Together

By Susan Yoder Ackerman
Web Exclusive

The blizzard howled as if it wanted to strip the tin roof from our log house.

"Here, Robby darling, take this aspirin," I whispered, trying to hold my bathrobe closed across my pregnant belly. My husband turned to glare at me, his breath coming in short, rasping gasps. Let me wake up from this nightmare, I thought. This stranger is not my husband.

He rolled the pills around on his fingertips, then swallowed them and slipped back into fevered sleep. I crawled under the covers beside him, but there was no sleep for me.

All that day, as snow fell, I had felt the urge to prepare. I kept Ilse and Hans playing nearby while I cooked and baked. It was already dark before two pairs of headlights came slowly up the icy hill. I watched my neighbor undo the tow chain from our little French car and drive on through the storm.

Robby did not get out of the car for a long time. At last I saw him stumbling across the snowy footbridge and up to the house, briefcase in one hand, a tool for spackling the baby’s nursery in the other.

"I’m so tired," he said as he came in, his face ashen. "I’m so thirsty."

But when he tried to drink, he threw up. Dinner forgotten, I helped him upstairs to bed. Hans followed and spread his ragged, thumb-stroked security blanket over his father in an astonishing gesture of compassion.

Robby fell into an exhausted sleep. I tucked the worried children into bed. No use thinking about our final "Prepared Childbirth" class, scheduled for that evening. Having missed Robby sorely during the other births, I had his solemn promise that for this third child, he would be with me every inch of the way. This time we would bring our baby into the world together.

The past year had been a difficult one for me. Robby had long dreamed of ten acres with a creek and a south-facing hill on which to build a solar house. We had found the hill and the creek under the shadow of Little North Mountain in the Shenandoah Valley. The charm of goldfinches on thistles and wild columbine clinging to stone did not make up for the fact that the house had no plumbing except for one pipe that brought spring water to the kitchen sink. What it did have was a large population of rats, a legacy of rusting junk, and a self-composting toilet.

And now this sudden terrible illness, and the snow that held us prisoner together. I touched my husband for comfort; his skin was burning. The baby swam and dived in its firm, round house, reminding me that the well-being of all five of us rested on me alone. I felt paralyzed by fear and the stormy night.

A rooster’s shrill crowing split the silence. Then a snowplow droned and flashed its way past, and I was suddenly hopeful. I remembered, too, that the drive into town was downhill, not uphill. I could get Robby to the doctor now.

In the cold blue light of morning, I tugged him to a sitting position and knelt to pull on his socks. The children thought it was funny; their laughter gave me the courage to get everyone into coats and mittens, and through the snow to the frozen car.

At the doctor’s office, the nurses persuaded Robby to part with his coat but not his wool ski cap. He sat hunched on the table as they tried to take his blood pressure, then tried again, with him lying down this time.

"There’s hardly any blood pressure," Dr. Perry said. "It’s pneumonia and dehydration, very serious. I know your baby is due, but we need to get him into the hospital right away." Robby had double lobar pneumococcal pneumonia. In the x-rays, his lungs looked white, as if packed with snow.

The hospital staff hurried to get Robby settled in the isolation ward. There was nothing more I could do. I gathered the children out of the waiting room and headed back to our mountain. Robby was in good hands, but what about me and the baby? What about the children? The radio announcer had big news--another snowstorm would dump 12 inches.

When I got back to the cold and lonely house, I called my sister in nearby Harrisonburg. "Oh, Susan," she said, hearing the tears in my voice. "Bring the children and come to my house. Now!"

I went upstairs for my hospital suitcase--just in case. I smoothed the soft yellow afghan and tiny undershirts. Would I ever hold the child? Would we ever be together, all five of us, watching goldfinches swoop over the sunny hillside? It seemed impossible.

Snowflakes began to pelt against the windshield as I drove. The children sang Christmas carols in the back seat. Our unborn baby drew itself up into a hard knot between me and the steering wheel, taking my breath away.

It snowed all night and all the next morning. Cars lay buried in drifts. I tried to relax in the warmth of Connie’s home, but an urgency grew within me: I had to get to the hospital. I wanted to be with Robby. In the afternoon, with the roads closed to normal traffic, a friend offered me a ride in his four-wheel-drive truck. He plowed through the icy streets to the main door of the hospital.