Saving Elijah

children."
    "What's the percentage?" Sam wanted to know. I was grateful for his question.
    "Well, there could be problems. But the likelihood is that everything will be fine."
    "But what if there really is something wrong?" I said. "How far along in the pregnancy would I be likely to know? Early enough to have an abortion?" I didn't want an abortion, I just wanted to discuss the worst-case scenario, so I could prepare myself. "By the time a few more months roll around and we see if the problems continue, it'll be too late to even consider it. Right?"
    "Dinah's a worrier," Sam said, offering me a smile. Now I wanted to slug him, even though he was right. He thought my worrying made me a pessimist. Wrong. I was a realist. He was being Pollyanna.
    "I really think you're jumping the gun here," the doctor said. "I'm sure everything is going to be just fine."

    *    *    *

    The spotting finally stopped in the sixth month, and three weeks early I went into labor. Delivery after forty-two hours was by cesarean section, and Elijah looked like a chicken with very little meat on its bones. His skin was yellow with jaundice, and so thin it seemed transparent, with a mottled, reddish cast. You could see what was underneath, the capillaries and veins. He had an abundance of spiked black hair that made me think of a cartoon character who just stuck his finger in an electrical socket.
    Mostly my baby kept his eyes closed in the beginning, but when he did open them he looked right at me and claimed me on the spot. He had Sammy's dimples, you could see that right away, in a face no bigger than a grapefruit.
    Elijah wasn't one of the really frightening two-pounders, but he wasn't all pink and plump and squealing with vigor, either. Elijah's cry was more like a kitten's tiny mew. Whenever the other new mothers saw my son's sickly pallor and hanging skin, and the sore raw spot under his nose where the nurses had taped the nasal tube in place, thought bubbles might as well have appeared over their heads: "Thank God that isn't mine." "How terrible for her." But they didn't need to feel sorry for me. My son seemed as utterly wonderful to me as theirs did to them.
    Then there was the very young mother, age sixteen at most, with frizzy red hair as bright as Julie's. She lifted her baby girl out of the bassinet, sat down near me in one of the rockers, and began to cry. My hormones in an uproar, I started to cry, too. I was thinking how much I missed Julie in my life. Not for the first time in my marriage, I thought about calling her. She wouldn't hang up on me after all these years. The next day a couple in their thirties came in and held the same baby, who left with them. I never again saw that very brave sixteen-year-old. And I never did call Julie, either.
    I spent most of the first three weeks at the hospital, and Charlotte arrived to save the day with my father and Nelda in tow. Kate complained that Nelda kept cooking things she hated, like meat loaf and casseroles involving green beans. I remembered the menu well.
    Sam said he'd handle it. And he did.
    One night, he sank down in the rocking chair beside me, then bent down to kiss our son, who'd just fallen asleep. Elijah startled. He did that a lot in the beginning, as if something inside had suddenly frightened him. Sam looked tired. No wonder. Commuting to the city every day, dealing with the kids and Charlotte, too. And no doubt my father wanted attention as well, wanted Sam to accompany him on his nightly walks.
    For as long as I could remember, my father had taken a walk after dinner, he said to organize his thoughts for the next day. As a kid, I was convinced he did it to get away from Charlotte. They worked together all day running my mother's clothing business; she owns a chain of women's boutiques called Charlotte's Petal, fifteen stores at last count. Too much Charlotte was lethal, as far as I was concerned. I always thought he stayed with her because of Dan and me; now of course I realize it's more complicated than that. I used to go with him, though; walking with Dad was one of my favorite things to do as a kid.
    We sat silently for a while. Sammy was intently watching a new Madonna and child: a beautiful black woman with a head of intricate cornrows that cascaded all the way down her back, rocking a magnificent baby, born that morning. Skin the color of deep chocolate, huge black-rimmed eyes, alert and awake.
    I reached over to touch him. "You're worried, aren't