Part 4 (1/2)

Her two grandmothers would later disagree about Ka.s.sidy's condition when she returned home. Barbara would say that the child was still fragile and that, when left unattended, she'd fall over. ”You had to blow on her face to remind her to breathe,” says Barbara.

Linda, however, maintained that Barbara wasn't in Waco but Kerrville and hadn't seen the child. ”Ka.s.sidy was learning to walk, pulling herself up on furniture,” says Linda. ”Her cheeks were pink, and she was smiling. She'd pull the oxygen with her on the floor while she crawled. She was still having chemo, but she was thriving.”

Others who saw Ka.s.sidy would agree with Linda, saying that they saw a baby who'd been through the worst and was fighting her way back. There was one change. Where in the past, she'd been comfortable on others' laps, she now clung to her mother. ”She wanted Kari,” says Jenny Monsey. ”She didn't want other people to hold her.”

One afternoon, Nancy and her husband dropped in at the parsonage to pick up an extra crib. Her second daughter, Ami, had just given birth to a severely premature baby named Joe Joe. The infant was still hospitalized, but Nancy was getting the nursery ready. When she arrived at the parsonage, Kari had Ka.s.sidy on her lap tickling her, the infant laughing. ”Ka.s.sidy looked at us with her blue eyes, so serious,” says Nancy. ”Then she looked at Kari and just smiled.”

Slowly, life was returning to normal. A home health-care nurse watched over Ka.s.sidy during the day, so that Kari and Matt could begin to attend their cla.s.ses. There were concerns, of course, but the child seemed to be healing. ”You could feel it in church,” says Jenny. ”There was a sense of relief. We'd all been so worried about Ka.s.sidy, but our prayers had been answered.”

There were more operations ahead. Surgeons would remove the trach and G-tube once Ka.s.sidy's lungs and muscles grew stronger, and one eye, damaged in surgery, would need to have the muscles tightened. ”But it truly was looking like we got our miracle,” says Linda.

All went well, then on Friday, March 19, Matt and Kari took Ka.s.sidy to Hillcrest's ER. Later there would be a disagreement about the reason. Matt would say Ka.s.sidy had a fever but that she no longer had it when they arrived. What Linda recalled was that the infant's feeding port wasn't seated right, allowing food to ooze out.

Whatever the reason, Matt had called ahead, and instead of exposing the infant to possible infection in the hospital waiting area, a doctor from the ER came out to the car to examine Ka.s.sidy. Linda and Jim were there, too, listening. ”The doctor said it would be all right,” says Linda. ”He told them to have the doctor look at Ka.s.sidy's G-tube when they brought her in for chemo the following week.”

Two days later, Jenny walked with Kari from church after Sunday evening services. ”It's wonderful to have her home,” Kari said. ”I know Ka.s.sidy will be okay.”

In the small parsonage that night, Matt and Kari watched the Academy Awards and saw Roberto Benigni jump on his chair to celebrate when he won best actor for his role in Life is Beautiful. Before Matt and Kari went to bed, they checked both girls and found that Ka.s.sidy had diarrhea. They cleaned her up, then went to bed.

When in bed, Ka.s.sidy was supposed to wear a monitor, a not-uncommon type used for premature babies who are at risk for Sudden Infant Death Syndrome. If she'd stopped breathing, the alarm would have sounded. Why wasn't Ka.s.sidy wearing it? Matt would later say that they often left it off at night. What Kari later told others was that Matt said Ka.s.sidy didn't need it.

At about twelve, for no apparent reason, Matt got up to check both girls again. ”They were both doing fine,” he said.

Oddly, he then rose again, just nine minutes later, and checked Ka.s.sidy for a third time. Why? ”Something wouldn't let me sleep. I knew I needed to check again,” he'd say. Since the monitor wasn't attached, no alarm had sounded, but Ka.s.sidy wasn't breathing. ”I yelled for my wife. I took Ka.s.sidy out of the bed and started CPR.”

Describing that horrible night, Kari would later say that she heard Matt scream and rushed to dial 911, begging them to hurry. Meanwhile, Matt continued CPR, using a bag to force oxygen through the trach and into the baby's lungs. Kari never entered Ka.s.sidy's bedroom that night. Why? Barbara would later say that Kari said she couldn't go in, and that guilt for that would haunt her. But what Kari told others was that Matt ordered her not to go into the nursery. ”She said he didn't want her in there,” says Linda. ”When she called us, she said Matt was with Ka.s.sidy, and he'd told her to wait for the ambulance.”

Moments later, Linda called Nancy, and said, ”I think my baby is losing her baby.”

Meanwhile, Kari and Matt followed the ambulance to the hospital, phoning Barbara on the way to tell her of the unfolding horror. Nancy arrived at the ER just after 12:30 A.M. and saw the staff working on Ka.s.sidy. Overcome with emotion, Nancy took an elevator upstairs, where she checked on her own grandson, Joe Joe. At only twenty-eight weeks and two pounds, he was high-risk, and doctors had warned that he might not survive, but he was improving. It struck her as ironic when Nancy returned to the ER and saw the doctors still fighting to restore Ka.s.sidy's life. ”Joe Joe was supposed to die, and the doctors had said Ka.s.sidy was cured, that she would live,” Nancy says. ”It seemed so strange. He was going to be all right, and Kari was losing her baby.”

Finally, the doctor turned to all of them, and said, ”There's nothing else we can do.”

At that, Kari screamed. As Nancy watched, tears running from her own eyes, she looked at the faces of those around her. It seemed everyone in the room was crying, even the doctors and nurses who'd fought so hard but been unable to save the child. Then Nancy noticed Matt standing in the background watching it all as if it were a mildly interesting television show. ”Matt showed no emotion. Zilch,” says Nancy. ”It was so strange. Everyone crying, and Matt acted like it was just another day.”

Thinking to herself that people express grief differently, Nancy couldn't help but wonder, ”How can you not cry when you see this beautiful, chubby little baby die?”

At that point, the focus turned to saying good-bye. Family members, one at a time, began entering the hospital room, where Matt and Kari sat with Ka.s.sidy's body. Motioned in, Nancy found Kari in a chair cradling her dead child in her arms. ”I love you both so much,” Nancy said, hugging and kissing Ka.s.sidy and Kari.

Later, it would all seem so surreal. Tears coated Kari's cheeks, but Matt stood off to the side, silent and unemotional, until he suddenly rushed forward as if intent on something. As Nancy later described it, Matt began grabbing at Ka.s.sidy's tracheotomy tube.

”What're you doing?” Kari snapped. ”Leave her alone.”

”I just want to remove her trach,” Matt said.

”No,” Kari responded. ”Leave her alone. Don't touch her.” But Matt persisted, and Kari protectively swung her arms around, holding the dead child's body away from him.

Before she left the room, Nancy looked down at Ka.s.sidy's small, still body, covered with scars from her months of shots, surgeries, and treatments, and thought about how hard the baby had fought to survive. At the time, she thought little of the trach incident beyond that Kari was hurting so deeply, and Matt was being selfish. Later, in light of what lay ahead, it would take on a whole new meaning.

About three that Monday morning, Kari called her friend Janelle Murphy. ”Ka.s.sidy is gone,” Kari said, then between painful sobs, explained what had happened. ”I had to leave Ka.s.sidy at that hospital, Janelle. I couldn't bring her home.”

Four hours later, at seven, Barbara arrived at the parsonage. The door was open, and she walked inside and found Matt, Kari, and Kensi all in bed together, asleep. Barbara had called from the road and talked to Linda, who told her that Ka.s.sidy had died. So Barbara didn't wake them, and instead lay down on the couch to rest.

That morning, at the high school, Jenny saw one of the other teens from the Williams Creek youth group crying. When Jenny asked why, the girl told her that Ka.s.sidy Baker had died. Tears gathered in Jenny's eyes as she thought back to the evening before, when she'd left church with Kari and talked about how Ka.s.sidy had improved and how happy Kari was to have her home.

From the time the doors opened at the visitation, there was a line of well-wishers wanting to talk to Matt and Kari: family, friends, members of Williams Creek and the other churches where he'd worked, friends and professors from Baylor. Even some of the nurses who'd cared for Ka.s.sidy came to say a final good-bye. ”It wasn't like a family grieving,” says Todd. ”Because it was Matt and Kari's baby, because they were so involved in the community, it was the whole town.”

When Jenny arrived, Kari took her by the hand and led her to the casket. ”Look at my baby,” Kari said. She then leaned over and gave Ka.s.sidy a kiss.

Throughout the visitation, Kari did the same thing with others, taking them to Ka.s.sidy's casket for a final good-bye, including her friend Janelle. Perhaps Kari noticed the way Janelle looked at Ka.s.sidy, staring at what appeared to be dark bruises on the child's mouth and nose. ”I think those are from CPR,” Kari explained.

Like the night before, Matt showed no emotion. ”You don't have to cry,” Nancy would say later. ”But it didn't seem right that he walked around like it was any other day. As people gave their condolences, it looked like Matt enjoyed all the attention.”

To many, it appeared that Kari was grieving enough for both of them. At one point, she jumped up from the couch she was seated on and ran to the casket, draping herself over Ka.s.sidy's body. ”Why did you do this? Why did you leave me?” she cried.

Janelle followed her and took Kari by her arm, walking her away. ”She's not supposed to be in there,” Kari sobbed. ”My baby is supposed to be home.”

It was after the visitation and before the funeral began, that Kari turned to Linda, and said, ”Mom, I can't do this.”

”Yes, you can,” Linda said, wrapping her arms around her. ”We're going to do this together.”

A former pastor from Trinity Baptist, Matt's home church in Kerrville, conducted the funeral service. There were flowers and a picture of Ka.s.sidy on the casket, and a video was shown of her brief life, from her birth through the birthday party when she'd first shown signs of her illness.

Looking at her granddaughter's body, Barbara would say she said to G.o.d, ”This is one of those situations I don't understand.” Later, many would remark how alike she and Matt were that day, how neither shed a tear. Meanwhile, Ka.s.sidy's death would test Linda's faith. ”G.o.d and I had some problems for a while after that,” she'd say later. ”We agreed to kind of leave each other alone for a while.”

After the memorial service, the immediate family followed the hea.r.s.e to historic Oakwood Cemetery. The burial place of three Texas governors, the cemetery was founded in 1878 on 157 wooded acres. In the summers, c.r.a.pe myrtles bloomed a bright pink at the gate.

The spot chosen for Ka.s.sidy's final resting place was in Babyland, a section reserved for the burial of the very young. Not far from a ma.s.sive oak with branches reaching outward, her grave waited, yawning open just past a stone marker with an etching of Jesus surrounded by children. In a crescent across the top, it read: SUFFER THE LITTLE CHILDREN TO COME UNTO ME.

The day had already taken a terrible toll, and Linda and Jim had to help Kari walk up to the grave. Her body seemed ravaged by grief. Just as he had been at the funeral, Matt appeared businesslike, talking to people, not crying, and not reaching out to comfort his wife. Barbara had a friend with her who snapped photos of Ka.s.sidy's casket. When Kari saw it, she asked her mother to ask the woman to stop. Linda did, and the woman appeared unhappy, saying Barbara wanted the photos for her memories. ”Kari doesn't want the pictures,” Linda told the woman. ”Please, put the camera away.”

In the little more than a year since Matt had given her The Quest Study Bible, Kari had written in it often, sometimes while listening to him preach or during Bible study, noting her thoughts in the margins. She'd also tucked two bookmarks inside, Precious Moments cards with sweet drawings of two little girls and the definitions of her daughters' names: Kensi was the ”wise leader,” and Ka.s.sidy, ”a helper of mankind.”

In her Bible, Kari had also filled out the family history section with the date of her marriage to Matt and the birth dates of both her children. That spring, she penned another entry, a death date for Ka.s.sidy Lynn Baker, March 22, 1999. Later, a granite gravestone marked the site where Ka.s.sidy was buried. It read: MY SWEET, SWEET BABY.

Chapter 11.

”Kari grieved for her child. Oh, how she grieved,” Linda would say years later. ”But did she let it take over her life? No.”

Just a week after Ka.s.sidy's death, Kari stopped at her cousin Ami's apartment to see Joe Joe, who'd just been released from the hospital. She held the baby and murmured to him. She stayed to help Ami care for the infant. ”We were worried about her, but Kari wanted to be there,” says Nancy. ”She loved Joe Joe, but it was so hard.”

On another level, Kari was plagued by sorrow. The woman so many saw during the first weeks, then months, after her daughter's death struggled trying to understand what had happened, how and why. She wondered, as any mother might, what she could have done to change fate. But for Kari, there was more reason to question, since Ka.s.sidy had come home with such an optimistic prognosis.

The day of Ka.s.sidy's death, Kari left a message for the oncologist who'd treated her daughter. The physician had worked long and hard to give Ka.s.sidy a chance to live, and she'd been successful, sending the child home with the prospect of a healthy future. When the doctor called back, Linda stood with Kari in Ka.s.sidy's room and heard the phone conversation. Kari tearfully explained that her daughter had died, but the oncologist didn't respond as Kari expected. Instead of commiserating with her, the doctor protested, ”Ka.s.sidy wasn't supposed to die. How could she be dead?”

Kari appeared stunned, as the doctor warned, ”There's something wrong. I'm going to call children's protective services.”