Fingernails

In the high dependency room, the room before graduating to the special care baby unit, I would cut your fingernails for the first time.

My mom took a bus to Hackney Central in East London, to buy the tiny, baby-doll sized fingernail clippers.

Grandma had traveled from Michigan, where I grew up, and was not used to big city living. For her, a bus ride to a very busy place, by herself, was a brave step for her. She then walked from the bus to the Woolworths on the corner.

She did it for me because I couldn’t leave you.

Remember she was there. She saw you being born. Recording your entry into the world. Her forefinger paused on the photo snapping button when she saw the color of your skin, grey and pasty white. Something was not okay. Stuck in place, she listened to the silence in the room when you didn’t cry.

We never talked about it.

I was her baby in trouble, like you were mine.

On this momentous day, the day your fingernails were cut for the first time, your DeeDee (other parent using they/them pronouns) had already returned to work from their two-week parental leave. They were busy learning how to place a tourniquet if an arm of a colleague was blown to bits.

Their dream was to tell important stories in places where that might happen. To make sure the world would know what was happening in places very far from their own comfort zones. War zones. It was all very exciting for them. I could not think about what it would be like to raise you while they were on location for a job. I just wanted to be able to raise you.

They always came to see you straight from work. By train and then by bus and another bus, through the NICU check-in station, after the hand-sanitizer, two squirts, to the high dependency room on the right.

London. A melting pot. People from all over the world in one place all at once, swirling together.

Sometimes I wondered how my mom could be so afraid in a city full of people. I think of her leaving everything behind in Michigan to travel out west to Arizona to visit her brother, who was in the Air Force at the time. She had just graduated high school. The world was wide open in front of her, like the endless desert that appeared when she first stepped off the plane.

My mom knew it was time to cut your nails and she knew that I didn’t want to leave you. Once visiting hours were over, I didn’t have a choice. They began at 9:00 a.m. and finished at 8:00 p.m. I stayed the entire time.

Then straight home to shower, cry, attempt to eat and sleep. Essentially just wait through the hours until I could board the bus again back to you the next morning. Your DeeDee would stay up late watching Flight of the Conchords. I could hear it through the bedroom wall in our tiny one-bedroom apartment near Regent’s Canal.

They were there in the living room with the New Zealand comedy duo Jermaine and Brett on the television. And you were still in the hospital.

I still have the grey and orange bag those nail clippers came in, with the clear plastic window, though the clippers themselves dulled years ago. I’m looking through it now, while you lay on your big, comfy bed, raised by a remote until you are almost in sitting position, since you can’t sit up on your own.

I always notice your nails are too long only after you’ve scratched your cheek or your nose in your sleep. Shrugging off the brief feeling of guilt, I rummage through your medicine cabinet for a pair of clippers that are bigger than the length of your hand now.

“You could just bite his nails while he’s sleeping or nursing, like this,” she’d suggested, lifting your tiny thumb to her mouth, chewing off the end of your nail.

I was not a nail biter.

Grandma had photos of you printed on that High Street outing, so we could carry them around with us. Photos without tubes into your mouth, or lines into your belly button. There were still bruises on your hands and feet where the IV needle had been.

I wanted to put mittens on your fisted hands instead. I wanted to protect you.

It is early morning, there aren’t any other parents visiting their sleeping babies. I hold you against my chest in the glider rocking chair. Your skin warm, against mine. Your smell soft and new. You cannot suckle on my breast yet. I cannot clip your nails while nursing, another suggestion from my mom who had done this for her four babies.

My mom sits across from me, and then lifts her plastic, undersized visitor’s chair and sets it down on my right. We sit there for some time, silent, watching you sleep. “You should cut his nails now while he’s sleeping. He won’t even notice, which is better. You don’t want him to move, and then you could slip and cut too much.”

The oxygen monitor starts beeping. It has fallen off your toe, snaking over my lap. Not a whimper or reaction from you. You are so drugged; you cannot wake up. You still haven’t even cried. It’s been over a week since you were born not breathing.

A part of me wants to cut a little too close, to hear you open your lungs and shout out to the world, I am here! I have survived! My life will be a good life!

In this quiet moment, the room falls still. Almost like home. The beeping, the hand sanitizer, the hum of the other machines, and the nurses whizzing past the room, reminds me we are still in the NICU.

I wonder what your cry would sound like.

I’m cradling you in my arms. There is an uneasy feeling in my stomach; anxiety bubbles up inside me. You still seem so fragile even though your body is so much bigger than all the other babies.

I do not trust that I can really do this.

My mom sits beside me and holds your small fist in her hand. She takes the aqua and white colored scissors first. They don’t feel quite right, she’s left-handed, so she exchanges them with the clippers. They are for newborns. So tiny, a perfect fit for your fingers. She uncurls and spreads your fingers out in her hand while you sleep peacefully. She carefully snips the first nail, your pointer finger, and then passes the clippers to me.

It’s my turn. I start with your middle finger. I cannot keep my hands from shaking. My mom places her hand on my shoulder, a silent gesture which grounds me.

I cut it too short. A tiny red dot sprouts from the place where your fingertip meets your nail. My eyes open wide and my entire body tenses as I anticipate your shrill reaction. Silence.

“I need you to finish for me, Mom.” I push the clippers back into her left hand and she finishes. She places the clippers on the table beside her and as she did with her own four kids, she bends over and bites your tiny nails down to your fingertips.

Every time I cut your fingernails; I remember that first time as if I’m back in that moment.

I’m sitting next to you now, massaging your hand open, still small in my own. Fingers still wanting to curl from your contracting muscles, from your cerebral palsy. Yesterday I overheard the caregiver telling you that she would get the clippers to cut your nails. I popped my head into your bedroom, “No, thanks. He’s good.”

She looked back at me, “His nails are getting pretty long.”

“I know. But I’m the only one who cuts them. I’ll do it later tonight.” I know she thinks I’m overprotective. That I should let go.

I pause and run my finger over the scar on your cheek, near your eye, a reminder of a time when I didn’t cut your nails soon enough. I push my glasses up on my nose and pull your right hand closer. I tell you about the first time I cut your nails and how afraid I was. You smile.

I cut a little close and your hand flinches, pulling away from me. It does not bleed. You relax and I move to the next nail and do it all over again.

When I get to your toes, we laugh together. You are so ticklish.

-Kara Melissa

Kara Melissa (she/her), a transplant Torontonian and mama of two (teen and tween). An international teacher, turned SAHM when her son was diagnosed with cerebral palsy. She provides free writing workshops for folks in need, in addition to disability advocacy work. You can find her work in the The Manifest Station, The Calendula Review, Tampa Review, Drunk Monkeys, Today’s Parent, and elsewhere.  She holds an MFA in Creative Writing, Nonfiction, from Antioch University LA. She is a 2022 recipient of an AWP Intro Journals Project Award. Visit karamelissa.com for more.