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Show Things to Remember 131 The nurse shouts as she drops her charts and grabs the baby away. She rushes i t to unreachable space, leaving Susan with upturned palms and face. "No bleeders in your family? Nothing in your history?" asks the doctor, the circumciser who can't f i n d any magic in his bag to stop the bleeding. Susan can't hear. "Don't you know anything?" he says. A carousel, with horses and centaurs, rings the room. White suits with trays and rows of tubes that clink jump aboard to find their Old Paints. They mount. They whirl and shout, "Ride. Ride hard. Don't stop. We'll make the pass before i t snows." The tune winds down, noiseless in the a i r , in the space f i l l i n g with red. The red flashes bright and pulses down tubes and needles into baby's s k u l l , turning baby shades of pink again. Everyone dismounts, hurries off to other rides. "Why me? Why us?" Susan asks as her husband wheels her and their son out of hospital doors. "What did we do wrong?" David who watched the b i r t h vows not to watch another time. Bad luck charm. He is confused. He has a son, but a botched one. David's mother says, "Too bad you married into this health problem." Susan's own mother thinks that l i f e should be happy. She watches her daughter change diapers spotted with red, and she calls the relatives to check. Have they heard of any hemophilia in the family? No. Thank goodness. I t ' s not her f a u l t. |
