Little Miracles
Hospitals are really depressing at Christmas. They put all kinds of decorations, little trees and Santa hats and all sorts of things to try to bring the Christmas spirit into the place, but it really isn’t working for me. It probably works in the pediatric ward, which is where I’m sitting now, at least on the young patients. They get so excited about how Santa’s coming to visit them, and that they’ll get so many presents, so it must be a nice distraction from their illness.
I didn’t want to be there, not even a little bit. It was Christmas Eve Eve, and I was supposed to be in Georgia with Kate’s family, stuffing my face with all their amazing southern food and generally enjoying the fact that my life seemed to be on track for the time being. Things truly were going well. Kate and I had what seemed like the most perfect marriage at the moment, which made me want to laugh in the face of all the doubters who thought I was ridiculous for proposing at the age of twenty. The new record was finished, finally, and plans were coming together for a tour and release dates. My wife and I were supposed to be in her hometown outside of Atlanta, carefree and excited about our first Christmas as husband and wife.
But we, obviously, were not in Georgia. Our flight from Tulsa to Atlanta had taken off hours ago, and we weren’t on that plane at all. Instead, we were sitting in the waiting room of the pediatric ward at St. Francis Hospital, biting our nails and wringing our hands and flipping mindlessly through back issues of Reader’s Digest and the occasional Dr. Suess book that had been left out for our entertainment.
It started yesterday. My cell phone had rung when I was packing up my suitcase for the trip to Atlanta, and when it was Taylor, I almost hit the ignore button. He’d been so annoying lately, talking about all the scheduling for traveling overseas, and all the promotion we needed to do, and it was Christmas, and I just wanted to relax for a few days. His workaholic attitude and bossy tendencies were half of the reason we were leaving Tulsa for the holidays, anyway. I love my older brother, but he can be a lot to handle.
“What’s up?” I said into the phone, rolling up my socks and shoving them in a corner of the suitcase. It was a good thing Kate had gone shopping with Natalie, because I surely would have been reprimanded for that packing technique.
“I don’t know,” Taylor said slowly. “I have a question.”
“Okay, go ahead and ask it.” It occurred to me that Taylor had been left at home with three children ages four and under, and he was probably stressing out and wanting me to help him baby-sit. I personally just wanted to tell him that it was his own fault he had so many kids, and that he’d figure it out.
“Ezra’s kind of sick.”
“That isn’t a question.”
“He just threw up.”
“So, he’s probably got some sort of bug, I’m sure he’ll be okay. Just don’t let him near Riv-Dawg, you don’t want a sick baby.” It had become an obnoxious habit of mine to nickname the newest baby, River, just because it pushed Tay’s buttons.
“Would you please stop calling him Riv-Dawg? My son does not appreciate the nickname.”
“Your son is three months old, I think YOU don’t appreciate the nickname.”
“Zac,” Taylor whined. He was such a girl, honestly. “It’s not like this is the first time any of my kids have thrown up, but he’s thrown up like six times today. I don’t want him to get dehydrated or starved or anything.”
“So…” Why was I the one to dole out advice here? We came from a family of seven children; Taylor should have known how to handle a sick four-year-old. Not only that, but our mother pretty much deserved a medical degree for all the healing she’d done in our lives. “Give him some crackers or something, and a little bit of water. He’ll be all right.”
“I did, he can’t keep anything down, and I think he’s got a fever too, he feels really warm but he keeps telling me he’s cold and that his head hurts, and…I don’t know, I’m just really worried.”
“Mom would know what to do,” I reminded him. “I mean, or just take him to the doctor, though he’d probably just get some Tylenol for Kids or something.”
“There’s no appointments until January, which makes NO sense since it’s like, by the time you get an appointment, you’re already better…”
“So call Natalie, bring in some backup.”
“You are the least helpful person I’ve ever met.”
“What do you want me to do?!” I exclaimed, frustrated. “Should I wave my magic wand and just fix him? Listen, Taylor, I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but I sort of have a life too, and I’m supposed to go to Atlanta tomorrow and…and he’s your kid! You deal with it!”
“Shit,” I heard Taylor whisper under his breath. “Do you know how to get vomit out of a suede couch?”
“Why would I?”
“Bye, Zac. Thanks for all your excellent help.” His sarcasm did not go undetected, but I didn’t respond and simply hung up the phone. Ten bucks said that Ezra would be healthy as a horse in the morning, and Taylor had probably just done something idiotic like feed him spoiled milk. As usual, Taylor was overreacting to everything, and he had called on me to give him a good dose of reality. It was too bad for him that I had a life of my own now, and he had to figure out how to calm down on his own.
It was almost Christmas. I just wanted to hang out and have a fun, relaxing few days, do something silly like coat our ceilings in mistletoe or watch Christmas movies on TV with Kate, just be totally carefree for a little while. I’d had a lot of responsibility for a few days, and I just needed to lighten the load on my shoulders.
Little did I know I’d find myself sitting in the hospital less than twenty-four hours, praying to whatever God was up there that the little guy had a chance. I hadn’t planned for this…
Natalie had called Kate at around two in the afternoon on Christmas Eve Eve, and instantly I knew that something was really wrong. Kate’s got fair skin, but I watched all of the blood rush out of her face as she spoke on the phone, and when she turned to me, she was visibly shaking.
“Ez had a seizure,” she said to me, her voice wobbling. “Nat said he was getting really dizzy, and he’s still so sick, and then suddenly…so they’re at the hospital right now, and he’s getting all these tests done…” I imagined the little redheaded boy at the hospital being poked and prodded by a bunch of doctors, sick and scared out of his mind. “I guess Taylor’s, like, freaking out, and obviously Nat is too…Ike and Nikki are already there, Zac, we should go, we have to go.”
“Babe…” I glanced at the clock on our microwave. “Our flight leaves in like, three hours to go to your parents’ house-“
“So what? They’ll understand, and I don’t think I could handle being so far away and not knowing what’s happening…” I wanted to fight her, really I did. It was Christmas. We were supposed to be having fun, not freaking out, and staying in Tulsa wouldn’t help anything. “Zac, come on, this is your nephew here, and he could…they don’t even know what’s wrong, Zac…”
Little known fact: Zac Hanson and crying girls do not mix well. I see a girl start to cry (any girl, really – Kate, Jessica, little baby Penny, anyone) and instantly I break. One big fat tear rolled out of my wife’s gorgeous brown eye and all my walls fell as I reached out to brush it from her cheek.
“I’ll drive.”
It was a sorry little state of affairs at the hospital. The waiting room wasn’t crowded, we were the only people sitting there, but the scene wasn’t pretty. Nikki was holding River while Ike looked on, and both appeared to be trying to distract themselves with the baby. He was, unfortunately, sound asleep, so he didn’t provide much entertainment. Penny, at twenty months old, had curled up in her father’s lap with her thumb in her mouth, and was also fast asleep. Taylor was running his fingers idly through her blonde, wispy hair, his eyes staring at the television screen (The Grinch Who Stole Christmas was on, though it was the new Jim Carrey version that I’ve never been fond of). I had a feeling he had no idea what he was watching. Natalie was standing up next to Taylor, putting her hair in a ponytail and then taking it down, and then repeating the process.
“How’s he doing?” Kate asked Natalie when we walked up. Taylor glanced over at us and said nothing, instead gazing down at his daughter and gently popping her thumb out of her mouth. When it gravitated right back where it had been, he smiled and ran a finger down her smooth little cheek.
“It’s meningitis,” Natalie said quietly. “Um, which I guess is when all sorts of fluid builds up in his spine, and brain…if it’s just viral, then he’ll be okay and we can take him home, but bacterial’s a lot worse. So they’re doing a spinal tap to find out what it is. I guess he’s doing okay right now, but they won’t let us see him.”
“He’ll be okay,” Kate said to her best friend, and I sat down a couple chairs away from Taylor. I couldn’t sit right up next to him, we’re two adult men, there needed to exist some sort of buffer.
“Hey,” I said to him, and he turned his head to look at me before reverting to his original activity of zoning out. “How you doing?”
“You said he’d be okay,” Taylor said stonily. “You told me it was just a bug, and to give him fucking crackers and that he’d be FINE. You didn’t even-“
“Taylor,” I interrupted. “How was I supposed to know? It’s winter, and cold outside, and he’s been playing in the snow like every day, it just sounded like the flu, I didn’t-“
“You never give a shit about anything unless it directly concerns you, and my kid could be dying or getting brain damage RIGHT NOW and you didn’t even…”
“I’m not a doctor…what do you want me to do?”
“Start giving a shit.”
“Taylor,” Natalie’s voice came as a warning about his language and a reminder of the sleeping toddler in his lap.
“Nat, now’s not exactly the time.” Everyone was silent after that exchange, with the exception of River, who began to bawl in an attempt to communicate to his mother that his diaper needed changing. Natalie retrieved her youngest son from her sister-in-law and went off to the bathroom with a diaper bag, and then a doctor emerged from the room. She was fairly young, with long blonde hair pulled back into a ponytail and thin, wire-rimmed glasses on her face.
“Mr. Hanson?” she said inquisitively. Beside me, Taylor shifted Penny so that she was resting on his hip, her face buried in his shoulder and her arms around his neck. “The results are back from the lab, and the meningitis is bacterial. Fortunately, we caught it pretty early, so the chances are little that Ezra will sustain any brain damage.”
“But he could. Like, he might.” Wasn’t Taylor the optimist of the group? I would have hated to hear Ike’s pessimistic take on the situation.
“That’s always a possibility, Mr. Hanson, but we’re going to do everything possible to ensure that Ezra will be just fine. He’s experiencing a lot of pressure in the brain, due to all the fluid…” Taylor cringed visibly, and I tried to focus on the Grinch. Anything so that I wouldn’t see the concern written on my brother’s face, so that I wouldn’t imagine that little boy in so much pain. This sort of thing wasn’t supposed to happen on Christmas. How could Cindy Lou-Hoo be so overjoyed about the holidays when smart, adorable little Ezra might end up with brain damage? “We’ve put him on a dosage of Dexamethasone to reduce the pressure, along with acetaminophen to bring down his fever, which IS improving. We’ll also be giving him some antibiotics-“
“Are you just pumping him full of drugs?”
“The sooner he receives this medicine, the better.”
“Well, I mean, can we even see him?” Suddenly Taylor narrowed his eyes at the doctor. “Are you an intern? Are you still learning about this stuff? My wife makes me watch Grey’s Anatomy and if you’re not a resident or an attending-“ He was interrupted by laughter.
“I’m not an intern,” she assured Taylor. “And you and your wife may-“ A flashing light and rapid beeping from Ezra’s room interrupted the doctor, and she rushed back to the room. As the door swung open, I caught a glimpse of Ezra’s little body lying in the bed, shaking and twitching with a seizure. Taylor stared at the door, holding his little girl to his chest, blinking rapidly. I felt shell-shocked…this couldn’t have been happening. Ezra was not this sick. He was not on the brink of serious, permanent damage when he was still so young. I didn’t want to believe that this was happening.
Ezra was born on Halloween, a little over a week after I turned seventeen. It had been exciting and all, though a little bit scary since Taylor and Natalie were both so young, and our record company was still giving us hell. When we found out Natalie was pregnant, I couldn’t believe it. This was going to throw a wrench in everything. Taylor would get married and the heartthrob appeal would die, and obviously a baby would slow down production of a record…
And then we went on tour in 2003, when Ezra was hardly even a year old, and do you know how impossible it is to tour with a baby? He seemed like such a pain in the ass sometimes, always needing to be fed or have his diaper changed, and it seemed like he constantly needed attention. It had been so much easier when he wasn’t around…
The ultimate conclusion I came to as I listened to doctors explain what was going on, watched Taylor and Natalie worry years off their lives, stared at the decorations on the wall, and read books to Penny, was that I was an asshole. I took that kid in there for granted, even resented his presence sometimes (it’s hard enough to sleep on tour buses as it is, and wailing infants don’t help), and now there was a very real possibility of losing him. I almost hadn’t shown up here out of pure selfishness, because I’d wanted my own break from life…
There was a Santa figurine sitting at the nurses’ station, and it seemed to be taunting me. It was Christmas, I wasn’t supposed to selfish. Wasn’t it supposed to be a time for giving, and all that good stuff? My brother didn’t need anyone to write his concerns off as overreactions or argue with him, he just needed someone to help him out, and I hadn’t even been able to do that. I truly was an asshole.
“Taylor?” I said tentatively around one in the morning. I’d just woken up from a very awkward, uncomfortable nap, and had noticed that River and Penny were nowhere to be seen. “Where’d they go?”
“Nat and Kate took them to Mom and Dad’s, they needed to go to bed.” He yawned and shifted on the hard plastic, stretching his legs out before him.
“How’s Ez?”
“You’d know if you hadn’t fallen asleep,” Taylor snapped, “but he’s doing better. Less swelling in his brain, fever’s gone, he’s not getting sick anymore…no more seizures…”
“I’m sorry.”
“The fuck are you sorry for? It’s not your kid who might be eternally screwed up, you don’t even care.” There was such bitterness in his voice.
“That’s what I’m sorry about!” Tay’s eyes were red, probably from both fatigue and tears. “I didn’t listen to you yesterday when you were worried about him, and…and I feel like a real jerk because it took something like this so that I could really appreciate having the little guy around. I’m so sorry, Taylor.”
“It’s all right,” he sighed. “Don’t worry about it.” The door from Ezra’s room swung open again, and an older nurse walked out with a smile on her face.
“He’s awake, Mr. Hanson, if you’d like to see him.” Taylor stood up quickly and strode over to the door before looking back at me expectantly. I rose and followed him, finding myself oddly moved by his behavior. Ezra looked a bit pale, and exhausted, but he was sitting up in his bed clutching a stuffed reindeer. There was an IV connected to his left arm, which I suspected was keeping him hydrated.
“Hey, little man,” Taylor said with a smile, leaning over to kiss his son’s forehead. “What are you doing awake?”
“I feel all better,” Ezra said in a weak but determined voice. “Where’s Mommy?”
“She’ll be here soon,” Taylor said as he smoothed down Ezra’s wild red hair. “But Uncle Zac’s here, and he wants to see you.” The boy’s eyes shifted over to me and he held his arms up toward me, so I hugged him. He was such a good kid, and he had no idea what an asshole I’d been the past couple days, and even if he did on some level, he didn’t care. I was his Uncle Zac, the one who built his Happy Meal toys for him and let him have cookies before dinner…and always used to pass him off whenever he got the least bit fidgety…but the kid still loved me anyway. I probably didn’t deserve it, the way I’d been acting, but I was going to give it up now.
“Is it Christmas?” he asked curiously, holding onto one of my hands.
“Almost,” I told him. “It’s Christmas Eve, so Santa’s going to be coming soon to visit you.”
“Santa? Will he know I’m here and not at home?”
“He’ll know.” Ezra yawned then, rubbing his bleary eyes with a little fist and hugging the stuffed reindeer to his chest. Taylor sat down in a chair by his bed and smiled genuinely for the first time all day. The both of them looked so content, so relieved, that somehow I felt like all the stress I’d been dealing with for months was lifted right off of me.
Hmm. Maybe this was where I wanted to be on Christmas after all.