The Between Years

I occasionally nodded off in my office. Randy took naps during his lunch hours. Kicked back in my recliner, I awaited Kenny's first cries, if only to break up the monotony of sitting through the storm.

    In the morning, I meant to tell Randy that we were getting the hell out of town, no matter what. We could take whichever vehicle had the most fuel, swipe the gas can from the shed, and trudge through the crusted snow, tree branches and wires until we had crawled far enough out of town to find an open gas station. Niagara Falls would be snow-free, with power and warmth and it wasn't that far away. From there, we could check into a Holiday Inn so we could stay warm and toasty for Kenny's sake, if not our own.

    As I listened to tree branches snap like a whip cracking, I understood this was a pipe dream. We would never have enough gas to travel out of town and we would be lucky to burst free from the chaos in the streets. I imagined us being stuck, the Chrysler's tires spinning, and Randy's muscles strained from pushing. We have landed ourselves in a larger predicament than before. We were trapped in the house whether we liked it or not.

    I distracted myself by listening to Randy's light snores and watching his chest rise and fall. The way he clutched the pillow was too cute, but he never did that in bed. After a while, I couldn't stand the monotony of his snores either, so I climbed out of the recliner, stood before the fire and hugged myself. The log had burned almost to ash, so I grabbed the poker and jabbed the remnants to scatter orange embers all over.

    Then I turned, ran my hand up Kenny's trunk, rocked him back and forth, and sang to him. Sometimes I made up my own lullabies, tailored to my little man, and other times I sang the old standbys like “Rock-a-by Baby.” I've never been much of a singer, but I hoped singing would strengthen the mother-child bond. I thought the poor kid was freezing even while bundled up in those blankets, so I scooped him out of the bassinet, cradled him, and sang my own lullaby while Randy's buzzing underlined each note.

    Normally I would receive some flicker of response from Kenny, but nothing I would call intelligible. He's a baby and will respond as best he can, even if that response is only grable or gak. Sometimes he would stretch, smack his lips, and resume his original position. But now, my baby was silent, still, and made not a blubber, not a cry, not a laugh. What I heard was silence (aside, of course, from Randy's snores) that sliced through me.

    Kenny's lips were still and so were his fingers. Beneath all those layers, I couldn't see if his chest was rising and falling. Sometimes he was deathly still if I scooped him up in the middle of a deep sleep, and his head, arms and legs would hang. But I wasn't willing to chance it, so I lay Kenny back in his bassinet, fought my tears back, and dashed over to the couch.

    I shoved Randy, rolled him back and forth, but he wouldn't wake up. Then I hugged his arm and tugged. “Randy! Wake up for Christ's sake! Kenny's not breathing!”

    That I didn't know for sure, but there was no sense in fooling around. Randy hauled himself up half-way on the couch, looking dazed. “Who? What?” His voice sounded like his throat was chock full of gravel.

    “ Kenny!” I barely had the strength left to repeat myself. “It's Kenny! I checked on him and he's not moving!”

    Speechless, Randy dragged himself off the couch, staggered over to the bassinet, and hovered over our son. First, he rocked Kenny and tapped his cheeks with his index and middle fingers. Just then, I remembered that he'd taken First Aid training at the library a few months before. I doubted he would remember what he'd learned in the two-day seminar, but I hoped to God what he had remembered would work.

    “ Okay Carol, call 9-1-1.” Randy's face never left the bassinet. “I'm going to start working on him.”

    “ C-c-can an ambulance really make it here in this weather? And w-w-what should I tell them?”

    “ Just DO it!”

    I would have frozen inside if not for the blinding cold. My insides tightened. That was the first time I'd ever heard Randy shout for any reason.

    I scrambled into the dining room to grab my cell phone from my purse. Thank God I'd rationed my calls otherwise we would have had no way to phone for an ambulance. In the dark, I nearly tripped over a box by the dining room table, and I found my purse moments later. I fished the phone out,