Long Night's Journey into Day
"Don't they read those bloody forms we fill out? The ones that ask specifically for any known allergies to any medications?" I rant, and quip sarcastically, "let's just give the patient that is already fighting for his life some drugs that can also kill him."
"Daphne, calm down," Roz instructs me. "It's not doing you, your baby or Niles any good."
"Oh, my God! What is it?" Martin frantically asks as soon as he and Frasier return from the vending machine.
"Dad and I could hear Daphne all the way down the hall," Frasier adds and hands Roz her candy.
While leading all of us to a sitting area near the Intensive Care Unit, Frasier says to me.
"Roz is right, just calm down and tell us what happened."
-------
Only seconds earlier...
I held his hand in my own. Aside from the occasional twitch, it was just so limp, so lifeless, so cold. Which, if you asked Frasier, was "antithetical" to Niles' roaring fever.
His doctor had explained to us that another serious side effect of Niles' extremely low blood pressure was very poor blood circulation to his extremities. Regardless of how cold his hand was, I wanted him to feel my warmth and love on his body. I brought his hand to my lips and kissed it then brought it up to my face and caressed it against my cheek.
"Niles? Love? I know you can hear me..."
"Excuse me Mrs. Crane."
Why do nurses always pick times like these to interrupt? I mentally asked myself.
With my back still to her, "yes?"
The nurse apologized. "I'm sorry, but I need to check your husband's vitals."
"Of course," I stood up to leave but before I did, I kissed his hand again and gently laid it back down on the bed.
I bent over and whispered in his ear.
"I love you."
I got my purse and was about to head out when I noticed the nurse changing Niles' IV.
"What are you doing?"
"Your husband is not responding to the medication like we had hoped. His fever is still over 104 and shows no signs of going down, so we are going to try something stronger and increase the dosage," she explained while she started to administer the new drug into Niles' IV.
An eerie chill ran down my spine and prompted me to inquire,
"You're not giving him penicillin are you?"
-------
Frasier jumps up from his seat, he is as furious as I was, only moments earlier in Niles' room and out in the hallway.
"Penicillin." He echoes, "Why Niles is deathly allergic to..."
-------
"I'll call you if there's any change," Martin promised.
"Alright," I reluctantly agree to let Frasier drive me home. "Just let me say goodbye to Niles first."
I bend over to kiss his very warm and sticky forehead. "I love you Niles Crane." I whisper and stroke his hair one last time for the night. "I'll be here when you wake up," I promise him.
-------
"He's going to be just fine and up and around and dusting down chairs in Nervosa before you know it," Frasier tries to reassure me on the ride to The Montana. "Niles is a fighter."
"I know," I quietly agree, but inwardly pray that Frasier is right.
The rest of the ride is a quiet one, for both Frasier and I are exhausted.
-------
I go over to Niles' dresser drawer and pull out a pair of his silk pajamas. I never wore them until recently, for they are so baggy (on both myself and Niles), but now, they are the only thing I find comfortable to sleep in. Plus, by wearing them tonight, it makes me feel closer to Niles. I pull out his favorite pair, his black ones.
After slipping them on, I go to the bathroom to brush my teeth. As I brush my teeth, I look over at his side of the sink. Everything is exactly as he had left it this morning. In other words, everything was neatly organized and put back in its proper place.
I can't help but smile. Typical Niles.
I pull down the bedcovers and slip into bed. I can't bring myself to turn off the light so I leave it on. I run my hand over his side of the bed. It was the first night since we had been married that we didn't share the same bed. I get up and wrap and tie Niles' dressing gown around me and head downstairs. I can't bare the thought of going to sleep in our room without him, so I decide to take refuge for the night in the guestroom. The last room Niles was in.
Once again, I pull down and slip under the covers. Again, I can't bring myself to turn out the lights, so instead run my hand over the pillow that Niles' head rested on last. I gather the pillow into my hands. I take a long sniff. It still carried a faint mixture of aromas. From Niles' after- shave lotion to his kiwi shower gel.
I bring the pillow into my chest and draw it into a hug. As soft and comforting as it is, it is no substitute for my Niles. Still clutching the pillow, a few tears escape from my eyes and fall onto the pillow as I recall what happened in this very room not to long ago.
-------
"Yes," I said in as calm a voice as I could. "My name is Daphne Moon Crane and I need an ambulance. It's my husband. I think he's..." I hand the phone over to Frasier, unsure what to say.
"Yes. This is Dr. Frasier Crane, I need for you to send an ambulance immediately to The Montana, apartment number 403, I think my brother is going into septic shock. Thank you."
Once Frasier got off the phone.
"Frasier, what do you want me to do?" Roz asked.
"Go wait for the paramedics."
"Right," she started out.
"Hey Roz."
"Yeah?" She stuck her head back in the room.
"Call my Dad for me and tell him to meet us at Seattle General Hospital."
"I'm on it," she started to leave again.
"And Roz..." he called for her return once again.
Again, she popped her head in the doorway. "Yes Frasier?"
"Thank you."
The room then fell eerily quiet, for neither Frasier or I spoke. The only sounds were Niles' wheezing and my muffled cries for him to "please wake up."
The paramedics arrived within minutes.
"He's in here..." I heard Roz instruct.
I hadn't even heard the bell.
-------
I sniff and wipe away at my tears. I resign myself to the fact that I can't sleep in here either, even more painful. I get up and head to the one room that I know that I could settle in for the night.
-------
"Aren't you going to have some breakfast Niles?" I called out to him from the dining room table.
He came over and kissed me on the cheek and patted my tummy. "Sorry. No."
"Is it because of that bloody tooth again?"
"No, um, I wouldn't say that. Um, I'm not very hungry." He stammered.
"Promise me you'll call this morning and make an appointment?"
"Of course, first thing," he started to put on his coat. "Are we still meeting at Nervosa later for lunch?" he double-checked.
I start to clear away my breakfast dishes from the table. "Yes," I reaffirm. "Unless of course you get an appointment with your dentist," I hinted.
He came over to give me another kiss. "I love you my love. I'll see you both later." He kissed me and headed to the front door.
"Niles?" I called after him again.
He looked back over his shoulder. "Yes, my love?"
"When are you going to finish the nursery?" I questioned with my impatience coming through.
"Tomorrow night after your baby shower," he promised.
-------
He had fought me tooth and nail when I had suggested we do the nursery ourselves instead of hiring someone to do it for us. But late one night, I recalled hearing something coming from the room we had designated for the nursery. It was Niles. Though he never saw me, I saw him in there, measuring, taking notes, and visualizing what the nursery should look like. Since that night and no matter how long his day was, or how tired he may be, he spent several hours working in the nursery.
I walk into the unfinished nursery and I am pleasantly surprised. Niles had much more done then he let on.
The silly sod.
Once fully in the room, I can't fight the urge to tap the musical note wind chime that is suspended from the ceiling.
As the sound of lazily banging chimes fill the room, I walk around the room and recall how much trouble Niles and I had on deciding on a theme. We had both agreed that we didn't want to have, or do, the standard thing that everyone else seemed to do or did.
Finally, and after much deliberation and discussion, it was Niles who came up with the enchanting idea of doing something musical.
He painted the nursery ivory white. He set out and found a piano keys border for the room. Substituting for wallpaper, he cut out from construction paper, hundreds of musical notes of every color, size and shape and attached them to the wall. He also made copies of sheet music and had them too, attached to the wall.
On the dressing table was a collage that I had created and had wanted Niles to hang. I turn it over to look at it. The collage contained three items, including, the sheet music for Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata, the program from Niles' first piano recital (in which he played Moonlight Sonata) and a picture of him playing at the recital itself. He could have been no more then five at the time. All the items were encased in glass and were in a black, wood frame.
On a small shelf on the wall besides the crib were three small pictures, with room left for two more. Moving from left to right across the shelf, I remove each picture to study it more closely and then put it back.
The first is my own baby picture, taken when I was only a few hours old. I take down the next one, which is slightly larger, it's a picture of Niles and me after we had eloped to Reno to get married. A tear is conceived and slides down my cheek and ends its short life in a splatter on top, of all places, Niles' face. I go to wipe the tear from the glass and accidentally smear it, clouding over his face.
"Bloody hell!" I spat and leave the room to clean the picture with some glass cleaner.
As I spray some on and gently wipe, Niles' face becomes clearer and clearer once again.
I place the picture back and take down the next one in line, and smile. It is one of Niles. Like my own, it is the first one ever taken, but unlike mine, his was taken when he was nearly six months old.
I go and sit in the rocking chair. As I am rocking, I still have Niles' picture in my hand.
He had been born prematurely and, like most preemies, fought and struggled to survive. Perhaps it started then, his constant struggle to gain any weight. It was also during those first six months of his life, all spent in the pediatric intensive care unit, that the doctors discovered his congenital heart murmur, that would plague him the rest of his life. Because of his life threatening condition, not to mention the fact he had so many tubes and monitors and the like sticking into and out of him, that they waited before taking a picture of him.
The picture I held in my hands tonight was not all that different than the way he looked when I last saw him tonight.
Aside from the obvious, that he was now a man, they both had tubes up their noses and had a heart monitor attached to their chests. Both were extremely pale and skinny enough to count all their ribs.
I found that the rocking was lulling me to sleep. I was determined to fight it. I had to stay awake in case Martin called. I forced myself up and placed his picture back on the shelf next to the empty frames that would soon contain our child's picture and their picture with both mummy AND daddy.
I then notice atop the dresser a nearly wrapped present. It is a rather large and cumbersome box. I tear open the gift-wrap and taped to the box lid is a card. I open the card and read aloud.
"To My Little One, may you pluck out your first feeble Fur Elise on this, just like I did. I love you now and always. Love, Daddy."
I remove the box lid to reveal Niles' present.
Nestled carefully amongst packing material to protect it, is Niles' very first piano. I can't help but chuckle upon seeing it. For it would be best described as not unlike the one that the Peanuts character Schroder had used to belt out his own favorite classical masterpieces.
I remove the piano from both its protective material and box and carry it back over to the rocking chair and sit down again. I strike a few of its badly out of tune keys and can only cringe. All these toy pianos sounded the same and wondered how long Niles put up with that before he insisted on playing the much 'grander' one.
To Be Continued...
