Keep on Beating

Stuart? Stuart, what are we gonna do? He wished she’d speak. Say something, honey, he thought. Just say something.

          The baby had been born premature – six and a half months. They had it all planned – they were gonna call her Tabitha.

          She lay in the next room in an incubator. Elizabeth lay in bed, despondent, pallid, her face flabby from tears; her eyes puffy and dark from lack of sleep. She felt like something had been wrenched from her womb by some indifferent force .

          ‘There have been complications,’ the doctor had said. ‘We need to operate now.’

          ‘And what about the baby?’ asked Elizabeth.

          ‘There’s a small chance she’ll live. You have a condition – a genetic condition. We took a blood sample –’

          Stuart could not remember the rest; Elizabeth couldn’t remember the name.

          ‘There’s a chance the child’s heart will be poorly developed. We might have to perform –’

          And that’s when she turned her head away, grimacing. She cried. Stuart’s eyes watered – he couldn’t cry; they seemed resigned to living this moment for eternity.

          He went over to Elizabeth and swept her wet hair back from her forehead. ‘Sssh, baby, everything’s gonna be all right. Sshhhh. He cradled her.’

          'Stuart, wh-what are we gonna do?' she cried. She nuzzled her head into his jumper and her sobs were muffled. He kissed her hair. There was nothing in his mind. Just fear and hope – raw fear and hope. Right now, God was more real than ever – that little child was God; her pulling through would verify her claim to divinity.

          It was now 1.13 am and Stuart sat beside Elizabeth as she slept – she was exhausted. He went into the next room to look at the baby. There was a medical board next to the incubator. He couldn’t look at it.

          He peered in at her – red-skinned, eyes closed and bruised-looking, a tube up her right nostril, so tiny. She was so small, so real – no matter.

          Keep on beating, he thought. Keep on beating.