Amanda and I are in the hospital with our youngest, born last Tuesday, who is lounging, blindfolded, beneath a lamp of blue light with a case of neonatal jaundice. It hasn't been all bad. I get the distinct impression that the professionals here in "the family care center" have seen worse than what our newborn presents to them, and on my strolls to and from the cafeteria I sometimes glimpse sights that make the ones in our room appear bucolic in comparison. We have two windows, a view of a freeway, TV, a mostly quiet baby, books and newspapers, a cribbage board, and, to remind us we're not at the Red Roof Inn, a surfeit of medical equipment and an occasional visit from a friendly nurse.
In keeping with the conceit that the sick have their own kingdom, the hospital campus makes its own self-contained world. After a few days, it seems to shrink, and it's cramped to start with. At the cafeteria I find myself eyeing with interest all those who, by their medical scrubs and direct routes between food stations, announce that at a certain o'clock they will return to their homes in the better kingdom. Time is suspended for the rest of us. Our departure times are unconnected to the certain movements of the clock.
Tonight, while I ate my mediocre beef pot pie, two women in street clothes sat down at the table next to mine and murmurred a table prayer together before advancing on their cafeteria food. They might have been a mother and daughter, for the difference in age looked to be about 25 years--50 and 75, something like that. The older one faced me. Her hamburger appeared to bear an oppressive burden of ketchup, which indeed squirted out the side onto the meaty part of her palm when she took her first bite about two seconds after the prayer ended. She took a second bite, then let go of the burger with her ketchupy hand only and, having inspected the nature of the accident, used her tongue to make the necessary repair. This seemed a more satisfying invasion of animal health than those staged by the white-coats wearing their stethoscopes like necklaces. I walked back to our room feeling, not on account of the pot pie, temporarily restored.
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