Read Online Briana's Gift by Lurlene McDaniel - Free Book Online Page B

So can your mother. Get her used to your voices. Babies can and will respond to familiar voices.”
    “Like how?”
    “They wiggle around inside the womb, or quiet down at the sound of voices they recognize.”
    “My book says that they have hair and that they can blink by week thirty-four. Is that true?”
    “All true.”
    “I guess babies are pretty smart, even before they’re born.”
    Dr. Kendrow grins at me. “This is a lucky little baby to have an aunt as caring as you.”
    That makes me self-conscious. “I can’t wait to hold her.”
    “Just another month or so and you will be holding her, if—”
    “If what?”
    “If she can stay put,” the doctor finishes, a look on her face that tells me she wishes she hadn’t added the
if
to her sentence. “Her best chance for a healthy beginning is staying in your sister’s womb until it’s time to be born.”
    “How will you know when it’s time?”
    “Tests. We do plenty of tests, you know. And sometimes labor just starts.”
    I start to ask,
And what if she doesn’t stay in Bree’s womb?
But then I decide that sometimes it’s best not to ask too many questions. I don’t want one more thing to worry about either. Just then Mom comes into the cubicle, and she and Dr. Kendrow talk. I tune them out and instead watch as dual green squiggly lines shoot up and down on the screens of the machines beside Bree’s bed—both reflections of human heartbeats, mother’s and daughter’s.
             
    The very next time I come to visit, I bring my flute. I wedge a chair between the machines, lean close to Bree’s abdomen and play softly, hoping the baby can hear it. It’s weird, sitting in a cubicle playing for an audience of one who can’t see me and doesn’t even know me. The nurses at the desk peek in several times. One of them, Cynthia, asks, “Can we make requests?”
    “Sure. If I know the music, I’ll play it.”
    She suggests a few Christmas carols, comes over and straightens Bree’s covers. “May I say something to you, Susanna?” I lower my flute. “All of us nurses think you’re a pretty special girl.”
    “Me?”
    “Not many kids your age would spend so much time up here voluntarily.”
    “But we’re sisters.”
    Cynthia nods. “Some of our patients have big families, but not all of them can handle knowing that their loved one is never going to be the way he or she used to be. It’s hard to accept that someone you love will spend a lifetime as a quadriplegic.”
    I wish Bree
could be
a quadriplegic; at least then she’d be alive. But I also know she would have hated that kind of life. “It’s not fair,” I say.
    “Life’s never fair,” Cynthia says. “Still, it’s what we have to work with, isn’t it?” She leaves the cubicle. I pick up my flute and play “What Child Is This?”, a song she has requested. It’s about Mary holding a sleeping baby Jesus on her lap while angels sing—something Bree will never get to do.
             
    The signs and symbols of Christmas are everywhere. Lightposts in downtown Duncanville have been dressed up with fake holly and big red bows. The store windows are lit with blinking colored lights and splashed with glitter. The large fir tree in the courthouse square is decorated with king-sized ornaments and an ocean of lights. At school, the official bulletin board has been trimmed with cutouts of Santa’s elves and long strings draped with holiday cards.
    In the middle of the hospital lobby, there’s a tree decorated with paper angel tags that show the names of children and elderly people who are especially needy. People are urged to take an angel and help give that person a happier Christmas or Chanukah. In the intensive care unit, cutouts of turkeys and pilgrims have been replaced with ones of wreaths, menorahs and gift packages. A tiny artificial tree is perched on the corner of the central desk and hung with ornaments made from medical supplies—latex gloves, empty