but finishing it to the end. Then she raised her head and kissed her mother on each eyelid.

She felt a gentle stirring beneath her mouth as she lifted her lips from her mother’s eyes, and she held her breath as she waited and watched.

The eyelids fluttered open, and she saw two liquid pools of brown staring back at her. “Mommy?” Adele whispered. "Wake up, wake up, wake up."

And then the eyes blinked once.

And then the mouth curved into a smile.

And then she smiled back as she felt her mother’s arm tighten around her.