uncertainty

The small boy is running through the hallways. There’s a lot of people and he zigzags from left to right in order to avoid colliding directly with them. The woman behind him is walking fast in her high heels to keep up with the boy.

The boy doesn’t seem to care for his mother. He has somewhere to be and he’s big enough to get there on his own. He turns around a corner and stares at the big, heavy glass door. The woman finally catches up with him.

“Jihoon,” she says and the boy looks at her and tilts his head. “Don’t run when we enter, okay?” she says.

When she opens the door, he does exactly what she has told him not to, however. He bolts through the door and hurries down the hallway and the woman’s cries of ‘Jihoon, don’t run’ is unheard until he’s standing in front of the room he’s supposed to enter. Inside is another woman.

She’s sitting in a chair, her long black hair framing her face beautifully. It’s a little like faeries’ hair but Jihoon supposes mama has always had faerie hair.

He opens the door when the woman behind him catches up with him and as soon as he enters, he shouts 'mama’. The woman in the chair lifts her head and smiles wide at the boy before he’s running towards her and hugging her knees. The woman in the high heels enter the room as well and closes the door silently behind her.

The room is filled with the consistent low beeping of the machines around the small crib in the middle. Jihoon is talking animatedly to his mother about his day at the kindergarten and the woman in the high heels steps closer to the small crib. Inside lies a small girl, her skin soft and beautiful, her small eyes closed and her fingers curling and uncurling around invisible objects.

The woman lets her finger gently caress the girl’s cheek before she pulls away and sits down beside the other woman.

“What did they say?” she asks and the other woman turns away from Jihoon to look at her wife. The sadness in her eyes portray everything there is to say before she even utters a word.

“The pneumonia is still there. They don’t know why she hasn’t recovered yet, but they’re doing their best. At least she’s stable with the respiratory help.”

The woman nods and lets her gaze drift to the girl once again.

A nurse enters, sees the two women and their son and greets them before she checks everything around the baby girl. There’s a settling feeling of dread at the news of the pneumonia in the woman’s chest and it isn’t until someone nudges her gently that she realizes she has been far away in her thoughts.

“Gwiboon?” the other woman says and Gwiboon nods her head, smiling a little. “How was work?”

The question is unimportant and they both know it. Jihoon has climbed from his mother’s lap and is now walking from one wall to the other, imaginary stripes on the carpet to be untouched. Gwiboon retells her day at work but it hasn’t been very eventful. It never is. Not these days where all her energy goes towards the little girl in the crib.

“You look tired, Sookie,” Gwiboon says and the woman with the long hair laughs. It gets Jihoon’s attention and he returns to his mother instantly, only to climb up and into Gwiboon’s lap.

“I am,” Eunsook admits and smiles a sad smile. It’s no wonder. Neither of them have gotten much sleep. Gwiboon has to go home every evening, Eunsook had begged the hospital staff to give her a room at the patient’s hotel so she didn’t have to go home every night but could stay with their daughter.

Gwiboon has to work and make sure Jihoon gets to kindergarten like he’s supposed to. The two of them have decided that Jihoon doesn't have any good of feeling the uncertainty and dread they are both filled with. They don’t want him to suffer from their incapabilities to hold in their own fear, so he doesn’t, for the most part. Eunsook is still on maternity leave and doesn’t have to worry about anything but herself and their daughter. Except she mostly forgets herself.

“You should go sleep,” Gwiboon says. Eunsook shakes her head.

“You just got here. Right, superman, you don’t want mama to go sleep?”

She addresses the last part of her sentence to Jihoon who shakes his head furiously and exclaims a loud 'no’. He doesn’t want mama to go. He gets bored really easily, though, so he begs Gwiboon to put him down again and she does. His small feet carries him around the room until he ends up in front of the crib and pokes the girl’s cheek with his forefinger.

“Mommy, can she play?” he asks and looks towards his mothers and Gwiboon shakes her head.

“No, sweetheart. She’s sick.”

Jihoon seems to be thinking about this a lot until he pouts and mutters something that sounds like 'she’s always sick’.

It isn’t a lie, their baby girl has been placed in NICU since her birth 5 days prior and although the pregnancy was just like it was supposed to be and the birth was without many complications, the girl had still stopped breathing with no clear indications as to why. It had turned out to be pneumonia but with such a fragile human being, they had kept her at the NICU.

Now, 5 days later, there are still no signs of bettering. The X-rays look exactly the same and the small girl is not at all closer to leaving the NICU with them.

Jihoon gets bored of walking around in the small room 1 minute later and he opens the door and bolts out, only to surprise a nurse when he passes her.

Gwiboon is on her feet quickly. He’s always such a troublemaker and she’s sure that the age of 3 isn’t making him any less of a troublemaker. Eunsook places a hand on her forearm and gets up as well. Her eyes speak volumes and Gwiboon sits down again.

Eunsook gets up and peeks out of the door, only to find her son about to enter another room. There is most likely a child in there and probably parents just as exhausted as they are.

“Jihoon,” she calls out and the boy gets surprised as he turns around and gets eye contact with her. He shakes his head though and turns away from her again. Another call gives no response whatsoever so Eunsook has to leave the room.

When she puts her hand on his shoulder he turns around. His eyes are wide with amazement but as Eunsook looks up, she’s met with the sight of two adults in an embrace in front of a small crib and a priest.

“Yah, Kim Jihoon,” she scolds in a whisper and Jihoon pouts as he follows his mother down the hallway again. Eunsook squats down so she’s on eye level with the boy and holds his wrist in a firm grip when they’re a safe distance from the room.

“Kim Jihoon, what did I say about peeking into other rooms at the hospital?”

The boy starts tearing up but the woman is strong. He sobs as the tears start rolling and Eunsook asks her question again.

“What did I say?”

Jihoon is crying when he sobs out a 'don’t look’ and Eunsook releases his wrist and embraces her son. She lifts him and he crumbles against her chest while he cries.

When they enter the room again, Gwiboon looks up from her chair with wide eyes. Jihoon doesn’t usually cry when he’s at the hospital to visit Eunsook and his sister. Eunsook sits down in the vacated chair again and Jihoon removes himself from her embrace and crawls into Gwiboon’s lap. She caresses his hair gently as she lets him sob. Eunsook hasn’t said anything but Gwiboon is absolutely positive that Eunsook hasn’t done anything to hurt their son. It would be almost ridiculous to think otherwise.

A nurse enters again with a doctor and they inspect the baby girl once again. Gwiboon doesn’t understand anything but Eunsook looks like she actually gets what they’re saying. It wouldn’t surprise Gwiboon if her wife had been reading about this and that, but she still doubts that Eunsook is able to understand everything.

The doctor then turns towards the two women and greets them, Jihoon still clinging awkwardly to Gwiboon.

“We took a few blood samples from her yesterday and we’ve finally been able to figure out why her pneumonia isn’t getting any better.”

Gwiboon leans forward in her chair unconsciously. Please say that her daughter is going to be okay.

“She’s suffering from severe combined immunodeficiency which means her immune system isn’t working the way it’s supposed to. The best way to cure this would be stem cell treatment or a bone marrow transplant but seeing as the disease has been inherited …”

He trails off and Gwiboon turns to look at Eunsook. She was sure her wife wasn’t ill. At least not like that. It seems almost impossible to imagine Eunsook sick. Eunsook looks just as astonished.

“But I’m not…” she says. If they had known that Eunsook was sick, she wouldn’t have carried their second child. Gwiboon would have gladly gone through another pregnancy if it meant that they had been a family of four in their own apartment instead of a family of 4 with an uncertain future in the hospital. The doctor sends them a shy smile while he goes into details of what seems to be the best treatment for their girl if they want her to get better. When he leaves again, the tears are slowly making their way down Eunsook’s cheeks.

“I didn’t know,” she whispers and Gwiboon hushes her, awkwardly trying to pat her hand without waking up Jihoon that has fallen asleep. “If I had known…” Eunsook sobs. Gwiboon’s heart breaks.

“We’ll get through it, I promise. There’s a cure, she’ll be treated, we’ll get her home. It’s not your fault Sookie.”

They’re going through this together. Both of them. They will be a family of four soon enough. Gwiboon promises that.

author's notes

This is one of my favorite concepts, to be honest. I love the family angst because it's so ... different. There are so many ways to write angst but families who have their children admitted to NICU must really feel a strange sense of hope and hopelessness. 
In regards to this story; Eunsook isn't the ill one - the man they got the from had the disease but never mentioned it as he was cured as an infant as well. Whether the girl lives or dies I have yet to decide.

NICU - neonatal intensive care unit.