The Christmas Baby

Sam Townes infant son passed away in his arms while standing near his wife’s bedside. As he told his child goodbye, he could feel his hope of having a child slipping away from beneath him. He couldn’t bring himself to tell Sarah that he was done trying to have a child in the natural way. He leaned over and kissed her sweaty brow where it seemed all anguish of loss surfaced. He hoped to pull her back from the brink of a mental collapse with carefully constructed words. “Don’t blame yourself. You are enough for me. You are all I need.”

A nurse stepped in to remove the dead infant, but not before Sam laid the lifeless child in Sarah’s arms. She kissed the child long enough for her tears to stain his cheeks. She’d been through this moment before, another loss, a perilous moment when she extended her arms to the nurse and let the loss fall like a sledgehammer to her heart.

Sarah’s contorted face turned to anger. She grabbed Sam’s arms as he held the railing between them for balance. She pinched Sam until he winced in pain. “Why? What happened to all those prayers? All those promises. Why does God punish us?”

Sam wanted to shrink and dribble away. He was the one who quoted the scripture at home. He was the one who kept a prayer vigil at church. He knew in her fragile state, he couldn’t tell her God must have another path when she dug her fingernails into arms.

When the transfer of pain became too much for Sam, he pried away from her grip and stumbled backward. A guttural cry came from Sarah. It sounded like a cat caught in a claw-trap, a feral sound of abandoned hope.

Another nurse rushed inside with a needle in her hand. After the nurse put his wife to sleep, Sam slinked away and thought about exiting the building, hoping to avoid her mother. As he limped down the luminous hall, it was obvious that he had one deformed leg, thin and shorter than the other. He had polio, as a kid. He wasn’t supposed to live, but he proved the doctors wrong. He was his parent’s miracle child, because he lived, despite the constant pain when he walked.

As Sam stumbled around the corner to the waiting room, his mother-in-law was there to greet him. The disappointment in her eyes and constipated look spoke more than words. She stood close enough for him to breathe in her minted breath. “You’re done putting my daughter’s life in danger. You should have sterilized.”

Sam didn’t have any words for her. He limped through the revolving doors, exiting the building where he was free to hide in the darkness, if he could just escape the lights in the parking lot.