« Home again, Home again | They Said »
A Change Is Going To Come
September 30, 2005 | Category: In My Life
We drove home in silence.
I watched the skies out the car window. My knees up to my chest and my feet on the dashboard as he maneuvered the van through the murk of Lower Wacker. Every few feet, a crash of rain on the roof as we would be exposed to the world above.
My son was asleep in his car seat behind me. Around his wrist, a bright yellow hospital bracelet. I looked back at him often, my heart swelling in gratitude at his peaceful expression, he feverless cheeks.
Down on the car floor, my phone lit up and I ignored it. Despite being on Emergency Leave, my phone had logged over 30 incoming calls. 13 messages. My deputy had been let go due to budget concerns and my manager was attempting to fill in. I had told him a dozen times that I was not in a sitaution where I could deal with work. He kept calling.
Twenty feet outside my window, the river danced with the rain. I watched the boats push against the wind and the people rushing with umbrellas over the bridges above. The flags lining Michigan Avenue flapped and pulled violently.
In the passenger seat, I thought about my son. I thought about how he was fine. I swallowed back the terror that something truly evil was unfurling inside him. I clenched my eyes shut and prayed.
"He's going to be all right," my husband announced softly, firmly.
I nodded, and gripped his hand.
It was like a kaleidoscope, in my mind... The day I came back to Chicago. Walking into my old apartment for the first time, the creak of the wood floors. The flash of light as I was slid into the torpedo tube for my MRI when I got sick. The chalky smell of books in the room where I got my job as a corporate trainer. The feel of slippery hotel comforters in dozens of towns. The touch of CD's hand brushing mine the night we met. The dry, earnest expression of the guy who interviewed me at Mega. The moment of disbelief as I waited before walking across the backyard to get married. The stink of chlorine as I pulled myself from another set of laps. The sound of my son, alive inside me after the doctors had sadly warned me that he was probably gone.
My phone flashed again at my feet. I looked away just as the road corkscrewed up from the underground. We exited the tunnel and he flipped on the wipers. Ahead of us, a bouquet of thousands of taillights on a congested highway.
I traced my finger into the fog on my window.
I thought about the advice I'd had lately. About how, if I quit my career, I would be bereft of it. About how I'd never get back to the kind of income again, which was probably true. About the sacrifices it would mean, the struggles. About how, now that he was in full-day school, the benefits of an at-home parent were not as high as when he was a baby. I thought about never getting another emailed "attaboy". About how my personality needed challenge.
I grabbed up the phone and called my boss back. The conversation quickly disintegrated. He told me I wasn't being a team player. He fashioned an inconvenience into an emergency. Exhausted, angry, I finally hung up on him.
I rubbed the heel of my hand against my eye. Tears of confusion and frustration. Of fear. Of relief.
For an hour, we rolled towards home. For a guy who grew up in a rural world of dirt roads, my husband is an extremely skillful city driver. He gently tacked across surface streets, finally bringing us into town the back way.
The driveway was shiny and wet. The cool air burst into the van as we hopped out, moving quickly to the back. The door slid open and in a practiced, synchronized motion, he wrapped our son in a blanket and carried him away as I reached in and gathered up all our things.
I paused on the stoop, looking up at the still-green leaves of our big tree dripping with rain. The air had changed. I shook the wet off my hair as I stepped into the house.
"The weather's turned," I called, closing the door firmly behind me.
He caught my eye and nodded. "I know."
Delicious! | 
Stumble It! | 
Slashdot It!
