The Assembler of Parts: A Novel Read Free

though here I was, alive and happy to kick, if someone would merely unwrap me. But Mother was crying in the room’s blue fluorescent light. She dabbed her blue-stained tears with white Kleenex. I was struck by the reversal in the order of things: from joy to sadness, from whitest light to dull blue glow, from radiant smile to limp, handheld flags of defeat. She wept in pain before her jubilant baby daughter. Crying, sad, because of me.
    Dr. Burke was telling her of my missing parts and of the plan afoot to search for other errors in assembly. He paused for a moment so Mother could blow her nose and unfold another hanky from the packet she held pressed to her right breast. Before he could resume his discussion, I began to cry. I listen now* to that cry. It was a looping cry that began low and rose in pitch, hovered there and swooped back down only to rise again, my “hold me” cry, rude and crude for lack of practice. Back then* in that dim room I couldn’t hear its songful beauty, but Burke’s good ears deciphered it immediately. He walked over, his neck-hung stethoscope swinging like a metronome to my rough music, and scooped me up from the bassinet. He laid me on the pillow where my mother’s head had lain and unwrapped me. I could smell her sweat, and the warm honey-scent of my mother’s hair, as if it had hived a hundred bees. He made a show of my hands to Mother and Father. He had her press my forearm like I was a cake tested for doneness. I was spongy to the gentle press, and her tears only increased through this inventory of missing parts. When Burke slipped her pinkie tip into the blind pouches that should have been ear canals, her sadness became a moan. Father was stoic, his back straight, his arms fixed at his sides, a man with a stiff upper lip and a stiffer skeleton, bone on every bone. He cleared his throat and asked, “Does this mean she can’t hear?”
    “Probably it does,” said Burke. “We can do some hearing tests to be absolutely sure, but most of the time this external anomaly is associated with absence of the bones that conduct sound. So I’m sorry, but yes, there is a very good chance Jessica is deaf. But ear surgeons can do wonderful things now to correct some of these defects, to restore some hearing, so let’s wait and see what they have to say. I think they’ll figure a way to give her some auditory capability. And with the new generation of hearing aids, well, there’s a lot of hope here, is what I’m trying to say.”
    Father’s bones seemed to age as his shoulders sank. He took Mother’s free hand in his. “Kate,” he said. “This isn’t what—”
    Burke interrupted. “Look at her eyes, Kate. Look at them. They’re looking right at you, and they are beautiful. Really beautiful.”
    Well, I was, and she did. My black eyes locked on to my mother’s blood-shot browns, and we stared at each other for a while. Her tears stopped, and her moans. I reached out with my right hand and scraped the blue air. She offered me her index finger, and I perched my fingers and hand on it like a bird on a branch. “Aren’t they the most amazing coal-black eyes?” Burke asked. “There’s so much strength in them. Don’t you think?” In that instant Mother managed a weak smile, a shadow of the one I’d seen after delivery, but a smile nonetheless. I forgave Dr. Burke his every transgression, his pinch of my skin and his pinching of my tiny teeth, and fell in love with him all over again. He made my mother halt her tears; he lighted her with smile. I never could hold a grudge very long.
    But I could hold a finger. I squeezed Mother’s with all my neonate might and tried to coo. It was even more imperfect than my “hold me” cry, but Mother smiled again. She looked at Father and dropped the words, “Jessica is beautiful, don’t you think, Ford? Even with everything, she’s beautiful.” She looked back to me and I kicked with my legs.
    Father’s frame lost even more of its bone.