Finding Magic

by Sally Quinn

  Dr. Agnes Schweitzer, the “dean” of all pediatricians, arrived that afternoon with a smile on her face. She held him and kissed him and then put him on her lap and pulled out her stethoscope. We were all looking at her with great anticipation.

  The smile disappeared from her face. She kept listening again and again, appearing more and more worried. I felt a stab of panic. “Please, God,” I whispered. Quinn had a heart murmur. I didn’t know what that meant. Dr. Schweitzer called Children’s Hospital to make an appointment for me to take him in. She was reassuring. Many babies, she said, were born with heart murmurs and they would eventually go away. My sister, Donna, had been born with a heart murmur—she was called a blue baby in those days—and she was fine. I relaxed.

  We brought him home two days later. Bob Woodward had sent a bouquet of the most exquisite pale-pink peonies—to this day, my favorite flowers—which I put on the table across from the bed so I could see them. I nursed Quinn every two or three hours during those dreamlike days, staring into his eyes, hardly believing this magical creature was really there, really mine. Sometimes I would tear up with joy, and there were moments when my chest could barely contain my heart.

  We went to Children’s Hospital for the appointment. The murmur was due to a tiny hole in his heart. I was told not to worry. The holes often closed up naturally in a few years. I was taught to recognize the signs of heart failure just in case, and I was instructed to get him to the emergency room immediately if any of them appeared.

  I tried to put that thought out of my head. I tried to enjoy my every second with this incredible gift I had been given, those tiny fingers curled around mine, that adoring penetrating gaze that just bore through me, which I returned threefold.

  My birthday is July 1, and I planned a small dinner for about ten of my friends. We were planning to take Quinn to the cabin in West Virginia for the first time that weekend. I had a premonition that something bad was about to happen. I had been worried about Quinn all that week. He seemed to be losing weight and looked a little pale and scrawny. He wasn’t nursing as enthusiastically as usual. Dr. Schweitzer had told me earlier that he was the most breast-oriented baby she had ever seen, which pleased Ben enormously. “Like father, like son,” he chortled.

  I took Quinn to see Dr. Schweitzer the day of the party, and she was a bit concerned but found nothing wrong. When I brought him downstairs for everyone to see that night at the party, however, I suddenly saw him through their eyes. He looked frail, not thriving. I felt sick.

  That night at dinner we were discussing astrological signs and I said how pleased I was that the three of us—Ben, Quinn, and I—were so well matched. A friend of mine went on a tear about how insane and stupid and ridiculous astrology was and how nobody with any sense could possibly believe in it. For some reason I went into a rage. She had challenged my beliefs, and I didn’t realize until that moment how strongly I held them. I exploded at her. “You believe in God,” I said. “Isn’t that just as ridiculous? You believe that Jesus Christ was the son of God. How crazy is that? You believe that Jesus died on the cross, was buried, and then rose from the dead and ascended into heaven. And you’re telling me that astrology is ridiculous? As least with astrology you have something you can see. You have stars and planets you can chart. With God you have nothing except your own imagination. Don’t you dare tell me what I believe is any less logical than what you believe.”

  This was an incredibly rare outburst for me. I have practically no temper and am almost phobically nonconfrontational. But I was shaking with anger. Everyone was shocked at my emotional outburst. My friend shut up. The evening ended shortly after and they left, but I was so upset I could barely get my breath. Now that I look back on it, I realize that astrology was a great resource, a solace, a hope for what was happening to Quinn. Where others might have begun to pray, to look at the heavens to find God, I looked up to see what was in the stars.

  The next morning Ben and I piled Quinn into the back of the car in his baby seat and headed out to West Virginia. Quinn was fussy and wouldn’t nurse. We got out there midday and Ben immediately took off for the woods, ax and chain saw in hand, a happy man leaving me in the house with Quinn who was becoming more agitated by the minute. I walked around holding him, trying to quiet him. Nothing worked. I put him in a Snugli and took a walk, which was a bit better. We went down by the river, and the sounds of the rushing water seemed to soothe him and me. I could hear the whine of Ben’s chain saw in the distance. He hadn’t been up in the country for about five months. He was always a different person after a day in the woods—happy, in a good mood, never depressed.

  On this night, however, I was not a happy woman. Something was terribly wrong with my baby. We went to bed early. I put Quinn in a tiny crib next to our bed and he slept. But it became chilly in the room, and when he woke at about six he had inched up to the edge of the bed rail, clearly cold, even in his flannel pajamas. He began to cry and fuss and I knew then that we had to get back to Washington.

  Ben drove as fast as he could, but by this time Quinn was having such a hard time breathing that he could barely cry. He was only able to make pathetic little rasping noises. We stopped once to let me walk him around, but it did no good. We got back to Washington and I called the cardiology ward at Children’s Hospital. I had the number by the phone just in case. When I described to the nurse what was happening, there was dead silence. “Get him here immediately,” she said. “I think he’s in heart failure.”

  So was I.

  That night I sat holding Quinn, hooked to all kinds of monitors, in my arms, in a rocking chair in the cardiology ward. I had told Ben to go home. I was alone with my baby. I thought he was dying. A young male resident came into the room and sat on the edge of the bed. I wasn’t in the mood for false hope or platitudes. But he sat there with me in silence for a long time. Then he said, “You know I’ve seen so many babies in heart failure. Yours will be fine.” He said it with such certainty that I believed him. I will never forget that moment of kindness. The medication had begun to kick in. Quinn was able to sleep and even nurse a little. I felt desperate and alone and sad, but I also felt a sense that I was being enveloped in love, that I was touched by some divine hand, that I was surrounded by some kind of magic. Maybe he would be fine. Maybe, maybe he would live. I had to believe it. I had to make him believe it. I whispered it to him all night as I rocked and rocked. “You will be fine. You will be fine.” I willed it.

  That was on a Sunday. On Monday morning, Ben had to be in court to defend a libel case brought by William Tavoulareas, then president of the Mobil Oil Company, against the Washington Post.

  The next few days were a flurry of doctors and nurses and surgeons and consultants. The hole in Quinn’s heart was much larger than had been detected. He would have to have open-heart surgery. However, he had lost so much weight that he was practically down to his birth weight. He would have a greater chance of survival if we could fatten him up. Those horrid words, chance of survival. It was impossible to contemplate losing this person, this person who had only been in the world for a few months, but who I had known since the day I named him eight months earlier, who I loved more than I could ever have imagined loving anyone or anything.

  A hospital chaplain showed up, pious and overly sympathetic. “How’s Mom doing?” he asked. I lost it.

  “Mom is not doing well,” I said, seething. “Mom is sitting here in this hospital with all of these sick and dying children, mine included, and wondering why God would allow this to happen.” He recoiled. “Thank you, but I don’t need your help or your prayers.” He backed out of the room and fled. I feel bad about that now. Poor guy. He was only trying to help.

  Ben came every morning to visit me before he went to the courthouse where he would spend the day. My beloved mother showed up around nine each morning, after rounds, with hot tea for me from the cafeteria and the newspapers. She pretty much stayed with me every day. I had blocked all calls to the room except for
my mother and father and Ben. I had told friends I did not want any visitors or phone calls. I just needed to be with Quinn every minute with no distractions. Once again, all I could think of was my time in the hospital in Tokyo without my mother. I couldn’t allow that to happen to Quinn. I didn’t want him out of anyone’s arms for a second, either. I had a shower in the room and a bed. My mother brought me a change of clothes each day.

  I was living in a dark tunnel. I didn’t care about anything or anyone except Quinn. He wasn’t gaining weight and wasn’t thriving. By then, at nearly three months old, he had only gained two pounds. The doctors couldn’t tell when the surgery would be. They were reluctant to operate when he was so frail. Ben knew I needed a distraction, so he would insist on taking me out of the hospital for dinner every night. I had our wonderful baby nurse, Diane, “Dee Dee,” come and hold him while I was out.

  Ben would invite another couple to dine with us. The ground rules were that Quinn’s name would not be mentioned. They were to come loaded with gossip and stories. It worked and gave Ben and me a little respite from the relentlessness of our anguish.

  I called Caroline Casey after the first week. She did his chart. Caroline is not a fake prognosticator. She said his chart was promising, but she added that he should be operated on sooner rather than later. I talked to the doctors. They wanted to wait until he was at least three months or so. I saw him failing every day. I was getting crazed.

  Finally they scheduled a surgery date—a Tuesday. Caroline called on Wednesday, the week before surgery. She told me we had to have the surgery that week, that she didn’t think Quinn would make it until the following week. My instinct told me she was right.

  I went to the surgery team. They didn’t operate on Mondays or Fridays. The other days were booked that week. They had one elective on Thursday. I offered to pay for the family to fly to Washington and put them in a hotel for the weekend if they would switch with Quinn. They refused. They had already made extensive plans. I didn’t dare tell anyone that my astrologer said he wouldn’t make it over the weekend.

  I finally convened all the doctors and threw myself on their mercy. I wept and pled and begged for them to do it earlier. They could sense my desperation. I argued that Quinn was failing rapidly as anyone could see. I told them that they had to trust my mother’s instinct. I knew in my heart that he would die if the surgery weren’t moved up. I must have been convincing. They agreed to operate that Friday. Caroline and I were both overwhelmed with relief.

  I decided on Thursday that I would go to the hospital chapel to pray for Quinn’s survival. I hadn’t prayed for him, really—not in any traditional definition of prayer. I had whispered “please God” a million times over that month that we’d spent in the hospital, but it was more a mantra than a serious and focused prayer. Now I can see it was a prayer but it didn’t feel like it then. This time I was going to reach out to God. I was going to really try to believe in him. I was going to give myself over to him, to trust him, to trust that he loved Quinn and me and that somehow my beseeching would make a difference. I was so desperate. I would do anything, even get down on my knees to a deity I was unsure even existed.

  The chapel was empty and quiet when I went in. I sat in the back row. Better not to be too close. You never knew how a first date might go.

  I sat there quietly for a long time. I waited for something to happen. I waited for God to show himself to me. “If you’re there, let me see you,” I said . . . prayed. “If you’re there, speak to me. If you’re there, help me. If you’re there, please save Quinn. Please, please, please God, don’t let him die. Please!”

  Nothing. I got nothing. I felt nothing. I heard nothing. There was nobody there.

  Finally, trying to compose myself, I got up to leave. As I reached the door to the chapel, I turned to the altar. “Fuck you!” I said desperately.

  * * *

  The night before Quinn’s operation he was not allowed to eat after midnight. That may have been one of the most painful nights I’ve ever experienced. All I wanted to do was hold him in my arms. All he wanted to do was nurse. He kept going for my breast, his tiny mouth puckering up, his hands grasping for me. I had to deny him. He was crying, hungry, needy. I couldn’t give him what he needed. I was crying and needy. Nobody could give me what I needed, which was assurance that he would survive.

  I kept calling for one of the nurses, asking them to rotate holding him so I didn’t have to keep rejecting him. Even then he never took his eyes off me, reaching out to me as if I had totally abandoned him, betrayed him.

  Finally, exhausted, he slept in his crib. I hovered as close to him as possible, afraid to wake him. Yet I wanted to spend every moment I still had left with him in case he didn’t make it. Somewhere around dawn I couldn’t take it anymore. I was overcome with an animal, visceral, raw need, like a mother lion licking her cub. I carefully took off his blanket and his little nightgown. I leaned down and began to kiss his body. I kissed his head and his little pink ears and his eyes and his button nose and his rosebud lips. I kissed his neck and his arms and his little fingers. I kissed his chest, knowing that the next time I saw him there would be an enormous scar all the way down his front. I kissed his legs, scrawny legs that should have been chubby and dimpled at three months. I kissed his baby feet and his precious toes. I wanted to devour him. I wanted to have his taste in my mouth forever if anything happened to him. The love and desperation I felt for my baby was the strongest emotion I had ever experienced. I was in agony. Later I would do the same thing to Ben the night before he died. I would feel the same way.

  Strangely, never have I been so relieved as I was when Ben and the doctors showed up that morning. The anticipation had been unbearable. The ghastly night was over. It was time.

  Once we were in the surgical suite, the team, outwardly calm and reassuring, came to get Quinn, but the furrowed brows and worried expressions were not lost on me. I held him one last time and let them take him from me.

  As they disappeared with him I sank to the floor in a heap. There was not an ounce of bravery in my body. Ben reached down and pulled me up to him and held me as tightly as he could. “Just think,” he said to comfort me, “now he’ll never have to go to war.”

  That may have been the one thing he could have said that would help. It implied that Quinn would live. It meant that with this surgery, he would be 4F, unable to serve for medical reasons. Having seen the results of war, I relaxed a bit in Ben’s strong arms. God, I loved this man.

  We sat in the hospital cafeteria, Ben and I, drinking coffee and tea, waiting. It would be hours. Thankfully, Ed Williams and Kay Graham showed up to keep us company. By the time the surgical team came out to get us, I was half crazed. The operation, they told us, was a success. They had closed the hole in Quinn’s heart. It had been much larger than what they had expected. It was the size of a dime. They were glad they had done the surgery that day and not waited. He may not have lasted until the following week. Caroline had been right.

  That afternoon they took Quinn from the recovery room to the ICU. When they finally let us see him, he was still sedated and was hooked up to so many machines and had more tubes running in and out of his little body than one would have thought possible. Again I fell apart.

  We were not allowed to hold him. We both put a finger in each of his tiny hands and felt his grip. He knew we were there. I whispered in his ear, “Mommy loves you.” Ben whispered to him as well, and his deep growly voice seemed to arouse him.

  The doctors swore Quinn was going to be well and insisted we go home. We were both beyond exhausted, but instead of heading home to sleep, we ended up unexpectedly having a party. Coincidentally, the day of Quinn’s surgery was the same day that one of the Post’s reporters was found guilty of libel in the Tavoulareas case. (The case dragged on for years, through appeal after appeal, until the U.S. Court of Appeals ruled in 1987 in favor of the Post that the 1979 story was “substantially” true and not libelous. Tavoulareas app
ealed that verdict to the Supreme Court, which refused to hear the case and the whole ordeal was over.)

  That very night Ben invited everyone who had participated in the trial—the lawyers, the reporters, the editors—to come over for carryout Chinese. In a daze, I ordered the food, Ben got the booze, then I went upstairs to take a shower. Halfway through washing my hair, I collapsed with relief into a pool of water and shampoo, streams of water coming down onto my head and into my eyes and mouth.

  I finally pulled it together, got dressed, went downstairs, greeted my guests, drank quite a bit of wine, commiserated about the trial (of course we would appeal), and generally played the part of the hostess. When everyone had left, Ben and I went upstairs and fell into each other’s arms. In retrospect, the gathering was a good thing to do. It made everyone feel better, including Ben and me.

  * * *

  Quinn lived. The next week was a nervous and joyous blur. Amazingly, Quinn was allowed to go home in less than a week, a neat seam from the bottom of his throat to his belly button. I—we—went back to nursing. I had been pumping while he was in the ICU, a very unsatisfactory experience. I didn’t want to let him out of my arms or my sight. A week later we were able to take him up to Grey Gardens on Long Island.

  I had a telephone reading with Caroline on August 18. She talked about Quinn’s “basic, fundamental earthy, hearty soul,” saying that it was his own wisdom that made us do the surgery earlier. She said he had been “semihovering,” deciding if he wanted to be here. His special connection to me was so strong that she was sure he and I would be great collaborators in this life and that our intense bonding would go on until November. This, she thought, was a time in my life and Quinn’s “where we are both creating a strong spiritual family vortex.”

  On the first of November, exactly six months to the day that I had started nursing Quinn, I was holding him in my arms and we were gazing into each other’s eyes, totally connected, as though there was no other human in the world. When he finished, he looked at me meaningfully, took his tiny little hand, now getting pudgy and dimpled, put it on my breast, and pushed it away. He never went for my breast again. I would have thought I would be upset, but I understood completely. He was ready. Even though it seemed as if the bonding was ending, in fact the bonding was just continuing and deepening.