4D 6

As I walked into the room labeled ‘Bonarchuck, Jesse’ I glanced across the room searching for my aunt and saw, instead, my uncle obscured by the stainless steel bars of the crib. Only his forearms seemed to support his stout body, as he bore his stresses onto the edge of the crib containing his young son. Behind him on the miniature TV played a golf game intended to distract. I greeted my uncle. His speech was a demonstration of love borne in a series of statements of all that is failing. No eardrops. No chest x-ray. No Doctor’s visit. No sleep for his wife last night. How deep a father’s love.

My Auntie Jen enters, and Kevin reluctantly trades their older son’s company for the post beside the bed and the car keys. She has brought chicken fingers for Tyson and places them on the tray at the end of the crib in amidst the multicoloured cups of dated jello, a sipee cup of water, apple juice in Styrofoam with a straw. Tyson is playing super Nintendo in the waiting room.

Jen and I talk.

Jesse coughs. Jen sits him up, supporting his body by holding his chin in her hand. The length of his torso surprises me. At three I still think him a baby, he has just learned to walk. His eyes flutter open but settle on an horizon just obscuring his pupils. His eyes are swollen from the surgery, or perhaps the morphine. His blanket is pulled back and I can see the drainage tube that connects to his urethra, draining half his urine output mixed with blood. Jen changes his diaper as he falls in and out of sleep. She is tired; he has contracted a chest cold and tips his head back when he coughs; he refuses the natural inclination to lean forward; he can’t clear his chest. Jen holds him up as he falls in and out of sleep. She tries to get him to drink (he hasn’t had anything since the surgery). She wets his lips with apple juice, sneaks a spoonful into his mouth when he yawns. Pleads with him to take more. How deep a mother’s love.