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History
Jill was talking to someone about Alex the other day and never mentioned the hospital. "First time I've done that," she said.
I mentioned the hospital just a few days ago, when I told a new co-worker about Alex. Alex spent the first 13 months of his life in a hospital, I said. "Thirteen months? Wow," said the co-worker. "The doctors couldn't have given him much chance, huh?" At the time of this conversation, Alex had been home for one year, two months and six days. Lately he climbs on the dining room table, drinks from his own cup, and wears his oxygen cannula only when sleeping. I let the conversation with the new co-worker move on.
When I talk about Alex in the hospital, I round up. Three months premature though it was only two and a half. Thirteen months in hospitals though it was only twelve and a half. Why round up?
 Co-workers have said a lot of things about Alex in the past two years, even when he was in the depths of the hospital. "It will all be a memory in a few years," said one. This guy's daughter was three then, and he used to delight in her calling him at work and telling him about her day. Now he's divorced; I think there's a custody fight. I feel badly for him.
Mike, another co-worker who was there for the whole Alex in the Hospital Escapade, looked at my favorite photo of Alex and said, "You'd never know from looking at this that anything was ever wrong." No. The picture in Mike's hand is of Alex's face close up, snapped as Alex crawled on my chest on a green summer afternoon in Central Park. His forehead is wrinkled, his lips are pressed in concentration, his eyebrows are up and his eyes are two brown barrels. That photo says charm, determination, a fetching boldness that he probably started honing back in the isolette during all the IV sticks and the spinal tap and intubations.
The night they reintubated him, I learned what it was to have a sick baby. At a red light on our drive in, a beggar appeared at my window. "Please no," I said to his face through the glass. "We have a baby in the hospital. Please no." His face faded into the night. Then holding Alex past midnight, trying to keep his numbers up by pure cuddling while the robes looked on. Watching him chomp a binkie as the numbers fell. Two in the morning, a morgue-still waiting room, no one coming out of his room to tell us anything until we burst back in and made the faded robes turn gaping in the lights. Send someone out! we demanded. We will, they replied. I don't think they ever did. I don't remember. That was two years ago next Sunday. Wow.
The day of the spinal tap comes back to me in glimpses: the queasy blue stripe of the NICU blanket, the reflection of the neon in the clear plastic of the isolette, the fine green wires snapping as he wiggled in there. One thing I can't remember is, did Alex actually get a spinal tap? Jill says yes. "His face was creased with pain and a complete lack of comprehension," she says. "They didn't give him anesthesia. He looked like he'd been run over by a truck." She pauses. "I can see that face ... anytime I want." Yes, I remember now.
 To recall the day his IV sprung a leak I just have to look down, where the drop of blood, now brown as old motor oil, is on the toe of my boot. Jill's mom was there that morning. Alex was grinning. The nurse wiped the blood off the floor by dropping a washcloth and pushing it around with her foot. I look at that spot now and it makes me fearless. Mail from the collection agency? Loud teens in the subway? Threats from those who don't know what a threat is? Look at the spot. I hate to say it, but I'm glad that spot is there.
The 13 months have seeped into me, and I'm not sure how to get them out or even if I want to. For months now readers have e-mailed me with praise; lately editors and newspaper writers have joined them. Great, but I wish I could know I've told them the truth all this time. For example, Alex was in the hospital 12 months, three weeks, and two days.
But 13 months sounds like so much more.
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