Bloom and grow

FigureI imagine them... / ...a love that's proved by steady gazing / Not at each other but in the same direction. —“Album” by Seamus Heaney The girl is 9, her freckled cheeks still full with the fullness of childhood. Her smile begins with her eyes and keeps you there. She is nervous, but trying to be pleasant. A people pleaser in the making, perhaps. In the young skin below her left eye there is a long horizontal red line, left there by a puppy whose bite did not match his playful bark. The blood in this line blooms. It seems to be celebrating the oxygen that reaches it in the open air of the ED. The cut is bright and deep. The two parents attend to her as they wait. Despite the confidence of the ED resident, the mother insists that the father insist on calling a plastic surgeon. It is later in the evening; the plastic surgery attending is away, and ENT is covering such consults for the night. Mom and dad wonder if they made the wrong call. Perhaps the bravado of the ED resident would have been the right choice. Nevertheless, the ENT resident arrives. He is tall with dark skin and dark hair. His voice is gentle, just the right amount of purchase against the sterile air of the room. He carries several trays. Around his neck is a set of glasses with magnifying loupes attached. The girl becomes more nervous, and the parents' nerves find an outlet in their care of her. The resident places his young hand on her younger forehead, not to examine her cut, but as a mere offering of himself. The laceration softens from slant to flat as he does this, as she is able to relax what was a pleasing, anxious smile. This allows her to finally cry. While the resident slowly, methodically weaves delicate subcutaneous sutures, the girl's eyes gather more light in their clear pools. The father hums a song the resident recalls but cannot name. The mother offers reassuring words to both daughter and resident as they give and receive these careful sutures. A left hand gently holding Prolene, the right guiding delicate needle drivers through a loop, pulling taut, then clipping tails. Then doing this again. The daughter becomes increasingly anxious with each pass of a latex-gloved hand, chrome instrument, or thread. The father's hum turns to lyrics: a song from a movie, he now remembers. He thinks of childhood, keeps these thoughts to himself. The resident finishes his delicate work. Mother and father bring their daughter home, laying her down in her own bed. They lie on their backs in their own bed, holding hands in the particular way they have held them since they were young. They say goodnight. The resident arrives home just before the sun begins to color the morning sky. His wife still sleeps. He starts the coffee maker and climbs under the covers. His skin is cold, hers is warm. “How was it?” she asks. “Long,” he says. “But later I'll tell you about these parents...their little girl.” He drifts off with that hummed song floating in his liminal sleep. His wife rises, dons scrubs, grabs the cup of coffee, and drives in. She stands over a taut, exposed abdomen, takes a silver blade from the Mayo stand, and makes a long, straight incision, which she will curve around the umbilicus. This line blooms bright. She identifies, dissects, identifies again. She throws gentle Vicryl knots, pins them in permanence with her down-stretched index finger, cuts, and repeats. She resects, pulls up, and sutures. She does this routine several times throughout the day, each time taking off gown and gloves, washing her hands, and ensuring her scrubs are clean. Then, she exits her quiet world into the uncanny room of those who are waiting and well. She squats before their vinyl chairs and gives reports. Their faces are rapt, weary. When they smile, their eyes betray their anxiety. When they cry, their anguish betrays naive hope. At the end of the day, she drives home, places keys on the table just inside the small apartment where coffee is brewing. The two meet in the dusk light in their green scrubs. They wrap their weary arms around each other. “How was it?” he asks. “Long,” she says. “Remind me to tell you about the case we had to open.” He grabs his coffee, the keys she has just set down, and drives in.