Inspiration Row
The hospital janitor found Gita Kind below the loading dock. She clutched a threadbare quilt around her silken nightgown, and ran her reddened fingers over her distended belly. By the time Duff’s shift ended and his boss deigned to pass along the nurse’s phone call, Gita had been ensconced in the ICU, diagnosed, and deemed ready to give birth at any moment. Even so, the doctor was still surprised to see Gita’s final contractions immediately after he had finished informing her.
When they let Duff into see her she clutched the tubes jutting from her forearms as if they were reins directing a team of stagecoach horses. “Somebody else always named my kids. The fathers. My grandmother.” Without letting go of the plastic bundle in her right hand she seized his smeared denim jacket. “This one gets a name from my life experience… She’ll be an inspiration… For everybody, everybody she meets.” Sela Kind burped in her incubator, largely ignored by Duff and the other people she was supposed to inspire.
They gave up trying to revive Gita in the early morning and honored the DNR order. Duff’s sister met him in the cafeteria at 8:30 with four of Gita’s boys in tow. They had perfected the mother’s sullen face at a young age, and repeated their aunt’s prompted “thank you” for Dixie cups of fruit punch. The snack food station attendant forced a smile in return. If Duff ever found “him,” he promised the attendant, his sister, and anyone who would listen, he would beat him until there was nothing left. No one asked who the “him” referred to, and let Duff rage at low volumes.
The nurse peering through the window of the incubator watched Sela yawn. She knew the numbers weren’t on the baby’s side, which made Sela something of a mascot for the floor. The nurse told Duff’s sister that the baby looked beautiful, which was true. Duff had gone back to work; he couldn’t risk being replaced.
Weeks passed. Duff and his sister came in less and less often to look at the little girl. A pill pusher snuck in to look at her, but he soon got bored and never returned. Time passed. Sela slowly improved. But when she emerged from the incubator, she was alone.